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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Short Subjects Part VII: S=k x logW

Dramatis Personae: Myself, Oldest Heir

Scene: Walk to school one semi-brisk October morning

OH: . . .So, anyway, I think the way this could work is --theoretically, anyway --you replace each neuron in the brain one at a time with an artificial one.  That way you don't interrupt the continuity of consciousness and you eventually get consciousness in a completely artificial brain.

M: That's an interesting thought experiment.  What about the body?

OH:  Same basic strategy.

M: What about metabolism?

OH:  What about it?

M: Well, I mean --you'd need some sort of energy intake.  You know, an external source of energy.

OH:  Yeah.  I mean, look, what I'm going for here is really total self-sufficiency and physical immortality, OK?

M:  Uh, doesn't the law of entropy forbid that?

OH:  What?

M:  Entropy.  No closed system is a hundred per cent efficient, kinda thing?  So you need some external energy source.  Chemical, nuclear, whatever.

(Pause)

OH:  OK, you know what I'm hearing?  Quitter talk, that's what I'm hearing.