5 ms·

"I may as well have died." then die, lots of people do. your assertion of a discontinuity between yourself and your upload is baseless.

TeMPOraL 15y ago
Reminds me of Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" - people who didn't want to 'back up' and 'restore' themselves simply died, and those who wanted to remained.
Groxx 15y ago
as is an assertion of continuity. To each their own.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  yes, this was my point. in an absence of evidence making a claim either way is foolish. guess I should have phrased it differently.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Interestingly, we'll never have any evidence either way. If I upload myself into a computer and destroy my old body then the new "me" inside the computer will no doubt say "Oh yes, my experience was fully continuous", because it will have been from his. But that won't mean that my experience was fully continuous. And if the copy of me is not me then you won't be able to ask me because I'll be dead. To me the idea that my consciousness (as in, what I am currently experiencing) would get transferred across to a copy of me if I made such a copy and deleted the original seems to me rather implausible, though, especially as deleting the original seems to be optional in such a procedure. And no, I don't think quantum mechanics saves us.
xyzzyz 15y ago
So if I upload my mind to a replacement body, but not destroy the current one, by continuity I get to control two bodies? Sounds cool, but somehow I don't believe it. This whole discussion is baseless as long as we have no clue about the origin and mechanism of consciousness.
- klipt 15y ago
  I think we have a lot of clues (based on neuroscience), lay people just have trouble understanding them because they don't fit their preconceptions. Basically: you are (mostly) your brain. If there are suddenly two copies of your brain (whether meat or silicon), there will be two "you"s which will diverge upon receiving different sensory inputs. Both will be "continuous" with past "you" in that they will share memories formed prior to divergence. However without some kind of telepathic link, they will not be continuous with each other (apart from normal communication). The question of "which one is real" is like asking which deep copy of a variable is "real". However, destroying one's physical copy in favor of having only a virtual copy living at the mercy of some Matrix would be an ... interesting life choice.
Dn_Ab 15y ago
I was not clear enough. This is not a statement on what choice I would make (I would be pro) but an abstract reflection. A reflection based on the idea that the existential framework such a being would operate in would be so diverged from the originating human that the old concerns, wishes and plans would likely pale to utter insignificance. The relationship between a seed and a maple tree. This is not a statement that presumes that the human's wishes were more meaningful or that things should be a certain way. No, its just an abstract observation that the assumption that the new being would share the same core being, values, views and attach the same significance to old memories is baseless.
jordan0day 15y ago
"your assertion of a discontinuity between yourself and your upload is baseless." baseless?? Really? I think it's a legitimate concern. When this sort of topic of conversation comes up, I can't help but think back to John Weldon's "To Be": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc

TeMPOraL 15y ago

Reminds me of Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" - people who didn't want to 'back up' and 'restore' themselves simply died, and those who wanted to remained.

Groxx 15y ago

as is an assertion of continuity. To each their own.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago
yes, this was my point. in an absence of evidence making a claim either way is foolish. guess I should have phrased it differently.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Interestingly, we'll never have any evidence either way. If I upload myself into a computer and destroy my old body then the new "me" inside the computer will no doubt say "Oh yes, my experience was fully continuous", because it will have been from his. But that won't mean that my experience was fully continuous. And if the copy of me is not me then you won't be able to ask me because I'll be dead. To me the idea that my consciousness (as in, what I am currently experiencing) would get transferred across to a copy of me if I made such a copy and deleted the original seems to me rather implausible, though, especially as deleting the original seems to be optional in such a procedure. And no, I don't think quantum mechanics saves us.

xyzzyz 15y ago

So if I upload my mind to a replacement body, but not destroy the current one, by continuity I get to control two bodies? Sounds cool, but somehow I don't believe it. This whole discussion is baseless as long as we have no clue about the origin and mechanism of consciousness.

klipt 15y ago
I think we have a lot of clues (based on neuroscience), lay people just have trouble understanding them because they don't fit their preconceptions. Basically: you are (mostly) your brain. If there are suddenly two copies of your brain (whether meat or silicon), there will be two "you"s which will diverge upon receiving different sensory inputs. Both will be "continuous" with past "you" in that they will share memories formed prior to divergence. However without some kind of telepathic link, they will not be continuous with each other (apart from normal communication). The question of "which one is real" is like asking which deep copy of a variable is "real". However, destroying one's physical copy in favor of having only a virtual copy living at the mercy of some Matrix would be an ... interesting life choice.

Dn_Ab 15y ago

I was not clear enough. This is not a statement on what choice I would make (I would be pro) but an abstract reflection. A reflection based on the idea that the existential framework such a being would operate in would be so diverged from the originating human that the old concerns, wishes and plans would likely pale to utter insignificance. The relationship between a seed and a maple tree. This is not a statement that presumes that the human's wishes were more meaningful or that things should be a certain way. No, its just an abstract observation that the assumption that the new being would share the same core being, values, views and attach the same significance to old memories is baseless.

jordan0day 15y ago

"your assertion of a discontinuity between yourself and your upload is baseless." baseless?? Really? I think it's a legitimate concern. When this sort of topic of conversation comes up, I can't help but think back to John Weldon's "To Be": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc