<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">Jason, although I agree with much of your post I have a
concern or two about what you wrote. Naturally, I’m going to focus on the
concerns rather than the agreement. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> According to the computational theory of mind, the
conscious state must be identified not with any particular physical
manifestation (body), but rather, with some abstract
informational/computational pattern. At first glance, this seems like a trivial
distinction, but on a deeper inspection we see that it yields many properties
which religions typically ascribe to souls:</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> It has no definitive physical location, no
associated mass or energy. In a sense, it is immaterial.</span><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> Moreover, none of the states of an abstract
computation bear any dependence on physical properties, so in this sense it
might also be called non-physical.</span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">I’m not sure this is incorrect or just potentially misleading.
By “the computational theory of mind” I take it that you mean some form of functionalism.
According to that view, it is correct to say that “<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">the conscious state must be
identified not with any particular physical manifestation (body)”. However, I
get uncomfortable when you go on to say it “yields many properties which
religions typically ascribe to souls”, including immateriality and “non-physical”
and having no dependence on physical states or energy. This is a Moravecian
view but it’s not a functionalist view – or might not be depending on how you
mean it. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">In a functionalist/computational theory of mind, any
*instance* of mental/cognitive state is instantiated in a physical system,
which consists of energy (always in the form on matter, at least so far).
Souls, as traditionally understood, have NO physical instantiation. There is a
big difference between Christians who believe their souls will be to Heaven
after death and those who believe they will be physically resurrected. The
latter actually do not believe in a soul. Their bodies and brains could be reconstituted
from entirely new atoms. If God was feeling creative, He/it/they might even use
a completely different chemical basis for the resurrected people. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">In other words, mental states cannot exist purely abstractly.
Nor can functioning minds exist simply as static data. Only once that data has
been embodied in a functioning system can mental statues restart. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">I’m not sure you will disagree with this but the way you
state it makes it sound like you a dualist. I’m constantly correcting those who
call transhumanist dualists. (At least, substance dualists. Property dualism is
trickier.) </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> It can survive the death of the body (just as a story
can survive the death of a book containing it), and be resurrected into new
bodies via a transfer of this "immaterial" pattern, e.g. mind
uploading.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span></p>



<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">There is no “transfer”. There is a reinstantiation. Information
is transferred, yes, but the non-functional, static information is not a consciousness.
There’s a sense in which we can loosely say there is a transfer, but it’s likely
to be misleading. Hence all the mistaken “transhumanists are dualists”
statements. An “immaterial pattern” is not a functioning mind until it has a
suitable embodiment. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> One's consciousness (or "soul"), not being
tied to any physical incarnation or material properties of this universe, can
then also be realized in wholly different universes having very different laws.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">I would amend that to “not being tired to any *specific*
physical incarnation…”</p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> If denial of the soul is a reason you have rejected the
computational theory of mind, you should know this theory might be the support
science offers for the idea of the soul.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">The soul is usually understood as a non-physical substance.
That is very different from a mind understood from the computational/functionalist
perspective. The soul explains nothing. It’s a useless hypothesis. It fails to
even begin to explain why alcohol makes you drunk or why head injuries may
cause loss of memory, blindness, or change in personality. The functionalist
view, seeing the mind as instantiated in a physical system (currently the
brain) can explain these and other things. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">> <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">If what you are is that organization of information that has
structured your body's control system</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">I’m much more comfortable with this way of putting it,
because it doesn’t imply that mind or personality can exist without *any*
embodiment. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> There is actually an astonishing similarity between the
mind-as-computer-program idea and the medieval Christian idea of the ?soul.?
Both are fundamentally ?immaterial?</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> -- Frank Tipler in "The Physics of
Immortality" (1994)</span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">Now I’m uncomfortable again! The David Darling quote also
suggests a conflation of dualism with functionalism. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">Moravec’s view has long bothered me. When I pressed him on
it, he said that he believed every mind already exists everywhere because you
could see it with the right mathematical interpretation. Yikes!</p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">Bostrom: “<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">> Recent cosmological data indicate that our
universe is quite likely infinite and contains an infinite number of galaxies
and planets.”</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">I admit than I’m not terribly current on cosmology but this
isn’t what I understand. The universe appears to be expanding without limit but
is not infinite in extent. Unless we can reignite a physical singularity, there
is not an infinite amount of energy or matter. </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> </p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Verdana,sans-serif">--Max</p><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Max More, PhD<div>Director of Communications</div><div>Biostasis Technologies</div><div>Editor, <i>The transhumanist Reader</i></div></div></div></div>