From: Dossy (dossy@panoptic.com)
Date: Wed May 01 2002 - 18:43:49 MDT
On 2002.04.30, Louis Newstrom <louisnews@comcast.net> wrote:
> > Does this matter? Should it matter?
> > "What if you were a brain in a vat ..."
>
> I think it DOES matter. Most people focus on the science, and say that
> uploading is possible. I look at the economics and ask "Why would they do
> it"? If you didn't set up a huge trust fund and a company dedicated to
> waking you into a simulation, then I would ask who did, and what do they
> want?
If you're willing to consider the absurd:
Suppose, in some future time, when waking of cryo-sleeping people
is deemed to be a safe procedure, people who are left "in charge"
of cryo-sleeping people (whoever you've entrusted that power to,
or whoever they've transferred that power to, etc.) are made an
offer of either waking people back into the "real world" or selling
your body to a firm that will wake you into a simulator that can
be used to harness your mental computing capability into a huge
wet supercomputer. What happens if that person decides the latter,
perhaps in exchange for some sum of money?
A little less absurd: What if they never find a way to make
waking cryo-sleeping people safe. However, they do find a way
to bring the sleeping person into a simulation of reality, which
is deemed "just as good as the real thing" except there's no way
for people in the "simulated world" to affect the "real world"
in any physical way. The person responsible for you is faced
with two choices: let you stay sleeping, or wake you into the
simulation. Suppose they chose the latter option. How would
you feel? Would you care?
-- Dossy
--
Dossy Shiobara mail: dossy@panoptic.com
Panoptic Computer Network web: http://www.panoptic.com/
"He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)
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