Re: Immortality

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 08:06:25 -0700

Hello Charles

On 09-Oct-01, Charles Goodwin wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Brent Meeker [mailto:meekerdb.domain.name.hidden]
>> Sent: Wednesday, 10 October 2001 2:23 a.m.
>>
>> But then why do you say that a duplicate of your brain processes in
>> a
>> computer would not be conscious. You seem to be
>> discriminating between
>> a biological duplicate and a silicon duplicate.
>
> The use of the word 'duplicate' seems contentious to me. The question
> is whether you *can* duplicate the processes in the brain at a
> suitable level of abstraction, and whether (if you can) such a
> duplicate would be conscious. I don't think anyone knows the answer to
> this (yet) !
 
It was a hypothetical that Bruno used. It's pretty certain nobody knows
how to do it now and it might never be practical. But if the
processes, including the sensory ones, were duplicated I have no reason
to think that it would not be conscious. The contrary conclusion would
seem to imply vitalism and magic.

Brent Meeker
  Lo! Men have become the tool of their tools.
        -- Henry David Thoreau
Received on Tue Oct 09 2001 - 20:10:54 PDT