From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 15:05:22 MST
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, gts wrote:
> Eugen Leitl (perhaps -- the trail is messy) wrote:
>
> > Two instances of an upload cease being identical at bifurcation.
>
> Yes, and people who are not identical certainly cannot have the same
> identity. I wonder why some people find this so hard to swallow.
Its hard to swallow because it doesn't happen often in our
experience. Its like a con-person's shell game. "I put
the identity here under this cup, now watch closely as I
move the cups around, the hand is faster than the eye
my friend, now can somebody tell me where the identity is?"
Actually what is interesting is that a single individual can have
multiple identities (e.g. multiple personality disorders).
Given the fact that at least some brains seem to be able
to keep one set of memories distinct from another set
it seems that once uploads are feasible, there ought
to become a trade in "memories" and/or "identities".
One might be able to do this even pre-uploads with
high bandwidth memory-to-memory interpersonal links
(ala The Matrix).
So you get up in the morning, make your cup of coffee and
the big decision is "Who do I want to be today?".
The interesting thing is that I'll never have to get a PhD.
If I want one I can just borrow Anders or Eugene's "identity".
(Assuming they get the PhDs before uploading is feasible.)
Robert
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