Re: Mind/Body dualism What's the deal?

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Aug 16 2001 - 03:45:53 MDT


Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 10:15:06AM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> > Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > >
> > > Well, cybergnosticism - the material world is inefficient and impure, and we
> > > should strive to become pure information - is unfortunately rampant among
> > > transhumanists. But that doesn't mean it is a very workable philosophy, IMHO.
> >
> > This is a rather prejudiced way to express certain strains in
> > transhumanism imo. I think it is too early to assume much about
> > what is and is not a reasonable and workable view.
>
> I consider a reasonable and workable view to be a view that helps further human
> flourishing in the real world (be it the material realm or cyberspace).
> Cybergnosticism has several serious problems:
>
> Psychologically, it is not a positive approach to something but rather an
> escape from something.

As you have defined it (and imho slanted the definition
somewhat), there is no argument here. But the view that the
material world (or at least standard biologically based
existence) is inefficient is certainly not at all untrue. And
being able to transcend many of those limitations is certainly
something most of us actively desire. Is this all escapism?
Where is the line?

>Such avoidance philosophies are not very good
> motivators, especially when they turn away from the messy real world as it is
> today and do not look much for the road from here to the putative utopia. As
> cybergnosticism is expressed among transhumanism it is almost always in the
> form of speculations rather than practical proposals, not even discussions
> about uploading technologies based on theoretical applied science.

Well, there is a huge place for speculation. Out of speculation
comes thoughts and visions of what it may be to live and be
within a computational matrix. This is pretty important work.
It is not all about the nuts and bolts. I do agree though that
a largely unexplored and undeveloped area is more crucially not
worked out than either the nuts and bolts of uploading or the
envisioning of the possibilities and implications. That is how
to get there from here on all fronts - not just the technical
but also the social, political, ethical and psychological
fronts. But it is not just cybergnostic folks who duck or at
least don't focus much on many of these issues.

> Instead it
> tends to produce long discussions of the benefits and transcendence of an
> uploaded state, which rather conveniently ignore all the practical aspects of
> being uploaded. Somebody has to pay the electricity bill even when you are an
> upload.
>

Are you sure there will be an electricity bill as we currently
know them? I'm not.
 
> Whether we consider the material world good or bad is in the end a subjective
> evaluation. But a mind that rejects the material world is likely to find that
> whatever experiences awaits beyond uploading will have similarities to those of
> the material world.

I think this may be a pointless round-about between different
possible positions in a spectrum. In reminds me of
positionings in the sci-fi novel, Diaspora. Good and bad
evaluations are pretty irrelevant. A mind that gravitates
toward cyberian existence with little/no involvement with or
interest in the material world strata is not necessarily lacking
in insight, intelligence, integrity or any other value. These
sentients simply wish to explore and experience a bit
differently to the extent they can.

>They will hence be tainted by their hint of materiality and
> the cybergnostic will seek ever larger distance between themselves and the old
> reality. What should be important is the practical benefits of uploading and
> similar stuff, not the assumed ethical/aesthetic primacy of one form of
> experienced reality over another.
>

I agree with reservations. The first reservations are on what
limits you put on the word "practical". The second is that I do
not believe that all of what you have call cybergnosticism
actually makes a primary value judgment of one form of reality
being ethically preferable to the other.

 
> > Brain/minds
> > at the current level are relatively inefficient and bound up by
> > evolutionary patterns that make them rather biased, although
> > "impure" is going too far. If mind can be captured and
> > transferred from brain to upload "brain" in software and perhaps
> > downloaded into various vehicles then there is a degree of
> > support for a sort of mind/body dualism.
>
> Sure, it would be far more like the classical dualism where souls and bodies
> were like lego pieces that could be put together, separated and perhaps moved
> around. Very much like "Ghost in the Shell". But in most dualism the soul is
> assumed to be able to exist without a body. This is something not allowed for
> by uploading - information always has to be embodied as a pattern in something.
>

But what is the pattern itself? Is the encoding of software as
regions of a disk drive its body? Is the software a thing in
and of itself, a sort of pure Idea worked out in its details and
spun with other Ideas? Is a story separate from its printing in
a book? Even in mysticism the soul is assumed to be embodied
within the mind of God or some reasonable equivalent. So what
is the difference here?
 
> That an uploaded existence would be practical in many ways and look like a
> dualist universe (although from the inside of the virtual world it wouldn't,
> since the underlying hardware would be hidden by several abstraction levels)
> doesn't mean that the cybergnostic condemnation of the material becomes more
> right.
>

I don't see any reason for condemnation so much as recognizing
limits and deciding what kinds of limits you are and aren't
interested in living with.
 
> > It is too early to assume that such an emulation will be always a part of
> > being an upload.
>
> "Always" is a long time. But I prefer to refrain from speculate about magical
> (cognitive) technology that can somehow unravel a mind and reform it (without
> any loss of perceived identity) into an entity that does not act through
> humanoid input/output channels. The brain evolved as a sensory and motor
> integration system, and that underlying function is deeply etched into its
> structure.
>

Into the brain, yes. But we are uploading minds. Not
necessarily the same thing although I agree the unraveling may
take a while.
 
> In the long run we will likely move beyond this, but I would want you to
> consider how much of our anatomy is still based on our underwater origins
> hundreds of millions of years after leaving the sea. Even with deliberate
> redesign it is hard to get rid of basic structures. At the same time, even if
> basic patterns were once used for function A they can later be used for
> functions B and C - the basal ganglia were once just motor control systems, but
> are now involved in planning and deduction, it seems. Tomorrow their
> "descendants" might be wired to simulation engines and instead be used to
> select futures directly - same basic structure, extended functions. But the
> basic structure can also induce affordances and limitations that are not
> possible to remove.
>

I don't see how these examples from physical humanoid biology
are necessarily applicable. We don't have the ability to
redesign that level yet. None of these structures are mandatory
to be brought over in an upload afaik, although I realize some
believe that all of them must be emulated for the uploads to
function and remain sane. I don't see any reason we would not
shed as many outmoded features as we currently can as quickly as
we can in the much more pliable upload environment.
 
> > > I think transhumanism needs a good perspective of embodiment to avoid
> > > becoming dualist or cybergnostic. It is easy to say that one wants to change
> > > one's body, but implicit in that statement is the assumption that the change
> > > will not change oneself. This is not true; any change of the body is a change
> > > of oneself.
>
> > I don't see why avoidance of mere labels adds anything at all of
> > value. If the mind is separable from the body you immediately
> > have a form of real dualism. If we can in fact function as
> > intelligent beings in a vastly expanded capacity once thus
> > separated from our original bodies (uploaded) then a form of
> > what is prejudicially labelled cybergnosticism in fact makes
> > sense and is seemingly inevitable. Value judgements of the
> > pre-upload state as being "impure" are of course not necessary
> > either.
>
> And that is really the point! I have no problems at all with thinking
> of an existence as a liquid entity online, where aspects of existence
> can be handled by many different substrates. But my problem starts
> when people start to denigrate the material world, the embodied self
> and project what is essentially a mystic vision onto the technological
> future. That form of thinking seriously hurts both the credibility of
> transhumanism in the public sphere and practical attempts to achieve
> goals in the real world.
>

OK. I have much more room for "mystic visions" of the
technological future because I think the possibilities inherent
in the technology will lead to problems and situations that look
a lot like quite a bit of the mystical literature pretty
quickly. I could be wrong of course.

Also, as I've mentioned many times, if you ever want some of the
more spiritual/religious people to at least not oppose and even
actively promote transhumanist goals then it helps to show where
some of the promises of their religions can be acheived (to the
extent they aren't simply illogical impossibilities) by some of
this technology.

I don't think this bit of diversity hurts at all in net effect.
It could even help.

 
> As for whether it is just a matter of labels if I change my body or if
> I change myself, I would suggest considering the following example:
> suppose you cut yourself deliberately. If you think that you cut your
> body, then this act is to some extent divorced from you: the essential
> you has not been affected, and the effects of the act are merely input
> and conditions for you to perceive and handle. That it was deliberate
> was merely like any other act of deliberate harm against your own
> possessions. If you think you have cut yourself, then you also take
> into account that this act has a far deeper importance for you than
> cutting (say) your clothing. It is not just a change in your situation,
> but also an act that has changed what it means to be yourself
> (slightly).
>

Not a very good example on multiple levels. Both views are true
within certain parameters.
 

- samantha



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