by metatron 11 Replies latest jw friends
OK, we take a skin cell from you.
we use its nucleus to create a clone - of you.
we train it in all your memories and abilities
we use "false memory" techniques to convince the clone
that its memories are real.
is it you? while you're still alive?
If not, I guess the resurrection - as a future copy
of you, as the Watchtower explains it
........is just bull$hit
metatron
Its good news for the WTS who can clone 100s of GB types to keep the figures up, make weird prophecies and stuff!
ISP
Metatron,
There's no "you" appart from your neural conections. If someone could manage to reassemble each and all of your neural conections 100 years after you pass away, that person would feel the same sense of continued existence that you feel each morning when you wake up. It would be "you", in other words. Now, if someone put together two identical copies of your brain, then both persons will see themselves as "you". I think the problem arises when the concept of "you" is contemplated in a prospective way; in my opinion, it only makes sense in a retrospective way.
J.J.
PS: This post should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any sort of Christian belief in afterlife, JW-type or other.
There is no way to reproduce the quantum-level influences that compose your psyche, as they can only be described using higher-dimensional functions, and their existence in real space is very tenuous and cannot be measured with any degree of accuracy at our present stage of technological development. Fundamentally, your mind isn't a physical creature - it is a standing holistic wave of interacting electronic forces that extends into higher dimensions than these paltry 4 our physical bodies inhabit, and therefore it cannot be "moved" or reproduced. It is a unique creature, something that can only be grown, not MADE.
But let's say for the sake of your argument that it is possible to clone this standing wave of energy and stick in in someone else's skull. That person would be you - but it wouldn't be you exactly 1 second after the copy operation was completed, because by then your mind and the clone's mind would already be showing subtly different neural interaction patterns. Your mind is not a singular entity - it is a function of it's environment and influences from the outside world, which is why the clone would bear a strong resemblance to you mentally, and would have all of your memories, but it wouldn't be YOU. You have to understand that minds are very odd things, and that they are actually a product of several intersecting groups of influences that mold and transform their shape constantly as you live, and even while you sleep.
One more problem with the whole mind-copy thing (the body is simple enough to reproduce, it's just a matter of getting the correct DNA sequencers to kick in inside an embryonic shell, piece of cake, even primitive human science is almost capable of pulling this off @ this point) is that the very basis of your mind, which is the clouds of electrons that form shells about the neutrons in your nerve cells are not really there much. They are evenly distributed, but they don't SPIN around the neutron - they pop in and out of existence in certain fixed ways. If you could solve the question of where they go when they pop out of existence and where they are coming from when they pop back into existence again, I think you may answer your own question!
The earlier in the forenoon you take the sun bath, the greater will be the beneficial effect, because you get more of the ultra-violet rays, which are healing. - The Golden Age
Joseph Joachim wrote:
There's no "you" appart from your neural connections.
Absolutely correct idea, J.J.
(Exception: if one could replace biological neuronal connections through other material or immaterial counterparts)
Cloning does not have anything to do with resurrection.
Rather with TIME TRAVEL and with "jumping from one universe to another parallel universe", see
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=21791&site=3
Think will be physically and technically possible in about 400 - 500 years.
I repeat this in German, hoping J.J. is able to understand..;-)
Joseph Joachim schrieb:
es existiert kein "ich" außerhalb unserer neuronalen Verbindungen im Gehirn.
(Ausnahme wäre: man könnte die biologischen neuronalen Verbindungen durch andere materielle oder immaterielle Gegenstücke ersetzen).
Auferstehung hat überhaupt nichts zu tun mit "Cloning".
Viel eher mit ZEITREISEN und mit "Springen von einem Universum in ein anderes Parallel-Universum"), siehe dazu tread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=21791&site=3
Ich denke, dies wird in etwa 400 - 500 Jahren physikalisch und technologisch möglich sein...
mfg Erich
2SYN says: There is no way to reproduce the quantum-level influences that compose your psyche, as they can only be described using higher-dimensional functions [8>]
Darling, do you think you're going to impress me with your gibberish? You have no idea what you're talking about. Quantum-level phenomena affects the functioning of neurons as much as an atomic explosion on Earth affects the orbit of Jupiter.
Erich: Ich spreche nur ein bischen Deutsch. I do live in Switzerland but I'm originally from Argentina. And you're right that neurons could be replaced by any other material (such as a silicon chip) and you wouldn't notice it as long as it performs exactly the same functions as the good old neurons.
J.J.
Then explain to me how electrons move around from place to place in their shells? They don't spin, dude. They pop in and out of existence. Your thoughts (according to you) are formed by the impulses travelling between neurons in the brain. These impulses are formed when electrons jump from one conductive atom to another.
These would not be easily noticeable effects, but their cumulative effect would be great enough to directly influence, and perhaps even define, our consciousness.
So you want to replace a neuron with a silicon chip? How are you going to reproduce the functionality of the lipid sheaths and the neurotransmitters? You might be able to simulate their functioning using a very powerful algorithm, but it will always be an approximation. Digital computers are fundamentally different from organic nerve cells - we'll only be able to start reproducing neural functionality with any large degree of accuracy once we figure out how to manufacture quantum computers. You need to stop thinking of the world in terms of classical physics and embrace the fact that nothing is really here - there is only a very high probability of it being here. Your entire body is formed of almost entirely empty space.
Really! The idea of a computer reproducing the fine-grained patterns of neural activity is ridiculous! Not all the computers in the world today could simulate a single brain! And even if we somehow banded them all up together, the latency would be so huge that the experiment would be moot anyway.
You must realize that there's more to the functioning of a nerve cell than merely sending along electrons and neurotransmission chemicals. Their functioning goes down to a much smaller scale than the classical physics model that has for so long been used to try and predict how they work. No scientist in the world today knows exactly what role quantum interference and other forms of sub-electronic activity play in the functioning of our brains, but I sure as hell can't see the brain storing all of that information using just a fist-sized bundle of nerve cells. It's too simplistic - people remember far too clearly for that to happen. You have to keep in mind that the mind is not a circuit, it is a holographic object - I'm not even going to go into that...
Gibberish? Tisk, tisk.
The earlier in the forenoon you take the sun bath, the greater will be the beneficial effect, because you get more of the ultra-violet rays, which are healing. - The Golden Age
Really! The idea of a computer reproducing the fine-grained patterns of neural activity is ridiculous! Not all the computers in the world today could simulate a single brain! And even if we somehow banded them all up together, the latency would be so huge that the experiment would be moot anyway.
sigh, it seems really pointless to bring up technical limitations when the entire subject of discussion is clearly far beyond our technical capabilites already and is clearly a thought experiment.
i believe the argument is that if a hypothetical silicon chip that could reproduce all the functions of a neuron precisely could be used to assemble a mind, the mind would be identical to ours and would not know the difference. heisenberg and technical limitations dont enter into it.
mox
Hi Metatron,
You said:
If not, I guess the resurrection - as a future copyEspecially if that idiotic idea about people not remembering their past, as some dubs seem to believe, based on the verse about 'their not calling to mind the things of the past' in Isaiah somewhere.
of you, as the Watchtower explains it
SO, you may as well have a clone, because we are what we are to a large degree because of our remembered past.
Pat
