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

[John K Clark]

"Heartland" <velvet977 at hotmail.com>

> My whole argument is based on 4-D perspective,
>while people tend to apply > it to 3-D

What magic does the number 4 have that the number 3 lacks? I don't give a
hoot in hell how many dimensions there are, it's just the number of
instructions needed to specify an object and has nothing to do with
consciousness as consciousness is not an object.

> 3-D perspective produces nonsense.

But change the 3 into a 4 and it all makes perfect sense, not a 5 or a 10 or
a 27, it can only be a 4. Baloney.

 >We all live in 3-D so it's hard to imagine at 4-D level

We do not live in a 3d world as any high school physics student could tell
you, and imagining 4d is very easy, 5d is another mater. As a matter of fact
I find it difficult to imagine things except at a 4-D level.

> I say it takes weeks or more to internalize this argument

So if I work very very hard at it then in a few weeks I too could learn to
be fearful of anesthesia just like you and the common folk of the 18'th
century. No thank you, if I develop a gangrene infection in my leg and it
needs to be sawed off I'm going to ask my doctor if it's not too much
trouble to knock we out first. If it happened to you things would be
different, you don't get the benefit of 200 years of medical advance and all
you can do is  bite on a stick like the poor bastards during the Civil War.

>I don't think it should be very hard to follow the argument.

It is very easy to follow your argument as there is almost nothing to
follow.

>The essence of survival is preservation of subjective experience

And how does your future self know if his subjective experience has
continued? If he remembers being you in the past; if you have found some
other way please let me know. And how did you past self know his subjective
experience would continue into the future? He didn't, he could only hope.

> a sensation of presence in the moment

My copy would have that.

> continued perception of reality.

My copy would have that too and it would all seem continuous to him, even if
his mind slowed down, sped up, stopped for a billion years or even went
backward. It would all seem the same to him as long as the environment did
the same as in a virtual world.

> I perceive "brain pattern is you" theory as conventional

Joe Sixpack and 99.94% of the people on the street would agree with your
theory, even most people on this apparently cutting edge list would agree
with you. But they are wrong.

> inadequate

What observation is not explained?

> illogical

Explain what is contradictory. And strange is not the same as contradictory;
if there were an exact duplicate of me you could find many strange
situations, but no contradictions.

>and obsolete.

And what took its place, your childish ideas?
You can have 4 dimensions or 44 and it won't help your "mind is an object
and generic atoms that have absolutely no individuality can nevertheless
somehow (in a way not explained) give individuality to us" theory.

> any additional thread of processing reality would be subsumed by the
> original process.

But how could that duplicate thread know it was time to get subsumed, how
does it even know about the original thread? There must be a communication
channel, explain how that works. Is it effected by distance? Is it
instantaneous? Could this new method of communication you have discovered be
commercialized? How can I get the cell phone companies interested?

John K Clark