X-Message-Number: 3636
From:  (Joseph J. Strout)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Uploading yourself
Date: 7 Jan 1995 00:32:28 GMT
Message-ID: <>

References: <3efjrq$> 
<>

In article <>,
 (Anders Sandberg) wrote:

> Bruce Zimov wrote:
> >As a philosopher and a physicist interested in cryonics and
> >uploading, I more than anyone want this process to work, but
> >to date I have only seen this naive giddy enthusiasm about
> >the upload process, including works by Merkle, et.al., without
> >addressing the seriousness of the identity problem. 
> 
> The problem with the Identity Problem is that it can't be solved.
> Consciousness is apparently unobservable. If nobody can tell
> the difference between the person before and after he possibly
> looses his consciousness/identity, not even himself (because
> his behavior is the same, and he would thus respond as he would
> if he was conscious), is it then meaningsful to discuss it? 

I don't think we should be so quick to discount this problem, as it 
is the central philosophical issue in uploading.  We can intelligently 
discuss abstract concepts we can't observe -- justice, rights, honor, 
identity -- this is the realm of philosophy.  Progress is made by 
finding definitions and mental structures which are consistent 
internally and with other beliefs we hold.

As far as the gradual vs. sudden replacement goes, I agree that it can 
make no difference to identity (I've never seen a coherent argument 
that it should), though some people find it instinctively more 
appealing.  As for Searle, I think  the flaws in his consciousness 
arguments (such as the famous Chinese room) are well known -- namely, 
considering only part of the system rather than the system as a whole 
and so on.

Bruce, how would you define personal identity?  I suggest that 
identity lies in the sum of all our memories and personality traits, 
which we can view (for simplicity) as the result of all our 
experiences.  This implies that identity is a fuzzy concept: I am 
"mostly" the same person I was last week, but not entirely the same, 
because I now have a week's more experiences.  You could easily 
perform tests to see that my behaviour is not the same, but I argue 
that it is really my internal store of experience that makes the 
difference.

As for uploading, this implies that an artificial copy of you which 
retained all your memories, personality traits, and so on, would 
actually BE you in its identity.  Moreover, we could actually make 
several copies of you, and they could all be you simultaneously.  They 
would progressively become less and less the same person as they 
gained different experiences, but they would always be somewhat the 
same person, and they would all be somewhat the person you are now.

Can anyone see any holes in this argument?  It makes a lot of sense to 
me, and if there are any problems with it, I'd really like to hear 
them.  Thanks for your comments,

-- 
Joseph J. Strout                   Dept. of Neuroscience
                   Univ of CA, San Diego
--------------------------------------------------------
check out the Mind Uploading Home Page:
http://sunsite.unc.edu/jstrout/uploading/MUHomePage.html



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