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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On 2020. Apr 19., Sun at 14:05, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><br>> …I'm curious, Spike: Where or in what form what do they think this stored <br>data is? … just happens magically?<o:p></o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal><br>OK, but that doesn't answer my question. How does it happen? What is the mechanism, what is the medium? Where is the information stored?<br>If the answer is "We don't know", "We don't know", "We don't know", and "We don't know, but we think it's true anyway", I'd call that magical thinking… Ben<br><br><o:p></o:p></p><pre>-- <o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Ben Zaiboc<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Ja of course. That’s the nature of faith: believing some things are true even if you don’t understand how it works or why it works.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>That’s where I am with the notion of substrate independent consciousness. We can see that consciousness (as we define it) exists in a known hydrocarbon substrate. We know that the brain is a machine, made of matter, operating on chemical reactions. So consciousness can clearly exist in a machine. It can still operate with mechanical devices and interfaces (a cochlear implant for instance.)<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>I don’t know how the hell those things work or how consciousness works, but I can see that it does already in a machines, and I can see that implants have gotten better over the years, and in a sense consciousness has gotten better over time (because our brains have evolved to do all the cool stuff we do with consciousness.)<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>All this leads me to have faith that since consciousness can exists in a machine it can theoretically exist in some other substrate besides hydrocarbon. I can’t prove that. But believe it is true. I am nowhere near a proof or even compelling handwavy reason to claim that it cannot exist in an alternate substrate. So… I think it can. I think it will eventually be discovered. I hope it will. That hope is what compels me toward cryonics.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>In that light, then everything transhumanists generally hold makes sense.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></pre><pre><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></pre></div></body></html>