From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Wed May 17 2000 - 15:12:59 MDT
"John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> Wrote:
>
> >You only call these things "the same location" because your
resolution is
> >not accurate enough to detect that they are inches apart.
>
> As I've already said if consciousness even has a location (and that's
doubtful in
> most cases) it's where its sense data originated. There is no reason two
very
> different brains (and I don't give a damn about brain location) could not
receive
> identical sense data, hence two consciousness exist at the same place.
I was referring to the location of the brain, not the consciousness.
> > Where did you get the plan for building a Harvey Newstrom? From
the original.
>
> I've been making and destroying a billion Harvey Newstroms every second
since
> you were a one celled zygote, so you tell me, who is the original Harvey
Newstrom?
The thing that you copy *from* is the original. The thing you copy *to* is
not the original.
> Yea yea, "smoke and mirrors", but just calling it a trick is not good
enough unless
> you can explain how the "illusion" works. You haven't done that.
I have pointed out many fallacies in your logic. You redefine terms
half-way through an example. You claim to make a second and third copy, and
then later claim that there is only "one" copy. You claim that the copy
thinks and perceives identically to the original, then you claim it was
destroyed before it had a single thought. You claim to reroute sensory data
from the original to the copy or from the copy to the original, and then
claim there is no such thing as a copy or an original.
> > Do you have another term you want to apply to the first copy besides
"original"?
>
> Mythical.
My current self is the original, since it exists first in time, and it is
currently the only instance. Why do you call this first instance
"mythical"?
> >If you create a body and destroy it so fast that it doesn't have time
to have a single
> >thought, then you have failed to recreate my consciousness in a copy.
You have
> >changed the definition of the copy from being a functional mind copy
to a nonfunctional
> >body copy.
>
> Not at all, the brain functions as well as ever, it's just that any single
copy can't think
> much in 10^-9 seconds. And yet you think, you're conscious, something
survives
> that is bigger and more important than any one copy.
Then I must disagree with your whole premise. A copy of my brain that is
never allowed to think a single thought does not meet my requirements for
being "consciouss" at all, much less displaying many attributes of my
particular consciousness.
> >You're not going to claim that the Platonic god-form qualia of
"redness"
> >is co-existing in both fruit, are you?
>
> Certainly not! I'd never say such a thing, a tomato is a vegetable not a
fruit.
It's a fruit!
> >Is your whole claim of duplicates being a single object based on
quantam
> >many-worlds, qualia, Platonic forms, mystic souls, or anything else
that
> >can't be defined by atoms and energy?
>
> I do claim that some things are very real but are neither atoms nor
energy, like
> redness or thought or 17 or consciousness or any adjective.
I think we agree on this. I just think that redness derives from the atomic
structure of the fruit which reflects certain wavelengths of light energy.
The quality is therefore generated by the atoms and energy. If you try to
ignore the atoms and energy, and just try to have "redness" exist by itself
without any reliance on the real world, you are defining a mystical soul.
> > I don't see where we disagree on any objective facts.
>
> We disagree on subjective facts, I think they can probably be deduced
pretty
> well by studying objective facts, you don't.
I still see the real question as a semantic one. You label two computers
running the same process as "one" process in two bodies. I label two
computers running the same process as "two" identical processes in two
bodies. We disagree on the labels. I think we agree on all the atoms and
energies involved, and both predict the same outcomes for every experiment.
We just disagree on what to call these outcomes.
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> IBM Certified Senior Security Consultant, Legal Hacker, Engineer, Research Scientist, Author.
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