From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 04 1999 - 07:46:36 MDT
Greg Burch wrote:
> > >Do people in thinking about cryonics select between the various
> > >options I can see: ...
> > > (b) Reanimate using the first upload technology. ...
> >
> > That is my choice. I expect the first unfrozen will be uploads,
> > and the first uploads will be the unfrozen.
>
>Same here. If I have to go down for the cold sleep, I don't expect to be
>initially reanimated as a meat machine. And, having the advantages and
>options available to an upload, it seems hard to imagine choosing the
>limitations of an original model (even augmented) organic human body again.
We agree on the choice, but I'm more ambivalent on the consequences.
I think uploads will really miss meat bodies for a long while.
The upload world will be alien and weird in many ways. An analogy
is how the poor went to the cities while the old-money stayed in the
country. The city was alien, less comfortable, and less healthy,
and so the rich preferred to stay in the country. But many poor went
where the jobs were, in the city. So did the rich who understood that
the cities were where the future lie.
I think the life of an upload will be far more alien that city life
was long ago for country bumpkins. For perhaps a long time, there will
be no upload children, and the modeling of all the ways in which
our bodies influence our minds will be crude and wanting. It will be
like living on the edge of insanity in many ways. But I think it is
where the future lies, nonetheless.
Another analogy is that of hunter-gathering vs. farming. Farming
was arguably a harsher less comfortable life, but it was where the
future lie still.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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