X-Message-Number: 32532 References: <> Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2010 11:31:47 -0700 (PDT) From: 2Arcturus <> Subject: Thought experiment & survival --0-1437903262-1270319507=:58810 In trying to do a thought experiment about whole brain emulation, it's taking a wrong turn to imagine yourself as you are now alongside the emulation. If it were done for the purpose of survival, then by that condition, your current mind would no longer be continued, and so in a sense, it would not exist -- for example, the mindlessness of cryopreservation, deeper than any coma or other kind of unconsciousness. So the proper way to do the thought experiment would be to compare the emulation to the continuation of the body you have now, which would have no active mind. Ideally, the emulation would support the entire process of your embodied mind, resuming from the point where it left off in your present body. Since the mind is not defined materially, it does not make sense to regard this as a copy. The mind that resumed would be the same mind, just supported by a different substrate, in different circumstances, and it would be the only such mind in existence, if it were done for the purposes of survival. Yes, emulation raises the possibility of copying, as well as merging, splitting, enhancement, and a million other possibilities, but for the purposes of a thought experiment about survival, copying is not the issue. So then, if you imagine what it would feel like to be this emulation, by definition, it would have to feel exactly the same as you would feel, if you were to find yourself in that circumstance, except for your body (although if that were identical also, you would feel no difference in your embodiment, either). As we all know, cryonics is only a partial solution to the problem of death, not a complete solution. There are innumerable ways the brain can be destroyed, for example, in an explosion or fire, or by a neurodegenerative disease, or crushed beyond the ability of any computation or scaled technology to reconstruct. Those of us who are transhumanist are also dedicated to enhancing the mind in an unlimited direction, which would not really be possible if were to remain bound by the constraints of the organic brain's biochemical processes. Maybe other alternatives will be found in the future, but for now, brain emulation and emulation on more flexible substrates offer the only hope for a comprehensive solution to the danger of death and unlimited advancement of the human mind. --0-1437903262-1270319507=:58810 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32532