Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: More Atheistic Wishful Thinking Message-ID: <1717@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 00:34:47 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1717 Posted: Tue Sep 17 00:34:47 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 03:08:18 EDT References: <1115@mhuxt.UUCP> <1473@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1648@pyuxd.UUCP> <98@l5.uucp> <1676@pyuxd.UUCP> <121@l5.uucp> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 39 >>Sure, UNIX can run on a great many machines, but UNIX alone is not analogous >>to an individual human mind. It is more analogous to the common set of >>reflexes and instincts (operating systems) that human minds may share. Now, >>let's talk about porting a WHOLE system: any databases that may be attached >>to it, any UUCP connections it may have made use of, ... disk drives, etc. >>NOW, and only now, are you talking about the SAME system being reproduced. >>Otherwise, if you try to run any QUEL queries or cross-system mail functions >>that you used to be able to do, you would bomb out miserably. So, not only >>must you copy the operating system, but the external ports and other elements >>of the physical configuration as well, in order to function properly as the >>"same" system. [ROSEN] > I lost it. I do not know why you think that my mind (whatever that is) cannot > be ported to another body. Clearly Laura and Laura-prime are not going to be > identical and may develop along quite different lines henceforth, but I don't > see why that should concern me. An easier task then porting me to silicon > would be to make a clone of me and then stuff my clone with my memories. I'd > like to deal with that one first -- is there any reason why you think that > this cannot be done in principle? If the answer is no, I want to proceed to > ``well then, what is so special about a human body that it cannot be > simulated somewhere else?'' [CREIGHTON] I'll say it again. Sure, UNIX can run on many different machines, but a UNIX system is more than just its native operating system code. To copy only that would be analogous to copying *A* human mind, not a PARTICULAR individual human mind. It would be copying (effectively) the native instincts/reflexes of the so-called "tabula rasa". Your "mind" consists of more than just native instincts and reflexes; your mind consists of the way in which your brain has learned to interface with your sensory organs and voluntary (and involuntary) nervous system, plus all the data and knowledge you have acquired since birth. Can all that be ported in the manner you describe? Would it work at all? (I recommended Hofstadter's "Conversation with Einstein's Brain" in an earlier article as a good example of all the issues involved. It is one of his dialogues involving a speculation about Einstein's brain saved in a "book", where to have a conversation with it you supply input in a certain way and alter the content of the pages according to prescribed rules.) -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com