X-Message-Number: 8571
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 14:13:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Olaf Henny <>
Subject: Uploading & Excitement

Message #8563
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>

>>Our life will be as dry as the ...-

>What makes you think this?  If we can upload a brain at all, implementing
>emotions, hormones, neuromodulators, etc. will be almost trivial subparts
>of that problem.  Uploading will not be successful until these problems are
>solved, and there is no reason to suppose they are unsolvable.

And how do you suggest this will work?    

Now: I ski down a mountain; eyes signal steep cliff ahead; brain 
concludes: possibly more than I can handle sends signal to 
adrenal glands; defenses get fired up heartbeat increases, 
reaction times reduces; I am getting an incredible turn-on; I 
feel competent and powerful.  Admittedly all these signals of 
cause and effect are processed through the brain and can 
conceivably be simulated there. But...

...Later (IMHO and here I need some input):

I lie in my cyber-bed or whatever will equate for a position of 
comfort then.  I send a signal to my cyber-brain: Get me to the 
edge of systems breakdown (with a specified safety margin of 
course) and convey to me all the sensations of exhilaration and 
joy.  Somehow this does not seem quite the same.

>An uploaded human will be as much like a computer of today as a human is
>like a paramecium.  Don't impose your prejudices based on today's computers
>on what uploads will be like.  They will be far more human than machine (as
>these terms are generally used in today's english).  Mind uploading does
>NOT mean converting you into a logical, Spock-ish symbol processor
>executing well-defined algorithms in your head.  It simply converts your
>neurons (and glands, and so on) from biological to artificial.  Their
>functioning is exactly the same, or the upload is not functionally
>equivalent, and therefore not successful.

I hope you are right, but somehow I cannot imagine a state 
machine, which will clearly include all the advances of today's 
technology, timid as they may seem by the standards of the day, 
to contain or even tolerate the uncertainties and ficklenesses of 
the human brain.

>Now, once uploading is accomplished, I'm sure there will be some folks who
>will start tinkering with their brains, trying to enhance intelligence,
>surpress instincts, etc.  But I won't be one of them, and you won't either
>if you don't want to be.

I like the SF concept of computer link to bio-brain to allow 
retrieval from an information library, but 'uploading' would 
suggest to me an integration of the two.  Where do 'I' stop, and 
where does the rest of the world start?



Message #8564
From: Mike Perry <>

>>excess computing capacity left to strictly assess every move we 
>>make in terms of probability of success.  Our life will be as dry as
>>the - ahhmm - exhalation of an Egyptian mummy and as exciting as
>>watching laundry dry.

>How do you know this? 

Because we would have no doubt the capability of that chess 
computer (Deep Blue?) to evaluate probable results of any action 
we take to n extensions.  Spontaneity would be replaced by prior 
evaluation.  The result would be a high degree of risk avoidance, 
which would result from knowledge of the likely result prior to 
taking any action.

>What do we know now that would preclude 
>life as an upload being *more* exciting, not less exciting than it is 
>now, in a meat body? If emotions reduce to brain states, and the 
>brain is emulated in a computer, could we not have the same 
>subjective experiences in that form as here? Plus, a computer 
>emulation, one would think, would be more amenable to enhancements of 
>various sorts. This might involve "deeper," "more meaningful" 
>experiences than are possible in our flesh-and-blood state. 
>Certainly nobody has ruled it out.

Maybe I am more concerned with the physical aspects of living and 
less with the cerebral, but I can just not see how the power of 
pre-evaluation of actions can lead to more excitement in real 
'life'.  With simulations it is different.  They are a game and 
any pre-evaluation of actions could be suspended for the 
duration, since any harm is unlikely.

Olaf Henny

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