Brent Meeker wrote:
>[Stathis]
> >Your body slowly disintegrates and is (approximately) reconstructed atom
>by
> >atom, so you don't notice a discontinuity, and it doesn't hurt. If the
> >timing and order of the process were changed, so that your body is
>destroyed
> >in one operation and a copy reconstructed at a different place and time
>in
> >another operation, all you would notice is a period of unconsciousness,
>like
> >being knocked out and waking up later in hospital.
>[Brent]
>Actually you don't notice a period of unconsciousness. You infer it.
>There is
>an implicit assumption in this talk about copying brains and final results
>that
>we do not directly experience the passage of time; that our conscious
>states
>are independent entities that can then be ordered along an inferred time
>line.
>I wonder if that is true? The brain is small in extent, but it is not
>unitary.
>It apparently consists of different modules or processes only one of which
>is
>the internal narrative we call consciousness.
>[Stathis]
> >As for where your consciousness "goes" when you are unconscious, that is
>my
> >point: it doesn't "go" anywhere. Consciousness (and the associated sense
>of
> >personal identity) is a process, not a material object. You can still
>make
> >the point that we have no evidence that human-level consciousness can be
> >implemented outside of a human brain, but I believe the above
>considerations
> >show that it is not tied to a particular brain.
>[Brent]
>I agree. But you seemed to be supporting Hal's statement "Your
>consciousness
>should be able to jump between branches, between physical locations and
>across
>long periods of time." And you refer to it as "mobile". That seemed to me
>to
>be reifying a process into an object that could "move" and "jump".
>
>I agree that one should be able to implement brain processes, including
>perception, in some other medium (e.g. silicon) and realize consciousness.
>But
>most of what a brain does is not consciousness. I don't think you could
>implement just the consciousness without the other processes.
>
>Brent Meeker
>"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth
>who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong,"
> --- Thomas Jefferson.
>
It seems we basically agree but issues arise due to terminology. When I say
consciouness can "move" and "jump", I mean it in the same way that I am
"sending" you this email. The term is from regular mail through the post,
but obviously I am not sending you paper with ink on it, and I am not even
sending you the actual electrons I cause to flow in the circuitry of my
computer when I use the keyboard. what I am "sending" is information:
encoded instructions which you can decode at your end if you have the
appropriate protocols and hardware. The information can lie dormant for
years, be transmitted over long distances, and be implemented on one or more
computers which may be very different from the one on which it was
generated.
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue Apr 19 2005 - 07:56:53 PDT