A view on cryonics (was Re: [extropy-chat] Bad Forecasts!)

[Slawomir Paliwoda]

Brett,

You're making some interesting points about the benefits of communicating
ideas publically which make me reevaluate my "strategy". Thanks.


> > Therefore, mind is not a point, but, conceptually, a symphony of points
> > that these electrons map in space and time. By tracking the trajectories
> > of all the matter points in space-time that contribute to the emergence
of
> > mind, I'm able to track the trajectory of the overall mind process,
i.e.,
> > the location of mind itself.
>
> I'd encourage care when arguing by analogy - using words like "symphony".


My experience is that it is difficult to explain mind process. I'm not sure
how to give a sense of what it is without using analogies. Dry theory never
works for me unless the author illustrates the points he's making with
examples, and I assume this is true for other people too.



> So often in discussion about cryonics someone will throw out the assertion
> that anybody that doesn't subscribe to the information theoretic dogma
> must subscribe to a belief in souls. Its nonsense but it keeps coming
back.

It does.


> > Exactly. This is where the benefits of grounding identity in a mind, and
> > defining that mind as a process, come in. I track the trajectories of
only
> > what's relevant to the process because it is that activity of matter
that
> > causes a mind, not the inactive matter itself.
>
> I dunno. Actually I do know. You can't track the trajectories at this
stage
> in fact, you can only track them conceptually. That doesn't ruin the
> explanatory utility of you theory.


Are you referring to inability of present-day technology to track these
trajectories?


> > What causes a mind to
> > emerge is an overall mind process (=the sum of all the little processes
> > defined by the flow of matter in space-time inside the brain or future
> > computational mediums suited to perform mind processes), so I only
> > need to focus on those *particular* flows of matter that contribute
> > to that mind process.
>
> Your theory of mind has to be compatible (i.e. not incompatible) with
> what we know about developmental biology. Biological beings
> grow brains.


It is compatible because it completely disregards mind's computational
medium. Whether or not mind emerges in organic or synthetic matter is
irrelevant to what causes a process to become a mind.

Slawomir