Re: Immortality

From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue Dec 12 2000 - 13:21:32 MST


Steve Nichols <steve@multisell.com> Wrote:

>Name me any finite-state components that can readjust their logic in
>response to the environment

A thermostat.

>I say you can't because finite-state means pre-set switching.

Nonsense, Turing showed in 1930 that you the only way to know
what a Turing machine is going to do is run the program and see,
and a Turing machine is finite state unless it runs for an infinite
amount of time. I go into this a lot more at
http://www.extropy.org/eo/articles/zed.htm

>Consciousness requires a degree of self-organisation.

You mean like amorphous mater molecules forming into a crystal
when things get cold?

> I don't want to get bogged down in semantics here .... so I claim that REM
>(rapid eye movement) indicates dream mentation.

You are free to claim whatever you like but I asked how are you going to prove
I'm conscious. You still haven't answered me. And even in the unlikely event
the "lost pineal eye" is somehow important, who cares, how would that "fact"
effect the debate we were having in the slightest degree?

         John K Clark jonkc@att.net



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