[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 199, Issue 86

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 at 20:32, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 25/04/2020 00:36, Jason Resch wrote:
> > According to mechanism (the idea that the brain is a machine and that
> > consciousness is merely a product of this machine's operation), then:
> > 1. survival of consciousness beyond the death of a body,
> > 2. reincarnation,
> > 3. the ability for the consciousness to travel to other universes, and
> > 4. the distinction between the body and the consciousness are direct
> > consequences.
> >
> > Mechanism holds that consciousness results from the operation of a
> > machine (the brain). Therefore, consciousness is the result of a
> > pattern of behaviors, not the underlying physical material or matter.
> > If a body dies, you could use a different pile of matter to rebuild
> > that machine and recover the consciousness. The consciousness then
> > would survive beyond the death of any particular incarnation (body)
> > and could reincarnate into new bodies. The analogy is similar to the
> > notion of a story surviving the destruction of one copy of it in a
> > book. The book, like the body, is just one particular token,
> > representing a type (the story). But the type can exist as many
> > different tokens.
> >
> > Most scientists and philosophers of mind ascribe to mechanism.
> > Consciousness then is an informational pattern, not matter or energy.
> > Consciousness has no mass, definite location, nor is it bound to the
> > confines of this universe like the matter is.  If in another universe
> > someone recreated on a computer the same patterns the atoms in your
> > brain here follow, then according to mechanism (what nearly every
> > scientist will tell you) your consciousness would be recreated in that
> > other universe.
> >
> > So here we have your "soul"--if you will call it that, surviving the
> > death of the body, reincarnating into new bodies unassociated with the
> > matter, and even leaving the universe to exist in some physically
> > inaccessible realm.
> >
> > You may object that in practice we never re-create brains in such a
> > way to enable reincarnation or allow the consciousness to survive the
> > death of the body, but I disagree. The many worlds of quantum
> > mechanics provides exactly the form of duplication necessary, and
> > results in your consciousness travelling to now physically inaccesible
> > corners of reality.  Secondly, if a dying brain approaches zero
> > information content, it results in there being a singular state (the
> > consciousness of zero information). If this conscious state is
> > identical in content to a newly forming brain in a womb, then this
> > provides a mechanism of reincarnating into a new body.  Then there is
> > also the simulation hypothesis, where you are a descendent, or jupiter
> > brain, or advanced alien playing sim human, and when you awaken from
> > this game/dream/life you will find yourself in an "immaterial"
> > (simulated/VR) realm where you are free to play "Sim Martian" or have
> > any life of any mortal being you choose.
> >
> > Or, if this is too much, you might just say when your dead that's it.
> > (but then you need to find an alternate theory of consciousness which
> > prohibits these possibilities).
> >
>
> Your terminology is more suggestive of supernatural concepts than
> scientific ones, but I see what you're getting at. However, you seem to
> be ignoring the vital role of matter and energy in implementing
> information. There's no such thing as information without matter and/or
> energy. There's no such thing as a mind without a brain.
>
> I do say that when you're dead, that's it. In the absence of some
> intervention to record, transfer and restore the information in the
> brain. I'm saying nothing about other universes or quantum physics, I'm
> not qualified to, but in this universe, in the macroscopic world we're
> all familiar with, it seems that minds are produced by the functioning
> of brains. If we can reproduce the functions exactly, as you say, we
> have reproduced the mind. That doesn't mean that if a brain is
> destroyed, the mind isn't also destroyed. The things you are calling
> 'reincarnation' (I really don't like using that term, for the reason
> above) can indeed happen, but only if someone does something to achieve
> it. Absent that, you're dead, Jim.
>
> Some people dispute this, quoting things like the holographic universe
> theory, but again, I'm not qualified to comment on that, and I certainly
> wouldn't want to rely on it.
>

What Jason is saying is, in my view, quite rational, but using words such
as "soul" will make some people assume it's mumbo jumbo.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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