Brent: 'However, all that is needed for the arguments that appear on
this list is to recreate a rough, functioning copy of the body plus a
detailed reproduction of memory and a brain that functioned
approximately the same. That much might not be too hard. After all, as
Stathis points out, you're not the same atoms you were a week ago'
MP: Well! I'm not going to let YOU pull the levers or press any buttons
if I have to be faxed anywhere soon! You make philosophers'
copy-machines sound like props for Frankenstein's Monster or that movie
'The Fly'. Furthermore " ... memory and a brain that functioned
approximately the same" would seem to be rather less than what Bruno's
arguments about copying require. But my point is that, whilst the ideas
are cute, they are also nonsense any way. Most people have problems
enough living from day to day, and the only time that 'copying' of a
person really has any relevance is where surgery or prosthetic
augmentation of some kind really should be done to alleviate suffering
or prevent premature death.
As for Stathis's assertion about seemingly minor changes which commonly
occur to people's brains as they get older, like the odd little stroke
here and there, it is always a question of the facts in each case. Some
deficiencies turn out to be crucial in terms of quality of life: loosing
the use of one or two fingers could be annoying, embarrassing and on
occasion quite dangerous. Losing the ability to remember the names of
all the people you know, would likewise not be nice. On the other hand,
losing the ability to recognise things on the left side of your world,
or losing the ability to see the people you knew before as being THOSE
people such that you become convinced that the person you are with is a
substitute, now that could be very dysfunctional and very distressing. I
have seen it written that in fact most people who survive past middle
age, do in fact suffer from 'micro' strokes quite often but usually the
perceived experience is that of progressively weakened memory. Not
Alzheimer's which is a league of its own, but just difficulty
remembering certain things.
I am just about to post another message which might stir some angst [or
not in which case 'ho hum'], so I leave this here.
Regards
Mark Peaty CDES
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
Brent Meeker wrote:
Mark Peaty wrote:
Brent: 'Remember that Bruno is a logician.'
MP: :-) Yes, this much is easy to infer. The full scope of what this
might MEAN however, is little short of terrifying ... ;-)
MP: Infinity, infinite, infinitely big or small; these are
challenging concepts at the best of times and made very interesting
to the point of mind-boggling in the contexts of QM and relativity
theory. In QM, there is apparently NOT an infinitely small level of
existence that could be reached by any kind of measurement due to the
shortest length and shortest durations denoted by the Planck length
and Planck time. I personally wonder whether there is room to
criticise this limitation. The underlying concept of Process Physics
[let me call that PP from now on] directly challenges the idea.
MP: My point about measurement is to do with the fact that in seeking
to get as exact a copy as possible, not just a working model, it is
possible that the digital representations of salient features might
need more decimal places than the recording and/or transmission
systems can provide.
Lawrence Krauss wrote a book called "The Physics of Star Trek" in
which he discusses the "transporter" on the Enterprise. He calculates
that to measure the location of the atoms in a human body in order to
recreate it (as in 'Bean me up Scotty') would take an enormous amount
of energy - something like converting the mass of the Earth to
energy. However, all that is needed for the arguments that appear on
this list is to recreate a rough, functioning copy of the body plus a
detailed reproduction of memory and a brain that functioned
approximately the same. That much might not be too hard. After all,
as Stathis points out, you're not the same atoms you were a week ago -
and I've already forgotten what I had for lunch day before yesterday.
Brent Meeker
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