From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 03 2002 - 13:53:41 MDT
gts wrote:
The abstract below is from another study in which researchers discovered
evidence supporting the hypothesis that the experience of reward is
mediated by activity in the mesolimbic system (including and especially
the nucleus accumbens).
<snip>
### The abstract you mention is irrelevant to the subject I was discussing
with you. Please refer to my answer to Lee.
---- In greater terms, this subject is critical when considering the extropian dream of encoding oneself in an inorganic substrate for a trans-human existence. If the rewards and pleasures of life arise biological correlates in primitive brain systems, as I (and these researchers) contend, then it will not be sufficient simply to encode one's conscious "cerebral" personality. We'll need to find a way to encode the primitive mesolimbic and reptilian brains that lay at the foundation of our personalities. I believe this means we'll need to encode the information contained in our genetic material. And this requirement is very fitting, I think, because our personalities per se are not designed by nature and evolution to be immortal. It is nature's design only that our genes should be immortal. ### Sorry, I think the idea that you need a gene-containing object to simulate a consciousness is simply not worth being discussed. I sign off from this thread. Rafal
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