X-Message-Number: 32867
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 08:40:03 -0700
From: Edgar Swank - President <>
Subject: Comments re uploading

First, on Robert Ettinger's arguments against uploading, "The 
pro-uploading argument depends on the sufficiency of isomorphic 
similarity," "The map is not the territory." A simulation of reality is 
not reality. But a brain is not "reality." Rather it is very similar to 
a computer. It has inputs, outputs, logic elements (neurons) with 
interconnections (synapses). It has memory, and (some kind of) 
programming. So a sufficiently advanced computer could easily emulate a 
brain, producing the same outputs for the same inputs, thus passing the 
Turing test. The brains internal states can be emulated as well, leading 
to a self, feelings, introspection, everything a brain does. Computers 
"emulate" other computers commonly. With the right programming, a PC can 
run Apple programs, and vice versa. Of course today's technology, both 
hardware and software, is woefully inadequate. But we have every reason 
to believe this will not always be the case. I think a computer 
emulation of a brain, will just start "thinking" by itself, the same way 
a real brain does. Self-programming.

Someone else commented that uploading might be possible, but not 
desirable. I beg to differ. With a sufficiently rich virtual 
environment, uploading will be comparable to Heaven. Physical laws of 
the real world need not apply. One can be literally God in your own 
universe, populated by devoted worshipers. The nearest modern-day 
equivalent might be lucid dreaming, where one can experience anything 
one can imagine, albeit briefly.

-- 
Edgar W. Swank   <>
President - American Cryonics Society
http://AmericanCryonics.org

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