X-Message-Number: 32851
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 08:58:50 -0700
Subject: Re: Identity is as Identity Does
From: Keith Henson <>

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 2:00 AM, Brian Wowk <> wrote:

> I read with interest Bob Ettinger's recent remarks about Mark Gubrud's
> piece in The New Atlantis.
>
> http://futurisms.thenewatlantis.com/2010/06/why-transhumanism-wont-work.html
>
> Although I have not been around as long Bob, I have nevertheless
> observed arguments about uploading, identity duplication, and related
> subjects for decades.  In all that time there are two things I've
> never seen: (a) A truly new argument, and (b) Someone change their
> mind.  What is seen are people who passionately believe they are
> correct, and who believe that they have just the argument to finally
> convince the other side that they are right.  They never do.

There are very similar arguments going on the extropian list at
present.  I responded to one of them and it seems appropriate to copy
it into this thread.  It's an engineering perspective that flat out
ignores the philosophy.  (Incidentally, well stated Brian.)

***************

I read all the arguments about uploading including what Hans Moravec
said about one way to do it back in the late 80s and early 90s.  I
have not seen a single new thought about this subject in years.

Much of the discussed methods violated medical ethics or engineering
practice or both.

I had to consider this for "The Clinic Seed" chapter.

Given the exceedingly fine scale that nanotechnology is expected to
operate on, infiltrating the brain to the level of every synapse could
be done.  I don't think it's needed to go that fine, cells or perhaps
even cortical columns may be enough to see what a brain is doing.
With some amount of monitoring you could be reasonably confident that
an emulation was close enough to be acceptable.  (I.e., within noise
limits it would do what a brain does.)

In the process of reaching this level of detail we would fully
understand how memory is created, consolidated and accessed.  A neural
interface of that time would allow us to access the stored collective
data humans have amassed as if it were our own memory--somewhat the
way we use search engines to locate data today.

With this level of understanding we could write memory to a local
human brain as well, probably well beyond the normal rate that humans
can form memories.

Given this level of technology (and it's hard to see why it would not
come about) it should be clear that every step from unaugmented human
to a fully disconnected from the body uploaded state is reversible
without even losing conscious awareness.

So you can try it and if you don't like it, stop at any step and
either stay there or revert all the way back.

My opinion is that it would be addictive and darn few people would go
back to living in bodies except maybe on vacations (perhaps forced
vacations).

Being somewhat conservative (like most engineers) I would probably
keep the old brain updated so I could slip back into a body and go for
a walk.  But then I still have a working (I think) Apple II.

Keith

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