From: jeff nordahl (jnordahl@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 15:36:59 MST
Ken wrote:
>Well, you are right; us Zombies are just a pattern of atoms, as is a lump
>of clay.
If all we are is a pattern of atoms *thoughts*, then we have already
successfully uploaded a portion of Jimi Hendrix. Perhaps someone else knows
more about this software, but I heard that all of Jimi Hendrix's music was
fed into a computer. The computer then analyzed, deciphered, and
constructed consistent patterns from Jimi Hendrix's music. The programmers
then set up a blues progression of a few chords and applied the Jimi Hendrix
pattern to it. Amazingly, the resulting jam session sounded like an
authentic Hendrix composition. Of course this is a simplified version of
uploading brain patterns, but is it anyhting different in theory from
physically scanning your entire collection of current living brain patterns?
Did this Hendrix computer experience a sliver of consciousness? Did it
experience a slight sensation of qualia? IF not, then at what point would
the brain pattern computer become conscious? Is there a mathematical
threshold for consciousness?
>By the way, John, not being a Zombie, have you given up hope on being
>uploaded? Was that what
>you meant by the "Life is too short" part? Do you think that we are going
>to fail in our
>attemts to make life quite long? Or perhaps you are hoping to hold on just
>long enough for us
>to find a way to program weird ineffable stuff?
I will speak for myself, not John, but I am very optomistic about being
uploaded, but I would only want to be uploaded with the ability to
experience qualia. Even if qualia is an illusion, there is a vital part of
our neural network that creates this illusion, so I would like this qualia
upgrade included in my uploading software package. Then I could actually
enjoy my upload as opposed to the cheap low-grade zombie version that would
seem to only act as a brain pattern storage device. Of course, folks could
run your zombie upload and use it as a tool to answer questions and such,
but you would be no more conscious of them stealing your responses than Jimi
Hendrix is of his computer simulation composing music for the programmer's
personal profit. Should the Hendrix programmers have to pay for the rights
to Jimi's music pattern compositions?
I think the only advantage of uploading without a program for qualia
simulation would be to store the pattern until qualia simulation could be
developed. (or successful re-animation through cryonics. If the
re-awakened cryonic body experienced amnesia, then you could download the
brain pattern back into the physical body)
The point is, that I enjoy the sensations of red, the taste sensations of
good wine, and the qualia of powerful orgasm. I would not wish to live
eternally without them. My guess is that not many would. So to erase
qualia, or their causes is silly. Let's scientifically investigate qualia,
and their physical causes. Once cracked, we can then EXPERIENCE the
sensations of quality eternal life!
Other tidbits to add to this qualia discussion:
There seems to be a trend by those anti-qualiaists to define the world in
two realms. 1. the physical real world where we *believe* that we should
trust our qualia for practical matters like avoiding cars that are about to
run over us & 2. the realm where we *BELIEVE* that our qualia is an illusion
and does not exist.
In your efforts to nullify Cartesian Dualism, it seems as though you have
created an equally (if not more) awkward dualism between the UPPER CASE and
lower case realms.
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