Re: Uploading -- not quite what you want it to be?

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Jun 25 2002 - 04:08:49 MDT


On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 04:42:46PM +0900, Christofer Bullsmith wrote:
> A question for the 'extropians'. (Apologies if this discussion has been had
> -- please direct me to it).

I think it is all over the archives, it is one of the perennials.

I really think somebody should sift through the archives and put
together a FAQ. Maybe some of the minduploading.org folks feel strongly
for it?

The big problem here is that people have different views of what
constitutes identity, and someone with a pattern-identity view will not
be swayed by arguments that make sense to a body-identity view, and vice
versa. That people are also arguing about what constitutes a simulation
(something similar to a system) and an emulation (a one-to-one mapping)
and whether an emulation would have fuzzy things like qualia makes the
debate even more complex.

In the end, even if we resolve the semantic confusion and some of the
philosophy of mind issues inherent in uploading, I think we will
disagree on just what constitutes 'me'. As I see it, it is not a matter
of truth, it is a matter of personal preference.

> Besides -- me, I'm a physical system, not an information processing
> capability.

Sounds like a body-identity position (however, some people think that
physics is all information processing). I take more the information
processing position, since I see "me" as a certain process interacting
with the world and changing over time. But to each his own.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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