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> That's...not at all accurate. Tell me how. My recollection is that Dodge was scanned from a frozen brain. Later in the book, folks were full-body-scanned. A

> That's...not at all accurate. Tell me how. My recollection is that Dodge was scanned from a frozen brain. Later in the book, folks were full-body-scanned. And conceding that we need to simulate a full digital universe in order to simulate one person gives away the argument entirely — there’s still no coherent way to say that it’s the same person, a digital afterlife of the same soul. Stephenson blithely writes as if this is true.

ben_w 6y ago
> Stephenson blithely writes as if this is true. Forgive me, but this sounds like a criticism — is it? Because last I checked that novel was fiction, and that is what good authors do. It’s not like I’d criticise Diane Duane for writing Trek books as if Vulcans were real; if anything its kinda weird when shows like Trek break the fourth wall, which they avoided even in the two episodes which used the “the show is a fiction invented by one of the characters” trope.
dragonwriter 6y ago
You claim: “Once our scanning resolution is good enough, he supposes, we’ll be able to create perfect digital replicas of brains” None of the scanned replicas in Fall is perfect. They are functional in that they have consciousness, and connected to the original by some fuzzy, vague, and very much incomplete transference of memory and personality, but that's notably imperfect even for the focal information where people most knowledgeable about the process are deliberately trying to carry key information and plans across the transition. That is implicitly (though it is hard to tell how much since neither is a viewpoint character, and the original was progressively becoming insane before the transition) somewhat less the case for Elmo Shepherd/El—the former of which spent enormous time and astronomical resources to achieve that—than anyone else, sure, but there is no indication of anything even vaguely approximating a “perfect digital replica”. > there’s still no coherent way to say that it’s the same person, a digital afterlife of the same soul. Stephenson blithely writes as if this is true. No, he writes as though the society of the not-yet-uploaded in the book comes to accept it as tru-ish and those of the imperfect-replicas-who-come-to-understand-their-nature view it as also (but, at least in my reading, somewhat less than the preceding) somewhat tru-ish. But even the characters in the book, on either side, don't seem to accept it as unqualifiedly true in general with the possible, again, exception of Elmo Shepherd/El. Who is a, or both of whom are (depending on your perspective on continuity of identity) unbalanced megalomaniac(s). (Even before things get dominated by the afterlife simulation, the book already has a strong focus on the socially-constructed nature of perceived identity and perceived nature of reality.)

ben_w 6y ago

> Stephenson blithely writes as if this is true. Forgive me, but this sounds like a criticism — is it? Because last I checked that novel was fiction, and that is what good authors do. It’s not like I’d criticise Diane Duane for writing Trek books as if Vulcans were real; if anything its kinda weird when shows like Trek break the fourth wall, which they avoided even in the two episodes which used the “the show is a fiction invented by one of the characters” trope.

dragonwriter 6y ago

You claim: “Once our scanning resolution is good enough, he supposes, we’ll be able to create perfect digital replicas of brains” None of the scanned replicas in Fall is perfect. They are functional in that they have consciousness, and connected to the original by some fuzzy, vague, and very much incomplete transference of memory and personality, but that's notably imperfect even for the focal information where people most knowledgeable about the process are deliberately trying to carry key information and plans across the transition. That is implicitly (though it is hard to tell how much since neither is a viewpoint character, and the original was progressively becoming insane before the transition) somewhat less the case for Elmo Shepherd/El—the former of which spent enormous time and astronomical resources to achieve that—than anyone else, sure, but there is no indication of anything even vaguely approximating a “perfect digital replica”. > there’s still no coherent way to say that it’s the same person, a digital afterlife of the same soul. Stephenson blithely writes as if this is true. No, he writes as though the society of the not-yet-uploaded in the book comes to accept it as tru-ish and those of the imperfect-replicas-who-come-to-understand-their-nature view it as also (but, at least in my reading, somewhat less than the preceding) somewhat tru-ish. But even the characters in the book, on either side, don't seem to accept it as unqualifiedly true in general with the possible, again, exception of Elmo Shepherd/El. Who is a, or both of whom are (depending on your perspective on continuity of identity) unbalanced megalomaniac(s). (Even before things get dominated by the afterlife simulation, the book already has a strong focus on the socially-constructed nature of perceived identity and perceived nature of reality.)