[extropy-chat] Cryonics and uploading

[Heartland]

2006/2/1, Slawomir:
> That "flow" is an actual *activity* of matter in space-time which is NOT
> information. Yes, you can record each brain state but it would still be 
> just
> a map, not territory.

Tomas wrote:
I don't know much (in fact, nothing) abut neurobiology or whatever,
but I think that maybe an analogy with computers will be good. I'm
sure most of you know of the "hibernation" feature of most modern OS
(Linux and Windows, to put an example). This proccess permits to turn
off a computer completely in the middle of anything, and later restore
your session *exactly* in its former state, allowing you to continue
what you were doing. The proccess is based in saving all the RAM data
in that clock cycle to the hard disk. When you turn on the computer,
that saved information is returned to the RAM, and the computer
continues to run from that state without even knowing it was turned
off at some moment. You saved just information, a map, as you say, a
snapshot of a clock cycle. But even so, when you restore, the flow
continues (even when computers are idle, they're doing *a lot* of
stuff, so a computer turned on has a continuous flow of electrons
inside).

Then, what is the difference between that procces and uploading, or
cryonics? (this gets closer to cryonics in my opinion). Is the
restored session a *different* session of the "original", in any way,
because the continous space-time flow of electrons was shutted of
*completely* during an arbitrary lapse of time?

Tomás
>

That's an interesting question. I used to think that a restored mind process 
on an original brain would be the same but it turns out that this restored 
process must be equivalent to the duplicate process. If you assume 
otherwise, the chain of logical implications will inevitably lead to 
contradictions.

The only logically consistent conclusion is that life (mind-producing 
*activity* of matter in space-time) exists only for a time period between 
the start of the mind process and it's end. In other words, original life 
can only exist for a single session which means that as soon as you die, you 
stay dead forever.

This is quite an orthodox view, and I don't like it, but I'm afraid it is 
true.

Slawomir