[ExI] The atoms red herring. =|

[Mike Dougherty]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 10:06 AM, Alan Grimes <agrimes at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> However, there is one common feature of all things in the real world:
> They don't give a flying fuck what you, me, anyone, or everyone thinks
> about them. Science can only extract a few essentialist features from a
> thing. These pieces of information may or may not have practical value.
> However, that thing has an existence that precedes and supersedes
> everything that could possibly be said about it.

Are you talking about Platonic Forms as "things"?  I thought the whole
point of the platonic ideal was that reality can only asymptotically
approach the ideal but never actually be the conceptually perfect
generalization of a thing.  That suggests that reality is the crude
approximation and that perhaps Mind only lazily computes enough of
this low-res simulation of Platonia that we can agree (even
momentarily) that we're talking about the same vector.  Maybe you are
willing to accept that Mind is some highly specialized software
running on dedicated hardware.  Perhaps the Alan Grimes software is
fundamentally optimized for a single biological computing architecture
- one that converts pizza & beer into the string of letters reaching
my inbox each day.  Maybe the software could be run on less squishy
hardware?  Maybe not.  You have yet to convincingly prove that You
(the "I" who claims to be Alan Grimes) exists inextricably linked to
the human animal currently hosting the apparatus which believes itself
to be Alan Grimes.  Are you saying that the process of converting
oxygen to carbon dioxide is the special magic that can't be
re-engineered without loss of fidelity?  Maybe it's the genetic
sequence, surely there's magic in that highly unlikely sequence of
base pairs?  No that's still based on "essentialist features" that
science might extract (then duplicate at will).  So it must be the
soul.  If your body is destroyed the soul will be homeless and simply
dissipate in the aether.  All verbal abuse aside, I think if you
confidently defend a belief in a soul there would be much less grief
for your position because then it would BE a position.  I might be
willing to play Devil's Advocate in support  :)   Maxwell's Demon
played an important role in understanding Thermodynamics, why wouldn't
the proposition of a soul be an equally valid thought experiment?
(Aside from John's immediate declaration of BS and the accusation that
you're a soul believer - which I think he believes is true of everyone
much the same way you seem to think everyone is out to force you into
the destructive upload box)

> Even though it is impossible to capture the full existence of a thing,
> it is scientifically possible to measure its properties. Because there
> are no credible reports of any animal being able to swap its
> consciousness with something else one must formulate a theory that it is
> fundamentally impossible.

Does it have to be in Nature or some respected Journal before it's
credible?  If I take a bunch of psychoactive drugs and claim to have
exchanged consciousness with my own mirror reflection are you going to
dismiss it as drug-induced hallucination or is my perception of self
equally valid to your own perception of self?  Suppose I 'teach' 20 of
my closest friends how to perform this amazing feat and they also
claim the reality of their perception: is this credible?  After
thousands of iterations of people learning (then teaching) this
ability until you are the only person left who is unable to "credibly"
perform this consciousness exchange - will you assert that the world
is again out to get you via this complicated fabrication?

> Because uploading, as strictly defined by all noteworthy sources, does
> not even acknowledge the existence of the consciousness that almost
> everyone experiences every waking instant, it cannot be lent any
> credibility.

One person's noteworthy source is another's birdcage liner.

> Now there do exist some proposals which do respect the existence of a
> consciousness. They do rise to the level where they merit further study
> and experimentation. However, I do not claim that any of them will work
> prior to first-hand experience.

So it's like seeing a ghost?  They don't exist until you see them and
you can't see them until you believe they exist.

It's going to be interesting for you to learn that you've already been
uploaded and you happen one day to notice something so unlikely that
there is no other explanation for what you observed.  Yeah, be sure
you send me a note when that happens :)

(btw, in case you really are worried about it, "uploading" is still
just a thought experiment.)