From: Emlyn (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Sun Dec 10 2000 - 21:46:03 MST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
To: "Samantha Atkins" <samantha@objectent.com>; <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 7:35 AM
Subject: Re: Reason +/-Faith
> At 12:44pm -0800 12/10/00, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> >You know, the old idea of Descartes (and much older of course) that
> >human beings are some kind of immortal spiritual stuff in a material
> >body is pretty interesting in light of recent discussions about
> >immortality options involving uploading and transference of
> >consciousness. If in fact we can gain sufficient knowledge to capture
> >the unique "program" of a person's consciousness and transfer it to
> >another body or computer or whatever then Descartes claim is not so
> >bizarre after all. The immaterial spirit has become "information" or
> >"the program" or the running emergent phenomenon thereof.
> >
> >- samantha
>
> This parallel has occurred to me as well. Our "true essence" seems
> to be contained in neither matter or energy, but in information.
> Information cannot be touched or measured like physical matter or
> energy. It is a non-corporeal entity that can exist in or out of a
> particular body, or can be transferred between bodies. It can exist
> or be lost, but it cannot interact directly with our physical
> universe like matter or energy.
> --
> Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
>
I'm more pessimistic. I think the information is only a description of our
true essence, and that, whatever it is, is more likely to be emergent from
something material (whatever the hell that means), rather than being the
information. It would be really convenient if we were our own programs, I
wish it were so.
Emlyn
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