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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>…<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>>…I think we agree that humans are innately flawed in many ways.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>>…How about other animals? Are any of them flawed? In their niche they seem perfectly adapted unless the niche changes a lot. bill w<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>I suppose that depends on how you look at it Billw, but I would argue that all known life forms are flawed in that they are mortal. Even if an organism is one that multiplies by dividing, such that one could argue it is in a sense an immortal being, it too is mortal: given enough time, that species will go extinct, even without external pressure.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>On the other hand, if we had some kind of silicon-based consciousness, then we could transfer ourselves over from an old substrate into a newer one, so our existence would continue in a way that one could claim to be the same as it was before the transfer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>This all gets very murky and definition-dependent, so I don’t want to get all tangled up. Rather I want to help you open your mind, ask questions you never asked, such as that really fundamental question: is consciousness substrate dependent?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>Well, all of it we know is on a carbon-based evolution-derived substrate, however… that in itself is insufficient evidence that other substrates cannot be the basis of consciousness. I don’t see a good reason why it would be impossible for an alternative substrate to be the basis of consciousness. Do you?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>