X-Message-Number: 32541
From: 
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2010 22:20:03 EDT
Subject: upload focus

Whether any of this is worth the time and effort remains 
doubtful, but I keep hoping I can find some slightly
different arrangement of words that will clarify some
issues and get past the mantras of the uploaders.
 
One succinct way to express one of the basic 
uploading flaws is the reminder that "The map
is not the territory." A problem here is that the
warning is not universally justified, since sometimes
the map can be regarded as the territory--as a clear
example, when the "territory" is itself a map. If I
have a good map of a city at some level--maybe
showing streets, parks, and important buildings--
then, say, a decent photo of the map would for
all practical purposes be as useful as the map
and could be said to "be" an instantiation of
the map. But such cases are relatively few and
unimportant. We are concerned primarily with
simulation of a person in a digital computer, and
I claim this can never be the person--that it is
impossible that you will ever "wake up" as a
computer program. No just unlikely, but flat
out impossible in principle.
 
The reason is just that a description or 
representation of a thing is never the
thing (with the exception of the map
and the like). A simulation of a person in
a digital computer is just a state of the
computer, or succession of states, each
state being  just a collection of numbers
or symbols  which COULD be interpreted
to convey meaning to someone who knows
the code. In the case of Turing's universal
paper tape computer, a state of the computer 
means just the set of marks in the squares of 
the tape at a given moment. 
 
Yes, I know what the main response to this
will be. The mantra will be repeated, only
louder. ("Only your pattern is important!")
Well, somewhere in the  multiverse (or
in many places and times) your pattern
doubtless exists (or many of them). Feel  
nice and snug? 
 
CAUTION--I am NOT saying that a computer
program could not be conscious, although
it probably could not. I am just saying that
YOU could not be such a program.
 
Robert Ettinger
 


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