From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Dec 10 2000 - 18:12:39 MST
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> At 12:30pm -0800 12/10/00, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> >Ah, but this brings up another can of worms. If the nature of the
> >system (in this case consciousness) is dependent not only on the bits
> >but on the surrounding and embedding actual context it is "executing"
> >within, then this adds fuel to the argument that your consciousness bits
> >instantiated and running on some super-computer or within a cloned body
> >is NOT you.
>
> Possibly, but I'm not totally convinced.
>
> I think we need to make sure that the new hardware executes the
> programming correctly. To use the computer analogy, giving me a
> Windows CD is not enough. I need a PC that runs it correctly.
> Running an iMac with VirtualPC is probably close enough, even if not
> identical. Loading the disk images under Linux and examining them in
> a binary editor is not the same thing. Printing off the information
> onto paper and binding it into a notebook is not good enough.
>
But nothing other than a human body and one significantly like this one
would run "my program" "correctly" if "correctly" means
indistinquishable from the original. The context is quite different. I
doubt any of us would argue that strongly that all that is meaninfully
"I" is contained in the pattern of information and interconnections in
the brain with no references to the brain it is embodied in or to the
surrounding environment at all. The question then is how much of me is
and is not recordable and re-instantiable.
> Although the programming may be the important part of consciousness,
> it is not alive unless it is running correctly (or mostly correctly).
> I would even argue that a decapitated head contains most if not all
> of the same information that the live head had moments before. It
> has the same software, hardware and memories, but it is still not a
> working copy.
>
> This implies that we need FIVE characteristics of a good copy:
> - Hardware
> - Software
> - Data (or memories)
> - Activity (not halted or crashed)
> - I/O ports for sensory perception
> - Self Awareness (maybe? hard to define?)
Plus perhaps context that the program interacts meaningfully with and
structures itself in relation to. Memories of context are not
sufficient. I/O ports without meaningful context (meaningful to the
software/hardware) are perhaps insufficient. Quite a bit of the
structuring of our consciousness is based around meat-brain experiences
and metaphors. It is at least questionable whether that structure would
work much less be internally perceived as "me" in a non-meat brain
context.
- samantha
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