Re: [sl4] Re: Uploads coming first would be good, right?

From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 04 2009 - 17:49:45 MST


--- On Wed, 3/4/09, Toby Weston <lordlobster@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Perhaps the following will aid in understanding. If I hard
>> wired your brain to connect the "2+2" neurons to
>> your "5" neurons, you would not ask "what is
>> 2+2?" You would ask "why do...
>
> Do you think math is memory?
> Maybe at first, but then we spot the patterns.

It has nothing to do with math. You believe you are conscious for the same reason that spiders know how to weave webs.

I believe that my consciousness does not exist because every logical argument about it always leads to this conclusion. I also believe that my consciousness does exist, because I can't believe otherwise, because anyone who could believe otherwise saw no reason to live and therefore did not pass on their DNA for me to inherit. I realize these two positions are inconsistent. I prefer to have this inconsistency out in the open rather than tangled up in complex arguments about AI, identity, uploading, teleportation, copying, etc.

If you don't accept the inconsistency, then you will keep looking for flaws in the arguments. That's why these threads never die...

-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com



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