From: Brent Allsop (allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com)
Date: Wed Jul 15 1998 - 09:52:54 MDT
Joe Jenkins <joe_jenkins@yahoo.com> posted:
> Because atoms adhere to the physical laws of the universe, they can
> be modeled or emulated in a computer along with their interactions
> with other atoms. This emulation can be modeled in a way that
> represents the configuration of atoms that make up your body and
> mind along with the environment with which you interact.
I agree with most of what you're saying, BUT, I think we are
all still dummies and completely missing the single most obvious and
important part of consciousness, uploading, and indeed, existence
itself. And that is, what are all those atoms (or whatever it is that
our consciousness awareness is really made out of at the fundamental
level) phenomenally like? For example, I know, first hand, what red
is fundamentally like. I'm not talking about 700 nm light, I'm
talking about the conscious sensation our brain uses to consciously
represent 700 nm light. Though the two can do a good job of
abstractly emulating or modeling each other the two are nothing at all
like each other at the fundamental level. One is beyond our eyes, and
the other is inside our brain. And to miss the significant difference
between the real thing and a mere abstract model or emulation that is
fundamentally completely different, is to miss the most important part
of our conscious existence. Sure, a simple color detecting machine
can tell me what color something is better than I can, but what it
uses to represent this knowledge of color in its merely abstract brain
is nothing like the red and all the other "qualia" my brain uses to
represent those same wavelengths of light.
Certainly the stuff of our consciousness must be fundamentally
based on atomic matter. And just as one carbon atom is identical to
another, an identical configuration of atoms producing red (which my
brain uses to represent something reflecting 700 nm light) would
surely produce an indistinguishable sensation in another persons
brain. But, just because such identity theories most likely will still
hold for qualia, don't dismiss the most important part of our
conscious worlds: our feelings, our sensations, all of our conscious
knowledge, and what they are fundamentally and phenomenally like.
True, we can certainly abstractly model them with abstract machines,
given enough complexity, just as a simple color detecting machine can
model color, but the two representations are nothing at all
fundamentally like each other.
Since we know, only abstractly to date I might add, all that
can be known about the mechanical causes and effects of 700 nm light
and the way it reflects off of various material, we think we know
everything about red. But this abstract knowledge of the cause and
effect of light reflection has nothing to do with the conscious
phenomenon our brain finally produces to represent such reflections of
certain wavelengths of light. One is the initial cause of the
abstract cause and effect perception process, the other is the final
result. One is beyond the eye, the other is in the brain. One is a
mere physical object of abstract detection and the other is a
gloriously phenomenal experience. One is something, the other is,
though a gloriously phenomenal and beautiful something, a mere
abstract knowledge or a model of it.
All we currently know of stuff beyond our senses is abstract,
cause and effect, information that our senses model. We simply
abstractly know how things interact. We know nothing of what such
physical phenomenon is really like. But we do know, first hand, what
red is like. A sunset, isn't really "beautiful". As far as we now
know, it is simply an abstract mechanical cause and effect process
that stimulates our senses and scientific instruments according to our
mere abstract laws of physics. Since we only know of it in the
abstract it can't be beautiful. For beauty is the gloriously
phenomenal representation of the sunset that our brain produces from
the abstract data received, or our conscious knowledge of the sunset.
Why are we such dummies and always completely miss or dismiss such
plain, obvious, and necessary facts? Why are we such dummies that
mistakenly give all the glory to something that doesn't yet really
deserve it and entirely dismiss the true phenomenon that really
deserve all the recognition?
We think the glorious world of our perception, that is our
conscious knowledge, is out beyond our senses. Because we abstractly
know much of the cause and effect of what is beyond our eyes we
thereby think we know everything of our conscious knowledge of it.
But, again, this is to miss the most important and glorious fact of
reality itself; and that is, the phenomenally glorious stuff of which
our conscious awareness is fundamentally made of, and how it
currently, at best, can only abstractly represent or model anything
beyond our senses.
> This was a very big step for me because I always felt a sort of
> selfishness for my physical self (atoms and all) and I've probably
> stepped through the above thought experiment hundreds of times even
> though its very simple. Once this is understood and accepted
> though, it's not too big of a leap to understanding yourself as an
> upload.
Once people finally realize that red is something in their
brain, not something out beyond their eyes, and that the most
important thing about all of reality is the phenomenal worlds (which
are in or produced by our brains) we use to represent the reality
beyond our senses they will forever selfishly wonder why we could be
such dummies and so quickly dismiss or so completely miss the most
glorious and phenomenal part of all of reality. I selfishly want the
red that is in my head! I like to call the worlds of our conscious
knowledge, which are constructed out of qualia stuff by our brains,
spirit worlds. Don't give me no stinking merely abstract cause and
effect representation like that beyond my eyes! It's nothing at all
like it!
Until we realize the significance of this difference and it's
fundamental importance, we will be dummies indeed. We will continue
to fail at our science, in our attempts to understand what we really
are and what it really means to be uploaded and what we will be able
to become and do. Until we understand this, we will only know
abstractly of the world beyond our senses, and not realize that we
might be able to know, first hand, what the rest of the world outside
our brain is really fundamentally and phenomenally "like".
Brent Allsop
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