From: Bobby Martin (bobbymartin@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Feb 18 1998 - 14:33:51 MST
I contest the notion that we cannot keep a 1:1 model of ourselves in our
minds. It is obvious that by 1:1 you do not mean "an exact duplicate,
not merely enough information to produce an exact duplicate", since it
is obvious that no physical system can also be another physical system
(i.e. our brain cannot also be our brain & our body). And it is also
obvious that a system can keep within it enough information to reproduce
itself, and some more information. This is obvious since living
organisms and computer viruses do this all the time.
So while it may (or may not) be physically impossible for a human to
know enough to produce an exact duplicate of themselves, it is certainly
not provable that no mind can know enough to produce an exact duplicate
of itself + some more information. As a matter of fact, the opposite is
very strongly indicated, since other information systems produce exact
duplicates of themselves all the time (computer viruses and living
things that reproduce asexually, to within a small margin of error).
Please show me the flaw in my reasoning.
Regards,
Bobby Martin
PS Dallas extropians & transhumans, I'm interested in get-togethers if
anyone would like to email me.
Anders Sandberg writes:
Some interesting stuff regarding brains, neurons, and levels of
understanding and then:
>(at a) very low level it becomes impossible to see for all the details.
We
>cannot keep a 1:1 model of ourselves in our minds, but that would not
>really be understanding either. Understanding means we can think about
>something on an useful level, so that we can extract relevant
>information from it and predict its behavior well enough.
>
>> A popular definition of the > soul is "that which we can never
>understand, that which makes us what > we are."
>
>I prefer the definition of my soul as the object class of which I am
>an instantiation.
>
>--
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
>asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
>GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
>
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