X-Message-Number: 33406
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:49:30 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Uploading
References: <>

Robert Ettinger writes:


>The nonsense enters when we focus on  uploading in the sense of a
>simulation of a brain (or simulation of 
>succession of states) in a digital  computer.
>
>First, fix firmly in mind the fact that the computers in question already
>exist, except for speed and storage capacity.  The deficiency of a
>simulation is  not a matter of speed or storage 
>capacity, but of the  intrinsic
>nature of a simulation. A simulation is a description, and a  description (in
>general) is not the thing.
>
>
>Either of two mantras ought to do the trick, for those accessible  through
>logic.  Either "The map (with unimportant exceptions) is  not the territory"
>or "A blueprinjt of a house (no matter how accurate and  detailed)  is not
>a house."
>

A simulation of a computation (in another 
computer, say) is a computation, and I would not 
consider computations "unimportant." A case has 
been made also that all processes in the universe 
are basically computational in nature. The 
universal quantum simulator described by Seth 
Lloyd (Science 273 (23 August 1996): 1073-79) 
establishes this, a quantum simulator being 
simply a type of quantum computer that can be 
efficiently programmed. Consciousness in 
particular is computational. It would be 
reasonable to conclude that if a computational 
device simulates consciousness in the sense of a 
quantum simulation (i.e. at a very deep level, 
below which everything is arguably unimportant), 
the result is also consciousness. This would 
provide a basis for the validity of uploading. In 
practical terms, though, a classical computer, 
even if revved up in speed and storage capacity 
by orders of magnitude, may be unequal to the 
task of simulating human consciousness; at 
present this is unknown. But this possible 
limitation is suggested by certain processes such 
as protein folding that nature accomplishes very 
quickly but take prohibitive amounts of time to 
simulate computationally. We know that a quantum 
computer for certain problems would have more 
than a polynomial-time advantage over a classical 
computer. A brain too may do certain things, 
critical to thinking or feeling, that no 
classical computer could ever do in realtime. But 
if so, in due course we should be able to master 
the hardware technology that could, and make uploading a reality.

Uploading, as imagined, would not be the same as 
a static description of a person or of the 
changes in their mental states over time. The 
uploaded individual would instead be an 
interactive system like the natural original, 
capable of responding in creative ways to inputs 
from the outside. When we think of a living 
individual we have in mind this creative 
potential and not just a static record, that is 
to say, we take account of what they might do and 
not just what they do. Such a being is an active 
part of our world or "frame of reference" unlike 
the static record--the two can be formally distinguished.

Mike Perry



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