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Information-theoretic death

From Aware Theory

The question is when is death irreversible? "Information-theoretic death" is supposed to be a form of irreversible death. Wiki defies it as:

Information-theoretic death is loss of information within a brain to such an extent that recovery of the original person becomes theoretically impossible. Information-theoretic death is an attempt to define death in a way that is permanent and independent of any future medical advances, no matter how distant or improbable.

A person is dead according to the information theoretic criterion if their memories, personality, hopes, dreams, etc. have been destroyed in the information theoretic sense. If the structures in the brain that encode memory and personality have been so disrupted that it is no longer possible in principle to recover them, then the person is dead. If they are sufficiently intact that inference of the state of memory and personality are feasible in principle, and therefore restoration to an appropriate functional state is likewise feasible in principle, then the person is not dead.

So defined, information-theoretic death has been called "the ultimate definition of irreversible death, and "absolutely irreversible death" in which "destruction of the brain has occurred to such an extreme that any information it may have ever held is irrevocably lost for all eternity.


There are a very large amount of structures and functioning of matter that human brains can produce. If your brain is completely analyzed as to its structure and functioning over any period of time it will be called a physasection. This physasection will have produced or will produce an awaresection. The knowledge about the the physasection and awaresection is called an episection. The specific knowledge about the awaresection will be the epiawaresection. The specific knowledge about the physasection will be the epiphysasection. Imagine if after this period of functioning of your brain, the matter that your brain is composed is scattered through out the universe. We have no idea what the structure and functioning was so we have no idea how to restore the required structure and functioning of the brain. Is this Information-theoretic death? There is no way to tell where the original matter your brain was made of is, because there is no record of where it went in the universe. So far as science can tell any specific piece of matter does not seem to have a memory of where it has been or what people or conscious beings it has produced over all or any part of time. The science of superimmortality predicts that it is not the matter that is important in reproducing a specific consciousness but the structure and functioning of matter that is important. But if we have no knowledge about the structure and functioning of a specific brain how can it be known how to recreate this specific structure and functioning of matter? Is it lost forever because of its complexity or is there something else going on with the matter like a supernatural aspect that has been lost with the lose of the knowledge of the brain specific complexity? Superimmortality predicts that there is nothing supernatural that is lost. What is lost is not knowledge but the actual structure and functioning of the brain that is constantly changing. This is not in the form of knowledge, it is just a functioning process. But knowledge about this functioning process over a time period can be known and put into many different forms that can then be used in many different ways. But if you can not study this particular structure and how it is functioning over a period of time how can you duplicate it?

This is where mapping comes into the process. You can map physapaths to awarepaths. Many physapaths will map to one awarepath. Physapaths create physacontinuums that map to awarecontinuums. Because of this not every physapath needs to be studied. With clues to the original awarepath and its behavior the process can be faster.

Lets say we want to make a copy of the greek philosopher Socrates. We know some information about his life but we know almost nothing about the way his brain was structured and then how it functioned during his life time. A cidentireplica of Socrates will give extra legacy immortality. And superimmortality predicts that a cidentireplica gives Socrates ixperiencit immortality. We do not have to duplicate the whole body exactly to produce consciousness only the brain. We do not have to use the same matter that the original was made of nor create it at the same place and time. How can we determine the needed structure and functioning that will produce the needed behavior that the original Socrates produced? We do not know what he did at each moment of his life, Maybe if there was time travel and then we could study every aspect of his behavior and maybe even his brain structure and functioning. Lets however predict that this is not possible. Can we call Socrates Information-theoretically dead with no possibility of conscious existence again? No, because as long as there are one or more structures and functionings of matter that will produce a consciousness that he will experience when replicated he could consciously exist again at any time in the future. But how do you find these specific structures and functionings of matter out of all the possible structures and functioning of matter. that produce a human consciousness? By producing one neuropath after another and seeing what behavior it produces. The universe can produce endless numbers of neuropaducers. Eventually there will be neuropaths that believe that they exist in ancient Greece. The sensepaths that are applied to them will be the same as ancient Greece. The numerous different neuropaths can interrelate with each other in such way that they think they have bodies and exist in this Athenian reality. Eventually the neuropaducer will be creating many different awarepaths that have all of the known characteristics of Socrates, but they will be different versions of him. You may not know which version is the original but you will eventually produce one or more versions that will produce Socrates ixperiencitness.

We are not likely to do all of this work just for the recreation of one worthy previously existing person. But if we do not wipe ourselves out as a advanced society, and keep developing we are likely to spread out over the universe producing conscious beings in many different ways for many different positive purposes. Along the way many versions of Socrates are likely to be produced along with many versions of ever other people that has died.