CryoNet #32505 - #32506

CryoNet - Wed 24 Mar 2010

    #32505: Re: CryoNet #32501 - #32504 [Freeposity]
    #32506: RE: Down with Uploading [Jordan Sparks]

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Message #32505
References: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:06:16 -0500
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32501 - #32504
From: Freeposity <[email protected]>

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 4:00 AM, CryoNet <[email protected]> wrote:
> CryoNet - Tue 23 Mar 2010
>
>
> Message #32503
> From: [email protected]
> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:12:05 EDT
> Subject: Down with Uploading
>
> The sufficiency of isomorphism is a  pervasive and clearly wrong
> idea. Isomorphism means roughly same-in-form, and refers  most
> commonly to the fact that, in a computer simulation of a  physical
> object or system, every attribute of the original has a  counterpart
> in  the simulation, and it is therefore allowable to think that the
> simulation is "just as good" as the original and that a  simulated
> person would be alive and conscious.
> Among other fatal afflictions, which I have spelled out  in Youniverse,
> this  idea simply assumes, without proof, that a description or
> representation of a thing is the "same" as the thing.


Please demonstrate how you know you aren't a simulation right now.


Also please explain how your mind is not a collection of memories and
a collection of data processing algorithms.



-- 
Money isn't speech.
A Corporation isn't a person.
http://www.movetoamend.org/

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Message #32506
From: "Jordan Sparks" <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Down with Uploading
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:40:16 -0700

Robert,

I'm a glutton for punishment.  I have to strongly disagree with you about
identity.  It's been rehashed many times, but it's worth discussing.

I'm afraid your analogies are simply wrong.  We're not talking about
building a map of the city.  We're talking about building a whole new city
with the same level of detail as the original city.  The residents all get
relocated to the new city.  Do you think they really care if it's the "same"
city? 

Also, you keep insisting that "identical" atoms are somehow more important
than "identical" patterns of thought.  What matters is how the wires are
connected, not which atoms are in the wires.  If you build a second brain
with the same level of detail as the original and then fire it up,
biochemistry principles dictate that it will be just as conscious and
self-aware as the original brain.  Same pattern.  Same mind.  Different
instances of the same mind.

You already pointed out that there are two meanings to words such as "same"
and "identical".  But if you look in a dictionary, you will actually see my
definition as having much more prominence, while yours hardly gets any
mention at all.  And for good reason.  If two things are the same, then
their value and importance is also the same.  The two minds from the
paragraph above are both of equal value and importance, despite your
emotional gut feeling to the contrary.

And of course the most obvious and damaging piece of evidence against your
position is that our atoms do indeed frequently get replaced.  There's a
nearly complete turnover of atoms in our brain on average about every two
months.  Yes, many of them just move a short distance before being
reincorporated into some other part of our body.  But you can't look at
evidence like that and seriously suggest that it matters what the physical
substrate is.  Can you?

Maybe you are only rejecting "some" uploader claims.  In that, we completely
agree.  It is clearly not a near-term solution.  It is every bit as complex
as trying to revive a cryonics patient using their original atoms.

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