RE: Cryonics and uploading as leaps of faith?

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Jul 02 2003 - 18:50:03 MDT

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    Emlyn wrote:

    > No idea. But it is crucial to my argument above that I agree that all
    > functions of intelligence seem to be fulfilled (or fulfillable at
    > least) by non-concious mundane algorithms, implemented in wetware or
    > other physical substrates. This is my quandry.

    ### But are you sure that the algorithms are not conscious? Have you asked
    them? (this is not mocking, just pointing out that our conviction about
    other people's being conscious also depends on analysis of behavior).

    I would think that a visual algorithm capable of assigning color to objects
    (i.e. analyzing the visual scene to assign putative reflectances to objects,
    not merely measuring the spectral characteristics of patches of the visual
    scene, like a spectrophotometer would) does have a subjective experience of
    color, indistinguishable from the experience of some parts of our occipital
    cortex (separate from the rest of the brain).

    ------------------------------
    >
    >>
    >> I rather think that "I" is a side effect of certain information
    >> flows, maybe even atemporal states of mathematical entities.
    >
    > I think Egan postulated something like this in Permutation City... we
    > are arrangements of information, and the permutations on the way you
    > interpret physical entities to be arranged are infinite, therefore
    > everything internally consistent exists somewhere as a complex
    > mapping from some piece of reality to the target pattern (although I
    > think the mapping would often require more information than the
    > target pattern embodies).
    >
    > But if you believe this, then identity really disappears in a puff of
    > logic. Why would we even bother with this reality if we always exist
    > in the greater platonic pattern space?

    ### Because "not bothering" results in unpleasant subjective experience.
    Also, what do you mean by "existence"? Minds which do not bother to exist,
    have a smaller measure in this platonic pattern space, which might for some
    other minds be a reason enough to bother.

    Rafal

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