X-Message-Number: 3722
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 07:38:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Andro <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS: uploading

If a brain was uploaded into a computer, and then downloaded, twice, into 
empty brainless bodies cloned from the original, which would be the 
original person?  Both?  Could one download *be* both downloads?

They would be identical (in some ways) initially, but would diverge 
rapidly: they would leave the room at different times, or through 
different doors, with one likely beginning to establish social dominance 
over the other even then.  They would then lead lives as different as the 
lives of identical twins.  Which twin is the original pre-cell-division 
person?  Can one identical twin *be* both twins?

My conclusion is, the upload is not the original person; at best, it 
carries the same claim to immortality that having a child carries.  A 
child carries your genetic information, bears your behavior patterns, 
shares many memories, but eventually leaves home and lives its own life; 
it was never *you*, not ever.

To the child, or the upload, or both downloads from the single upload, 
none of this matters as much as the fact of their personal existence; 
their being is more important than their origin, and more imprtant than 
the continued existence of their "parent".

Always optimistically,

Robin 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3722