From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 15:39:42 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>gts wrote
> > I mean that at least some the non-genetic neuronal structures change *as
a
> > result of changes in gene expression in response to stimuli*.
>
> Agreed.
Good!
> But given the time it takes proteins to be transported
> to the synapses, one might argue that personality (at least the
> genetic component of it) is relatively "fixed" -- probably for
> at least hours.
I suspect it would be measured in seconds or nanoseconds, but maybe it is
hours or days. Regardless, that lag time between the end of transcription
activity and the beginning of observable effects on thought and behavior is
fixed. It marks the end of our personalities as we know them.
> > Because changes in gene expression change at least some non-genetic
neuronal
> > structures in time in response to stimuli, we must include those genetic
> > instructions in our uploaded personalities so that our neurons can
respond
> > true to our existing personalities to future stimuli that are not
present at
> > the time of the uploading.
>
> Yes, this makes sense.
Thank you Robert.
Rafal, are we also in agreement about my sentence above?
By the way, in case it's not obvious, the word "neurons" in the third line
in my sentence above is in reference to emulated or encoded
representations -- not to actual biological neurons.
Getting back to my software analogy, which assumes some kind of digital
emulation of ourselves in the transhuman future: the emulated neurons of our
transhuman selves will be something like classes or objects in object
oriented programming. The brain object is an object of the brain class. Each
transhuman has one brain object, though all transhuman brains are objects of
this class. Each brain object is comprised of brain-organ objects of the
brain-organ class which are in turn comprised of neuron objects of the
neuron class. Neuron objects must contain gene objects of the gene class to
work in a manner analogous to biological neurons.
The neuron objects contained in the brain objects of two transhumans can
contain gene objects in common in the same way that two biological humans
can have biological genes in common.
-gts
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