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It is impossible to know if you have successfully uploaded a consciousness, just as it is impossible to really know whether your neighbor is conscious, or wheth
by FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
It is impossible to know if you have successfully uploaded a consciousness, just as it is impossible to really know whether your neighbor is conscious, or whether the device you're reading this on now experiences consciousness, or whether a rock does -- or an electron, or a cell, or a city.
One related word: Panpsychism.
- brap 5y agoEven if it is consciousness, who’s to say that it’s the same consciousness? You can have multiple copies, including a real life copy, at the same time, all could have different experiences.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y agoAgreed, it's hard for me to imagine a situation where you don't get a copy -- in which case the consciousness "forks", and the loss of either one is still a death. It's like that movie The Prestige. The only case I can see otherwise is one where a person "melds" with a machine, and over time the balance shifts, like the Ship of Theseus. Perhaps it's really all about communication bandwidth. I got this idea from Vernor Vinge, I think, but it's also just in the air. That idea can be tested somewhat by considering the opposite case: Not parts combined into a whole, but wholes severed into parts: People with brain injuries, so that they seem to e.g. understand different things depending on which eye sees a thing.