[extropy-chat] Death is irreversible v.1.0

[Eric Messick]

Heartland writes:
>I. Terms and definitions:
>[...]
>Mind object (or just "mind") - An object in time and space consisting of all
>matter, but only that matter which is presently and actively involved in producing
>the mind. It is a process consisting of chain of activity of matter and energy in
>time and space.
>
>Brain object (or just "brain") - An object in time and space that consists of all
>matter that currently does not make up mind object but is necessary to support its
>existence.

These are curious definitions.  You've defined mind and brain as
disjoint physical objects.  I would think that the physical objects
that are involved in a mind would be a subset of the physical objects
that we would ordinarily call a brain.

On the other hand, you can say from these definitions that the entire
body is part of the mind object, since all of it is in use supporting
the activity of mind.  Without the heart to pump blood, the brain dies
and mind ceases, so mind object must include the heart, and by
extension the rest of the body.  Actually, by extension it includes
the rest of the universe, so that means it's not a very useful
definition.

So, can we restrict it somewhat and say that the mind object is
composed of all of the neurons in a single body?

It's still an odd definition, because thinking of the mind as a
physical object rather than an activity is quite unconventional.  This
particular point has been hashed about for a while in this thread, and
I think it's (one of) the fundamental disagreement(s).

>[...]
>1. Instances of the same type are distinguishable.
>[...]
>1a. A single break in the trajectory produces two instances that are different and
>distinguishable.
>
>1b. Instances are always isolated from different instances, including instances of
>the same type. Two different instances cannot occupy same space and time.

You're not allowing any grey area here, where there really needs to be
some.  Two minds could be operating with a large portion of their
constituent objects in common, with a small amount of state that is
unique to each instance.  That state would not be sufficient to form a
mind, it only specifies the differences from a complete mind.  Such
instances would not be completely distinct.

Part of this problem stems from the physical object definition of
mind, rather than the activity definition.

>2. Activity itself cannot be stored in information.

No, but sufficient information about an activity can be stored to
continue the activity.

This is the essence of the "Planck interval" argument from earlier in
the thread.  The universe stores enough information about the state of
an activity at any given Planck interval to allow it to continue in
the next one.  An important point is that much of that information is
superfluous.  We don't really need to know the exact positions of all
of the neurotransmitters within a synapse to know when it is firing.

We could record the necessary information and restart the process
later.  This is in essence no different from the universe recording
information for restarting the process one Planck interval later.
There is no bright line difference between these two processes.

>[...]
>Conclusion:
>A new instance of that subjective experience is verifiably different from the old
>one (4), so since (5), (1b), (2), the old instance experiences nothingness instead
>of whatever the new instance experiences. Death is irreversible despite the
>existence of any amount of information about the mind.

The old instance does not "experience nothingness".  It does not
experience.  The new instance continues the subjective experience
which the old instance started.

Death becomes irreversible when the information about the mind can no
longer be reconstructed with sufficient fidelity to continue the mind.

This is the distinction between metabolic death (the cessation of
activity necessary to support a mind), and information theoretic death
(the loss of information about a mind).

-eric