X-Message-Number: 4343
Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 22:38:55 -0400
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Uploading

 (Thomas Donaldson) writes:
> ... what I take to be the basic idea of uploading (that somehow
> computers are superior material receptacles for our Selves) ...

To me, the basic idea of uploading is that one can make a backup
copy of one's self, and that this backup copy can be somehow brought
to life immediately or at a later time (perhaps after one's original
self dies).

It's of much less interest to me whether the new self's brain is made
of flesh, silicon, or diamandoid Drexlerian nanotechnology, or whether
it's equivalent in some sense to a Turing machine, or whether it's
parallel or serial, or whether it's in some ways better than one's
original equipment.

Cryonics can only take you so far.  Eventually, your brain will
be suddenly and unexpectedly destroyed or lost.  Really long term
longevity requires uploading in some form.  That is the main reason
why uploading interests me.

As a secondary issue, if we are able to grow or build new brains to
specification, it ought to be possible to construct a new brain that
is better in various ways than our current brains.  But this is a
secondary issue.

> ... recall that neural nets, among other things, don't have their
> memory uploaded into them, they are trained ...

Once one is trained, its memory can be uploaded directly into
another neural net, rather than training the latter.

> Is a filing cabinet a computer? (Remember that it keeps items of
> information safe, and therefore manipulates them, at least in a
> broad sense).

A set of filing cabinets, if large enough (and it would have to be very
large indeed) might be a good place to keep the backup of one's self,
for later uploading from.  Paper and ink are known to be capable of
lasting many centuries.  Whether this is called a computer or not isn't
very interesting to me.


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