RT> This is if you believe consciousness to be separate of the  
 RT> hardware. Is there any reason to believe this? Even a  
 RT> software program is a series of on and off switches in a  
 RT> computer. It is not independent of the machine. The  
 RT> computer's "consciousness" is hardwired. 
The key is your use of the word 'series', which is a *pattern* of 
sequential steps, just as you observe events- sequentially. There 
would be no difference whether you used one platform, or another, 
the numbers crunched would still add up.  Using different designs 
of hardware implies that the relationships with the code would be 
different. 
 DB> You may see a lack of evidence, however, a human mind isn't the  
> only memory storage method; 
 RT> It is for human memories. 
Au Contraire! is there some reason why God could not make a copy? 
 RT>  
 RT>  DB> indeed, we already use computers to  store a lot 
 RT>  DB> of stuff we cannot remember.  What limit do you see  to the 
 RT> development of this process?  
 RT>  
 RT> The only limits are raw materials and the laws of physics. 
 RT>  
 RT> What has this to do with human memory and consciousness? 
Raw materials are not limited to those you know about and quantum 
physics suggests a number of really wierd laws.  Christian dogma, 
which is built on the laws of cause and effect, i.e. sin, and you 
go to hell, cannot cope with events that are driven this randomly 
and non-sequentially.  Yet when we peel away the appearances of a 
visual world and the actions of men on it, we see chaos. 
 
DB> What is a ghost?  How do you prove that such a thing cannot be? 
 RT>  
 RT> I can't, but the onus is on the claimant to provide  
 RT> evidence. There is no evidence. 
Well the experience of shamen over the last 40 odd millennia show 
that, when you eat certain mushrooms, you become aware of aspects 
of reality which appear too trivial to notice otherwise.  I think 
it is rather like increasing the gain on a sensory amplifier; one 
gets significant distortion of the signals, but one also picks up 
signals ordinarily missed.  Anthropologists who tripped with them 
in various parts of the world all made similar reports of visions 
that suggest some similar underlying structure to reality.  There 
is *some* evidence; which most folks tend to ignore. correctly? 
 
 RT> No. I would say it means that hallucination is a common  
 RT> aspect of man and it must be taken into account in cases  
 RT> where there is no other evidence. 
... 
 RT> Only personal testimony and we all know how unreliable that  
 RT> can be. 
 RT>  
 DB> So where is the unbiased person  who will conduct 
 DB> these experiments? 
 RT>  
 RT> What makes you think professionals are biased? 
Time and again, we have seen experts and their conventional lack 
of wisdom exposed by un-professional mavericks.  The sychophancy 
and power tripping I saw in pre- and post- graduate work in many 
different acedemic institutions suggest zealotry and bias. 
 DB> Of course, some folks will  not have anything like a 
> supernatural experience, but OTOH, you  cannot teach calculus to 
> an orangutan either. 
 RT>  
 RT> I don't see what you are referring to. 
Just that a mind so satisfied with the standard perception of the 
reality structure around us is disinterested in, and averse to, a 
system which it cannot comprehend.  There were many fine minds in 
fierce opposition to Einstein's relativity; they were too stupid, 
and/or too rigid to grasp what he was saying, and no argument was 
feasible to put to them. 
 
Einstein showed that you could run an experiment in the mind with 
no apparatus whatever, and that furthermore, if you cannot run it 
there, there is no other place to run it.  Cest l'vie. 
___ 
 * OFFLINE 1.58 * Reverse engineering the atom is a real bitch. 
--- Maximus 3.01
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