From: Emlyn (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Mon Dec 11 2000 - 01:45:59 MST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Russo" <extropy@russo.org>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: Immortality
> At 13:20 +0930 12/11/00, Emlyn wrote:
> >What's a computer engineer? Is that a dude that designs hardware?
>
> Yes.
>
Very cool. What kind of hardware do you design?
Personally, I'm not a hardware guy (icky sticky reality, urgh), but I can
respect people that are into it.
>
> >It is not even the contents of it's memory
> >addresses and the registers, and all that guff, while it is running; it
is
> >the actual things being done while it is running, as a result of those
> >contents. Atoms flowing around, gates doing gatey stuff, hardrives
whizzing,
> >stuff happening. Not information.
>
> Yes, but so what? We're talking about being restored in an emergency
> if your original body dies. Within the confines of the original
> conjecture, you would barely notice a blip in your thoughts between
> when you were one place and when you were another.
>
> I passed out one time when I was giving blood. One minute, I was
> sitting in a chair chatting with the nurse. The next minute, I'm on
> a couch, being dabbed with a wet towel. Oh my gosh! I lost my
> consciousness thread that was running! Life cannot go on... :)
>
Did your brain entirely stop doing anything?
>
> > > Assuming that human beings are just biological computers, it should
> >> eventually be possible to use the same techniques once we work out
> >> all of the neurochemical details.
> >
> >Undoubtedly this is possible, undoubtedly this will work, especially from
> >the point of view of the engineers & admins building and running such
> >systems (ie: from the outside). What will the subjective experience be
for
> >those so encoded, however?
>
> Wouldn't the goal be to make the subjective experience in the new
> body unchanged from the memories of the previous subjective
> experience? The more continuity, the better, I'd think.
>
> What would you be willing to accept in order to achieve immortality?
> A day of amnesia where you just don't remember that day - because you
> weren't alive? Degradation of some of your memories from your old
> body? What's a little schizophrenia in exchange for immortality? :)
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris Russo
> --
> "If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought
> or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet
> hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance
> which does harm."
> -- Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONS, VI, 21
>
The argument here against this functional position is that someone is
achieving immortality, someone who will undoubtedly be very happy with the
results, and good luck to them. Unfortunately, it will not be "you", the
original. The original person never makes it into the machine. If they are
unharmed by the process, they find that they continue living just as they
had done (relatively dissapointed, one would imagine). If they are
destroyed, well, they die, just the fate they were trying to avoid.
I certainly don't argue that the copy feels as though it is the original,
moved into the machine; for the copy, this is a very successful process. But
there is someone else, the original, who has a very different experience.
Emlyn
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