In a message dated 10/4/1999 8:49:08 AM EST, rhanson@gmu.edu writes:
<< We agree on the choice, but I'm more ambivalent on the consequences.
I think uploads will really miss meat bodies for a long while.
The upload world will be alien and weird in many ways. An analogy
is how the poor went to the cities while the old-money stayed in the
country. The city was alien, less comfortable, and less healthy,
and so the rich preferred to stay in the country. But many poor went
where the jobs were, in the city. So did the rich who understood that
the cities were where the future lie.
I think the life of an upload will be far more alien that city life was long ago for country bumpkins. For perhaps a long time, there will be no upload children, and the modeling of all the ways in which our bodies influence our minds will be crude and wanting. It will be like living on the edge of insanity in many ways. But I think it is where the future lies, nonetheless. >>
I think the key here is to provide a new upload with the same quality of sensory input as they had as a biological, and with access to cherished environments (or near-emulation quality simulations of them. If the upload comes to consciousness with all their old senses seemingly intact, in an environment familiar to them, there is likely to be less shock. As they grow used to their new situation, new abilities and sensory options could be introduced to them. A vital element to the upload's well-being would be the preservation of the ability to have "normal" social interactions with others, especially anyone currently conscious whom they had feelings for. For example, if you had a lover still in the biological world, it would probably do you a world of good to have an android body (whether your "mind" was run on hardware inside or outside the body would be irrelevant as long as it did not effect sensation and control) that your lover would find just as or more attractive to interact with as your previous biological body was. Alternatively, if you had loved ones who were also uploads, you would want to be able to interact with them in simulations which allowed you to feel like you were doing the things you loved to do when in the flesh just as well or better than you could in the "physical" world. With time, you may explore your new capabilities as an upload, and even come to prefer them to the old ways, but I think it would be fairly easy to adjust to being an upload if you were able to start out that way. Sorta like moving to the suburbs before get an apartment in Manhattan.
Glen Finney