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

[Heartland]

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

John K. Clark wrote:
> 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.

"The number of instructions needed to specify an object?" Do you honestly think 
it's that simple? I wish.


>> 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.

Yup, change 3 to a 4 and it makes perfect sense. :)


> >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.


If it's so easy then why is it so hard to understand?


>>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.

I have seen no indication of you following any part of my argument, sorry.


>>The essence of survival is preservation of subjective experience
>
> And how does your future self know if his subjective experience has
> continued?

Why does this even matter? If I'm alive what difference does it make if I remember 
or don't remember what happened yesterday? I'm still alive. This "self" concept is 
too overrated in a sense that it has no influence over whether my subjective 
experience exists or not.


>> a sensation of presence in the moment
>
> My copy would have that.


So what. Meanwhile, you would be dead (original SE ended).


>> 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.

Again, so what. "My copy" is not me. I don't care what my copy's subjective 
experience is. I'm not plugged into it because I'm dead.


>> 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.


It's not like that at all. 99% of people on the street and vast majority of 
transhumanists would say that preserving brain structure is enough for 
"resurrection." And then you have very few people who think this is an 
oversimplification and that preservation of "patterns" is far from enough.

>> 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.

A person can have only one mind. Two copies produce two instances of a mind. Since 
a person can have only one mind it must be that two instances of a mind belong to 
different people. And if so, then the original instance of mind belongs to a 
different person as well, the one who happens to be dead.


>>and obsolete.
>
> And what took its place, your childish ideas?

Hopefully. They are not childish. That's just your tone.


>> 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?


How does a water stream know when another joins it? Is there a communication 
channel? Is it affected by distance? Is it instantaneous? Could this new method of 
combining liquids be commercialized? How can I get Coca-Cola company interested?

S.