X-Message-Number: 11049
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: More on awareness etc, for M. Schepps again
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 23:36:55 +1100 (EST)

Hi everyone:

For Michael Schepps (and others) again:
You ask a fair question and I will give you my own answer. Basically, 
we may find ourselves doing exactly what those in myths did with their 
souls: periodically we do another save of our soul. And yes, if we do
this there would be some loss of memory for the time between saves.
However this probably would not affect our Self any more than the kind
of amnesia that often happens after injury affects our self. And if we
do have some particularly significant experience, it's always open to
us to do a save out of schedule (something amnesia after injury does
not provide).

I am among those who doubt the success of uploading ourselves into some
other machine, which would then serve as our brain (rather than the brains
we have now). SAVING ourselves on such machines looks much more likely:
we would have a form of storage, not uploading in the sense often
suggested. At one time I got involved in a debate on Cryonet on just
this question; I won't go through my arguments again unless requested.
But fundamentally I do not think that the notion put forward by Turing
works well at all for ALL conceivable kinds of "computing" (not that we
are basically computers in the first place).

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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