[extropy-chat] Let's try this again.

[Heartland]

Heartland:
>> Which points in the argument are illogical and why? Which are not
>> connected to reality? Show, don't tell.
>
> Just yesterday at his request I posted eleven very specific points in his
> theory that were illogical or not connected to reality.

Oh, come on.  You call them "specific points?" Okay, let me tackle those points.


> 1) Mr. Heartland says having someone tomorrow who remembers being you today
> is not sufficient to conclude you have survived into tomorrow, he says more
> is required but he never explains what or why.

I explain everything here:
http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2006-May/026758.html

> This leads to rather odd
> conclusions, like anesthesia is equivalent to death and like you may have
> died yesterday and not even know it. Mr. Hartland thinks your subjectivity
> is an "illusion" created by a copy of you, Mr. Hartland says he hates this
> and thinks it is a great tragedy, but even if true he never explains why
> this is supposed to be upsetting.

How is that an evidence of me being wrong? Because I hate something or think it is
a tragedy?

> 2) Mr. Heartland says atoms are what makes us unique, but he ignores the
> fact that our atoms get recycled every few weeks.

The same zombie straw man for the nth time. I never said that or think that. It's
someone else's opinion, not mine. You'll have to ask someone else who told you
that.


> 3) Mr. Heartland says atoms are what makes us unique,

No. Same as above. Atoms alone are not what makes us unique.

John:
> Mr. Heartland points out, quite
> correctly, that subjectivity and consciousness are what we should be
> concerned about, but then he says particular atoms are what makes our
> consciousness unique.

Same as above, atoms alone are not what makes our consciousness unique.

John:
> 4) Mr. Heartland says the history (or if you want to sound scientific brainy
> and cool "the space time trajectory") of atoms are what makes atoms unique;
> but many atoms have no history and even for those that do it is not
> permanent, the entire record of an atom's past exploits can be erased from
> the universe and it's not difficult to do. This is not theory, this has been
> proven in the lab and any theory that just ignores that fact can not be
> called scientific.

If I throw a ball from point A at time t1 to point B at time t2 and write down in
the notebook "(A,t1) to (B,t2)" and then destroy the ball, will the entry in the
notebook erase itself too? Was *that* proven in the lab?


> 5) Mr. Heartland insists his theory is consistent and logically rigorous but
> he is unwilling or unable to answer the simplest questions about it, like is
> A the original or B. Instead Mr. Heartland thinks informing us that A=A and
> B=B is sufficient.

Don't blame me for not understanding the answer. Do you even know what A means in
your question? Let me know what that is and I'll be happy to answer.


> 6) Several times Mr. Heartland informed us that location is vital in
> determining which mind is which, but he never explained why because mind by
> itself can never determine it's location.

Again, this should explain why:
http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2006-May/026758.html


> Also Mr. Heartland never explains
> the position relative to what as we've known for over a century that
> absolute position is meaningless.

Easy, a location relative to the other instance under consideration, for example.


> 7) Mr. Heartland, wrote "This "self" concept is too overrated in a sense
> that it has no influence over whether my subjective experience exists or
> not" and then he wrote "My copy" is not me". This would seem to belie Mr.
> Heartland's claim of rigorous logical consistency.

"My copy" meant "a different instance of subjective experience of the
same type."


> 8) Mr. Heartland wrote "Mind is not a brain" and he was absolutely correct
> about that, but then he said mind "is definitely more like a brick, a 4-D
> object". This would seem to belie Mr. Heartland's claim of rigorous logical
> consistency.

"More like a brick" means that mind requires matter to exist in addition to time
and space. I'm not inventing anything when I say this. It's a fact.


> 9) As noted above Mr. Heartland thinks mind is a "4-D mind object", but he
> is unable on unwilling to give the  4-D coordinates of  the vital things the
> constitute mind, like fun or red or fast or logic or love or fear
> or the number eleven or my memory of yesterday.

Abstract concepts are not made of matter. They are not things that "constitute
mind." That's just silly. You're confusing abstract concepts with a real processes.


> 10) Mr. Heartland wrote "creation of two identical brains, like writing
> identical number types "1" twice, would produce two separate instances of
> the same brain type" but if so he never explained why two calculators the
> add 2 +2 would not produce answers that were profoundly different;

No, you are missing the whole point of my example. A process that
leads to an output on the calculator (whatever it is, "2", "9", "4567") happens at
a different location than another process on a different calculator. If I write
"1+1" then I have 2 instances of "1", the first to the left side of "+" and the
other to the right of "+". Different locations, different
instances. Is that really so hard to understand?


> 11) Mr. Heartland insists that if two CD's are synchronized and playing the
> same symphony then two symphonies are playing, but a CD is just a number
> thus there are always profound differences even between the same number, and
> 9 is not equal to 9. If true Mr. Heartland is unable to explain how it is
> nevertheless possible to do science.

Again, you are confusing matterless and dimensionless concepts with the ones that
require matter and dimensions.

So there you go. I covered it all.

S.