X-Message-Number: 14842
From: 
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 10:13:36 EST
Subject: Adiklis, uploading again

Stasys Adiklis (#14836) reprises the uploading argument, and while all this 
is very tedious and repetitive, I guess it might possibly be useful to make 
yet another attempt at clarification.

Mr. Adiklis says essentially that the "self circuit" would be the same (of 
the same character or mechanics or design) in anyone, and therefore could be 
replaced without harm.

I have repeatedly said that the self circuit does not solve all the 
"philosophical" problems--those of "identity" including continuity in space 
and time. These questions remain open under ANY hypothesis of which I am 
aware. (What the self circuit DOES, among other things, in my opinion, is 
offer an objective distinction between feeling systems and "automatons" or 
zombies.)

But then he goes on with the uploaders' thesis--jumping to the conclusion 
(assumption, really) that, with sufficient fidelity, the map is indeed the 
territory.

Let me repeat my Turing Tome counterexample, in part, with a slightly 
different emphasis. Imagine a huge book, containing code for a person and his 
lifetime (or a large segment of it, including his environment). Is the book 
alive? Does it have feelings? Is anything happening?

It must be alive and feeling, if you believe that isomorphism is everything. 
And you can't escape by saying the program must be running in an active 
computer. If isomorphism is good enough for space and for matter, why isn't 
it good enough for time? The book contains code corresponding to meat, it 
contains code corresponding to the relations between different kinds of 
matter, and it contains code corresponding to evolution in time. It contains 
code for everything pertaining to a person and his ongoing experiences, and 
therefore, if you are a true uploader, it is indeed a living person. 

While our knowledge is still too primitive to be sure of anything, the Turing 
Tome suggests strongly to me that the uploaders are wrong.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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