From: Harvey Newstrom (newstrom@newstaffinc.com)
Date: Tue Jun 22 1999 - 23:19:03 MDT
Emlyn,
You are indeed discussing important questions that need to be solved before
we can accept uploading. Another question which crops up here from time to
time is the question of identity. What is identity, and what are we trying
to preserve with uploading? This leads to the copy question.... Forgive
me, everyone, for bringing this up again. This often leads to flame wars,
but hopefully we can avoid those.
Basically, the question is this: Suppose we clone an exact duplicate of
your body including your brain. Now suppose we program the brain with the
exact thought pattern you have now, and all your memories. For all intents
and purposes, it is a perfect copy and is equally "you", indistinguishable
from "you".
Some people say it is now all right to kill the original you, because you're
not dead, there is still (another) you that continues living. They say that
there is no possible objection to this unless you claim that an invisible
soul has failed to transfer from the original to the copy. They say that to
object to this killing of the original, is to claim that mystical
nonscientific souls exist and/or that perfect copies are not really copies
of the original.
Other people claim that their goal is to avoid experiencing death. Even if
one copy of "you" survives, it still fails to prevent the death of the
original you. They claim that this kind of upload is unacceptable, because
the original still grows old and dies. The only answers to this objection
involve simultaneously killing the original at the exact moment that the
copy is made, or redirecting the copy's sensory input to the original so
that the original cannot tell that it has not moved into the copy. (Then
you kill the original when its not looking.)
This question and its discussion has revealed to me that different people
have different goals for uploading. Some people want their current self to
live forever. Others find it acceptable for their current self to die as
long as good enough copies live forever. The former measure their own
identity internally as to where they feel they are. The latter measure
their own identity externally, as to where other people think they are.
They claim that if no one can tell the difference, its the same as there
being no difference.
This question is very difficult to debate. Some people go so far as to
argue that if the copy is a perfect copy, that there still is only one
"you", because the copies are indistinguishable from each other. How can
you prove one is not the other? They refuse to even discuss destroying one
copy, because they claim there were never two copies. This degenerates into
arguments over how to count from one to two! They also refuse to discuss
the original versus the copy, because if they are identical, neither is more
original or copy than the other.
I'm sure this will start the discussion again. (SORRY!) But I'm not sure
what else there is to add. My final conclusion was that people have
different goals for what they call survival. What is acceptable for one is
not acceptable to another. The scary thing gets into where some people said
they would gladly shoot an original and argue that they hadn't killed anyone
or even caused anyone pain because the one and only (surviving) copy was not
killed and did not feel pain. There also were examples given where it would
be cheaper to clone and kill someone rather than cure their disease or send
a rescue party to save them, etc. The differing views of what constitutes
survival definitely clashed where they did not agree.
I think I have accurately described the viewpoints. My personal view is
that I want my original consciousness to survive. If somebody creates an
exact copy of my consciousness, I'm sure it also wants to survive. It's
existence does not allow me to die. I still would look for survival
techniques even after the copy were made. I would not consider the copy
"me". There would be two me's now, and each one would want to personally
survive. The only acceptable upload I have heard involves replacing my
biological neurons one at a time with mechanical ones. Eventually, I would
be in the mechanical robot and would feel it was me.
But what happens if they put together a meat brain with my discarded
neurons? The meat brain would also feel that it was "me" and would want to
survive. All existing copies of me would want to survive. The above
scenario is only helpful because there is always only one copy of me at any
time. If a second copy is created, each one of them would want to survive.
-- Harvey Newstrom <mailto://newstrom@newstaffinc.com> <http://newstaffinc.com> Author, Consultant, Engineer, Legal Hacker, Researcher, Scientist.
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