X-Message-Number: 7871
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 07:06:42 -0800 (PST)
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: Cryonics and Uploading

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On Sat, 15 Mar 1997  Arkady Elgort <> Wrote:
                

        >even massively parallel computers cannot model anything like human
                >brain. 


I certainly agree that no computer has yet modeled the human brain, but I 
strongly disagree that one has never modeled anything like it. I am convinced 
that the difference is one of degree and not of kind, the only alternative is 
vitalism and the religious doctrine of the soul, and if that's true then 
Cryonics is pointless.

            
        >uploading into some unknown machine has no scientific grounds         
        >whatsoever. 

            
True, but nobody wants to upload a mind into a unknown machine, they want to 
upload a mind into an information processing machine.



        >Brain repair after suspension also could prove impossible, but at
                >least we KNOW that biological brains do (sometimes) work.;)
            

By "work" I assume you mean the thing that your brain does that is most 
important to you, generate consciousness, that's why I don't understand why 
you used the plural "biological brains". There is only one brain, biological  
or otherwise, that you can know with certainty to work, your own.


                                            John K Clark     

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