RE: The Meaning of Life
John Mikes writes: Friends: Siding with Mark (almost?G) just to a 'wider' view of mentality than implied by physicalistic - physiologistic - even maybe comp-related frameworks, indicating the domains we did not even discovered, but love to disregard. Upon Marks post --- Stathis Papaioannou (wroteamong more): [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... Our bodies, including all neural tissue, are constantly falling apart and being rebuilt. Experiments with radiolabeled amino acids in mice, for example, suggest that the half life of protein in the brain is about 10 days. The turnover at synapses is even faster, a matter of minutes. So given months or years, you really are like a car in which every single component has been replaced, the only remaining property of the original car being the design Is it really? Are we a mchanistic isolated structure and an unchanging mechanism fabricates the replacements exactly according to the 'origina' blueprint? All that in a world that changes continually? Don't the 'fanricating' units also change (including the rules of fabrication? Don't the changed replacement parts influence the complexity of actions? Are we not subject to a changing world with responding to more than just 'inside' activity-patterns? That may be applicable to a computer-contraption of our present (first) embryonic primitivity and its restriction into a hardware designed exactly and exclusively for a type of software similarly designed for exclusive application, - in 'that' hardware using that ridiculously primitive binary system 'we' so ingeniously invented to simulate in a 'very first' elevation SOME of our mental functions (in the first place arithmetical ones). I am sure you do not deny a plasticity (I like elasticity better) of the mind - I would add: and body, i.e. ourselves, (everything in the world?) stemming for 'replacements' with adjustment to the changing ambiance - even unlimited environment (just consider as an example our 'plastic' recollections vs a rigid machine-memory) as in eye-witness reports. Do you have exactly the same mentality by rigidly replaced identical 'neuronal etc.' substitutes as was the little rascal who went to his first communion? Or even same-thinking as you did when joining this list? A negative to that: senescence is part of it, change is not only 'addition', it is by 'streamlining' also eliminating design-aspects all the way to destructing the 'original' design. In a world-dynamism. Complexly. You're right of course: we are not like a car in which all the parts have been repalced, but like a car in which the parts have been replaced with approximately similar ones. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: The Meaning of Life
Mark Peaty writes: SP: 'Getting back to the original question about teleportation experiments, are you saying that it would be impossible, or just technically very difficult to preserve personal identity whilst undergoing such a process? As Brent pointed out, technical difficulty is not an issue in thought experiments. , MP: I have answered this, in responding to Brent. In summary I say: if it is just A [any old] rendition of a human you want, then given that thought experiments allow that all practical challenges can be overcome, the answer is Yes! On the other hand if the strict requirement of an exact copy of a particular person is required to be output then it becomes a question of whether or not truly infinite computing power is required to calculate the changes occurring within the original at scan time. If it is then the answer is NO, because infinity is infinity. I think Derek Parfit's copier [Reasons and Persons Ch 10] was 'usually' producing complete and accurate copies, because one of his scenarios addresses what would happen if there was a fault in the transmission. The brain manages to maintain identity from moment to moment without perfect copying or infinite computing power. Of course, you may need very good copying and very great computing power, but this is different in kind, not just in degree, from perfect copying and infinite computing power. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Tom Caylor writes: So you believe that the Qur'an is the literal word of God? What I was hoping is that you would say Muhammed was deluded or lying, so that the Qur'an is at best an impressive piece of literature with some interesting moral teachings: i.e., what atheists say about the Bible. Stathis Papioannou No, I was just answering your question. I'm going out on a limb (not referring to Shirley McLane ;) but I think that the belief in Islam about the Qur'an is that it fulfills the role of the 2nd/3rd hypostates, instead of the person of Jesus. It is eternal and spans the infinite gap between God and man. For the Christian, Jesus fulfills this role. (Also, Jesus, being a person, solves the problem of the infinite relationship gap between us and God in a from-God-to-us direction rather than the from-us-to-God direction of good works. Good works are only finite.) So as I see it the Christian has a different belief about the Bible than does the Muslim about the Qur'an. There are plenty of good sources about the Christian's belief about the Bible, and evidence to support those beliefs, so I don't want to get into a long discussion about it on this List. I'll just say that I believe that a non-Christian can read the Bible, and about the Bible, to try to find out something in a rational way, just like reading any other book. Sure, the Bible contains some historical facts, some moral teachings, some great literature, as does the Qur'an. But there are literal conflicts between the Bible and the Qur'an, eg. Muslims believe that Jesus was just another prophet, not God in human form [if that concept is even coherent], while Christians do not believe that Muhammed actually took dictation from God. But in terms of empirical evidence, general plausibility, or even strength of conviction in believers, there isn't much to choose between the two faiths. Why do Christians and Muslims agree on certain incredible-sounding things of which they generally have no direct experience, such as the Earth being spherical, but strongly disagree on other things such as the status of Jesus and whether he really rose from the dead? Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Brent: 'But *your* infinity is just *really big*. There are only a finite number of atoms in a person and they have only a finite number of relations. So how can an exact copy require infinite resources? ' MP: Well yes, perhaps there are only a finite number of relationships, but these relationships are not static, they must be calculated. Ultimately it will be lawyers who decide if sufficient accuracy has been attained in rendering all these dynamic relationships. As I said before, I am not a 'mathematician' in the sense that Bruno is and others who browse here are, but I read in an article in New Scientist mag. some years ago that measuring and modelling certain features - primarily non-linear features I believe - can require arbitrarily large numbers of decimal places to correctly express the digital value. These numbers then have to be calculated within systems which will multiply the error margins and truncate values. Well of course all measurement is estimation and assertion of the representative value, but if you are talking about IDENTITY then there is going to be a fair swag of technical fudging isn't there! Come on! Admit it! And what lawyers really take scientific method seriously? I rest my case - for the time being! :-) Regards Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Brent Meeker wrote: Mark Peaty wrote: SP: 'Getting back to the original question about teleportation experiments, are you saying that it would be impossible, or just technically very difficult to preserve personal identity whilst undergoing such a process? As Brent pointed out, technical difficulty is not an issue in thought experiments. , MP: I have answered this, in responding to Brent. In summary I say: if it is just A [any old] rendition of a human you want, then given that thought experiments allow that all practical challenges can be overcome, the answer is Yes! On the other hand if the strict requirement of an exact copy of a particular person is required to be output then it becomes a question of whether or not truly infinite computing power is required to calculate the changes occurring within the original at scan time. If it is then the answer is NO, because infinity is infinity. But *your* infinity is just *really big*. There are only a finite number of atoms in a person and they have only a finite number of relations. So how can an exact copy require infinite resources? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Mark Peaty writes: SP: 'Getting back to the original question about teleportation experiments, are you saying that it would be impossible, or just technically very difficult to preserve personal identity whilst undergoing such a process? As Brent pointed out, technical difficulty is not an issue in thought experiments. , MP: I have answered this, in responding to Brent. In summary I say: if it is just A [any old] rendition of a human you want, then given that thought experiments allow that all practical challenges can be overcome, the answer is Yes! On the other hand if the strict requirement of an exact copy of a particular person is required to be output then it becomes a question of whether or not truly infinite computing power is required to calculate the changes occurring within the original at scan time. If it is then the answer is NO, because infinity is infinity. I think Derek Parfit's copier [Reasons and Persons Ch 10] was 'usually' producing complete and accurate copies, because one of his scenarios addresses what would happen if there was a fault in the transmission. The brain manages to maintain identity from moment to moment without perfect copying or infinite computing power. Of course, you may need very good copying and very great computing power, but this is different in kind, not just in degree, from perfect copying and infinite computing power. Stathis Papaioannou And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
SP: 'The brain manages to maintain identity from moment to moment without perfect copying or infinite computing power... ' MP: True, up to a point, but I want to quibble about that later [maybe below, maybe in another posting]. And upon more, [and more, and more,] mature reflection I can see that we are leading each other up the garden path, [or is it just you laughing - with justification I admit - at me? :-] We have to distinguish between identity as evidenced by finger prints [if we have been naughty], driver's license, Medicare number, birth certificate, account numbers + PIN, etc., and the belief I have in the story of me which I rehearse and act out during my waking hours. Then there is the identity of Identity Theory. * The first identity above is social identity - consisting of what I know about myself, what others know about me, and a whole host of social relations which constrain what I may do, assert what I ought to do and anchor me as a responsible citizen of Australia and if I don't act responsibly then I will be HELD responsible. It is who and what I am deemed to be by those who might care. It is a story, stored in several brains, computers and filing cabinets, which focuses on my person and is epitomised and focused on my body and what it does. * The second is my personal beliefs about me and in particular those qualia which embody my sense of self from moment to waking moment. Obviously this overlaps with my social identity in the part of that which lodges in my head. The essential nature of this is that of a story; my life is NOT LIKE a story, my life IS a story. I suppose I can say that the qualia of sense of self make my story a 'graphic novel' [which sounds so much more posh than 'picture story' doesn't it :-] * The identity of qualia with the activity of neural networks appears to be something that you either believe or you don't. I do so life is much simpler for me than it is for many people who contribute to discussions about consciousness. It is in this particular subject area, if you like, that the issue of exactitude in copying becomes truly relevant. In the first two dot points, it is not necessarily the most important point, indeed may not matter greatly or at all depending on how we view the ethics of the situation. When I wake up each morning, I am brought back to my habitual view of things and feelings of being here by external and internal stimuli. My clock radio sounding out ABC Radio National breakfast program or 'AM', the view of our bedroom ceiling, the sensations of the doona** resting on my body, the pressure of a full bladder ... Sometimes it is a bit fuzzy at first and very occasionally, such as happened a month or so ago, I might have awakened out of a powerful dream the effects of which do not leave me so that I am still wrapped in suspension of disbelief and can find myself thinking quite weird thoughts. But that is a digression. What would be the affect on me if I awoke in a totally unfamiliar place? How would I know I was me? If I remembered being somewhere in particular and being told that I would wake up far away in Beijing for example this would be helpful if in fact that was where I found myself. If on the other hand a glitch in the system caused my data to be sent to the wrong destination I would be very confused. Furthermore, if the quality of the copying was not up to scratch, I might be feeling very fuzzy indeed or very sick. Without external clues to tie in with what memories I had of my life story leading up to the last time I went unconscious, I would be very dependent on staff at the read out station to tell me what was happening. It is around about here that the location of a person or thing can be seen to be a very important component of its/his/her identity. So back to the question: can I be copied? Answer: More or less yes. Next question: Is the edition of me that gets copied then flushed away committing suicide? Answer: Yes Next question: If the copying did not destroy the original of me then who is the new edition of me in Beijing or wherever? Answer: [and this is simple] He is my identical twin brother. That is the easy philosophical answer. His legal status will depend on what the law has evolved to prescribe about the situation. And there we have it! THAT was the answer I have been looking for for years actually, ever since reading /Reasons and Persons/ [well ... reading most of, because the first half or one third of the book is VERY dry]. Twin brothers, or triplets, whatever. What could be conceptually simpler than that?! MP: And here I was going to quibble: The first two dot points above relate processes of ASCRIPTION. This is important. This is still true but I don't care any more. I just wandered off to commune with nature and spent some time running fantasy
Re: The Meaning of Life
Hi, I'm new to this list. Sorry for coming into the conversation uninvited, but I would like to post some comments on this :) Hope you don't mind. Brent Meeker wrote: And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. Memories would have to be somehow stored (in neurons or whatever), so losing 10% of memories would likely mean that 10% of the brain wasn't perfectly copied. I guess even a 0.0001% error of copy would probably kill someone; for instance, a minimally modified cell may develop a lethal cancer. Sorry if I'm going off-topic and for my bad English :) João Silva --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
- Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 8:45 PM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life (MP)... because infinity is infinity. But *your* infinity is just *really big*. There are only a finite number of atoms in a person and they have only a finite number of relations. So how can an exact copy require infinite resources? Brent Meeker Funny to mix up infinity with 'really big'. or (not?) 'really small'. I consider infinity as devoid of quantitative restrictions, like a zero, or whatever. Forever is (POOFF!!) instantaneously over. Infinite extension is no extension at all. Infinite time is 'just now(?) and it's over'. Our mind is not capable of starting out with a quantized idea and then switch to infinity. It comes from religious-talk what we don't understand to begin with. So much about infinite wisdom, infinite love, eternity etc. John M -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.16.7/618 - Release Date: 1/6/2007 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Jamie, thanks for your reflections (I think this is the 8+th or so list we exchange ideas on since 1988 when our friendship started on Prodigy) and I - sort of - agree with Bruno's questioning about 'inertia. I think I have an idea to come closer to it: if you include into that darn Ccness (whatever one identifies it with) MY condition of a response to information, that would change the course of the 'thing going on'. I am willing to identify the unchanged 'course' (in whatever sense) with the 'inertia' of the system. (I am glad you did not include 'entropy production' into the phenomenon.) Maybe I misread you completely. * Gedankenexperiments are the pits. When somebody runs out of reason and still wants to save face, constructs one upon impossibilities, to prove a point - within the impossibilities, with impossibilities. They are tempting and tickling, just consider how much astray your example directed the conskiderations by the fabulous demon, or the 80 year maze about the EPR fantasy. Latin: Si nisi non esset, perfectus quilibet esset (IF there wouldn't be an 'if' or an 'unless' , everything would be perfect). This list spent tons of braingrease on teleportation fantasies, it looks worse than discussing religion. I condone to throw in a 'strange' idea and draw conclusion - back to reality (i.e. the reasonable topics of the discussion) but goin g into minute details of a fantasy is too much for me. Granted: sometimes good minds arrive at good conclusions in reasonable sidelines by the exercise. Another proverb (this time Hungarian): a blind han may also find a grain. My main objection is based on 'reasonable' conclusions drawn upon unreasonable conditions and applied to general considerations. But if it makes people happy, so be it. * The falling branch? I had no problem with that, it is semantic: what do you call sound? I call so what I (or others) sense from those 'physical' occurrences which may be totally present in an unattended forest - NOT causing the sensation called 'sound'. No IF, however or unless. * You asked: .. is data 'storage' alone, a sufficient requirement for 'consciousness?... Of course not. It was for me a 'maybe' in 1992, not even a 'requirement'. But if you include it - don't forget that my stance is an ignorance about what to call Ccness. Memory is likely to be includable in the choice one selects for the composition of that odd concept - and many others. * About the coma-to-death transition with a femtosecond of unobservable sentience? I wish that should be our biggest puzzle. I like to call such situations a typical case of a SOWHAT.. We may ask the angels dancing on the pinhead. * And again: I appreciate the excerpt from your preceding post copied below your post. Have a good day, my friend John - Original Message - From: James N Rose To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 3:17 AM Subject: Re: The Meaning of Life John, You made excellent points, which I'm happy to reply to .. John M wrote: --- James N Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: JR: ... Make it easier -- a coma patient, inert for decades, re-wakes alone in a room, registers its situation and in an instant - dies. Would that moment qualify for 'conscioueness'? JM: and how would WE know about 'that moment'? does the coma-patient push a button to register? If there is a conscious machine (human or humanoid?) he is not alone. So the 'gedankenexperiment' (as all of this kind do) fails. Jamie left out HIS version of Ccness, to better understand his points. (E. g.: Actually, gedankenexperiments have been rather successfully important - eg Maxwell's Demon. And at the end of my post, I -did- define my version of CCness: every/any event that embodies a 'change of inertia' is definable as a primitive form of both moment of action -and- event of self-environment interaction .. even and especially when it is environment-with-itself. But, John, to get back on track with your dispute points... remember the 19th century query .. 'if a tree falls in a forest and no (human) is there to hear it, is there sound?' Same question, different venue. If -you- have a sentient moment and no one else is around to acknowledge or affirm or recognize it, are you existentially 'conscious'? According to your standard, no. Your own self-awareness of 'being' is not sufficient. But - I do note that you allow for pan-sentience (a concept liberally considered for a few decades in the field of consciousness studies). JR: I put it to the list that there are several factors that are implicit and explicit to the notion of consciousness .. which we humans mis-identify and mis-weight. They involve more than the human arrogance that 'our' sentience is the gauge to measure any/all other-sentience against. JM: Earlier, when I felt an obligation to identify
RE: The Meaning of Life
João Silva writes: Hi, I'm new to this list. Sorry for coming into the conversation uninvited, but I would like to post some comments on this :) Hope you don't mind. Welcome to the list. Everyone is free to barge into every discussion. Brent Meeker wrote: And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. Memories would have to be somehow stored (in neurons or whatever), so losing 10% of memories would likely mean that 10% of the brain wasn't perfectly copied. I guess even a 0.0001% error of copy would probably kill someone; for instance, a minimally modified cell may develop a lethal cancer. We know it is possible for the brain to lose some of its memories because it happens all the time: we forget things, we become demented. But even if memory were stored as a kind of house of cards such that removing one minor component would cause total disruption, it is still valid to ask the philosophical question. One difference between philosophy and science is that the former is not burdened by technical issues. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: The Meaning of Life
Mark Peaty writes (in part): So back to the question: can I be copied? Answer: More or less yes. Next question: Is the edition of me that gets copied then flushed away committing suicide? Answer: Yes Next question: If the copying did not destroy the original of me then who is the new edition of me in Beijing or wherever? Answer: [and this is simple] He is my identical twin brother. That is the easy philosophical answer. His legal status will depend on what the law has evolved to prescribe about the situation. And there we have it! THAT was the answer I have been looking for for years actually, ever since reading Reasons and Persons [well ... reading most of, because the first half or one third of the book is VERY dry]. Twin brothers, or triplets, whatever. What could be conceptually simpler than that?! MP: And here I was going to quibble: The first two dot points above relate processes of ASCRIPTION. This is important. This is still true but I don't care any more. I just wandered off to commune with nature and spent some time running fantasy scenarios in my mind- 'tutorial' type scenes with me holding forth - and the whole thing has slotted into place. As follows: * Assuming that it is in principle feasible to 'copy' a person and either store the data obtained without deterioration or transmit the data without noticeable loss, then when that data is used to reconstitute a medically and legally acceptable facsimile, the new copy is NOT the original it is his/her identical twin brother or sister. * In this scenario, if the original which is copied ceases to exist at the place of copying, he/she has died. If the copying took place without destruction of the original then he/she is [ceteris paribus] the same person and unchanged. The legal status of the new twin will be the subject of common or statute law provoked by the invention of the new technology. * In a discussion with one of my son's friends just now we agreed that the 'Star Trek' version of the teleporter is a rather odd beasty in which not just the information/data concerning the structure and dynamics of a crew member's body was sent to a destination but the actual atoms of the body were sent also. This might seem like a tidy sort of solution to someone who didn't want to think too deeply about it, but the sending of the original's atoms would add an enormous overhead to the system, firstly the amount of energy required to accelerate all the particles to something close to the speed of light would be enormous, and secondly it would not change anything significant because it is not the fact of it being those particular atoms which is important but which kind of atoms and exactly where should they be. So when 'Scotty' or whoever beams them up, they die on the planet's surface and their identical twins are created in the spaceship. * This whole scenario actually works to support the contention of Steven Lehar that the identity of a thing includes its location and that this fact is a reflection of how our brains work in creating the phenomenal reality of our experience [see http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstuff/bubw3/bubw3.html#compmech]. Is there anything about how you are feeling to day that makes you sure that aliens didn't come during the night and replace your body with an exact copy? Because that is basically what happens naturally anyway, although it isn't aliens and it takes months rather than overnight: almost every atom in your body is replaced with another atom, put in roughly the same place. If the discarded atoms were kept rather than sloughed off, exhaled etc. you would see that your identical twin of a few months ago had died and no-one even noticed, because it happened gradually. Other than in the speed and scheduling of your death, how does destructive teleportation differ from normal life? Stathis Papaiaonnou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
Bruno, Please be patient for my reply to your question. I'll compose an answer soon on inertia and change of inertia and how I reached the notion of assigning that as the essential-primitive of Consciousness. James --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
João Silva wrote: Hi, I'm new to this list. Sorry for coming into the conversation uninvited, but I would like to post some comments on this :) Hope you don't mind. Brent Meeker wrote: And does it even have to be very good? Suppose it made a sloppy copy of me that left out 90% of my memories - would it still be me? How much fidelity is required for Bruno's argument? I think not much. Memories would have to be somehow stored (in neurons or whatever), so losing 10% of memories would likely mean that 10% of the brain wasn't perfectly copied. I guess even a 0.0001% error of copy would probably kill someone; for instance, a minimally modified cell may develop a lethal cancer. But I forget stuff all the time. I've probably already forgotten 90% of things I've known (what was your telephone number in 1966?). And for the most part it's caused me no inconvenience, much less death. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The Meaning of Life
SP: 'Is there anything about how you are feeling to day that makes you sure that aliens didn't come during the night and replace your body with an exact copy? Because that is basically what happens naturally anyway, although it isn't aliens and it takes months rather than overnight: almost every atom in your body is replaced with another atom, put in roughly the same place. If the discarded atoms were kept rather than sloughed off, exhaled etc. you would see that your identical twin of a few months ago had died and no-one even noticed, because it happened gradually. Other than in the speed and scheduling of your death, how does destructive teleportation differ from normal life?' MP: * I know, which here means 'believe with confidence', that aliens didn't come because everything feels, looks, smells, etc, as normal. I am a creature of habit just like you and there is no evidence of radical differences anywhere that I can notice. * I quibble about whether atoms are replaced within DNA except as part of the normal processes of replication and repair. That aside, it is not the atoms per se which gives my identity but their incorporation into molecular structures, and the incorporation of all these molecular structures holonistically into cells, organs, and all the rest. Our bodies are held against collapse smallwards by the robust durability of genetic structures which embody all the patterns needed to sustain our biological integrity against the entropy within the flow of energy and resources through our ecological niches. Mental integrity is maintained in analogous manner by means of the robust durability of meme structures embodied in neural networks and whatever emergent super-neural structures they entail. * Destructive teleportation differs from normal life in that it entails the [as yet unlawful] killing of a person whose body is dismembered in a very high resolution process during the course of a magical ceremony, after which there soon arrives postcards and news from a person in a faraway place claiming to be the deceased and wanting access to his/her money box. The police and other authorities in that far away place, when asked and paid, will provide evidence that the healthy body of the person who turned up there during a magical ceremony matches the fingerprint, DNA and polygraph signatures of the deceased. They will also report that she/he is suffering from culture shock, but otherwise seems OK. All of these facts point to our day to day experience of survival being very much a social and cultural construct in which we believe, no more and no less. * It therefore seems apparent that problems and conundrums raised by the destructive teleporter/biofax machines are based understood by recognising that our experience of being here now and seeming to be the same person from day to day, indeed from moment to moment, is what it is like to be a description of a person, although I would say that the qualia aspect is actually what it is like to be the updating of the description. It was ever thus. Regards, Mark Peaty CDES [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/ Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Mark Peaty writes (in part): * Assuming that it is in principle feasible to 'copy' a person and either store the data obtained without deterioration or transmit the data without noticeable loss, then when that data is used to reconstitute a medically and legally acceptable facsimile, the new copy is NOT the original it is his/her identical twin brother or sister. * In this scenario, if the original which is copied ceases to exist at the place of copying, he/she has died. If the copying took place without destruction of the original then he/she is [ceteris paribus] the same person and unchanged. The legal status of the new twin will be the subject of common or statute law provoked by the invention of the new technology. * In a discussion with one of my son's friends just now we agreed that the 'Star Trek' version of the teleporter is a rather odd beasty in which not just the information/data concerning the structure and dynamics of a crew member's body was sent to a destination but the actual atoms of the body were sent also. This might seem like a tidy sort of solution to someone who didn't want to think too deeply about it, but the sending of the original's atoms would add an enormous overhead to the system, firstly the amount of energy required to accelerate all the particles to something close to the speed of light would be enormous, and secondly it would not change anything significant because it is not the fact of it being those particular atoms which is important but which kind of atoms and exactly where should they be. So when 'Scotty' or whoever beams them up, they die on
Re: The Meaning of Life
John, My email pgm sometimes (as now) balks at quote/copying material from emails I'm replying to. So I'll do as best to reply without having your exact words to refer to. re Bruno's inquiring about how I link changes of inertia to Csness, I'll do that in a few days. re Gendankens - I won't waste time debating you. The only thing that's important about gedankens is that they isolate and highlight certain relationships which seem important to the line of inquiry. If real-event scenarios analogs can be used - all the better. But if invented, that's not criminal or necessarily 'conceptually illegal' :-) .. serves the inquiry and 'what if' exploration of relations, I WOULD SAY. re 'falling branch/tree', yes it came to be 'experienced sound' versus 'generated wave' - but originally, it was a clear 'existential' question: can a thing 'exist' if something else doesn't experience the effects OF that first thing's existence. Ie: if science hasn't acknowledged something experimentally/experientially, then the 'something' has no verity or validity. No 'proof', no existence. Unfortunately, there is a conflated/confused definition of 'proof'; it now embraces: 'explanation' and independent record. re Csness=data storage. Yes, you no longer count it sufficient for Csness. But a lot of folks do, especially AI researchers. They presume that 'memory reconstitution' is equal to Csness reconstitution. And that's not the case. re femto coma-awakening-death. it may be the gedanken you may find frustrating, and then cast it aside as 'unknowable', and if unknowable, then ..SOWHAT, but I put it to you that this is exactly the relational key to understanding Csness. What is the limit of us, or any system for that matter, to wholistically 'experience itself'. That was the opening concept notion I put forth in Understanding the Integral Universe. Imagine youself floating totally alone in a lightless, energyless universe, with no external anything - to gauge anything by. Not motion not anything. ... What purpose would consciousness serve? .. It wouldn't. Consciousness is only of utile value in situations where self encounters else. I keep on that track of logic for a while, parsing away until concluding that anykind of 'response' can be embraced as a 'primitive consciousness' - no matter that its not complex or re-reportable/transmittable/sharable. But it's at that extreme, that I conclude that any holistic system, even if minimalized in complexness of architecture, can be projected to be holistically self-sensitive in an information disseminational way. That the formative entity: spacetime - it already presumed non-discontinuous. That continuousness is the stage for disseminated information, where changes of time, motion, fields, forces, waves -- least action -- constitute a 'sharing' of change-information. The Batesonian minimal'bit'. Reliant on the smallest spacetime 'change' .. which is identifiable as some or any change-of-inertia event. [ok Bruno, I guess here is a good portion of what you were asking about]. My main goal was this: find a reasonable comprehension for primitives that could develop into complexities - have a core foundation of simple 'relations' that -become- human/animal sentience. Bridge the realms of physics and biology, without breaking the known/presumed relations already identified. Only I had to make one crucial change in definitions. The universe is not dichotomized nonliving/living. It is dichotomized preliving/living. The qualia we find in living systems ARE PRESENT in pre-animate systems, only they are there in simple basic preparatives forms. My favorite example being the valence shells of atoms. These are relationally and effectively the lungs of an atom - able to fill (inhale) an electron, and unfill (exhale) an electron. Do atoms actively flex these 'cavities' to capture/exude electrons? No, absolutely not. But life 'breathes', if and only if atoms chemically transfer electrons by moving them into and out of valence shelled arrangements. Life 'breathes' because atoms breathe. Atoms aren't 'alive', but we couldn't be either unless that shared/similar function-relation was fundamentally there in the first place. The same goes for Csness. The universe is a fundamentally pansentient organization with many levels of sentient compleness and self-awareness. We humans, are part of the sentient capacity of the universe to 'understand itself'. We aren't a separate mentality exploring an it -- 'out there'; we ARE a piece of the 'it' exploring the other parts of the It. We are the universe attempting to not just experience itself, but to understand itself - in a novel, different, available, way. Jamie 7 Jan 2007 --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order Belief)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes: So you believe that the Qur'an is the literal word of God? What I was hoping is that you would say Muhammed was deluded or lying, so that the Qur'an is at best an impressive piece of literature with some interesting moral teachings: i.e., what atheists say about the Bible. Stathis Papioannou No, I was just answering your question. I'm going out on a limb (not referring to Shirley McLane ;) but I think that the belief in Islam about the Qur'an is that it fulfills the role of the 2nd/3rd hypostates, instead of the person of Jesus. It is eternal and spans the infinite gap between God and man. For the Christian, Jesus fulfills this role. (Also, Jesus, being a person, solves the problem of the infinite relationship gap between us and God in a from-God-to-us direction rather than the from-us-to-God direction of good works. Good works are only finite.) So as I see it the Christian has a different belief about the Bible than does the Muslim about the Qur'an. There are plenty of good sources about the Christian's belief about the Bible, and evidence to support those beliefs, so I don't want to get into a long discussion about it on this List. I'll just say that I believe that a non-Christian can read the Bible, and about the Bible, to try to find out something in a rational way, just like reading any other book. Sure, the Bible contains some historical facts, some moral teachings, some great literature, as does the Qur'an. But there are literal conflicts between the Bible and the Qur'an, eg. Muslims believe that Jesus was just another prophet, not God in human form [if that concept is even coherent], while Christians do not believe that Muhammed actually took dictation from God. But in terms of empirical evidence, general plausibility, or even strength of conviction in believers, there isn't much to choose between the two faiths. Why do Christians and Muslims agree on certain incredible-sounding things of which they generally have no direct experience, such as the Earth being spherical, but strongly disagree on other things such as the status of Jesus and whether he really rose from the dead? Stathis Papaioannou People disagree on lots of things, especially if it touches on ultimate questions, for instance as I mentioned about the Christians' belief that Jesus is the solution to the problem of evil (from-God-to-us) and Muslims' (and all other belief systems that recognize the problem of evil) belief that the solution depends on our good works (or something similar, from-us-to-God/Good). Do you recognize the problem of evil, and if so, what do you believe is the solution? Do you think that the MWI is the key to the solution? Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases
Tom Caylor wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes: So you believe that the Qur'an is the literal word of God? What I was hoping is that you would say Muhammed was deluded or lying, so that the Qur'an is at best an impressive piece of literature with some interesting moral teachings: i.e., what atheists say about the Bible. Stathis Papioannou No, I was just answering your question. I'm going out on a limb (not referring to Shirley McLane ;) but I think that the belief in Islam about the Qur'an is that it fulfills the role of the 2nd/3rd hypostates, instead of the person of Jesus. It is eternal and spans the infinite gap between God and man. For the Christian, Jesus fulfills this role. (Also, Jesus, being a person, solves the problem of the infinite relationship gap between us and God in a from-God-to-us direction rather than the from-us-to-God direction of good works. Good works are only finite.) So as I see it the Christian has a different belief about the Bible than does the Muslim about the Qur'an. There are plenty of good sources about the Christian's belief about the Bible, and evidence to support those beliefs, so I don't want to get into a long discussion about it on this List. I'll just say that I believe that a non-Christian can read the Bible, and about the Bible, to try to find out something in a rational way, just like reading any other book. Sure, the Bible contains some historical facts, some moral teachings, some great literature, as does the Qur'an. But there are literal conflicts between the Bible and the Qur'an, eg. Muslims believe that Jesus was just another prophet, not God in human form [if that concept is even coherent], while Christians do not believe that Muhammed actually took dictation from God. But in terms of empirical evidence, general plausibility, or even strength of conviction in believers, there isn't much to choose between the two faiths. Why do Christians and Muslims agree on certain incredible-sounding things of which they generally have no direct experience, such as the Earth being spherical, but strongly disagree on other things such as the status of Jesus and whether he really rose from the dead? Stathis Papaioannou People disagree on lots of things, especially if it touches on ultimate questions, for instance as I mentioned about the Christians' belief that Jesus is the solution to the problem of evil (from-God-to-us) and Muslims' (and all other belief systems that recognize the problem of evil) belief that the solution depends on our good works (or something similar, from-us-to-God/Good). Do you recognize the problem of evil, and if so, what do you believe is the solution? Do you think that the MWI is the key to the solution? Tom The problem of evil is the contradiction between the theory that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God and the observed fact that there is great suffering and evil in the world. The obvious solution is that the putative existence of the the tri-omni God is false. I don't see how Jesus or good works are even relevant to this problem. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
