The problem with the embryonic brain argument (which I actually raised
BTW), is that is almost assuredly not conscious, and not a "person" in
the way we're using the term here.
Obviously its a little hard to find an exact cutoff between consious
and unconscious states, but the onset of self-awareness (or at least
the mirror test passing aspect of it) at age approx 18 months would be
an upper bound.
Already by about 2 years old, there is a massive die off of neurons,
as connections and neurons are culled - which leaves me to suspect
that by the time the brain houses consciousness, no two brains are
structurally alike, even genetically identical ones.
Cheers
On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 07:51:21PM -0700, George Levy wrote:
> Russell Standish wrote:
>
> >This would imply that there exist "islands" of indentity, and having
> >limited awareness in time and multispace, we can only ever be aware of
> >one instance from each island, but that might change with technology.
> >
> >BTW another analogy is the islands of geneflow within biological
> >species. Within biology, we have such things as ring species, where
> >two species at a location (eg Britain) cannot interbreed, yet can
> >interbreed with neighbouring species to the east and west in an
> >interrupted chain that circumnavigates the pole. (Sorry I may not be
> >explaining the concept of ring species too well - look up Wikipedia).
> >
> >In such a case, perhaps "ring identities" such as Jesse Mazer <->
> >Bruno Marchal do exist - but I'd like to be surer of the analogy. Also
> >ring species are the exception, not the rule, in Nature.
> >
> >
>
> If we can define an intermediary state common to all species then we
> will have bridged all the isolated island.
> It seems that at the embryonic stage and possibly at the fetus stage,
> rhe nervous circuitry is so simple that it may be common between all
> individual of a specie and there are no identity islands. So we could
> say with near certainty that Bruno Marchal and Jesse Mazer used to be
> one and the same.
> In addition we may assume that embryonic and fetal development allows
> for a continuous distribution of neurons in the brain rather than in
> discrete space positions, and an incremental connectivity of the neurons
> such that any particular neuron may differ by a single connection. With
> these assumptions we may infer that there is a continuity in personal
> identity from anyone to anyone.
>
> George
>
>
>
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Thu Jun 01 2006 - 01:52:28 PDT