CryoNet #32525 - #32528

CryoNet - Fri 2 Apr 2010

    #32525: Re: Henson's experiment [Keith Henson]
    #32526: Gary Kline Message 32524 [Melody Maxim]
    #32527: Copies of "Me" - Uploading and Nanotech [Melody Maxim]
    #32528: Improving Alcor's scientific status? [MARK PLUS]

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Message #32525
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 05:16:51 -0700
Subject: Re: Henson's experiment
From: Keith Henson <[email protected]>

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 2:00 AM, [email protected] wrote:

> Henson's thought experiments, or very similar ones,
> have been done many times, including mine of 50
> years ago. To try again to unmuddle the concept,
> I'll try again to convey my take on it, in extreme
> brevity.
>
> There are two basic questions:  (a) Would a perfect
> copy of you--atom for atom--BE you? (b) Would a
> simulation of you in a digital computer be in all
> relevant respects equivalent to an organic copy ?

In both cases, the copy or the simulation (if accurate enough) would
claim to be you and act like you.  But in my opinion they would not
actually be the person copied or simulated.  It's a fine point to be
sure.  If the original were destroyed after copying, your friends
would not be aware of the instance being a copy.

> First, there are no agreed criteria of survival, so (a)
> cannot yet be answered with confidence. Current
> majority opinion means very little, but I suspect that
> most of us currently, confronted with death, would
> not be consoled by the assurance that somewhere,
> some time, in some segment of the putative
> multiverse-- present, past, or future--a high-fidelity
> copy of you (at your present phase of development)
> would exist.

I don't see this as coming up in the real world because the technology
up to the task of creating a duplicate would certainly be up to
repairing the original.  Now I can imagine such a situation, say you
were in a ship hopelessly falling into a black hole and had the
ability to make a molecular level scan and transmit it out of the
fatal gravity well for building a copy body and brain.  I think under
those dire circumstances most of us would take this route, even if the
scanning were destructive.

> Second, most writers seem to be determined to find
> a single criterion, or set of criteria, that would allow
> a yes-or-no answer, the copy is you or not. It seems
> to me a quantitative view is more realistic--a copy is
> you in the ways, and to the extent, that it shares your
> significant attributes. For example, your predecessors
> such as your infant self, and your successors or
> continuers or older selves, are partly you and partly
> other. And the question is not how you feel about this,
> but how you should feel--bearing in mind, among other
> things, that satisfaction or happiness is not always
> compatible with rationality. Going back at least to
> Socrates, a case can be made that it's better to be a
> contented cow than a troubled human.

I don't see the point of copies in a limited world, but if humans were
to embark on a tour of the galaxy ending in a Far Edge Party, they
would need to copy themselves many times (roughly 30 times) in order
to explore the 100 B stars in parallel.  (Might be more if brown
dwarfs are common and interesting.)  If people really did this
(something I now doubt), then the duplicates should be treated in all
respects as the same.  To prevent one from making a claim of being
"more original" than the other, the copy process might be rigged to
split the original material between the duplicates.

> The second question, concerning a simulation in
> a digital computer, is easier, if we simply want to
> show that no perfect answers are yet available, because:
>
> First, a simulation (static or dynamic) is just a coded set of
> data which can be interpreted to describe relevant aspects
> of the original. Instead of a succession of computer states
> we could have pages in a book containing these data. Those
> who rely on isomorphism in space should also allow for it
> in time

A static simulation is not a useful simulation.  You could make a case
that the suspended are a static simulation.

> Second, a simulation necessarily uses the laws and
> constants of physics as currently guessed or estimated,
> and we know with high probability that some of these
> are flawed, with the importance of the errors not yet
> known.

In "The Clinic Seed" the controlling AI was talked into reducing the
gravity and making the inside of houses larger than the outside.

> Third, the anatomy/physiology of qualia is currently
> unknown. My suggestion is that a quale is a
> condition or phenomenon with extension in space
> and time--perhaps a standing wave in the brain--so
> that you (present) overlap (in space and time) your
> previous and later selves (which is not true of either
> organic copies or simulations). This suggestion also
> solves the homunculus problem, because a quale
> is not a representation of anything, but a thing-
> in-itself, the bottom line. You don't "have" qualia--
> you are your qualia.

Bob, I am generally with you on this, but in the story (and probably
possible in real life) the upload was only partial and temporary.
After spending a few weeks in this state and returning to the physical
world with memory of life in the "spirit world" would the person be a
different person than if they had stayed in the physical world?

Keith

PS.  Right now I think gaming is the most likely route humans will be
seduced out of the physical world, bodies maintained by "machines of
loving grace" until the bodies are forgotten.

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Message #32526
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 13:22:32 +0000 (UTC)
From: Melody Maxim <[email protected]>
Subject: Gary Kline Message 32524

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>>And, dollars-and-cents: best case, with a 
state-sanctioned suicide at hour NN:MM, could || would someone be 
here to prep me?<< 



In the scenario you describe, (that of someone who would know he/she was dying), your best bet is to relocate, in order to be near the cryonics facility. There are too many things that can go wrong, during "standby, stabilization and transport." 
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Message #32527
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 13:54:10 +0000 (UTC)
From: Melody Maxim <[email protected]>
Subject: Copies of "Me" - Uploading and Nanotech

I'm really ignorant, in regard to things like nanotech and uploading, but one thought stays in my mind, as I read these discussions. If current technology allowed for perfect duplicates of myself, and fifty of my duplicates were in the same room with me, which one would be "me"? According to some of you, it seems I would no longer be "me," but would be a community of "myselves," instead! Would we always think the same thoughts? Have the same values? Not likely, for very long. Once my copies had their own lives, they would become individuals. I would probably still be here taking care of my family, and my copies would be out, doing their own thing. What good would that be, to me? If I invited them all over for a party, would they all show up wearing the same dress?   ;)

I know it seems almost "religious," but there is something that makes me "me," and copies of me will always be copies. If you made a copy of me who felt like (thought) she was me, and she was standing next to me, I would say she was not me, because I was still me. Knowing she was going to live forever, (or until she was destroyed in some sort of accident), wouldn't make "me" feel any better. (Now, I'm laughing at the thought of being able to have an argument with my copy, over who was "me.") In my mind, the goal should be to prolong my own life as much as possible. Like everyone else, I want to live a long time, but I'm not vain enough to think the world would be a better place if "someone like me" inhabited it, indefinitely.

Now, I know this was not technical enough for those of you interested in nanotech and uploading, and I doubt it fulfilled Mr. Ettinger's requirements for sound philosophy, but when it comes to copying myself, I just don't see how that would help "me" live any longer.

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Message #32528
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 08:55:51 -0700
Subject: Improving Alcor's scientific status?
From: MARK PLUS <[email protected]>

--0016361e7efea896d204832ee502

Conference to Explore The Rightful Place of Science

http://www.labmanager.com/news.asp?ID=1032

"Attendees also may choose to register for a variety of optional field trips
before the conference opens and after it closes. Destinations include: the
Titan Missile Museum and the 18th century San Xavier del Bac Mission;
Arcosanti and Montezuma Castle; the Center for Innovations in Medicine at
ASU's Biodesign Institute, where participants will contribute to the
immunosignature diagnostics project; the cryonics facility Alcor Life
Extension Foundation; Arizona Public Service's Solar Test and Research
Center; several of Arizona's water canals and dams; and a home-grown
biofuels cooperative."

--
Mark Plus
Life is short: Freeze hard!

--0016361e7efea896d204832ee502

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