From: Hubert Mania (humania@t-online.de)
Date: Wed Sep 04 2002 - 10:15:47 MDT
Hi,
I am interested in a special future scenario of "distributed backups". Given the facts
that a consciousness transfer is finally feasible and I have made four or five external
software models of my personality who will be updated every week or so and who are
stored at four or five hopefully safe places, I guess I am still dependent on another
human or AI who is friendly enough or will be paid to activate one of the copies, if I
should perish surprisingly in an accident. Wouldn`t the software have to be externally
inserted in the fancy drive of a robot body - "Robody" (TM) - in order to let me run
again?
Does anyone of you see a chance to be *independent of external help*, when it comes to
activate one of the copies, if such an unforseeable sudden death should occur? Should I
"sacrify" at least one of the five and let him run a parallel life, and - though he will
be bifurcating from my "experience line" - hope, he will have strong enough ties to me,
so he will activate one of the "sleeping" backups and then live a life of his own and
leaves me alone? I think Einstein would have called this solution not beautiful enough
to be true.
I am interested in the question, if someone who trusts nobody, neither his friends and
family members nor the most professional "Backup Activation Service Team", might be able
to wake up a backup which must be able to move anywhere. Having your software backup
suspended and sleeping in the world wide web doesn`t seem to be good solution either.
There must still be an external signal or hands that puts the software into a movable
artificial body. Maybe the idea of a Robody, which must be able to move freely from
A to B anywhere on this planet, is too restricted. But shouldn`t we at least have the
option of 3d movement instead of being stored away somewhere waiting for a friendly hand
to get us going?
The only solution I can think of right now, is to always have a sleeping copy of mine
inserted in the Robody. This copy then must be programmed to activate itself after a
certain period, let`s say three days, where he has not received a "continue sleeping!"
signal from me - and *only* me. But this would mean to take regular care of at least
one of your copies. And still there might be a resentful family member who within the
three day period, could simply eject this software backup of mine out of the Robody
so it becomes "Nobody`s Robody".
Do you think private activation companies will be trustworthy enough or should it be
made a public issue with trustworthy humans or AI to do the job? Is the issue of
distrubuted copies inevitably connected to a perfectly working relationship with another
human being (who might die in the same car crash, too) or a paid professional service?
If so, the worldwide development of trust and unity between Homo sapiens specimen is a
most important issue for posthuman life.
what happens do you see any chance that the intervention of an
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