From: Jonathan Colvin (jcolvin@ican.net)
Date: Mon Jul 20 1998 - 03:35:33 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
"For my money, I would like to see one neuron at a time replaced with a
new one. I think everyone has agreed that this is an acceptable way to
end up in a mechanical body. It also seems more likely given laws of
physics, and probably cheaper with lower technology."
I'm not picking on you Harvey, but this seems like an opportune place to
dipute the whole idea of uploading. It seems to rest on a very narrow model
of consciousness that regards neurons as discrete computational elements
that can be simulated. I think this model seriously de-emphasizes the
chemical elements of consciousness...the enormously complicated stew of
neurochemicals the washes thorugh our brains, and which seems to be a huge
part of emotion/mood/perception....everything that we mean when we talk
about consciousness. Our neural-nets are good at pattern recognition and
lots of things that require computation, but I am of the opinion that much
of consciousness is dependent on very complicated chemistry. You might say
I am of the "wet" school of consciousness. And how can you upload
norepinephrine?
(If this is going to start a thread that has already been thoroughly
debated, forgive me...I'm new here and couldn't be bothered to search the
archive.)
Jonathan Colvin
jcolvin@ican.net
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