X-Message-Number: 7915
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7889 - #7899
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 12:50:56 -0800 (PST)

Hi guys, again!

Well well well, I seem to have stepped into something here!

One major problem is that there is just me to explain my ideas, and I have
(by count) at least 3 opponents, each with their individual versions. I can
hardly answer everyone without 3 times the work. (I noticed this problem 
when I first began to advocate cryonics, too, years ago --- but its hardly
unique to cryonics).

So here are a few points:

Mr (Dr?) Strout has moved closer to what I was saying, so far as I can see.
I don't care what he calls it, but I do think that "uploading" into a 

computer, and "replacement by different devices" should be clearly 
distinguishedbecause they are fundamentally different.

Mr Lynch claims that I believe that if I differ even a little bit from what I
am now I have ceased to be me. Please read my posting again. The problem with
chaos is not at the START of the simulation, but the result when it proceeds.
It may give a fine version of me when it has just started, but it will grow
more and more erroneous (not at all me!) as it goes on. That is why I draw 
the distinction between STORAGE in a computer and UPLOADING into a computer.
How fast with the simulation diverge? Bob Ettinger is right here --- we don't
really know, but given that we are simulating every neuron, and that neurons
themselves are much more complex than simple switches (and involve more than
just the ions Mr. Lynch mentions, too) I would argue that the divergence 
would happen, in our terms (as real beings watching it happen) very rapidly.

For Mr. Perry (Mike) I would say that we're both wading in a very subtle
swamp, with lots of questions to deal with. First of all, I did note that
I was speaking "For all practical purposes", so that dreams of some computer
as large or much larger than the universe itself become irrelevant. Not only
that, but the quantum levels in atoms are countable, but still infinite, and
do not remain the same under magnetic fields etc. Just to say that we are
"digital" means very little unless you really can map the universe into 
some fixed scheme of numbering. If Mike wants to go ahead and do that, I
will wait for him to complete --- especially since we don't really know 
that even the universe (digital or not!) is finite (think of the physicists
proposing many other universes as a way to reconcile GR and quantum theory).

Furthermore, my main objection came from the distinction between a map and
what was being mapped, not the really whether or not it could be mapped. In
practical terms, we see that whenever we try to digitize a scene or an 
object: we know that our system will automatically lose resolution. A map
is inevitably a symbolic representation of the real territory. (I recall a
funny sad story of Jorge Luis Borges, of a country which wanted to map itself
exactly. And as the map grew more exact it inevitably grew larger, until
finally they had their exact map, just as large and covering as much 
territory as the country itself, --- but the effort to making it and the
size of the map were too great, the country collapsed, and now there is no
more than a desert with a few scraps of paper blown about in the wind).

That our maps are digital is just one way they fail. There are, of course,
other ways, which do not really happen in practice.

The problem with a simulation of Mike is that it is a symbolic representation
of Mike, and has meaning only so far as the symbols used have meaning. 
Ultimately it is human beings who attach meaning to those symbols. I find
it very difficult to believe that any system which does no more than modify
symbols can produce awareness IN THE SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS IT IS MODIFYING. Sure,
such a system itself is NOT symbolic, and thus might even be aware. Computers
do not simulate themselves, they are objects acting in the world. (That one
computer might simulate another is irrelevant here).

Mr. Lynch also raises the issue of the Turing Test. I do hope he does so
with a bit of a smile, because philosophers in the area have ceased to believe
that the Turing Test is sufficient. But note one major point: the Turing
test requires the computer person only to interact symbolically with its
interrogator. It is not asked to fall in love with him, or hate him, or
show anger, dismay, and all the other emotions... except symbolically. And
when we look behind the curtain, we may see another human being which can
do all of those things, or a computer which sits there and can only deal
with us symbolically. 

It's not that we cannot be STORED symbolically, but that we cannot really
be RESURRECTED by an entirely symbolic construction. For that matter, it
is the person who views a symbolic simulation, rather than the simulation
itself, that gives any meaning at all to the computer simulation.

I have to go now, but of course would not claim this is the end of 
the matter.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7915