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Nice short story. For a full sci-fi book of this genre, check out Permutation City. For another fun question: "What time is it?" And lastly a quote: "The effo
by Jach 15y ago
Nice short story. For a full sci-fi book of this genre, check out Permutation City.
For another fun question: "What time is it?"
And lastly a quote: "The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly: I'd rather use them to mimic something better." ~E.W. Dijkstra
- bglusman 15y agobetter yet, also Dijkstra, "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
- kanchax 15y agoWe are complex machines, aren't we?
- nessus42 15y agoFor a full sci-fi book of this genre, check out Permutation City. Then go read everything else by Greg Egan!
- danbmil99 15y agoThis. And don't bother trying to find a picture of him online.
- akkartik 15y agoI disagree. Read everything else by him, then Permutation City. I don't think he'll be able to top it. He hasn't yet.
- nessus42 15y agoI loved Permutation City, but I actually preferred Diaspora. And I think his best novel is Quarantine.
- danbmil99 15y agoPC is still my favorite, but he has written a number of really good novels, and his short fiction is also fantastic. Many people seem to like Diaspora even more -- may just be a matter of taste. My love of PC is probably more due to the subject matter (CA's as the underpinning of physics) than due to the book itself being better as literature than his other writing. Like most SF writers, I have a hard time actually remembering his characters -- they are there primarily to present his themes. If you want a novelist who writes SF but actually creates 3D, memorable characters, try Walter Jon Williams (Aristoi, Metropolitan, Implied Spaces... but avoid his serials IMSHO)
- nessus42 15y agoToo late! I already tried, but was bitterly thwarted.
- loup-vaillant 15y agoNevertheless, human uploading could be tremendously useful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading
- jamesaguilar 15y agoHeh. I thought about that, but I also thought, why not just tranquilize a human who believes he is about to be uploaded, then euthanize him? He'd never know the difference, so who does it hurt? And it'd be a lot cheaper. I suppose that you'd somehow have to convince people they were going to be uploaded. Maybe you say that you don't have enough computers here so all the uploaded people are running on the moon.
- jemfinch 15y agoYour question is no more interesting than the question of why we don't pretend to do surgery on people and then euthanize them.
- jamesaguilar 15y agoDisagree. In this idea there is a nearly universal assumption of "uploading" the mind in question, and therefore the disposal of the original sheath. So on a purely pragmatic level, the continued existence of the extracted mind is a lot less easy to verify, being that it no longer has an autonomous physical body. Anyway, you have to admit it would make good science fiction.
- strudey 15y ago"Learning to be me" by Greg Egan is a short story that covers this very ground, it's good.
- jamesaguilar 15y agoAltered Carbon also treats this subject in pretty good depth. A little more pulpy than I imagine Egan's writing to be, but still fun. Thanks for the pointer!