X-Message-Number: 33431
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2011 13:14:38 -0700
Subject: re: debunking uploading
From: Jeff Davis <>

Here's Ron's post, with my response, below):

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Subject: Re: CryoNet #33401 debunking uploading
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2011 17:43:59 -0500
From: 


>I would ask the uploaders to make this thought experiment. Upload the contents 
of your brain to the fullest extent allowed by future technology.  Then blow 
your brains out with a gun and make sure your remains are thoroughly cremated. 
Are you happy to do this? If not, why not?  Surely, all that is essential about 
you has been preserved!  Are you not now immortal?

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The question Ron poses is one often found in discussions of uploading,
human "copying", and the nature of personal identity.

I take it the "unhappiness" Ron expects to find, stems from the widely
held view (held by some, not held by others)  that no one can be happy
with the prospect of certain and violent death when there is nothing
theoretical about it.  I agree.

In short, I accept that the upload is an entirely different person.
Yes, the initial characteristics would be the same, but the simple
fact of separateness means it is a different person.  Two copies of
the same book are still separate and distinct objects, not the same
object.  So too with uploads and copies.  There is a difference of
course due to the dynamic nature of "personalities", whose different
experiences will cause them to immediately diverge from the sort of
sameness found in two copies of a book.  The cause: books are static
information objects, personalities are dynamic information objects.

This is a practical matter for someone planning to be cryonically
suspended.  In future, uploading may become possible before cryonic
restoration, so we need to anticipate the possibility that an uploaded
version of oneself may appear before the restoration of the flesh and
blood original.  What then?  Will the upload believe he is the real
deal and take up your identity for the adventure going forward.  Will
he look at the frozen (and "real" to some) self and decide just to
throw it in the trash?  Not a pleasant thought (to some) when viewed
from this side of suspension.  But there it is.

Here's how I deal with this problem.  The real me knows that an upload
will not be me, but rather a copy of me.  But the upload too, will
know the score, and will be viewing the situation from the more
favorable vantage of actively being alive and having agency, while his
original remains frozen and helpless.  Well, I have already committed
to being faithful to any other me.  It's the deal I make and the
decision I take from this vantage.  If uploaded, the upload will
likewise know this and will, at least initially, be committed to
making every effort to restore the frozen me. Then the two of us will
have completed our deal.  I gave him life, and he has taken care to
restore life to me.

And if t doesn't work out that way, and the upload doesn't restore the
original, well, hey, sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear
gets you.  It's always a crap shoot.  What else is new?

Best, Jeff Davis

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