X-Message-Number: 7992
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7974 - #7980
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 23:35:21 -0800 (PST)

Hi yet again!

To Mr. Clark:

Hmmm. If your machine copied the guns perfectly, they should both work
perfectly, so clearly your machine did not work perfectly. Therefore it also
made differences between you and the copy. So you might be able to find out
which one you are by comparing what you remember and how you act over time
with the action of your predecessor. 

You may have a problem with the police, too, but I will ignore that one.

I once read a science fiction story in which on an alien world a human
explorer found himself in a room with someone on the other side who was
(apparently) exactly identical. He solved the problem not by shooting the
other person but by pulling out a single hair from his head and dropping
it. The idea was that even small amounts of air movement would cause 
different behavior between the hair of his "copy" (or was it himself) and
his own hair. An example of the behavior of the world.

Once any difference at all occurs, even the smallest visible, the two
copies would diverge. While I'd hardly want to be in such a situation,
I don't see any hard problems with it in terms of self and identity.

To Mr. Freeman:

I note the word "chosen". While I would certainly agree that the very
best we can do about consciousness is to work out in detail just how our
brain behaves and how that behavior (from outside) relates to our sense
of self and consciousness. I do not expect any invention which would allow
me to get inside your head and feel, think, and react the same as you.

However I'm prepared to accept that my sense of consciousness IS real, in
just the same way as something I see in a forest, while walking alone, 
is real --- even if no one else ever sees it.

I would also add that I do agree that the choosing (which is part of 
planning) is essential to how consciousness works. 

So I have a question: are you saying that our sense of consciousness and
self is simply a matter of definition? Or are you saying that we are
somehow mistaken in these feelings? Again, when you say "neither is more
than a part of an ongoing computation that is controlling some device
that is interacting with the rest of the world", why is it that this 
system has a sense of continuity? If it is a part, what is that part
doing? Very simple devices can require computation to interact with the
rest of the world (say, a system set up in my house to turn on the
lights etc at the right times, and turn them off at the right times,
and so on). Yet in many such cases we would at least hesitate to say
that such a system was conscious. Not only that, but if we simply have
a "device interacting with the rest of the world", then why can't it
have NO sense of consciousness, or MANY? We make many plans and have
many different interactions, sometimes all at the same time. Does this
mean that we have many consciousnesses? If not, why not?

In any case, thanks for providing a new voice on these issues. I shall
see if I can get the web site you mention.

			Long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

PS: One thing that is happening in my newsletter is that I am now not
only reporting on memory and its different varieties but also on
consciousness --- and neuroscientists have decided to address that
issue. We will see what they find.

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