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

[Heartland]

Robert wrote:
Since my resurrected self presumably will be happy to acknowledge, just as
my pre-death self is now, that -- Yes indeed, I was really and truly 'dead'
-- I challenge Heartland to propose an argument, other than a semantic one
of the form "once all your brain activity stops you are dead", that would
convince me that I should really *care* about this.
I'm not sure how "once all your brain activity stops you are dead" is a semantic 
argument. Isn't this what really happens? Wouldn't this event be equivalent to a 
situation where a person dies and doesn't get frozen? I mean you can't just use the 
word "sleep" instead of death "because you are suspended." A person's death is 
functionally the same whether or not that person signed up for suspension or not so 
I caution against manipulating the objective meaning of the word.

So death is death regardless of anything else.

The reason why people should care *deeply* about reaching the point of no activity 
of their brain is because this is the point of no return and no amount of 
restoration of brain structure can ever bring a person back to life. And here's 
why:

1. Minds are not information aka. pattern of brain structure, but a 4-dimensional 
object (space + time). That's why "mind stops during a multiple of Planck Interval" 
argument is false because it simply reduces to a "mind stops if we inspect a single 
snapshot of brain state" argument which works exclusively within 3 dimensional 
space. Minds can only exist in time (enough time for minds to arise), not just 
space.

2. Preservation of subjective experience is more important than preservation of 
personal memory that includes memory of "self" which is a luxury not a requirement 
for experiencing life. Superiority of SE over PM can be illustrated by two cases. 
First, person's SE exists, but no PM. Second, PM exists, no SE (cryonics). In the 
first case person lives, in the second he doesn't. This might be personal 
preference but I can't imagine people choosing preservation of PM over SE where 
they would be forced to choose only one. This is part of the reason why we should 
care.

3. A person can run only one instance of SE.

3. Let's assume 2 hardware copies created based on a structure of suspended brain. 
Minds activated on that brain structure would both include a separate instance of 
SE. Total of 2 SEs. Now, that violates point 3). It would be impossible for a 
person to run 2 SEs at the same time so we must conclude that each instance of SE 
belongs to a different person.

Conclusion: If each SE belongs to a different person then an original instance of 
SE must also belong to a different person as well. Since SE depends on an active 
mind process, SE ceases to exist forever at the point when brain activity stops. 
Death is irreversible.

I hope this is sufficient. I don't expect anyone to fully imagine and internalize 
all this in a week (I certainly didn't) so please don't rush to judgment before you 
understand what it truly means. Thank you.

S.