[extropy-chat] Re: RE: [wta-talk] RE: [Trans-Spirit] Multi personalities reveal self isfiction

[John-C-Wright at sff.net]

An interesting discussion. Thank you for including me. 

My only comment as the author of the GOLDEN AGE is that, for the purposes of
fiction, it was convenient to suppose that there was some sort of essential self
to the personality, aside from what could be digitally recorded from memories.
In my story I had to suppose that there was a difference between a man who has
another man's conscious memories, but retains his own personality, and a man who
has his personality replaced or mixed with another personality. The first is
like a man who reads another man's diary, even if a very detailed diary: he
knows everything Shakespeare ever did, spoke or thought, but he cannot write a
Shakespeare play. The second is like a man who is a reincarnation of
Shakespeare; his creative spirit, the mysterious unknown factors which make
someone himself and not someone else are present. 

In the story, it was convenient to suppose that, due to innate limitations on
any thinking system, no one can fully and entirely understand himself. The story
supposes that only a superhuman intellect, a Sophotech, has the understanding
necessary to know what the essential self of a merely human mind consists of.
(The plot point was needed to give a reason why a society that hated and feared
Sophotechnology would be required to use it to make back-up copies of their own
minds, virtual immortality.) 

Whether it is this way in reality or not, someone wiser than me will have to
answer. 

In my own humble opinion, statements like "There is no irreducible self, but
only the minimum necessary set of mental processes required in order to have
human-level awareness" may turn out to be true, but then again might not. I
think it premature, at our present level of understanding about the human mind,
to be too confident. We have not yet reduced the workings of the human mind to a
mechanical description. It is possible, for example, that something like a
Godelian incompleteness or Heisenbergian uncertainty will prevent the analysis
of the human mind into a mechanical description. While a philosopher might be
able to invent arguments to support the notion that it must be the case that the
mind, in theory, is open to such reduction, such conclusion remains theoretical
until confirmed by experience, that is, until someone actually reduces to the
mind to components in a description, and proves no essential self is needed in
the description.

Whether I have an essential self or not, I am glad you enjoyed my humble book;
or, at least, the part of me that thinks of itself as “I” appears to itself to
be glad. 
John C. Wright



--- Original Message ---
From: "mike99" <mike99 at lascruces.com>
To: "World Transhumanist Association Discussion List" <wta-talk at transhumanism.org>
CC: "Trans-Spirit" <Trans-Spirit at yahoogroups.com>,"Extropy-Chat"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:41:17 -0600
Subject: RE: [wta-talk] RE: [Trans-Spirit] Multi personalities reveal self isfiction

> Thanks for your reply, 1Arcturus. I especially like that you mentioned the
> "noetic technology" described in John C. Wright's GOLDEN AGE trilogy, which
> is some of the best science fiction of the recent decades.
> 
> The issue you raised about modeling the mind within the mind is, I think,
> the heart of the matter.
> 
> In Wright's novel the protagonist, Phaethon, discovers that his memory has
> been tampered with. Later, he also has reason to believe that someone may
> have infected his mind with a memetic virus (like a computer virus). I have
> greatly simplified the plot situation here, needless to say. What I want to
> focus on is the episode in which Phaethon, reacting to the possible mental
> virus infection, shuts down most of his vast, technologically-enhanced
> brain-machinery, and goes into his basic mental "workspace." This is the
> equivalent of operating your PC in "safe mode." Within this workspace,
> Phaethon runs a system diagnostic to look for any suspicious, mental-virus
> type activity.
> 
> This fictional situation raises the question: Who is operating in the
> workspace? Is there some "kernel" within the brain-machinery of Phaethon
> that is his essence? (I am disregarding any non-physical, soul-type
> explanations here.)
> 
> Consider, now, a different science fiction example. In Greg Egan's short
> story "Transitions Dreams" the reader sees the protagonist's dreams taking
> place during the scanning and uploading of his consciousness to a machine
> substrate. These dreams, although definitely experienced, are said to be
> impossible to remember, according to a character who is almost certainly
> speaking for the author, because they are artifacts of the upload process.
> As artifacts, they are not included in the memory set that is being
> uploaded. So although these dreams (sometimes nightmarish) are sure to
> occur, they are also sure to be forgotten.
> 
> Is an experience that cannot be remembered something we should be concerned
> about? Suppose the experience is terrifying, painful, and hellish? Would you
> care about this in the case of others? Would you dare to endure it yourself
> as part of the upload process?
> 
> I suspect that you are right, 1Arcturus, in saying that there is a "limit on
> how much awareness one can have about mind processes in one's self." As with
> Phaethon, we probably have some sort of core or kernel or essential mind
> process set that is the bare minimum required for 'us to be us' if I may put
> it that way. This kernel would still not be an irreducible entity, however;
> it's not some sort of 'atomic self'. There is no irreducible self, but only
> the minimum necessary set of mental processes required in order to have
> human-level awareness. This level of mental operation cannot 'look at
> itself' because, although aware, it is too simple to be self-reflective.
> This level is already the bare minimum; if we terminated even one of the
> mental processes that comprise it, awareness would cease.
> 
> My goal, as a transhumanist, is to add all the best noetic technology I can
> to the brain-machinery where all mental processes reside. My kernel mental
> processes can employ these enhancement tools to think faster, remember more
> (and more accurately) and to experience aesthetically pleasing combinations
> of thoughts and sensations that are beyond the present capacity of any human
> mind to entertain. These enhancements could even provide "biofeedback"
> information about mental processes within the kernel that the kernel itself
> has no capacity to see unaided.
> 
> That's a long-term goal, to say the least. My present practice as a Soto Zen
> priest is to become more aware of the bare attention that *is* the kernel
> mental state, totally shorn of the many layers of distractive mental
> processes we ordinarily experience. I can observe those other layers float
> by, but I cannot see the one (i.e., the mental processes) who observes them.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michael LaTorra
> 
> mike99 at lascruces.com
> mlatorra at nmsu.edu
>