X-Message-Number: 7897 Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 21:40:42 -0800 (PST) From: John K Clark <> Subject: Uploading -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In Message #7885 (Thomas Donaldson) On 18 Mar 1997 Wrote: >Time for Uploading Chapter 3 (or is it 4?): More like Chapter 34, but before I get into it I want to say again that Uploading is not the enemy, death is. Cryonics is here now, Uploading is not, they are not competitors. >One major problem with any emulation by a DIGITAL computer, no >matter how large, fast, small, etc etc is simply the chaos problem Chaos means that a tiny change in initial conditions can cause a huge change in the outcome, but I don't see what that has to do with the price of eggs. Are you saying that when they repair your frozen body if it is not 100% identical to you at this instant then "you" have not survived. If so then every time you drink a cup of coffee you die, because that certainly changes you. >NO astronomer would claim that the Solar System is digital: In the first place, nowadays most astronomers spend much more time in front of a DIGITAL computer than a telescope, in the second place, every astronomer knows that the dominate theme of Science in the last hundred years is that EVERYTHING is digital. We found out that matter came in digital packages about a century ago, although even the ancient Greeks suspected it, then we found out that electrical charge was digital too, then energy, then momentum, then the Genetic Code, then information, then spin, then charm, then color... It's true that nobody has found a quantum theory of gravity yet, but everybody knows we need one, General Relativity is not compatible with Quantum theory and breaks down completely when things get smaller than the Plank Length or less the Plank Time, space-time becomes a confusing foam, to understand what is going on at even smaller distances or shorter duration we need quantum gravity and we don't have that yet. For this reason the idea of continuos spacetime is looking increasingly suspect. I quote Richard Feynman, on the trouble quantum mechanics has with gravity and speculating on possible solutions: "Another way of describing this difficulty is to say that perhaps the idea that two points can be infinitely close together is wrong, the assumption that we can use geometry down to the last notch is false." In other words, two points can not be INFINITELY close together. Contrary to high school geometry, a line is NOT made of an INFINITE number of points. Two points can NOT be just anywhere, but only in a finite number of positions. It's ironic that you are talking to us in a digital language of 26 letters by way of a binary digital computer, and you're using those pure digital techniques to say analog is better . >I dislike Nanotechnology, but have no objection to nanotechnology. >We capitalize God, and those who capitalize nanotechnology >unwittingly tell us something of how they feel about it. I'm big N and I'm proud. >If the computer takes its information and program off a disk, and >reads the result back onto the disk, then it is essentially moving >and modifying a large set of very small magnets. And the human brain is essentially moving and modifying a large set of very small sodium, potassium, and calcium ions. >an object can be stored in a computer, so long as those storing it >agree on the set of symbols used And I can ask another person to remember something for me, as long as we agree on a language to use. I don't need to have any idea of how his brain works, just as a child needs no knowledge of the internal workings of his computer to play a game on it. >I have no more reason to believe that this computer simulation is >conscious than I have to believe that the characters in a film are >conscious. I can pass The Turing Test, so can you, someday a computer will too, the characters in a film never will. John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBMzDJTn03wfSpid95AQHr2gTtHtFMik2RW3Me3YVggH2CzPqDiewfgMFD 1BCBuO+2Js+lmnJZ7avmxSdCztNih3fjrySf8ZJS7dQ21tW06t4ndmFhCsbvY6TS HMkOlFSaYFhuBBir8fk8bzcTo1vsZ36/heilr/m+2Pcglo3cvAvmdUbNDkkkIO2k 2H9qiefe87Ut0DfeOxj9O5Gm93F7YC1CFXtoLMSsWf7fOHwxdEM= =1Tk9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7897