Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: yale!root@seismo.css.gov (Root Of All Evil) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Consiousness, the body, and the soul (long and mystical) Message-ID: Date: 6 Jul 89 23:26:34 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT 06520-2158 Lines: 90 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article macleod@drivax.UUCP (MacLeod) writes: >There are large parts of my current life that I don't remember, without >having been hit on the head. If memory and mental functioning is >mechanical, how can disabled patients learn to walk again when the regions >of the brain associated with motor functions are damaged? If there was a >one-to-one mechanistic correspondence, this should be impossible. The brain has some flexibility in recovering from damage because in some cases surviving tissue can learn to perform the lost functions. This phenomena is no disproof of a one-to-one mechanistic correspondence. >... When the hypnotists went >snap< >snap<, the subjects gave the >correct answers. While in some cases I can believe this has been demonstrated, I have no evidence that it can be a generally useful technique. I think it would be much more widespread if it were effective. >Occam's razor is a mental construct, not a natural law. This is a worthwhile point to remember, although it can lead to intractable and unprofitable paths of reasoning. >Even if consiousness were an epiphenomena of the >body, how does that make any kind of point-to-point mapping possible? Do >those who lose a leg lose one leg's worth of consiousness? One leg's worth of consiousness is not very much; it only has a little impact on some peripheral sensory capabilities. Studies of brain damaged patients do show that it is possible to lose particular aspects of consciousness and particular capabilities. However, as I stated earlier, sometimes a recovery can be made if a damaged area heals itself or if another part of the brain learns the function which was performed by the damaged area. There is some specific knowledge about which parts of the brain perform particular functions, so I think that indicates that an approximate point-to-point mapping is possible. The technical issue is how good is your approximation. >By the way, it's quite wonderful to look at these faculties (memory, >personality, consiousness) and to suddenly realize: these are not me. These >are only my tools. The artist is the crucial link in translating the true >reality of subjective experience into the true reality of objective >experience, and such cognitions are of great use. It seems that your realization that those things "are not me" involves consciousness (by my definition of consciousness). If you do have something left over after taking out memory, personality, and consciousness, what does that part do? I have thought of a model of thought processes where the thought processes are represented by a curve in some high-dimensional space (I haven't classified the dimensions), with one dimension being time. A person can be specified by giving one point (a memory state at one instant in time) and the derivative of the curve, which corresponds to personality. Personality is characterized as the dynamic response to events, and it can change over time (which is why second and higher derivatives might be interesting to look at). This doesn't take much account of reflecting changes in the world external to the person, which certainly has effects on memory and personality. The basic model is closer to a person in a sensory deprivation tank. This might actually tie into nanotechnology and recent discussions about personality backup. Say you have a full backup description of the memory and personality (perhaps the molecular arrangement of the person's brain). There was some discussion about bandwidths involved in transmitting backup copies. Perhaps a lower bandwidth channel could transmit just sensory data. If the original was destroyed, you could replay the sensory data to the full backup, and wind up with a close approximation of what the original was like at the moment of destruction. This brings up the issue of "Who cares about restoring a close approximation; if I'm the original I'm dead!!". One philosophical viewpoint might emphasize a sense of kinship between such closely related minds. After all, the difference between the backup restored from a sensory replay and the original at time of loss of sensory transmission would probably be less than the change in the original between one day and the next. If I feel some sense of identity with the person I was last year or yesterday, why shouldn't I feel a sense of identity with an even closer approximation. In fact, all people have some similarities to varying degrees; another philosophical view might be to consider us all as sharing one consciousness, but on different tracks (I don't remember what the name of that belief is). It seems that if nanotechnology brings us to an era of extremely long lives, people will probably grow more like each other because they will share information and hopefully reach a consensus view of things over time (perhaps billions of years). This reminds me of the story by George R. R. Martin, "A Song for Lya", which revolves around a choice between ordinary human existence and passage into another form in which identity is merged with many other beings. I look forward to having enough time to consider these issues in depth. Duke Briscoe Arpanet: briscoe-duke@cs.yale.edu Bitnet: briscoe-duke@yalecs.bitnet UUCP: briscoe-duke@yale.UUCP