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From: ccb8m@opal.cs.Virginia.EDU (Charles C. Bundy)
Subject: Re: Brain and Body aspects of same thing.  Mind and Matter defined in more basic terms.
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Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 15:14:37 GMT
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In article <Pine.A32.3.91.960114125857.13367A-100000@glibm9.cen.uiuc.edu> Eugene Khutoryansky <ekhutory@glibm9.cen.uiuc.edu> writes:
>
>
>On 14 Jan 1996, Gary Forbis wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure how society will react when machines start laying claim to the
>> effects of dead bodies.  I am as yet unwilling to accept personal identity
>> spanning humans and machines and so would take what machines do to be a
>> simulation.
>> 
>> And yet...
>> 
>> I am perfectly willing to assume that if a brain's functions can be performed
>> by machines and the machine has consciousness that consciousness will maintain
>> the useful fiction that it has personal identity with the previous brain 
>> because it can recall memories from a time when clearly its consciousness was
>> supported by that brain.
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> --gary forbis@u.washington.edu
>> 
>> 
>
>
>Well, what about the case where your brain cells are replaced by 
>artificial ones one at a time, which function identical to the original.  

Explain to me how non-organic neurons/dedrites etc are going to function
identically?  If you want to get real Zen, My own neuron #0 isn't the
same neuron it was yesterday and does not function the same.  I can
easily make this assertion because "heaven forbid"  we should have to
prove anything.  Give me a diff eq for Sodium/Potassium/Calicum exchange
moderation in the neural pathway.  How much of the signal is electrical
and how much chemical.  Oh I forget we are only speculating we don't
have to study (thats too hard)...

Charles C. Bundy
ccb8m@virginia.edu
>If your 
>identity has changed when all the cells have been replaced, then exactly 
>when did this change occure?  Was it after the first cell was replaced?  
>Is when the second cell was replaced?  Or was it when the 100038th cell 
>was replaced?  Or perhaps there is no such thing as a permanent identity 
>in the first place?  


