X-Message-Number: 8009
Date:  Fri, 04 Apr 97 19:45:05 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: What is a seat of feeling?

Tim Freeman () wrote me privately,
quoting from my CryoNet message #7987:

> >Even though it may be the seat 
> >of feeling, it still may be relatively easy to replace--thus not one 
> >of the important parts to preserve in cryonic suspension  (though for 
> >practical reasons we would preserve it along with the rest of the 
> >brain). 
> 
> I don't know what a "seat of feeling" is.  Can you describe one or
> more (possibly gedanken) experiments that would allow one to
> positively identify something as a seat of feeling?
> 
> Feel free to quote this email to cryonet, or to send your response
> there, or both.
> 
> Tim Freeman       

Presumably the seat of feeling (the definite article is appropriate 
here) is some part of the brain, or at any 
rate, the CNS. The question is, what part?

As a thought experiment, perhaps you could imagine some hookups
through advanced technology that 
would allow monitoring of all neural activity in the brain and CNS, 
and also, the ability to reversibly shut down any part of the CNS
for a desired period of time. The shutdown would be functionally
equivalent to removing the given region. As part of our monitoring
ability, we suppose we can tell when the subject is actually feeling 
something, which means the subject must be conscious to some
degree (though possibly asleep, as in dreaming).

We then conduct 
many experiments, selectively disabling different parts of the CNS. 
Thereby we should be able to isolate the portion that is always 
involved in feeling. That then would be the "seat of feeling." 
Presumably it would be closely related to (a subset in fact, of) 
the "seat of consciousness" which might be indentified in a similar way.
As I noted in my posting, conjecture has it that the seat of 
consciousness is the midbrain-thalamic reticular formation.

Mike Perry

http://www.alcor.org

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