From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 12:57:50 MDT
Brent Allsop wrote,
> Ooops sorry, I miscomunicated.
>
> I'm talking about two brains that do have a vey high bandwidth
> connection.
OK. I may have missed this point if you said it.
This would very much change my viewpoint. If my neurons were directly
connected to the duplicate, this comes close to replacing my neurons one at
a time. I could see the neurons in the new brain taking over from the old
brain. Their could/should be a way to start using more of the new brain and
less of the old brain until transfer is complete. I also can see that the
connected whole would be "one" person until split. This would make it seem
that both of the new copies were equally the original. I would have to
consider this a third example of the copy question. It is not a single
person getting neurons replaced, and it is not two separate people where one
gets killed. This method sounds like something I would investigate as a way
to transfer myself into a duplicate.
Again, my method of testing would be to slowly drug or suppress the old
brain and see if my consciousness remained unaffected. If we could slowly
put the old brain away while my conscious mind remained awake, I would
easily agree that I was residing in the new body. If the old brain started
falling asleep while the new brain remained active, and I started feeling
drowsy, I would be concerned that I still resided in the brain that was
being put to sleep.
> Of course we don't YET know how to do this, but what makes
> you think that things like this will be commonplace some day?
Maybe not common-place, but it will become feasible like 5-organ transplants
are today. Some people are contemplating head transplants. We will
eventually run into this question in real life. I would like to have a
position and strategy worked out by then. (Also, imagine the court battles
after some millionaire goes through this procedure, while the heirs and
bankers argue over who gets the money!)
> Again, if the two were joined, via some high bandwidth
> communication channels, perhaps like our own corpus collusom which
> connects our brain hemispheres?) into one supper consciousness
> (i.e. they had 4 eyes, two mouths... in fact two complete bodies all
> of which the one supper consciousness was completely aware of...)
This would be very nice. I missed the communications channel in the earlier
post, but I like this concept.
> Of course you'd be unhappy to lose half of yourself, just as
> we'd be unahpy to loose a hemisphere of our brain. But if it was only
> a small portion of your brain, and you knew it was going to be
> replaced with 5 or 6 supper enhanced and expanded versions....
This method convinces me, only because they are maintained in synch and
communicating. I would consider this one consciousness in two bodies. I
would permit either body to die, and still consider my original self
remaining in whichever body survived. If the link were ever broken, I would
split into two people. The copy that survived would be happy, while the
copy that is dying after the split would feel terminal.
I do not know if this is the same as John Clark's position. I think I
remember that he did not maintain communication channels, but felt that if
the two copies were identical and in an identical environment, that they
would stay in synch automatically. Although I doubt this, I would admit
that it might be possible for them to be in synch. I would still have
difficulty in callig them "one" consciousness in that case. I would think
of them as two separate and identical consciousnesses. Again, a copy. As
soon as they are no longer communicating between minds, I would consider the
one mind to have fragmented into multiple personalities which would then
diverge and evolve in different ways. I believe that chaos theory, random
forces, miniscule errors, and other factors to cause the two identical
copies to diverge. Even if just by random background radiation causing
cancer in different random brain cells and slowly mutating the copies in
different ways. Twins look more alike when they are younger, but randomly
grow and mutate until they don't look as much alike. Nobody would confuse
me with my identical twin brother anymore.
(John, have I described your position correctly? I seem to have accepted
Brent's method as a viable means of having one consciousness in two bodies,
but not yours. The difference is specifically whether the communications
channel remains connected between the two brains. The instant they are
disconnected, they diverge. I don't know if this helps illuminate my
objection to your scenario, but the two are very close, and we have isolated
the specific minor difference that concerns me.)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:07:54 MST