Re: Immortality

From: Emlyn (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Sun Dec 10 2000 - 02:29:49 MST


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2000 3:37 AM
Subject: Re: Immortality

> Emlyn wrote:
> > The problem is that we are equating consciousness with information.
> > I don't think that it is information.
>
> I don't either, but you can use information and generic atoms to generate
> consciousness.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
>

Undoubtedly. But in no way is it the same consciousness as that from which
the original information was garnered.

I am fairly sure that it is possible to move conciousness from one substrate
to another, through an iterative process of removing old substrate, adding
new substrate, a bit at a time. I don't think that you could split one
conscious entity into two of the "same" entity this way (one to one only).
Really, this happens all the time anyway... neurons die, the configuration
changes. The key to continuous identity is that it only changes very slowly.
We each are different from one moment to the next, but we are the same
person, because we are enough unchanged from one moment to the next.

Emlyn

Emlyn



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:34 MDT