Here’s Ray Kurzweil on the nature of the self, in his generous and excellent article on Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science:

If I ask the question, ‘Who am I?’ I could conclude that, perhaps I am this stuff here, i.e., the ordered and chaotic collection of molecules that comprise my body and brain.

However, the specific set of particles that comprise my body and brain are completely different from the atoms and molecules than comprised me only a short while (on the order of weeks) ago. We know that most of our cells are turned over in a matter of weeks. Even those that persist longer (e.g., neurons) nonetheless change their component molecules in a matter of weeks.

So I am a completely different set of stuff than I was a month ago. All that persists is the pattern of organization of that stuff. The pattern changes also, but slowly and in a continuum from my past self. From this perspective I am rather like the pattern that water makes in a stream as it rushes past the rocks in its path. The actual molecules (of water) change every millisecond, but the pattern persists for hours or even years.

From this Kurzweil seems to conclude — fallaciously — that the self is merely formal. That is, the substance is irrelevant. Therefore, other stuff with the same form is just as much the self. Thus, strong AI is possible.

The fallacy is in thinking that if the stuff of X changes, all that counts is what remains constant, i.e. the pattern, and the pattern could be moved onto new types of material which would be an X just as real and fully as the original. Here’s a counterexample: A restaurant is constantly bringing in, cooking, and serving new food-stuff. All that remains constant are the patterns: the menus and the recipes. Therefore, if we instantiated the same menus and recipes in non-food stuff, it’d still be the same great restaurant. (Remember, Kurzweil isn’t talking about re-creating the pattern of person X in flesh but in an entirely different medium, a program running on silicon, where the pattern is actually even more abstract than a 1:1 relationship.)

I’m perfectly happy to say that life is an emergent property of our carbon-based molecules. Consciousness, too. I am not an essentialist who thinks that somewhere there’s a soul, ghost or life force that exists independent of the body. (Actually, I’m agnostic on the topic, mainly because a universe in which my wife’s soul doesn’t continue is not only unjust, it’s just plain stupid.) But emergent properties often (always?) inhere in that from which they emerge: if, say, democracy emerges from the interaction of free individuals, you can’t say that the same pattern when expressed on paper is a democracy; you need the free individuals for that.

I can put this more simply: We are bodies. Flesh rulz.

By the way, I’m going to go to the first day of Wolfram’s 3-day conference on his new kind of science.

Categories: Uncategorized dw