[extropy-chat] Memes and Identity (was Martine Rothblatt and "bemes")

[Robert Bradbury]

On 11/11/06, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>
> Robert writes   [P.S. Robert, your text comes out HTML here, I've
> reformatted it]


Hmmm... I thought Gmail was sending it out "mixed", I'll check that.

I object, your honor!  If you took away my *entire* last year's
> memories, especially including my current thoughts, then I'd
> be identical to what I was last year!  And by my measure,
> that's about 99% Lee Corbin.


That's because *most* of "Lee" got formed someplace between the ages of
about 6 months and 15 or so.  After that its mostly patches and losses.
There might be some exceptions (people who very actively educate themselves
for 6-8 hours a day 6 days a week).

I *think* they'll say that they're still human, and even chatise you for
> wondering. Moreover, I'll predict that they'll say that their loved ones
> are still the same people, but something profoundly important is missing,
> that's all.


Yes, there are definitely some parts missing from the automobile.


> Mike Perry, in his book "Forever For All", gives the position that I
> think mostly correct.  Consider that there is a "core" you, consisting
> of your long term memories, beliefs, behavior dispositions, and values.
> Then there is a more superficial-you, which gets layered onto the
> core-you.  Mike claims that arbitrarily many layers can be added
> without threat to one's core identity.  I, myself, am a little skeptical;
> that's why I've gone for the "give backups runtime" solution.


Interesting.  I'd probably agree with that view as would most
neuroscientists who focus on development.

With respect to William Calvin, it would require a long note to go into his
ideas and I wouldn't want to misexplain them as its been a while since I've
read them.  But the two books sitting on  my shelf are "How Brains Think"
and "The Cerebral Code".  I think if you read them you would understand why
I am saying that one can treat neural patterns as memes. I think he may have
written some more recent books as well but I haven't read them.  See [1].

Robert

1. http://www.williamcalvin.com
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