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

[John K Clark]

"Slawomir Paliwoda" <velvethum at hotmail.com>

> I don't think exclusively about the information that
> describes the structure of the brain, but about the
> activity of matter (electrons, atoms) moving in
> space and time that produces things like thoughts
> and consciousness.

And in a earlier response you admitted there is nothing special about the
particular atoms in your brain, and now you say even the information on the
way those generic atoms are arranged is not what makes you be you and me be
me. That doesn’t leave much left, so if you’re correct then the only logical
conclusion to draw is that holy rollers are right after all and we posses a
soul that is inaccessible to science.

Just between you and me I don’t think the holy rollers are right.

> In order for me to form a thought "I am", or any
> other thought, that can only happen as a result of
> electrical impulses traveling through the web of
> neural network

Absolutely not true. Lots of things other than electrical impulses would
work, anything that can carry information would work including photons,
which makes nonsense of your unique position in space-time for a unique
brain idea.

> Mind does not emerge inside a static data about
> the configuration of matter in the brain

The data is static only if you take a snapshot of the brain as it is this
very instant, an instant later the data would be slightly different. I don’t
see why you have any objection to the importance of that especially when you
seem to emphasize the importance of The Now. I quote you:

“I'm absolutely not talking about trajectories of everything that has
ever contributed to sculpting a mind pattern to what it is now, but
everything (=all the matter flows in space and time, aka, mind process) that
contributes to emergence of mind, right now.”

> when I think of what mind is, I imagine it as a process,
> not as the information about configuration of matter
> that allows that process to take place.

That is exactly what I don’t understand about your position. You can
emphasize the importance of process all you want, I won’t even argue the
point, but if we organize other atoms in the same way that you admit are
no different from the atoms in your brain we end up with exactly the same
process.

 John K Clark     jonkc at att.net