Ifat Glassman

First of all, the DNA of your cells is not sufficient to make a perfect copy of yourself. The DNA can create a baby that is the same as the baby you were, but the genetic code does not store information about your current state (it doesnt hold information about how fat you are right now, the knowledge you have, the scars on your body etc). However, I do think that if someone created an exact replication of you, with your brain exactly as yours is, (but with different atoms) it would be you. The reason is that your identity is the different connections in your brain, the unique wiring and unique strength of connections between different cells in your brain. if you replicate that, even if you'd use different molecules, the product will undoubtably be you.

"Any country that doesn't embrace indivual rights should be wiped out", when "wiped out" means to carpet bomb the whole country. Would you say that a person who thinks that is moral? and why?

One of my two biggest interests is brain research. And I also know a lot of things about how the brain works. I'd be happy to share my knowledge with you, to "brush it up" and to hear interesting questions, and also because this subject is so fascinating that I would simply enjoy telling about it and summing up what I know. First of all, the operation that was suggested (replacing the brain by electronic devices, that would "store" the memories, so that the person would not feel the implant) is not possible. Our (and all animal's consciousness) is expressed is changes is electrical fields of the cells in our brain called "neurons". These neurons controls the behavior, movement, and a lot of things I'm sure nobody has a hard time thinking of. The human brain contains about 100 billion (10^11) cells (neurons), which are organizes in specific regions in the cortex (which is the surface of the brain most close to the skull). The cells in the cortex recieve information from our senses, encoded in the frequency of action potential firing of the receptor cells. "action potential" is a quick (1 milisecond) change in the voltage of a cell (which means that there is more positive charge inside the cell than outside it, in comparison to before the action potential). it is said that "action potential" is "fired" or that the cell "fires" because this action potential, once generated, advances through the axon of the cell, which is a long, thin wire, that is capable of causing the action potential to propegate until it reaches the end of the axon. the axon of each cell is connected to other cells, by a structure called "synapses", through which the cells in our brain transmit information to one another. if, in a certain instance, a neuron recieves enough inputs (action potentials in it's synapses with other neurons) it fires an action potential of it's own. here's a great link that explains it: Action potential demonstration. As I said, the rate of action potential firing encodes information. For example, if you're looking at a dog then the cells in your brain that encode a shape of a dog, sound of a dog etc will start firing with higher frequency. The connections between the cells can be replaced by an electronic device (though there is no such device today) and the consciousness of the person will not be harmed (his ability to learn will be harmed though, for reasons I will explain later), but the cells themselves cannot be replaced by an inorganic device without lost of consciousness. Our consciousness is composed of the neurons in our brain. For some reason, if you put a piece of metal that reacts just like your brain cells, it will be able to transmit information, but not to produce "thought" or "awareness". We know that a rat that was implanted stem cells into it's spinal cord with growth factors to encourage it to develope into brain cells, developed into brain cells and acted as normal brain cells do. There was actually no expiriment done which included replacing parts of the brain that produce awareness (not all the cells of the brain produce "consciouse" thought. some just calculate things and encode information we are NOT aware of) so I can't be 100% sure about this... However, with electronic "cells" we will loose our ability to learn, unless these cells will be a pretty good replicant of the original thing. The reason is that when we learn, what actually happens are chemical changes in a certain synapse that make it stronger (or make other synapses weaker). if the cell wont be able to respond with chemical changes to the stimuli it recieves from other cells, our brain will be incapable of learning. I'm going to post this now and continue later.

These two painters have the best technique I have ever seen, they were and are my inspiration for the perfect technique. Their art emphasizes human fitness (strength of body) and is based on imagination. Check it out for yourself: Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell. What, do you think, are the ideas behind this art? And would you give credit to the imagination that was required to create them or would you disqualify it for not being "real life"?

I will have to read everything you wrote again to examin it more carefully, but still, no one answered my point just yet: The fact that a consciousness exists without sense organs means that it wont be able to differentiate itself from the world. It means that it wont be able to grasp it's own nature. Fine, but does this mean that just because it fails in the identification of it's own nature, that it does not exist? I don't see why. An example for this would be something quite terrible (but it has been done, actually): is to operate on an animal (an embrio, that his sense organs did not develope yet), and take it's brain out, put it on a dish, with nutritients to keep it alive. Now, consider that the physical form of your thoughts are changes in electrical field across the cells of your brain (which has been verified, BTW). Now, a brain in a dish produces those spontaneouse electrical changes, and it's cells are "talking" to one another (through electric pulses). This means that there is a consciousness, with no sense organs. Does this mean that it is not really a consciousness? it definitely is: If you give it electric stimuli it will sense it and react to it. if you "plug in" some sense organs, it will be able to code and percieve the information that they deliver. Just because it is currently in an inactive state does not change the nature of the thing that lies on the dish. And the fact that it doesnt have self awareness also doesnt change the fact that it is a consciousness (a device, if you will, with the ability to percieve things). BTW, I agree with what RationalCop said, and thanks for the recommendation of the books. I plan to read them during the summer.

So what you're saying is that unless I see a green object, I will never be able to identify that the red objects I've seen before are red? Also, I don't have that sentence that you quote from Atlas Shrugged. it doesnt appear in my book (it's hebrew translation), but even if it did I wouldnt agree with it. And in any case of disagreement we can always go to the physical world and check who's right. I am talking about the brain. If you put a human being inside the tank you talked about, He wont be able to percieve any sights, forms, movement, sound, words, etc when he grows up (even if you take him out of the tank after a few years), However, his brain is designed by it's nature to be aware of what happens inside his body (The position of his muscles, even if he can't see or feel his body) and to plan his motion, to plan the rate of his breathing, and the brain is also capable of forming new connections randomly, without an outside stimulus. There is no prevention that the person would also develope the understanding that there is an entity called "me" that "does things". And philosophycally speaking, if a single human being is all that exists in the universe, Are you saying that all of a sudden that human being's consciousness doesnt exist, or that existense doesnt exist? Of course not! What you said is that that person would not be able to identify himself as a consciousness, but it doesnt mean that he doesnt have one.

Where did Rand say that a consciousness which is conscious only of itself is a contradiction in terms? you must've misread it. it's "a consciousness without something to be conscious OF is a contradiction in terms" the "something to be conscious of" INCLUDES the person and his consciousness. which means that even if you are the only thing that exists in the universe, then existence still exists, and your consciousness still exists, even if it is only conscious of itself (a very unlikely thing to happen, but still... ) As for proving that god doesn't exist - God isn't such a special thing. There are tons of things that a person can decide to believe in, that have no evidence at all. There are a lot of things that people can believe in, that cant be proven or refuted. for example: I believe that there are flying elephants in the sky. but those elephants cant be detected. but those elephants are shy and they turn into light the minute that someone tries to spot them. There is no way to prove that (of course) but there is also no way to refute it. you can't prove a mystic that they are WRONG, you can only show them that the method they use to gain knowledge is not truth oriented (reason, logic). (Edit: check your spelling! - GC)