From: gts (gts@optexinc.com)
Date: Fri Oct 11 2002 - 09:00:08 MDT
Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> gts wrote:
> This means that if we upload you today, without your genetic
> > information, then your response to the event after uploading will be
> > different from the response to the same event had we not uploaded,
> > i.e., you will not be the same personality if we upload you without
> > your genetic information.
> ### No, it won't. All you need to upload is the pattern of neural
> connections, synaptic strengths, and rules of modification of
> these elements in response to stimuli.
If by "rules of modification of these elements" you are including the
rules that are embodied in our genetic instructions that pertain to the
brain and personality, then we are in agreement.
There may be other rules outside our genetic material that control these
and other neural elements, and if so then I don't object to any claim
that they too are critical to the preservation of the personality. Also
do not argue for the need for *all* genetic instructions. As I wrote
once in the past, we can certainly dispense with those that encode for
such things as wound healing.
> Unless you are talking about stimuli directly acting
> on genes (e.g. genotoxic poisons),
No, that's not what I mean.
I mean that it's clear that the brain is affected physically by external
events in one's environment and that those effects are *in part* a
function of one's genes. Seasonal affective disorder is another
excellent example. Those with a specific polymorphism of a certain
serotonin receptor gene are likely to become depressed in the winter.
There is therefore *something* in the instructions coded in that gene
that has a direct bearing on personality. If we upload a person who has
this gene in the summer, then we must include a codification of the
instructions from that gene if we want him to react as he normally would
to the next winter.
Are we starting to get closer to agreement on this, Rafal? Your
recognition of the need for the "rules of modification of these [neural]
elements" leads me to believe that we are.
-gts
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