X-Message-Number: 7888
Date:  Wed, 19 Mar 97 00:58:29 
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Uploading, emulation

Thomas Donaldson (#7875) writes:

> 2. Computers, computers, what then are computers? I raised this issue in my

>    last posting, but it deserves more amplification. If we say that a computer
>    is any finite state machine, then in what way is a Model T automobile not
>    a finite state machine? In what way is a ROCK not a finite state machine?

>    (Yes, it may have only one state, but one is a finite number). We have lots
>    of machines all around us and do not call all of them computers.
>

Well, according to physics, every system bounded in spatial extent 
and energy content is a finite-state machine (for an extended 
discussion see Tipler, *The Physics of Immortality*, esp. pp.
20-44). So "everything"--everything we see, at least, is really a 
digital process, and something a large enough computer could in
principle emulate. In practice, of course, many phenomena are too 
complicated to deal with at the digital level, and to us are 
effectively "not digital" though in reality they are.

Along with other phenomena, the human brain should be emulable in a 
sufficiently large computer, thus uploading in principle is possible 
(leaving aside the question of whether such a computer could actually 
be built in our universe). 
In practice it is possible that it would not confer any 
advantages--the best emulation of a swarm of atoms interacting may 
have to be that swarm of atoms. And possibly, to accurately model 
what is going on in the brain may require modeling at the atomic 
level. On the other hand, that level may not be significant to us as 
intelligent beings, or (as Thomas suggests) our neurons may be 
replaceable by improved versions (this I rather suspect). The 
improved versions might be made of different materials than our 
present brain, and might function more reliably, etc.

I hope something like this will be possible--and I'm optimistic that 
it will be. The brain, for all its marvelous powers, has very serious 
disadvantages. It is fragile, prone to deterioration, and 
hard to back up. It seems likely too, that intelligence, memory 
operations, etc. can be substantially improved. If the brain is 
replaced with a better hardware device, that effectively is a form of 
uploading, something I look forward to eventually.

The issue is also raised, once again, as to what extent a 
simulation is "really" like the real thing, even in the case of a 
perfect simulation or "emulation." Would a person, emulated in a 
computer, really have awareness, feeling, etc. or just be a 
completely unconscious process, albeit a complicated and interesting 
one? Since rain emulated in this way would not be wet, nor fire
hot, we might worry that our emulated person might in fact not be a 
"real" conscious being. On the other hand though, it may be that in 
some sense emulated reality always *is* authentic reality. Emulated rain 
*would* be wet to a person emulated in the same system, for instance. 

In fact I subscribe to the view that an emulation would be
an authentic version of the reality it represents. If persons could
be emulated in a computer, it should be possible to communicate
with them as well as carry out operations analogous to medicine,
etc. If they behaved convincingly as I would expect under all
circumstances, I would see no reason not to accept them as real
persons with real feelings.

Other issues have been raised--that of duplicate persons,
for instance--about which I could say something but will hold
off due to time constraints. But here are a couple of further
thoughts on the "feeling" issue.

(1) Feeling seems clearly to
arise from an unfeeling substrate. Atoms or their constituent
particles certainly do not seem to have it, yet they interact to
make things that do. To me this suggests that feeling is reducible
to information processing, particularly in view of the remarks
earlier about things being finite-state machines at the quantum
level.

(2) It is possible that we are an emulation; i.e. somewhere
there is a universe with a planet with something very much like
what we would call "water", "air", "dirt", and even "civilization
with intelligent beings" and "very advanced computers." In one
of these computers there may be a program running--and that
may be us. (There seems to be no way to prove or disprove it,
short of some kind of outside intervention, beyond our
control.) So our "water" would only be emulated water, yet it's
still wet to us. And maybe those on the 
outside would wonder if we had "real" feelings or be sure we 
didn't--but that wouldn't change my opinion that we do.

Mike Perry

http://www.alcor.org


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