From: Jim Hart (jqhart@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Feb 25 2000 - 16:29:30 MST
The study of consciousness is burdened by too much
speculative philosophy, and not enough empirical science. It's
important to observe real-life examples of many seemingly
theoretical states of consciousness important for cryonics
and uploading already exist. These can be observed and discussed
to a much greater degree:
1. "zombies": sleepwalkers are nearly fully functional but
not in an aware state of consciousness.
2. reanimation of consciousness after termination of mental
activity: sleeping and normal unconsciousness are *not* examples
of this. However, hypothermic accidents and surgery are
examples. Hypothermic surgery in particular is a goldmine of
data on the persistence of consciousness if we care to study
it closely.
3. cloning of consciousness: experiments on split brain
patients (slicing through the corpus collosum) seem to indicate
that something like two conscious entities, one verbal and
observable, the other nonverbal and difficult (but not
impossible) to observe, exist in such people. This suggests
that the boundaries between conscious minds are caused by the
relative connectedness of the computing networks which create
those minds.
4. blindsight: unconscious sensing of the environment without
conscious qualia.
We can do far more than merely philosophize about what might
happen in such situations. We can observe them and discuss
these observations.
Jim Hart
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