Re: [sl4] Uploading (was : goals of AI)

From: Frank Adamek (f.adamek@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Dec 03 2009 - 08:01:00 MST


I don't think that my consciousness relies on such a low level of matter, that of atoms and molecules. My guess is the stability of the neurons and their synaptic connections and strengths makes me the same person from moment to moment. Considering the gradual replacement of components in neurons, I don't consider these things to be destroyed over time. With regard to duplication and destruction, is your best estimate that copying the configuration of cells and synapses is sufficient to make another instance of you? This would be the same as my belief that it is that level of organization which makes me "me". 
I admit that it it is possible for subjective experience to be an illusion, and that perhaps we are never justified in expecting to experience the future. I have no strong evidence against this proposition. However, I also have no strong evidence for this proposition. Considering that a life of subjective experience could be at stake, I have a very large preference for a cautious approach in my own uploading. 
-Frank Adamek

--- On Thu, 12/3/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@gmail.com> wrote:
> Experience consists of electrochemical signals conveyed to the auditory cortex, the visual cortex, etc that make up your brain, quite independently of whether similar or identical signals are traveling through a similar or identical brain somewhere else. If that brain is destroyed, no more signals reach it.But the brain *is* destroyed in ordinary life. It gradually falls
apart and the cellular repair mechanisms create a new brain in its
place.

There is no soul non-physical self, but there is the illusion that I
am a unique person travelling in the forward direction through time.
Duplication thought experiments just highlight the fact that this is
an illusion. Nevertheless, it is an illusion that I would like to
continue, and I would be happy to undergo any process that allows it
to continue in much the same way that it does in ordinary life.

--
Stathis Papaioannou


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