[extropy-chat] "Dead Time" of the Brain

[A B]

Hi Heartland (S.),
   
  Heartland (S.) wrote:
   
  "Yes, Jeffrey, I get what you are saying, but consider that "small units" is just 
our human, artificial way of describing our reality. Map (measurement) is not 
territory. In this case the actual "territory" is a mind process that is 
"perfectly" continuous at all smallest imaginable units bigger than 0. The 
measurement doesn't define reality. It's the reality that influences measurement."
   
  Unless I have grossly misunderstood what I have read, I think the current consensus among physicists is that space and time (insofar as these entities actually exist) are *in actuality* discrete and non-continuous. This is not just a semantic distinction. I realize that physics is not complete, but we should try to build these arguments on the evidence that's available. So, according to the recent theories, the "smallest imaginable units bigger than 0" (we should replace "imaginable" with "use-able" - I can imagine all sorts of things :-) are the Planck Interval and the Planck Space/Length. So this means that any motions of matter (eg. including any atoms or chemicals which are encoding the mind-process) will require *at least* 2 Planck Intervals to Arrive (this is a better description than travel) at a distance of 1 Planck Length - and that is only the case if the chemical or atom is traveling at 50% the speed of light. I strongly doubt that any chemicals or atoms within
 the brain are traveling at that speed; probably much, much slower (although I can't say I know that for certain). With any atom or chemical in the brain, my guess would be more in the area of at least 30 Planck Intervals to arrive at the next Planck Length. So the mind-process is non-continuous and interrupted, which is equivalent to the definition you yourself provided for the death of the original person. Which I would argue is occurring anyway with every passing moment of life, but the sense of living is retained. I'm not saying that this is a knock-down to your argument, but you shouldn't choose to side-step it.
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich   
   
  Heartland <velvet977 at hotmail.com> wrote:
  
> Heartland wrote:
>
> "I view mind as analogous to movement. If I throw a baseball and choose to view 
> its
> flight inside a Planck Interval then I might have to conclude that ball's 
> movement
> ceases to exist during that interval. But this would not be true. Movement exists
> as long as potential and kinetic energies don't dissipate."
>
> But, I think that is the true nature of motion. When you break down motion into 
> very small units of space and time, it has a non - continuous nature. It has a 
> discrete nature, kind of like a single quantum (but only as an analogy).

Yes, Jeffrey, I get what you are saying, but consider that "small units" is just 
our human, artificial way of describing our reality. Map (measurement) is not 
territory. In this case the actual "territory" is a mind process that is 
"perfectly" continuous at all smallest imaginable units bigger than 0. The 
measurement doesn't define reality. It's the reality that influences measurement.

S. 
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


			
---------------------------------
Celebrate Earth Day everyday!  Discover 10 things you can do to help slow climate change. Yahoo! Earth Day
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20060421/4b6363f2/attachment.html>