X-Message-Number: 3865
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #3851 - #3858
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 16:54:10 -0800 (PST)



Yet more on uploading:

I understand perfectly why Mr. Clark is unhappy with his present form. I am 
too. And uploading seems like a quick and easy solution to all those problems
until we really start looking at the basics of the issue. For instance, he
mentions catastrophic failure: if he can provide one computer which is still
in active use after 60 years, then that point might make sense. All the 
computers I know were taken apart and junked ... perhaps there is still some
museum piece available, but I wouldn't count that as active use. Of course,
computers are made by PEOPLE to serve particular purposes, and do that 
very well. Like hold lots of information and do calculations, for instance ..
neither of which we evolved to do on our own, probably because we had no
reason to do so. They were NOT made to work a very long time. (In fact, we
rarely design our machines to last as long as we do, computers included).

It seems to me that only a little thought will tell us that uploading isn't
an easy solution at all. We don't know what kind of machine is required to
run a human person (or superhuman, if Mr. Clark wishes), and it's very clear
that no such machine presently exists. Hence we have a lot of investigation 
to do just to work out that question. For that matter, ANY ability to modify
ourselves, with or without "uploading", requires us to think very carefully
about just what modifications we want. For instance, some animals (as I 
mentioned in a previous posting) have much more memory than we for the location
of food they have stored for the winter. Do we really want that or would we 
rather offload such things to some other store? We don't even know how our
own memory works! A very poor start if you want to think about uploading...
besides which, as I have explained, even simulating our memory may prove 
difficult in media different from brains (or objects we would consider very
close to them PHYSICALLY, not just as simulations).

Furthermore, as a strategy of working out how our brains work (and so finding
out how we can best create a machine capable of running us) simple denigration,

as Mr. Clark has already shown he is prone to do, seems very poor indeed. 
Beforewe start badmouthing any one of our brain features (we can hardly claim to
understand them right now!) it would be good for us first to understand how and
why every thing works there. (I mentioned before that chemical messaging 
seems to play the most prominent role in making changes which PERSIST). We
can't even clarify the notion of intelligence, and here comes Mr Clark to
say that we can become more intelligent by uploading... more powerful in 
every way, just flick a switch...

Nor is it enough that we can simulate a nematode (among their other features,
nematodes may not have memory systems nearly as elaborate and extensive as our
own). 

As for evolution, I would say that it generally works very well, but too slow
for us when we come to some particular attributes such as lifespan. We evolved
to have the lifespans we do because those lifespans were just past the time
at which (in the state of "nature") we would all die for other reasons:
disease, starvation, murder, warfare, etc etc. And now that whole countries 
have reached such a state of control over their environment that their citizens
do NOT die of all those things, we find ourselves quite rightly dissatisfied
with our lifespans. Yet even if we do nothing, in a few centuries or so (given
that we can maintain our present condition) our lifespans would show an 
increase. Can't wait for a few centuries? Well, as human beings we have 
evolved to a state in which we can seriously think of modifying such things
without waiting. That's great! Evolution (in our terms) does have one problem:
once more it does not act to suit our own human purposes. (Why should evolution
or the universe itself act to benefit us, without us doing something about it
ourselves?). 

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson
 
 



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