From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 10:38:38 MDT
On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, gts wrote:
> I sympathize with the poster who wrote words to the effect that any
> so-called emulations of us are not truly identified as us if they are
> not experiencing the same internal and external stimuli as us.
Are we talking about Damien here? Presumably one of his fundamental
objections is that even if the emulations start out in the same state
he is in, they rapidly diverge (so they are no longer Damien though
they might fool the extropian list for a couple of years). There seems
to be an overemphasis on the dismantlement aspect of creating xoxes.
Presumably if you have to disassemble the original to create the xox
(we are talking atomic level scanning technology here) then it seems
likely that one also has the ability to reassemble the original atoms
back into their original structure (subject to some degree of error
which may or may not exceed that involved in normal biological processes
(which are quite error prone -- at least at the protein level).
So there seems to be a fundamental concern that xoxing is a destructive
readout process when that seems unlikely to be the case. Unless Damien
wants to argue that if I take all of his atoms apart and put them back
together the same way I don't get back Damien.... :-?
> If I'm sitting here drinking coffee and writing to the extropian list,
> while my so-called emulation is watching Oprah, then that so-called
> emulation of me is not actually a true emulation of me. It's one thing
> to look like a duck and quack like a duck; it's quite another thing to
> cognize like one.
I would tend to think you-xoxs that watch Oprah could be perfect
replicas of you if you have the perspective that you need to follow
multiple input streams to be "trans-human". I'd love to have part
of me watching Oprah *if* it didn't detract from the work the rest
of me(s) wanted to get done. The trick is to be able to extract
that experience in a productive way. So xoxing is only useful if
it is coupled with experience vampirism. Of course this bumps into
free will and conscious mind independence constraints -- so xoxes
must sign "blood" donation contracts. (Obviously if you have "decided" this
is fine at the moment of xoxing, then this is an implicit assumption.)
I think a key point may be the phrase "so-called emulation".
Either you believe its a perfect replica or you don't. You need
to show your hand. If its not a "perfect" replica than the cognizing
question goes away. If it is a "perfect" replica then it becomes
an interesting question as to what collection of experiences would
so "disturb" it from its central being that it could no longer be
considered to be *you*. I can go on vacation to Pakistan or
go on vacation to Costa Rica (two very different places) but
I would argue that I *still* come back "Robert Bradbury".
So experiential differences do not always *fundamentally* change
the identity of the person. So we can likely have half-a-dozen
Damiens or gts's which can effectively substitute for each
other when viewed from a non-subjective perspective. (This
is taking a page from Emlyn's book in that if you think you
are yourself -- then you are yourself.)
So long as I can't cognize like a *specific* instantiation of
an individual duck then its pretty darn difficult to notice
that they are missing.
Would anyone be posting notes missing me, as we did with Sasha,
if a Robert-xox or even a Robert-[AI]-bot continued to post
notes to the list? Moreover how would the list detect that
the Robert-function was being fulfilled by one or more
combinations of Robert-xoxs and/or Robert-[AI]-bots?
Robert
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