From: Emlyn (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Tue May 29 2001 - 22:17:58 MDT
Hi Chris
I'm one of the uploading-squeamish types, who believes that a straight copy
will not be me in a critical sense.
Chris Ledwith wrote:
> Hi,
> I am new to this list but I've been aware of transhumanism for
> nearly a year now, and have been slowly adding it to my worldview.
> I've been thinking about the subject of uploading, and the
> reluctance of many on this list to destroy themselves after the
> superior copy is made. At first I had the same feelings. But after
> giving it much thought, my question is, why? It seems to me that
> this desire to preserve oneself is an unfortunate hang-up in our
> programming (survival is so heavily integrated into our experience of
> consciousness, perhaps because consciousness rose out of the
> survival instinct and environmental pressures of pre-history).
A lot of people come up with this idea, that drive to self preservation is a
relic of our evolutionary history. I'm sure it is, indeed... how could an
organism come through the natural selection process without it?
> But
> this hang-up ought to be capable of overcoming by people as
> forward-thinking as many of you are.
I'm really curious as to why we would want to overcome a drive toward self
preservation? To what end?
> After all, some are proposing
> the deletion of certain emotions or attitudes that they feel are
> limitations they've acquired either genetically or environmentally, so
> why is this any different?
Well, self modification is a laudable goal, in that you exercise some
control over who you are, even given that you are bound by who you were in
the decision to make the modification. In some important, practical sense,
you can still be the same person, modified but essentially the same being,
after such a modification. Actually, I'm sure it's possible to modify one's
mental hardware to the point that one is a new being for all intents and
purposes (eg: frontal lobotomy).
> I mean, how could ingesting a suicide pill
> and then taking a nap not be considered a valid option, since the
> copy (which for all intents and purposes is you; or rather, you have
> no more intrinsic value than your copy; calling the other a 'copy' is
> purely incidental really) will carry on in your absence with all the
> same characteristics, and achieve all the same things, or much
> greater.
Intrinsic value... there's an interesting concept. What is the intrinsic
value of an intelligent entity? Can such a metric be defined, such that
values can be usefully compared?
A related point... how is the fact that a copy of a person will carry on
after one is dead, a motivator to kill oneself?
> In other words, SO WHAT if it's NOT you; it IS you -- this
> is something our minds have trouble accepting since there's no
> precedent for such thinking.
Well, come on, really it's me or it's not.
I think you may be getting at the idea that the human sense of identity is
basically illusory... that what we call the self is not something real, and
as it is not easily preservable there is no point worrying about it.
I agree that the sense of self is largely illusory. However, it's a
cherished illusion! I'm pretty attached to it, personally, and I don't see
any really good reasons to change that.
> Now, in my view, this is very different
> from committing suicide in the present -- suicide, in the old sense
> (pre-upload technology) is something I would never do, even though
> I don't fear death.
Uh huh. Ok, how exactly is suicide without the existence of a copy any
different from suicide with the existence of said copy?
> However, knowing that a being which is 'exactly
> me' would carry on seems sufficient to me to end my own
> existence. And why shouldn't it?
Um, because it actually isn't you? Maybe you believe in destiny, or fate, or
something about being put on the planet for some great work or some such.
Personally, I don't. Thus, no matter how similar another being is to me, no
matter how well it can carry on where I would leave off, etc etc, it's still
not me, and doesn't influence in any way my personal decision whether to
exist or not.
> I will feel no pain, no sense of
> loss, if I am say, in the middle of a nap when the pill does its work.
> Even if I'm wide awake as I die, the experience of death would only
> last an instant and then that experience would be lost forever
> anyhow.
Well, that'd be death. The copy question is entirely unrelated really.
Quick disclaimer... I'm no luddite, and I'm all for uploading. I personally
prefer the gradual-substrate-change method, where you gradually swap neurons
(and any other necessary bits and pieces, perhaps the whole body) for
simulated neurons, one by one, until you move into the machine. I believe
that such a process would maintain the integrity of the system that is my
mind, and move what I consider is actually me from a biological substrate to
a non-biological one. I could of course be completely and utterly wrong
about this, but I reckon I'd be willing to risk death to try it, under
appropriate circumstances.
Anyway, that's my piece. One final remark... if you have made a copy of
yourself, why would you want to kill the original self? Surely being copied
isn't *so bad* that you need to commit suicide...
Emlyn
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