Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> We've debated whether a computer, a recording, the computations in Platonia
> etc. can be conscious, but I think we can almost all agree on at least this minimal
> functionalism: that if you could copy a person by placing all the atoms in position
> accurately enough, then you would end up with a person who looked, behaved,
> thought just like the original, had all the original's memories, and identified as being
> the original. After all, this sort of thing is happening in our bodies all the time as bits
> break off cells and are replaced by identical (or near-identical) parts manufactured by
> the automated cellular repair mechanisms. If you accept this idea that the brain is just
> a complex machine, I don't see how it is even *logically* possible that a copy of a person
> made mid-thought would not experience continuity of consciousness, provided of course
> that the technical problems could be overcome and the copy was sufficiently accurate.
> It would be like expecting that a perfect copy of an electronic calculator in the middle of
> multiplying two numbers would somehow forget what it was doing, or a perfect copy of a
> mechanical clock would show a different time or run at a different rate.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
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The copying process would have to include some dynamic information,
information about how the physical state is evolving.
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Received on Mon Oct 30 2006 - 09:21:13 PST