From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Jun 24 2002 - 01:39:27 MDT
It's perhaps interesting to reflect that those most likely to denounce
human copying or xoxing--whether real (uploads, teleports) or quasi
(biological clones)--often preach a doctrine requiring exactly the same
process:
When we die, we go to heaven, or perhaps we linger in some timeless state
until Judgement Day, and then are reconstructed.
In other words, all the atoms that constitute us are snatched away in the
moment of death. No slow, sedate, comforting neuron-by-neuron uploading
here; whack, zeroed out. Now it's true that some kind of *pattern* or
*essence* is postulated to survive (inside some impalpable medium, perhaps
the Mind of God). That pattern will be re-embodied at some future time,
either in righteous glory or in a toughened format able to withstand the
hideous eternal torments deployed by its Just and Loving Creator.
It's not altogether clear to me how this differs from fictional
teleportation, real quantum teleportation, or proposed methods of uploading
on to a distinct computational platform (complete with, one hopes, adequate
sensors and effectors). I'm pretty sure Christian ethicists and other
worry-warts won't see the resemblance, however.
Damien Broderick
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