So Ralph Merkel defines information theoretic death as:
A person is dead according to the information theoretic criterion if their memories, personality, hopes, dreams, etc. have been destroyed in the information theoretic sense. If the structures in the brain that encode memory and personality have been so disrupted that it is no longer possible in principle to recover them, then the person is dead. If they are sufficiently intact that inference of the state of memory and personality are feasible in principle, and therefore restoration to an appropriate functional state is likewise feasible in principle, then the person is not dead.
Is that really all it is? So are you the same person you were before you cryogenic suicide? Is reanimation all it takes?.
Did Kurzweil end up having to download your sentience from Google Immortality (tm). Do you really believe that all we are is captured in this mechanical model?
So Dougster, what was it like when you were frozen? Were you aware of the passage of time? And which you was you, your frozen wetware, or you in Google Immortality? And when you were reanimated, was that it, or did Kurzweil have to download you back from Google's computing cloud?
Is that all we are, meshes if neuronal dendrites? When you were thawing out and started to approach 0 deg C, did water start to segregate out of your protoplasm and form ice crystals?
I would think that your dendrite web would have been shredded, and that you would have indeed then undergone what Ralph Merkel calls Information-Theoretic Death.
Do you think that Ray Kurzweil is a con artist? Do you think having him around will tarnish Google's reputation?
You know, people say that Kurzweil was going to let you thaw out and rot, because of the complete disapointment that Google Immortality (tm) turned out to be could have broken the stock market bubble.
3 comments
A person is dead according to the information theoretic criterion if their memories, personality, hopes, dreams, etc. have been destroyed in the information theoretic sense. If the structures in the brain that encode memory and personality have been so disrupted that it is no longer possible in principle to recover them, then the person is dead. If they are sufficiently intact that inference of the state of memory and personality are feasible in principle, and therefore restoration to an appropriate functional state is likewise feasible in principle, then the person is not dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatio…
So Merkel is one of Kurzweil's people, out there at Moffett Field, Singularity U.
Is that really all we are, a web of neuronal synapses?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapse
And then this long-term-potentiation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_…
Is that really all it is? So are you the same person you were before you cryogenic suicide? Is reanimation all it takes?.
Did Kurzweil end up having to download your sentience from Google Immortality (tm). Do you really believe that all we are is captured in this mechanical model?
https://www.tuscl.net/?page=post&id=5151…
SJG
Lol!
Is that all we are, meshes if neuronal dendrites? When you were thawing out and started to approach 0 deg C, did water start to segregate out of your protoplasm and form ice crystals?
I would think that your dendrite web would have been shredded, and that you would have indeed then undergone what Ralph Merkel calls Information-Theoretic Death.
Do you think that Ray Kurzweil is a con artist? Do you think having him around will tarnish Google's reputation?
You know, people say that Kurzweil was going to let you thaw out and rot, because of the complete disapointment that Google Immortality (tm) turned out to be could have broken the stock market bubble.
https://www.tuscl.net/?page=post&id=5151…
SJG
Akon - Beautiful ft. Colby O'Donis, Kardinal Offishall
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Just started to read a bit of an older edition of:
https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Macroe…
Want to learn more about Keynesianism.
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