130 replies to this topic

[bgwowk]

Osiris we think alot alike.

I've found that to be the case as well. I like Osiris' posts. I agree with both his politics and interpretation of quantum mechanics. I'm really surprised we are having a philosophical problem over this issue. I still suspect that some miscommunication or technical misunderstanding is involved.

Many people labor under the misunderstanding that there is a specific physical condition called "death" without realizing it's a purely social/cultural construct.

---BrianW

[Infernity]

Is that human nature? Personally I can't stand the term human nature, what does it even mean? People use it all the time, but I think it is a fallacy.

It may be in some individuals nature to uphold some code of honor or pride, for others maybe not. Certainly we have built in inclinations towards certain behaviors, but I don't see why they should be considered immutable.

Mark, when I say human nature I mean motivation to survive doesn't matter what. If you like it or not, all your actions are motivated for you to survive.
Nothing yet can be done to change it, you are human, strive to survive.

Saving others, how unselfish. What for? Cherish, honor, living beloved, chance to return, gratefulness, protection, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
We are more complicated than you think, nature built us to react to things and according to things we do not even think of and might even disagree. But look at us, I can just analyse all we do, tell you how selfish it is.

One does something- makes it moral. To his logics. What we call insane is sane to him.



And Brian, the meaning of "death" changes with the years. I believe being "revived" from cryonics is like coming back to live from so called "death". Have a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death


-Infernity

[eternaltraveler]

I chose null vote. I didn't like the limitations the poll imposed on me.

I would rather it have said: How confident are you that cryonics will work?

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-----------------------------------------------------------
My choice in this case would have been 80%. Of course, like everyone here, I would like to avoid cryonics at all cost.

second that. My arbitrary figure would have been around 40%

[Mark Hamalainen]

Without rigorous semantics, arguments go in circles.  Do not use the word "dead" unless you really mean not revivable with memory and personality intact (information theoretic death).  Otherwise the word "dead" has multiple meanings, and is saddled with a bunch of metaphysical baggage.  Dissing cryonics by calling its subjects dead is begging the question.

Not to burst your bubble, but I never heard you specify which of the multiple meanings of death you were referring to before your last post. If you're going to attack me, then don't be a hypocrite about it. I agree, rigorous semantics are a good idea. Information theoretic death is one of many different possible meanings of death, but not the one I was referring to. If you consider the rest of my post I think it is fairly obvious what I was referring to (Like Don though, you seem to prefer to assume that I am using a definition that I clearly am not, and to respond to my post in a completely out of context way), but I can try to lay it out more clearly. I'm not sure what the concentional terminology for this is, if there is any, but I think of death as the end of your perceptual awareness (and free will, if it exists), i.e. oblivion. No matter how many copies you make of me after that event, I don't see any reason to suspect that my awareness will be restored, embodied in one of them. And I don't see what the difference is between using a dead body as a template for a copy rather than making the copy from scratch using stored information.

What if I destroyed you and then assembled two identical copies within the margin of error of cryonics?

My beliefs on this subject are well-known, but they are irrelevant to this discussion which concerns ONE patient revived by straight-forward means (removal of preservation solution, restoration of homeostasis).

Rather than dismissing my question as irrelevant, why don't you explain why you think it is so? Your beliefs are not well-known to me.

What distinguishes the reanimation of a dead body from the birth of a new body?

This question is extremely unclear.

I'll try to clarify, what distinguishes the reanimation of a dead body from the birth of a new body in terms of the identity of the awareness that inhabits that body? What is it about reanimation that makes you think the revived body and the body that was frozen and died have some sort of connection, they are surely not identical. The body that is reanimated closely resembles the one that was frozen, but information is not preserved perfectly so it is not the same, there is a significant break in continuity. And even if the information was the same, I still don't see why my awareness would necessarily survive cryonics.

What is it about being frozen that is different from any other form of death?

Same objection. The question presupposes a metaphysical conclusion (that cryonics involves death).

If you didn't know what I meant by death earlier, now you do. Please reread my last post in this context.

So you agree that philosphically there is no difference between 60 minutes and 60 years of suspended animation?

I do, and I think 60 minutes of suspended animation very well could kill me, in the sense that I have described.

I apologize if my response is somewhat snappish, but I've heard your arguments again and again from multiple people and they always simply ignore any logic that contradicts their beliefs.

[jaydfox]

I'm really surprised we are having a philosophical problem over this issue. I still suspect that some miscommunication or technical misunderstanding is involved.

Since Osiris and I find quite a bit of common ground as well (though we have had splits on certain specifics, but don't we all?), so perhaps I can chime in here.

The question isn't about whether a cryogenically frozen person can't be brought back to a state that is objectively, for all intents and practical purposes to third parties, identical to the original person prior to cryopreservation.

The issue is with the subjective, first person experience. Brian, if I understand your view, if I made a perfect copy of you, then you're stream of consciousness would suddenly "jump" as it were to the copy, though stay preserved in the original as well, so that you would effectively "split", no different than the myraid splits we undergo every nanosecond under MWI (assuming MWI to be correct, of course).

While this is just a peachy keen interpretation from an objective, third party perspective, I find it quite lackingin substance from a first person, subjective standpoint. You and I never resolved this issue six to ten months ago when we previously discussed it, and I don't see it being resolved in the near future. Your basis for consciousness is simply on another realm of existence, pun intended. But the philosophical dilemma remains, since neither of us can "prove" our point nor "disprove" the others.

However, the thing that irks me the most is that you don't acknowledge that such a philosophical dilemma exists, since it doesn't in your unprovable/undisprovable position. Hence, your rather awkward "surprise" to Osiris's philosophical problem. You refer to it as a miscommunicaiton or a technical misunderstanding, but it's neither. Not unless you want to arbitrarily define "consciousness" to match your criteria, in which case perhaps it is just a technical misunderstanding...

We've gotten nowhere in this before, and Don and I had a rather lengthy go at it ourselves a couple weeks ago, with it ending rather unresolved but with Don admitting to me in PM that he found my last bit of logic nearly flawless. I hope to pick up on the "nearly" aspect of it in a few weeks when Don returns, because I think I may have spotted the flaw in my own logic (not that it changes my position, but it did considerably weaken my argument).

[jaydfox]

So you agree that philosphically there is no difference between 60 minutes and 60 years of suspended animation?

I do, and I think 60 minutes of suspended animation very well could kill me, in the sense that I have described.

I'll chime in on this one as well. It's not the length of suspension, but the method, that concerns me. Cryogenically "flash" freezing me and then reviving me 15 minutes later would be the same as performing the same "flash" process, then reviving me 1000 years later (assuming the temperature is sufficiently low, and the dewar sufficiently radiation-protected, to obviate any worries of molecular degradation).

It's not the time, it's the method. Consciousness is an active process, whether we are awake or not. A discontinuity begs the question of whether the subjective "I" experiencing the world is the same from before the discontinuity, even if objectively there is no measurable difference.

Awake, hallucinating, light dreamful sleep, deep sleep, coma, hypothermic coma: it's all a sliding scale. Cryonics, however, is not another step, but a huge leap down this sliding scale, from hypothermic coma (e.g. during brain surgery). I see many times more difference between a cryogenically frozen brain and a hypothermically inactive brain, than I see between the hypothermic brain and an active, wakeful brain.

[Mark Hamalainen]

Mark, when I say human nature I mean motivation to survive doesn't matter what. If you like it or not, all your actions are motivated for you to survive.
Nothing yet can be done to change it, you are human, strive to survive.

We'll have to wait and see how your egoist theory comes out. We make choices that don't relate to survival on a regular basis, so those actions aren't motivated by survival. It would be pretty hard to make a credible case for choosing to buy white or off-white bedsheets as effecting your survival, there are choices where the possibilities have an equivilant effect on survival, in which case survival cannot be taken as the motivation for the specific decision.

We are more complicated than you think, nature built us to react to things and according to things we do not even think of and might even disagree.

I'm of the opinion that nature is not the only determining factor in our choices. I can't prove it, but it certainly hasn't been disproven either.

[bgwowk]

Osiris wrote:

If you consider the rest of my post I think it is fairly obvious what I was referring to

No, it was not obvious at all. There are too many muddled meanings to the word "death." Too many people assign the label "dead" as though they have said something profound, when they really have said nothing physically meaningful.

I'm not sure what the concentional terminology for this is, if there is any, but I think of death as the end of your perceptual awareness (and free will, if it exists), i.e. oblivion.

You believe death reverses everytime you go in and out of consciousness? Or do you really mean intrinsically irreversible loss of consciousness?

Infernity wrote:

And Brian, the meaning of "death" changes with the years.

It's much worse than that. The meaning of "death" *at any fixed time* changes with context and presumptions. There is the philosophical meaning of death as the irreversible loss of consciouness. Then there is the physical meaning of death, which is what physical conditions correlate with irreversible loss consciousness (that is VERY complicated). Then there is the legal meaning of death, which is something else again.

The reason why I would like this thread to continue without any further use of the word "death" is because of the constant confusion of all these different meanings. The most insidious example of this is defining death to be some physical condition other than information theoretic death, which implicitly makes anyone who argues that the physical condition is reversible look like an idiot because everyone knows "dead is dead." This is what I mean by begging the question.

osiris wrote:

Rather than dismissing my question as irrelevant, why don't you explain why you think it is so?

I already said why your copy question is irrelevant. We are talking about ONE PATIENT revived by conceptually simple medical means, same as many patients resuscitated today. Copying is irrelevant to the question of whether biostasis preserves personhood because you can do biostasis without copying, and you can do copying without biostasis. They are totally independent ideas.

And even if the information was the same, I still don't see why my awareness would necessarily survive cryonics.

Why do you believe anyone's awareness survives an interval of unconsciousness? Total unconsciousness is total unconsciousness.

jaydfox wrote:

Awake, hallucinating, light dreamful sleep, deep sleep, coma, hypothermic coma: it's all a sliding scale.

It's not a sliding scale. Action potentials are binary. There's no such thing as a neuron firing "just a little bit". If a brain is put into state in which action potentials cannot exist, consciousness is OVER. PERIOD. Yet people can and do routinely recover from such states, just as materialism would predict. Who are you to tell a person who wakes up feeling fine that they didn't really survive?

I apologize if my response is somewhat snappish, but I've heard your arguments again and again from multiple people and they always simply ignore any logic that contradicts their beliefs.

I would like to hear that logic. I'm sure all those surgeons who use suspended animation in medicine would like to hear where they went philosophically wrong. So would the Amercan Red Cross, wasting all that time teaching CPR to save brains within the first 4 to 6 minutes of cardiac arrest when absolutely all brain electrical activity ends within the first 60 seconds (more typically 30 seconds). And what of all those critical care physicians killing children by inducing days of barbiturate coma (electrocortical silence) to treat head injuries? A scandal, surely.

The cutting edge of medicine has long since gotten past this "continuity" mental block, and patients and families are happy with that. My logic is that anyone who complains about continuity in cryonics, but not about breaks in continuity in mainstream medicine, is using a double standard. The questions of cryonics center on quality of preservation and conceivable repair technologies. In the 21st century, continuity shouldn't even be on the table. If this were a critical care medice forum instead of a lay philosophy forum, the question wouldn't even come up.

Now I must apologize if my response is somewhat snappish, but I've heard your arguments again and again from multiple people and they always simply ignore any logic that contradicts their beliefs.

---BrianW

[Infernity]

We'll have to wait and see how your egoist theory comes out.

Indeed, will start when I finish studying the missing material [thumb]

We make choices that don't relate to survival on a regular basis, so those actions aren't motivated by survival. It would be pretty hard to make a credible case for choosing to buy white or off-white bedsheets as effecting your survival, there are choices where the possibilities have an equivilant effect on survival, in which case survival cannot be taken as the motivation for the specific decision.

Well, choosing colors for sheets, of course it has to do.
Everyone has a different taste, which is affected by sociality, and self logics.
Ones will prefer color their friends like, some colors that non of their mates likes, to be different, some will do according to emotions, some due attraction of the eye, etcetera, etcetera. And now those feelings are driven to serve you. Impression, Singularity or Grain walking with, or sharing in a deviously way the emotions, or just empathy to the color, spirituality, shareable thing...

It's hard to explain like this, I don't know where to start my theory, thanks again for the recommendations )

-Infernity

[bgwowk]

It's a black comedy, really. On the one hand, there is the medical community, which has no problems with continuity, but that cannot conceive of the preservation or repair technologies presumed by cryonics. On the other hand, there are the immortalists, who understand the preservation and repair ideas well, but who have hangups about continuity. Go figure.

No wonder cryonics is the most famous, least popular idea in the world.

---BrianW

[Infernity]

OK, Mark, (addition)

When you pick color, that you like, you expect your mate to like it too.
You look for a mate that will be the same, understanding fun person.

Offsprings- of course, are very related to survival, since normally, you don't live forever, so for the self condolence you copulate, to have children, which are actually the closest thing to YOU that will CONTINUE the you, with an improvement- - the half from the mate.

Which turns the mate relevant too.
You look for a mate that is strong and healthy and charming, and has a lot like you, so the children will be also strong etcetera and will survive, and the common denominator is what you actually believe it is good.

When the two have it- the child will also- which means you brought an ameliorated kid.
Which will supposedly continue YOU.

After having immortality, there won't be a need for offsprings but evolutionary causes, and the FEELING of that need, wanting it. But no necessary at all.
You will last forever, and no comforts will be needed, you will remain.


Another thing for choosing sheets- harder to clean, easier to clean- things are also in the account. Some will waste time, or perhaps spend time? to impress how you keep the white so clean?

Or a person that is loving lily looks, seems pure to him, or evil dark, highlighted etcetera. It all tells a lot about the person. Searching for a mate to love same things. Again, written above, surviving children to continue.

You choose things that seems good for you as you choose food, that's how things goes.

Comfortable, also comes in.

Etcetera. All related.

-Infernity

Edited by infernity, 03 August 2005 - 10:42 PM.

[Mark Hamalainen]

You believe death reverses everytime you go in and out of consciousness? Or do you really mean intrinsically irreversible loss of consciousness?

No, I don't believe that. Jaydfox explained my viewpoint very accurately with his sliding scale analogy. During the normal course of a lifetime brain activity never completely halts. I don't know where the barrier between intrinsically irreversible and reversible is, on that scale, would you agree that there is a barrier?

The most insidious example of this is defining death to be some physical condition other than information theoretic death, which implicitly makes anyone who argues that the physical condition is reversible look like an idiot because everyone knows "dead is dead." This is what I mean by begging the question.

To be fair, presuming that somebody is referring to information theoretic death is just as insidious, especially considering the vast majority of people will have no idea what that means.

Copying is irrelevant to the question of whether biostasis preserves personhood because you can do biostasis without copying, and you can do copying without biostasis. They are totally independent ideas.

You have made no case for why they are totally independent, I stated why I think they are are related, please respond to that rather than dismissing it out of hand.

Why do you believe anyone's awareness survives an interval of unconsciousness? Total unconsciousness is total unconsciousness.

This is semantics, would you refer to sleep as unconscious? I never mentioned conscious, I'm talking about perceptual awareness, and we are still aware during sleep to some extent, even if you don't always remember it.

It's not a sliding scale. Action potentials are binary.

Describing an action potential as a binary event is a vast oversimplification, which while it works for building simulated neural networks, does not necessarily work when dealing the real brain. Also, the brain itself (which is what we are referring to) is not a binary on/off organ, it can exist in varying states of activity.

If a brain is put into state in which action potentials cannot exist, consciousness is OVER. PERIOD. Yet people can and do routinely recover from such states, just as materialism would predict. Who are you to tell a person who wakes up feeling fine that they didn't really survive?

We are not to tell, that was my point... we don't know, we have no theoretical way of determining that. From what we know of physical processes, we cannot distinguish between them and a copy. I don't deny the possiblity that it is the same person, but I don't know.

Now I must apologize if my response is somewhat snappish, but I've heard your arguments again and again from multiple people and they always simply ignore any logic that contradicts their beliefs.

Doesn't look like things are going to change then, this has all already been said on this forum. You cannot prove that cryonics will work (assuming your definition of work in this context is preserve the original person's awareness), but you will continue to insist that because the awakened cryonics patient is indistinguishable from the original, it must be the same. I will continue to point out that there is no known theoretical or testably hypothetical reason to assume that an awakened cryonics patient is any different than a copy. I don't claim to know that it won't work, I am just highly skeptical considering there isn't any particularly good reason to suspect that it will work.

[Mark Hamalainen]

Etcetera. All related.

Ok I concede my example was bad. But do you think there is no such thing as a set of choices that all have equivilant impact on survival? I'll try harder to think of one.

[Infernity]

It's much worse than that. The meaning of "death" *at any fixed time* changes with context and presumptions. There is the philosophical meaning of death as the irreversible loss of consciouness. Then there is the physical meaning of death, which is what physical conditions correlate with irreversible loss consciousness (that is VERY complicated). Then there is the legal meaning of death, which is something else again.

The reason why I would like this thread to continue without any further use of the word "death" is because of the constant confusion of all these different meanings. The most insidious example of this is defining death to be some physical condition other than information theoretic death, which implicitly makes anyone who argues that the physical condition is reversible look like an idiot because everyone knows "dead is dead." This is what I mean by begging the question.

Yeah Brian... well did you read the Wiki term of death. Interesting in my opinion.

By the way, I hate these limitations, those I can't use terms because of confusion.

Ok I concede my example was bad. But do you think there is no such thing as a set of choices that all have equivilant impact on survival? I'll try harder to think of one.

Hahaha, good luck Mark, no this is what I was talking about here: http://www.imminst.o...T&f=3&t=5760 [!] these kind of argues!

See what I mean? thanks for cooperating. "More ..... more (...)"

Now people should start doing this [thumb]

-Infernity

[bgwowk]

osiris wrote:

During the normal course of a lifetime brain activity never completely halts.

Define "normal". Do you understand that people recover from medical events everyday in which brain activity COMPLETELY halts? My whole point is that these arguments against cryonics assume that cryonics is qualitatively distinct from anything that has existed in medicine before. That is medically WRONG.

You have made no case for why they are totally independent, I stated why I think they are are related, please respond to that rather than dismissing it out of hand.

I already said why they are independent. Biostasis is independent of duplication because either can exist without the other.

This is semantics, would you refer to sleep as unconscious? I never mentioned conscious, I'm talking about perceptual awareness, and we are still aware during sleep to some extent, even if you don't always remember it.

Really? I assert that there is NO PROOF that anyone has ever subjectively survived a night's sleep, what you call "perceptual awareness" notwithstanding. How do you know what level of awareness is required to sustain personhood through an interval of apparent unconsciousness? The awareness of a mouse, a gnat, a stone? Who's to say? There is no proof that sleep is survivable other than the illusory claims of new people waking in the morning that we've become so accustomed to. You are betting your life on a process that is completely uproven to preserve the original person.

In your words, I will continue to point out that there is no known theoretical or testably hypothetical reason to assume that an awakened sleeper is any different than a copy.

Describing an action potential as a binary event is a vast oversimplification, which while it works for building simulated neural networks, does not necessarily work when dealing the real brain.

There is no such thing as "a little depolarization." It's either all or nothing. More to the point, there certainly are ways of rendering brains into states that are totally inacapable of sustaining an action potential of any sort. And people do survive them. Routinely.

I don't claim to know that it won't work, I am just highly skeptical considering there isn't any particularly good reason to suspect that it will work.

It is qualitatively the same as things that already happen in medicine, and nobody gives them a second thought. Have you ever taken a CPR course? I've NEVER heard philosophical debates during these courses about whether the revived person is still the same person. It's totally silly. And if you believe that the loss of *functional activity* in the brain is any less after minutes of cardiac arrest than in cryonics, then you don't understand how brains work. Frankly, it's unfair that lay people saddle cryonics with this kind of metaphysical baggage while never daring to go on medical forums to complain that "there isn't any particularly good reason to suspect that (accepted procedures) will work." I'd give a lot to see that debate.

It's WRONG to saddle any apparently life-saving medical procedure with a burden of proof that can never be met, NOT EVEN IN PRINCIPLE! It's just as wrong as my insistence that you prove sleep can be survived, for the same reason. If something cannot be proved by experimental test, or at least appeal to physical elegance, then it doesn't exist!

---BrianW

[Mark Hamalainen]

Do you understand that people recover from medical events everyday in which brain activity COMPLETELY halts? My whole point is that these arguments against cryonics assume that cryonics is qualitatively distinct from anything that has existed in medicine before.

Yes we've already established that there are medical events in which action potentials halt completely. However just because an idea is conventional does not make it correct. Lets please stick to logic and not appeals to common sense or popularity of an idea.

I already said why they are independent. Biostasis is independent of duplication because either can exist without the other.

You can perform one or the other independently, but that wasn't the point. Perhaps my wording was poor, what I meant is that there are strong similarities between the two processes, and that their functional results are equivilant. In your own words:

If something cannot be proved by experimental test, or at least appeal to physical elegance, then it doesn't exist

If that is the case, what if I presented you with a person who had either been cryogenically preserved and then reanimated or destroyed and the reconstructed, or even a person who was a copy and that original person still lived somewhere else. Could you devise an objective test to determine which of the possiblities was true? No. I ask you to explain to me how you can know that there is a function difference between freezing a body then reanimating it, and destroying a body and reconstructing it. In both cases there is a period of no brain activity.

How do you know what level of awareness is required to sustain personhood through an interval of apparent unconsciousness?

I don't and never claimed to. Putting words in my mouth is not helping this debate.

In your words, I will continue to point out that there is no known theoretical or testably hypothetical reason to assume that an awakened sleeper is any different than a copy.

Brain activity never ceases when you sleep. Asking me to prove that I didn't die when I went to sleep last night is like asking me to prove that the past exists.

There is no such thing as "a little depolarization." It's either all or nothing. More to the point, there certainly are ways of rendering brains into states that are totally inacapable of sustaining an action potential of any sort. And people do survive them. Routinely.... 
It is qualitatively the same as things that already happen in medicine, and nobody gives them a second thought. Have you ever taken a CPR course? I've NEVER heard philosophical debates during these courses about whether the revived person is still the same person. It's totally silly. And if you believe that the loss of *functional activity* in the brain is any less after minutes of cardiac arrest than in cryonics, then you don't understand how brains work.

Again, I have to point out that you're vastly oversimplifying the brain. Do you think that action potentials are the only form of information processing in the brain? Do you think that the chemical processes that go on before an action potential are not a form of information processing? What about the chemistry before a failed action potential, where the threshold for an action potential wasn't reached, does that have no effect on future action potentials? What about the glial cells, how do they effect information processing? We're just beginning to understand that. Reality is much more complicated than some binary simulated neural network.

It's WRONG to saddle any apparently life-saving medical procedure with a burden of proof that can never be met, NOT EVEN IN PRINCIPLE! It's just as wrong as my insistence that you prove sleep can be survived, for the same reason. If something cannot be proved by experimental test, or at least appeal to physical elegance, then it doesn't exist!

That last jump leap of logic is a favorite amounst materialists. Basically you're saying that because your understanding of reality is not sufficient in order to devise an experimental test or logical proof of something, you assume it doesn't exist. Are me and Jaydfox the only people who think this is absurd?? A third party please? I really don't understand this psychology... certainly science is not intended to draw conclusions in the absense of evidence, so why would you conclude that the absense of evidence means something doesn't exist, does that simply mean that its not a concept/phenomenon that is currently addressable by science? I certainly don't conclude that mine or other poeple's perceptual awareness doesn't exist because I don't have a scientific test for detecting it.

The life saving medical procedures you speak of are generally performed only when the patient would die otherwise, so of course I condone them. I would not suggest for someone to have their brain activity halted for a non-life threatening situation though, would you?

And damnit I've been drawn into this again!!

[bgwowk]

Osiris wrote:

Yes we've already established that there are medical events in which action potentials halt completely. However just because an idea is conventional does not make it correct. Lets please stick to logic and not appeals to common sense or popularity of an idea.

But isn't that what you are doing by selectively beating up on cryonics? Be honest. If I posted a message encouraging immortalists to learn CPR, would you have posted an objection saying that despite appearances there is no proof cardiac arrest can be survived and that such courses are a waste of time?

Brain activity never ceases when you sleep.

My theory is that personhood depends on continuity of conscisouness-- true waking consciousness. States that any doctor or biologist would call unconsciousness, such as non-dreaming sleep, don't count. You cannot disprove my theory, which is to say that you cannot prove sleep is survivable. Picking waking consciousness as a continuity criterion for subjective survival is much less arbitrary than insisting on brain activity because waking consciousness is the essence of subjectivity itself.

Now imagine replacing all the atoms in a person during a long sleep, thereby destroying the original material person.
I ask you to explain to me how you can know that there is a functional difference between going to sleep and waking, and "destroying" a body by gradual atomic replacement during natural sleep and waking it. In both cases there is a period of no waking consciousness. But what does that have to do with the question of whether continuity of waking consciousness is important? Nothing.

Asking me to prove that I didn't die when I went to sleep last night is like asking me to prove that the past exists.

Asking a survivor of cardiac arrest to prove that they didn't die is like asking them to prove that the past exists.

What about the chemistry before a failed action potential, where the threshold for an action potential wasn't reached, does that have no effect on future action potentials?

Ah ha! So even creeping slow chemistry, not just bona fide action potentials, counts as activity? Now this is getting interesting!

Things still happen at cryogenic temperatures, albeit VERY slowly. So, Osiris, I'm going to take you and plant you in a VERY strong gravitational field. So strong that your time is slowed by the same factor that cooling slows chemistry in cryonics. I'll pull you out of the field when the suspended animation experiment is over in a hundred years. From your time-dilated point of view, activity continued in the brain of the cryonics patient throughout the experiment. So certainly the patient survived. On the other hand, the cryonics skeptic looking down at you in that gravitational field saw your brain slow down just as much as the cryo patient's. He concludes you are both dead, replaced by copies. Who's right?

I certainly don't conclude that mine or other poeple's perceptual awareness doesn't exist because I don't have a scientific test for detecting it.

I certainly don't conclude that the personhood of a heart attack survivor is a new personhood (with burden of proof on the survivor) just because I don't have a scientific test for continuity of subjective personhood.

The life saving medical procedures you speak of are generally performed only when the patient would die otherwise, so of course I condone them.

Cryonics falls into the same category, yet you seem quite dismissive.

I would not suggest for someone to have their brain activity halted for a non-life threatening situation though, would you?

I would do it for space travel in a second, and I wouldn't hesistate to recommend the technology to anyone once physically proven. Then again, per the gravity discussion above, accelerate to a high enough speed and the intertwined nature of space and time will defacto halt your brain anyway (to outside observers, just like cryonics).

---BrianW

[bgwowk]

If there are any further comments in this thread, I'm offline until Sunday.

---BrianW

[jaydfox]

Things still happen at cryogenic temperatures, albeit VERY slowly. So, Osiris, I'm going to take you and plant you in a VERY strong gravitational field. So strong that your time is slowed by the same factor that cooling slows chemistry in cryonics. I'll pull you out of the field when the suspended animation experiment is over in a hundred years. From your time-dilated point of view, activity continued in the brain of the cryonics patient throughout the experiment. So certainly the patient survived. On the other hand, the cryonics skeptic looking down at you in that gravitational field saw your brain slow down just as much as the cryo patient's. He concludes you are both dead, replaced by copies. Who's right?

Brian, I just lost so much respect for you. The effects of time dilation are not even remotely comparable to a reduction in temperature. Chemistry operates in the local frame of reference; hence it is undisturbed in the extreme gravity scenario. Chemistry is quite disturbed at -130 celcius. For one thing, water tends to... oh, what's the word... crystalize? That doesn't happen, under any relativity or quantum theory I'm aware of, in extreme gravity. The water is still liquid. The two states are not even remotely comparable. Even a distant objective observer would be able to tell the difference, so it's not even a case of subjective versus objective observation.

[Mark Hamalainen]

But isn't that what you are doing by selectively beating up on cryonics? Be honest. If I posted a message encouraging immortalists to learn CPR, would you have posted an objection saying that despite appearances there is no proof cardiac arrest can be survived and that such courses are a waste of time?

No.

You're missing my points and are fixated on this example of cardiac arrest. You haven't come up with answers for any of my repeatedly asked questions, you just ignore them and make potshots at my wording, and appeals to common sense rather than logic.

My test for the survivability of sleep is simply to go to sleep and wake in the morning, something I have done many times and am aware of surviving. That awareness is internal and not directly observable for anybody else. Its true that a copy of me with the proper memories would be indistinguisable to somebody else, just as I wouldn't be able to distinguish a copy of someone else. However, we are individually aware of our own awareness, and its continuation.

It is inherently impossible for me to convince you that I have continued to be aware of myself through all of my sleeping, since a copy could try just as well. However it doesn't follow that I should ignore possible events that could end my awareness, just because you wouldn't be able to notice it had happened. If I was only interested in extending my life for other people's benefit, then I wouldn't care whether my awareness was preserved, or how many times I was destroyed and copied. But that isn't our interest. Life-extension is inherently an individual desire, something we do for ourselves, not for others.

If you're trying to advocate cryonics, you're not doing a very good job.

I would never recommend cryonics or any process that halts or even significantly slows brain activity, except as an absolute last resort. And I think it is immoral of you to do so. Doing so is recommending someone to unnecessarily risk oblivion.

You could make a case for not explaining to a dying person that the last resort procedure they are about to undergo is one for which we have no good reason to suspect to work. If they are going to die without the procedure, then what point in there is adding extra fear and stress to the remainder of the life.

[godsend]

Jaydfox
Brian, I just lost so much respect for you.

What a childish debate move. Why not just say that you disagree, or that he is greatly mistaken? Why would one instead say, "I have just lost so much respect for you." It is almost as if you are trying to pressure him into seeing things YOUR way. As if he's going to say, "Oh my God, I just lost so much respect in Jay's eyes, I'd better shape up and change my perspective for the better now before I further tarnish Jay opinion of me." Get real and grow up. People are not required to care whether you respect them or not. Stick to the issues please, and avoid moves designed to be social power plays. Otherwise, us passive observers are going to lose "so much respect for you." Not that you should care.

[jaydfox]

Now, now, godsend, you have to admit it was a terrible example he used. And this from a "physicist and cryobiologist", who thus should understand the basics of both examples (extreme gravity under general relativity, and low temperature physics/chemistry). As a person, I didn't lose respect for him. We all have our own opinions, and while I strongly disagree with Brian's, I realize that, philosophically, this question will remain unresolved for the better part of a century at least, so there's no reason to lose respect for people personally.

On the other hand, as a physicist and cryobiologist, I'm calling his credentials into question. He should have known better than to make the example he did. Hopefully it was made in the heat of the moment, based on personal opinion, rather than as a serious scientific observation. But until he can correct himself, I'm assuming it was a serious observation. Hence, "I just lost so much respect for" Brian.

[eternaltraveler]

He should have known better than to make the example he did.

His example was fine. I'm certain he was reffering to vitrification and not freezing. He didn't mention freezing.

Vitrification is not freezing, it is the extreme slowing of a fluid. Glass is vitrified. Go find a 300 year old window. You will see that glass still flows, the bottom of the window will be considerably thicker than the top. That is what modern cryonics attempts to do. Extreme slowing without freezing, that's the whole point of it.

[jaydfox]

He should have known better than to make the example he did.

His example was fine. I'm certain he was reffering to vitrification and not freezing. He didn't mention freezing.

Vitrification is not freezing, it is the extreme slowing of a fluid. Glass is vitrified. Go find a 300 year old window. You will see that glass still flows, the bottom of the window will be considerably thicker than the top. That is what modern cryonics attempts to do. Extreme slowing without freezing, that's the whole point of it.

It's a useful analogy, in some non-physical sense, for showing the relative nature of time and molecular movement... sort of...

But physically speaking, the two states are totally incomparable. In the case of extreme gravity, from the perspective of the molecules, the chemistry operates just as it would in the absense of the gravity. The fact that time is slowed relative to an observer far from the gravity source is irrelevant. From the point of view of a person in the extreme gravity, the faraway observer would be seen brightly in the ultraviolet or X-Ray spectrum, operating at many times normal speed, as though his or her temperature were in the thousands of degrees. Yet the person in the extreme gravity well need not worry that the faraway observer is about to burst into flames, or that his or her chemistry is so violently hot that they are about to convert to a gas or plasma. It's just observation. In fact, from either observer's point of view, a simple recalibration of the observed light (which would be red- or blue-shifted anyway) would reveal that chemistry is operating totally normally, other than the illusory discrepancy in the rate of time's passing.

On the other hand, there is indeed a very real physical effect occuring in the cold chemicals of a vitrified person's brain. Kinetic energies are changed, with the resultant change on attractive forces, distances of minimum potential energy, etc. It's not an illusion caused by a discrepancy in the observer's reference frame, it's a very real, physical effect.

Not comparable.

[manowater989]

Sigh....convincing arguments all around, but I still haven't seen anything presented by either side that is compelling enough to push me more towards believing that cryonic suspension probably is or isn't reversible. For my own part, I would classify my view as cautious. I am currently in the process of signing up for cryonics (with Alcor, if it matters much), as with everyone here, I'm considering it only as a last resort, etc- that goes without saying, I hope I'll never need it. If, 60+ years from now, average lifespan still isn't extended maybe more than a few years from what it is now, I will be very worried. Even if I knew I was going to be frozen, I would be worried. I would probably be less worried if usable nanobots were already in development- whatever. I don't look for definite answers about the future, I'm not after a crystal ball. My pattern on issues like this, and the one I will continue to follow, is just to search for an argument that is convincing ENOUGH to make me say "ok, I'll buy that". I haven't seen it yet on this.

[bgwowk]

Jaydfox, indeed I was talking about vitrification. I didn't say anything about freezing. That wasn't cricket to criticize in such a personal way something I didn't say.

jadfox wrote:

On the other hand, there is indeed a very real physical effect occuring in the cold chemicals of a vitrified person's brain. Kinetic energies are changed, with the resultant change on attractive forces, distances of minimum potential energy, etc. It's not an illusion caused by a discrepancy in the observer's reference frame, it's a very real, physical effect.

But this is philosophical ground that was conceded by Osiris! That's why I said, "Ah ha!" Remember? I said that there are examples in medicine where normal brain activity stops-- doesn't even continue a little bit. Osiris countered by asking whether there might still be *some* things going on. By suggesting that even abnormal activity might constitute some kind of continuation, he opened the door for me to point out that there is always some kind of process going on.

And I think you are still missing the point. Look at Osiris's most recent post where he says

I would never recommend... any process that halts or even significantly slows brain activity

He doesn't qualify this at all by stipulating qualitative change in operation. He's therefore wide open to my relativity criticism.

---BrianW

[bgwowk]

Osiris wrote:

You're missing my points and are fixated on this example of cardiac arrest. You haven't come up with answers for any of my repeatedly asked questions, you just ignore them and make potshots at my wording, and appeals to common sense rather than logic.

I'll answer any question, with the sole exception of questions concerning duplication. I will not discuss duplication in this thread.

My test for the survivability of sleep is simply to go to sleep and wake in the morning, something I have done many times and am aware of surviving. That awareness is internal and not directly observable for anybody else.

Let's be crystal clear on this. You are saying you can discount my mock argument that sleep isn't subjectively survivable by the observation that you are "aware of surviving" after sleep? So, then, awareness or internal feeling you have survived a process is the ultimate test of whether that process is subjectively survivable?

I would never recommend cryonics or any process that halts or even significantly slows brain activity, except as an absolute last resort. And I think it is immoral of you to do so.

This is what I mean by double standards. I suggest suspended animation for space travel (something totally unavailable), and I'm called immoral. Doctors recommend slowing or stopping brain activity for elective surgeries (aneurysm surgery is elective, not emergent) and you are silent.

Doing so is recommending someone to unnecessarily risk oblivion.

General anesthesia (and certainly heart surgery, which combines cooling with general anesthesia) "signficiantly slows brain acitivity." Are you honestly going to convey this kind of warning about oblivion to family members facing elective heart surgery? Certainly no doctor would on the basis of "slowed brain activity."

In your mind, shouldn't this be a major medical ethical scandal? Doctors recommending patients undergo elective procedures which there is no good reason to believe they can survive? Why doesn't this merit editorials? Why aren't there bioethicists howling? Where is the controversy? Why does one only see these kind of arguments in Internet forums, not serious medical and bioethics journals?

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 07 August 2005 - 05:12 PM.

[jaydfox]

My test for the survivability of sleep is simply to go to sleep and wake in the morning, something I have done many times and am aware of surviving. That awareness is internal and not directly observable for anybody else.

Let's be crystal clear on this. You are saying you can discount my mock argument that sleep isn't subjectively survivable by the observation that you are "aware of surviving" after sleep? So, then, awareness or internal feeling you have survived a process is the ultimate test of whether that process is subjectively survivable?

Yeah, saw that one coming. Sorry, Osiris, he has a point. It is my contention that, if I were destroyed and replaced with a copy (or a dozen copies), each copy would make the same claim that I would make when I wake up tomorrow morning, i.e. that they are me. This is assuming, of course, that the copy is of a high enough fidelity, which means possibly needing to copy some pieces of information we may not know about yet. But assuming that enough information was copied, the copies will claim to be me.

However, the continuity argument is quite strong, since the brain is still quite active in sleep, though some areas may be nearly offline, while others continue to buzz away at near wakeful levels (though the types of activity probably also change, e.g. changes in frequencies and coherency of brain waves, etc.). Brian could probably tell us which parts continue to be active and which parts don't. At any rate, to my knowledge, the brain doesn't "turn off" during sleep, even if we aren't consciously aware of time's passing.

[Infernity]

A question about something discussed before...

Why the heck the defrost person will not be the same person, but a copy?!?!

I mean it is the same brain, same experience, same body... Is it not same consciousness? [huh] [:o] [?]

-Infernity

[jaydfox]

I mean it is the same brain, same experience, same body... Is it not same consciousness?

Er, depends on what you mean by "same". Most of the realistic scenarios for reviving cryonics patients involving using nanobots or other nanotechnologies to "scan" the cryonically preserved brain and create a sort of database of the entire layout of the preserved brain, down to the smallest features of each dendrite, axon, synaptic gap, etc.

At this point, theoretically, a "fixed" copy of this brain (by fixed, I mean one without the damage inherent to the freezing or vitrification process used, which includes both structural damage as well as toxic damage) can be created by a second set of nanobots in a new body. Since it will be structurally nearly identical to the original brain, some people would call it the "same" brain. But I hope you can see why calling this new brain the "same" brain is making a controversial statement. It depends on your definition of "same".

And before we all start whipping out Webster's Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary or references from dictionary.reference.com, let's just agree that this particular semantic argument isn't as simple as "Dude, your definition of 'same' is lame", which is what has happened in debates like this before.