From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Thu Dec 13 2001 - 08:24:42 MST
From: Emlyn O'regan [mailto:oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au]
Hi Emlyn, thanks for your response. You said...
"What I want is to continue. What I fear is the cessation of continuity.
What I can't define is exactly what it is that I am concerned with having
continue, or what continuing would exactly constitute."
I outlined something in one of my original letters which I think would
satisfy both the 'continuity of consciousness' people and the 'copy is me'
people. I think most people, like you or I, would value guaranteed
subjective immortality over tentative subjective immortality, and value
tentative subjective immortality at *no chance* of any kind of immortality.
So, in order or priorities, people may rank them this way...
1) guaranteed subjective immortality
Since we can not magically guarantee anything, then the safest bet
right now would be to dearly protect your body and brain for as long as
possible, maybe one having science achieve a victory of aging and disease.
2) a copy of me
If that never happens, or you should come to a tragic end, then you
may feel a copy is better than nothing, even though it is not *me* (as you
or I and Harv would suggest) then it is better for your loved ones to have
something of you still around.
3) no copy, no guarantee
Obviously both of these options are preferable over dying.
So, in my original post, I outlined this method which runs a conservative
and cautious line, and which I think would appease both the 'continuity of
consciousness' crowd and the 'copy is me' crowd...
Here it is again, in case you are interested. (perhaps I should write it up
and call it 'our best/safest bet for subjective immortality')
---------------------------
The macroscopic analogy of this would be replacing all neurons at the same
time with a copy of that neural pattern OR replacing one neuron at a time
over a great length of time. These two effects would, I feel, be quite
different. Is it still me if one neuron is replaced with a synthetic
hardware neuron? I think so, but what if I replace 10, 100, or 10^4 or 10^5
neurons? At what point do we have to start considering the possibility
that it is not me but a copy of me. Surely if only one neuron were *not*
replaced and the rest were with a copy, then that should be considered a
copy of me, as 1 neuron is not enough to house my consciousness.
Should my neural net be slowly replaced one neuron at a time, I would not
consider this any loss to the continuity of consciousness, and, at least
with my knowledge of the subject, I would consider this to indeed be *me*
Once my neural net is replaced by hardware though, an entirely different
scenario comes into play. I think, in the short time I have spent thinking
about this, that a sort of 'distributed processing' would be utilized, once
your neurons have been replaced by a hardware version on neuron at a time,
a copy could be made of your neural net, also one neuron at a time, and your
neural net could slowly start to communicate, one neuron at a time, with
this copy. Thus distributing your consciousness over two hardware copies,
without (in my opinion) having to worry about the loss of continuity of
consciousness. This could be expanded to multiple copies with your
consciousness randomly distributed across multiple copies of your original
neural net. If this is the case, and no one copy of your neural net houses
more than say... 5% of your total conscious processes then damage to any one
particular net will not result in your death while still maintaining
continuity of consciousness.
In conclusion, I do not find any solace in a copy of me living on, even if
it is objectively identical to me, subjectively it is not. So, I think,
until the above scenario is achieved, I would opt for dearly protecting the
physiological mechanism currently housing my consciousness.
-------------------------
regards
Michael
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