Nick Prince-2 wrote:
>
>
> This is similar to my speculations in an earlier topic post
> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/browse_thread/thread/4514b50b8eb469c3/c49c3aa24c265a4b?lnk=gst&q=homomorphic#c49c3aa24c265a4b
> where I suggest that very old or dying brains might
> deterorate in a specific way that allows the transition of 1st person
> experiences from an old to
> a young mind i.e. the decaying brain becomes in some way homomorphic
> to a new young brain which allows an extension of consciousness.
This is not even required. The decaying brain can become no brain, and
consciousness proceeds from no brain. Of course this means that some
continuity of consciousness needs to be preserved outside of brains.
Theoretically this doesn't even require that structures other than brains
can be conscious, since we know from our experience that even when/while a
structure is unconscious it can preserve continuity (we awake from deep
sleep and experience a coherent history).
The continuity may be preserved simply through similarity of structure. Like
our continuity of personhood is preserved through the similarity of our
brains states (even though the brain changes vastly from childhood until old
age), continuity of human consciousness may be preserved through similarity
of brains (even though brains have big differences is structure).
So this could even be a materialist sort of non-technological immortality.
It's just that most materialists firmly identify with the person, so they
mostly won't care much about it ("What's it worth that consciousness
survives, when *I* don't survive.").
If they like the idea of immortality, they will rather hope for the
singularity. But impersonal immortality seems more in accord with our
observations than a pipe dream of personal immortality through a
technological singularity, and also much more elegant (surviving through
forgetting seems much simpler than surviving through acquiring abitrarily
much memory and personal identity).
I wonder why less people consider this possiblity of immortality, as it both
fits more with our intuition (does it really seem probable that all persons
grow abitrarily old?) and with observation (people do actually die) than
other forms of immortality.
benjayk
--
View this message in context:
http://old.nabble.com/QTI%2C-Cul-de-sacs-and-differentiation-tp32721336p32746424.html
Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
