[extropy-chat] Survival tangent.

[Randall Randall]

On Nov 6, 2006, at 11:59 AM, John K Clark wrote:
> "Ian Goddard" <iamgoddard at yahoo.com>
>> Why should properties of a mind/self resemble quantum properties of
>> electrons?
>
> A mind does not have the quantum properties of an electron, but a  
> brain
> does.

But a mind is merely a process running on a brain.

>> It's a big leap from that to the view that one
>> mind/self can be in two locations at once.
>
> Mind is not macroscopic (or microscopic) and mind is not an object,  
> so being
> at two places at once is simple,  in both meanings of the word simple.
> I believe the position of a mind is a concept of very limited  
> value, if it
> has any meaning at all it's the place the mind is thinking about.

I would expect that this view of "mind" as something which doesn't
require any physical component (as physical components have a position,
of course), and in which a mind can actually *be* in some other place
just by thinking about that other place is not widely held around here.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's wrong; it's just wrong.  :)

>> But I see no reason to assume that the self of the original brain  
>> would be
>> somehow connected to its copy.
>
> In thought experiments people always take the part of the original,  
> but try
> being the copy. Yesterday I copied you and then instantly destroyed  
> the
> original. Do you feel dead?  You still remember being you yesterday  
> and last
> year and when you were nine, you can see no discontinuity between  
> yesterday
> and today. You had no last thought so you have no reason to  
> complain,. And
> if I didn't tell you I'd made the copy you'd never had known anything
> unusual had happened. What more do you expect from survival?

No one is disputing that the copy survives, John.  It's tautological  
that the
one that survives survived; it's the cessation of the one that didn't  
that
worries us.

--
Randall Randall <randall at randallsquared.com>
"It's alright, it's alright, 'cause the system never fails;
  The good guys are in power, and the bad guys are in jail."