Re: physics of uploading minds

From: Pope Salmon the Lesser Mungojelly (rainbow@beautywood.org)
Date: Fri Oct 28 2005 - 00:56:53 MDT


On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 04:36:40 +0100 (BST), Michael Wilson
<mwdestinystar@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Personally I suspect there could be quite a lot of low-level
> imperfection in the process with no noticable objective or
> subjective effect; the human brain is accomadating in that
> respect.

Very! The continuity of self is not a condition; it is a drive. I
suspect if you were to artificially create a human mind that really was a
tabula rasa, its first act would be to make up a story about how it came
to be.

We can fantasize about continuity-of-self in the Singularity in the same
way we can fantasize about sex in the Singularity. Transferring one
neuron at a time, for instance, all safe & cozy & comprehensibly human.
The fantasies don't have to be so tame, though. If we want we could have
millions of selves with their own continuity, or we could make sure
there's only one of us to be continuous but we become hugely intelligent.
We could give a sense of self-continuity to a toaster, if we wanted.
These human things will be toys.

<3,
mungojelly



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