From: YakWax@aol.com
Date: Wed Jun 11 1997 - 13:52:28 MDT
In a message dated 11/06/97 18:37:24, you write:
> Looking into the future as a follow up to Mark's interesting point, which
is
> also discussed in Wired October 1994 issue, how and through what medium
> would
> the Extropians go about uploading our human brains to say a Web site on
the
> Internet-- in mere bit/byte PET Scans mappings, or actual cryonic DNA
> through
> molecular computing or nanotechnology as some Extropians propose?
>
> For sake of argument, if Mark is corrrect that "...consciousness is a
state
> in the machine; an emergent property of the network...", and assuming that
> every Internet user uploaded their brain's DNA, would that result in a
> "Collective Extrophic Consciousness" or "Collective cyber/molecular brain
> mass" as such, beyond our mere brains per se?
>
> Or, is it possible that our "Collective Consciousness" is beyond something
> material and genetic-- the spiritual, the eternal, yes the soul--
> apocryphally speaking? Would that mean there may be the after-life beyond
> this physical world?
Surely simulating DNA would not have any advantage over real DNA (would the
system used to simulate it be smaller than the DNA itself?) This is one of
the things that I never understand about uploading, what advantage does it
offer?
If I wanted to simulate myself, how much of me would I need to simulate?
Just the brain paterns? or would I have to simulate everything? Surely if I
simulate something in every possible detail, the simulation would be larger
and slower than the original. Would my uploaded self be free from the
effects of time, or does information have to represented by something
physical? (and could we represent it by something more efficient than the
original?)
All information describes something physical, therefore the physical object
takes less space than the description (when the description is of
*everything* concerning the physical object, and the information has to be
represented by something physical). Existing as pure information would be
less efficient than existing as the thing we create information about.
~Wax
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