X-Message-Number: 16132 From: "Steven Lacher" <> Subject: Uploading and duplicates Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 06:54:36 -0400 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_000F_01C0CE1D.C1D04840 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Everyone.... I've been doing a fair amount of thinking about this issue - and I'd like to state my opinion about it. However, please take as a disclaimer, that this is only MY OPINION, and not a scientific argument of any sort. And we all know what people say about opinions, right? :-) Anyhow, I think that identity in a living human being is a combination of both software and hardware. That is, our minds, our consciousness, our intellect is the "program" of ourselves which is "running" in our brain. If you damage someone's body or brain you can impair either the ability of the brain to run the program, or the program's inability to interpret data from the sense organs and storage facility of the brain. There are many documented cases for example of people getting damage to a particular node of the brain and losing motor skills, or short-term memory. If we can agree that we're a combination of software and hardware, then the uploading issue becomes a sticky one. I think if you were able to maintain your consciousness and parallel process between your brain and some sort of external system - you'd still be you. If you then could shunt your basic awareness between these two simultaneous systems - you'd still probably be you. But if a "backup" of your memories is loaded up in its entirety on a new system - I don't think that is you. The crucial link is the maintaining of personal awareness. I think life and identity are intertwined in a shared "state". Having said that, I do beleive that once one legally dies and is cryopreserved and revived - that is STILL you. You just had your body "rebooted". I'm all for getting rebooted - but until the science is there where I can be conscious and aware and "runnning" on hardware that's not my body, without losing awareness I'm going to remain highly skeptical about the idea of uploading. --Steven Lacher ------=_NextPart_000_000F_01C0CE1D.C1D04840 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16132