Uploading

From: Christofer Bullsmith (c_bullsmith@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 02:29:53 MDT

RJ Bradbury: <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
Thank-you for your comments, though many are orthogonal to my post . Well --
your eoutloadingf or eoffloadingf appears to allow a continuity of
identity which uploading doesnft. A greatly changed me continues to live
&#8211; great. This is what I meant when I mentioned that I was interested
in cybernetic enhancements etc. As for your comments regarding
eimmortalityf &#8211; since my entire post was to the effect that
uploading doesnft constitute immortality, OR EVEN LIFE EXTENSION, I think I
can get away without having mentioned gamma-ray bursts or the rather
long-term concerns addressed in the eDyson/Freese-Kinney approachf. The
critical difference in our views is that you suggest that eIf its an exact
information duplicate of you, it *is* youf. I agree with the sentence as it
stands, but I presume youfre selecting the kind of information you want to
consider -- relational properties have to be out on your account, all of the
physical/substrate/instantiation stuff likewise, while Ifd want to include
some of them &#8211; and as a result youfre bound to the possibility of
multiple emefs. Then when you say eAs soon as the information content
diverges it ceases to be you f c diverges from WHAT, in the case of
multiple copies from a destructive upload? Are you in fact hanging on to the
remaining body as the real me? You continue to talk about eonefs
identityf etc &#8211; these are notions irredeemably bound up with
singleness and unity, conditions which you nonetheless flout. My suggestion
is that the only reasonable course out of the kind of difficulties
encountered here is to take the eonef to have ENDED and a [number of]
something else, letfs just callfem informational emulations, to have
begun. Ifd be tempted to proudly point to the physical [claimed] solutions
to the kind of identity problems which arise for humans in the
physical/mental sense, and suggest that anyone who wants to talk about life
extension through uploading needs to provide informational/functional
solutions before they can do so in good conscience.

Ifm still trying to figure out your eThink of it like continually
upgrading your computerf idea. Thatfs fine for offloading or general
enhancement, but if we bring the computer simile to the uploading issue, it
seems to me more like getting a new computer than upgrading. You throw away
all your hardware, after copying a selection of information out of it. You
fiddle with the information-processing architecture so it will work smoothly
on a new machine (your eprocess of adjustment/remappingf) and dump copies
of it into a machine with a radically different basic operation (von
Neumann) which can be used to EMULATE the operations of your original
computer. Great &#8211; you can still play Pacman (=get RJ Bradburyesque
answers to questions), but any way you cut it, you have a new computer. What
you seem to need is the claim is that humans are identical to (are to have
their identity conditions understood in terms of) PROGRAMS not computers.
Turing numbers. Would someone like to explicitly claim that, so some
high-school mathematician with a modicum of common sense can have some
mental exercise?

One solution might be, I suppose, to make uploading so long-winded that
itfs more like offloading. No doubt to all the Extropians this would be
wasting time and money on an irritating philosophical identity issue &#8211;
to me, however, it seems more like ensuring a causal continuance of self, a
process which might make the difference between an academic pseudo-paternal
interest in uploading and an overriding interest in massive life-extension.

By the way, you can keep your eunenlightenedf. I am well aware of the
technical advances which may make some of this possible within our lifetimes
&#8211; I just happen to believe that committing suicide for the chance of
spawning some simulations of your higher functions is not eunenlightenedf
but downright stupid. Ifd much rather live forever, and improve myself
beyond my current comprehension, than =just= leave a legacy of stupid
simulations. But feel free.

>Perhaps we should pass a law that uploading is only allowed
for those who can answer the question "What is the sound of
one hand clapping?" (its an old Zen koan).

Thanks for telling me. I think the word eclappingf should be removed,
though, to be faithful to the Chinese. And since the answer in the Zen
context (for non-Zen contexts, and showing a further reason why you
shouldnft insert eclappingf, I can happily clap with one hand, using my
fingers against the heel of my palm) presumably involves silently showing
the questioner ones hand, this koan would be something that couldnft be
answered by a program, a Turing number, an information cluster, or anything
of the like. So maybe we should kill you, simulate your information
processing characteristics, ask you the question you hold as being of some
mystical importance, and then switch you off. Great!

JK Clark: <jonkc@att.net>
According to you, eThe important thing is that the upload remembers being
you and if something does that then you are not deadf. Ifm not sure about
this &#8211; Jekyll may remember being Hyde but not be Hyde, Mr Schmidt may
remember being war criminal Schmidt but not be him &#8211; it depends on
some fine points of identity. But this is orthogonal, for suppose I tell you
about my life and you, some years later, erememberf some story I told you
as if it happened to you. Having vividly imagined my exciting tale, you
later may honestly believe that is was you who got called an unenlightened
vegeburger on the Extropelist. However, I am dead at the time. This is, I
suggest, the situation with the upload &#8211; we might call it nonveridical
remembering or something.

Giu1i0 Pri5c0: < g2002@prisco.info >
>Chris: suppose last night aliens have taken your sleeping body to their
spaceship, copied the information in your brain, uploaded it to a biological
body identical to the original one, destroyed the original body, and put the
new
one back in your bed perhaps with memories of dreams. Can you be absolutely
sure
that it is not the case? Would it make any difference to you if it were the
case?

This is an application of the identity-conditions problem case Ifve been
waving at the eI am a programf crowd to my e I am an embodied humanf
position. Progress at last. Depending on the details of the causal process
involved in the process described, I believe I would die in the alien ship.
A behaviourally identical (but different, of course, in terms of relative
properties and causal history) thing comes back out to sleep in my bed. This
thing will sincerely but falsely claim to be me &#8211; as would be made
clear if, for example, the alienfs incinerator doesnft work properly and
the real me stumbles back in the following morning just in time to find the
doppleganger wondering why he has a care instruction tag looped to his
wrist. Now, as to whether or not I (now typing) may be such a doppleganger
&#8211; yes, itfs possible. From my selfish point of view I donft care,
but my parents would be right to mourn the death of their son, and inhumane
if they didnft continue to treat me as if were him anyway. As to how this
applies to my comments on uploading &#8211; Chris would be right to fight
the aliens, since a behaviourally identical doppleganger is not CHRIS.

Alex Ramonsky <alex@ramonsky.com>
Thank-you. I know. My comments on procedural memory were intended only to
question the rather naive idea that the things that are important and
defining about emef and my way of treating the world begin and end with
the gooey contents of my skull.

As for the gradual body-replacement stuff, thank-you, I know. As I said, I
think offloading or gradual replacement offers a chance at life extension.
Think about the eparadoxf of the Ship of Theseus &#8211; the best
solutions presumably differentiate between functional continuance and the
special-case eactual objectf concern usually only of interest with regard
to art or collectables. Humans have to be on the functional continuance side
of things for obvious biological reasons. But even functional continuance
requires continuance &#8211; uploading seems more like the new-computer
scenario I describe above. A pace of change, or a type of change, not
allowed by the type of object in question results in destruction &#8211;
loss, discontinuance, of identity. In the case of Thesuesf ship I couldnft
really care less, but if the issue is one of death vs virtual godhood, I
think itfs important enough to write about.

Has anyone reading this labored exchange read Strawsonfs eIndividualsf?
Talks about the identity conditions of humans, amongst other things.
Physical destruction, of a human or a computer, even if the information
processing characteristics of certain portions of the innards of each are
somewhere represented or in some way utilized, constitutes the death of the
human and the end of the line for the computer.

________________________________________________
CHRISTOFER BULLSMITH (mobile: cb75@docomo.ne.jp)
  'Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis'
    §106-0045`‹æ–ƒ•z\”Ô2-3-5‰H“cƒnƒEƒX401
________________________________________________

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