CryoNet #32866 - #32869

CryoNet - Sun 26 Sep 2010

    #32866: Organ Bank/Organ Shopping/Organ Store/Organ Production [Jonano]
    #32867: Comments re uploading [Edgar Swank - President]
    #32868: Re: Uploading (CryoNet #32861 - #32865) [2Arcturus]
    #32869: uploading thought experiment [david pizer]

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Message #32866
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:04:11 +0200
Subject: Organ Bank/Organ Shopping/Organ Store/Organ Production
From: Jonano <[email protected]>

organ banks have the bad reputation even in science movie, but they
will be useful soon.

It will be a place to select what is needed rapidly and to grow organs
in order to get them ready for transplantion in any hospital.

Joseph Vacanti is doing some organ production right now, and he is not alone.

--Jon

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Message #32867
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 08:40:03 -0700
From: Edgar Swank - President <[email protected]>
Subject: Comments re uploading

First, on Robert Ettinger's arguments against uploading, "The 
pro-uploading argument depends on the sufficiency of isomorphic 
similarity," "The map is not the territory." A simulation of reality is 
not reality. But a brain is not "reality." Rather it is very similar to 
a computer. It has inputs, outputs, logic elements (neurons) with 
interconnections (synapses). It has memory, and (some kind of) 
programming. So a sufficiently advanced computer could easily emulate a 
brain, producing the same outputs for the same inputs, thus passing the 
Turing test. The brains internal states can be emulated as well, leading 
to a self, feelings, introspection, everything a brain does. Computers 
"emulate" other computers commonly. With the right programming, a PC can 
run Apple programs, and vice versa. Of course today's technology, both 
hardware and software, is woefully inadequate. But we have every reason 
to believe this will not always be the case. I think a computer 
emulation of a brain, will just start "thinking" by itself, the same way 
a real brain does. Self-programming.

Someone else commented that uploading might be possible, but not 
desirable. I beg to differ. With a sufficiently rich virtual 
environment, uploading will be comparable to Heaven. Physical laws of 
the real world need not apply. One can be literally God in your own 
universe, populated by devoted worshipers. The nearest modern-day 
equivalent might be lucid dreaming, where one can experience anything 
one can imagine, albeit briefly.

-- 
Edgar W. Swank   <[email protected]>
President - American Cryonics Society
http://AmericanCryonics.org

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Message #32868
References: <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 10:57:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: 2Arcturus <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Uploading (CryoNet #32861 - #32865)

--0-977944254-1285437444=:59466

In regard to the "copy vs. original" problem, here is another analogy-
Imagine you invent a time machine, and are able to go back in time, and you do 
so, and use the time machine to come into the presence of yourself just before 
you invent the time machine. Setting aside the time travel paradox issues, 
reflect on the situation.
There are two people, simulataneous, occupying different spatial positions, and 
with slightly different minds (based on the slight difference in memories 
between the two "you"s).
But would you be able to conclude that one is -you-, while the other is not? 
Would you decide that one 'you' is the original, authentic you, while the other 
is a copy/duplicate/counterfeit you? 

Probably not. You would probably agree that both instances of you are in fact 
completely, authentically, you. So you have two simultaneous, slightly divergent 
and diverging 'you's.
Once you have understood this, the second question is whether 'you' would 
survive in an authentic sense if either of you were to be destroyed. Both of 
you, as you, have the survival instinct that 'you ' have. So neither of you 
would want, at a gut level, to be destroyed, and both of you, at a gut level, 
would want to be the 'one' who survives. But using the previous conclusion, you 
understand, intellectually, that both instances of you are in fact the same 
person, the same 'you', even though technically, at this moment and in this 
unusual situation, 'you' are realized in two embodiments which can be 
practically distinguished.
No logic could quiet the 'gut' sense that destruction of either one of you would 
-feel- like non-survival, but the consistent, rational conclusion is that the 
survival of either of you would be the survival of 'you', because both instances 
of you are, in fact, completely you, the same person (although with slight 
mental divergences).

Now this "copy vs original" question comes up with any mention of uploading, but 
this would most likely not be a practical issue, since if one were uploaded 
directly from a cryopatient who had not been resuscitated, there would not be 
two running instances of ''you' - the cryopatient instance of you would not be 
experience a survival instinct, and the living (uploaded) instance of you, of 
course, would not have to be destroyed. The 'copy vs. original' question would 
just concern the question of whether you had authentically survived as yourself, 
the same person.

And I want to clarify for my own position - when I am talking about uploading, I 
am not defending the idea that current computer hardware could support a human 
mind. I do not believe this is possible and I do not know anyone who takes this 
position, so it is basically a straw man if anyone is arguing against that.

Also, I do not believe that any form of 'uploading' would be optimal if it did 
not allow the uploaded person to be embodied, to be in a free-standing, free 
moving, sensing body, one that could (if desired) appear outwardly exactly like 
the human body, even if it looked different inside or if it was of some 
different nature. So I am not supporting any kind of disembodied existence as 
pure mind - something resembling 'locked in' syndrom of stroke patients, which 
is a nightmarish circumstance of being cut off from sensing the world, being 
able to manipulate the world, being able to interact with other people as they 
are, etc. The sort of uploading principle I am supporting is simply the 
principle that the information present in a human brain could be transferred to 
another body, organic or mechnical, so that the same person could be embodied 
that way. 


And again, I do not believe that the abstracted information about the brain 
itself would be the person, and I do not know anyone who takes that position, so 
again, it is a straw man if anyone is arguing against that. A recipe for cake is 
not a cake - you cannot eat the recipe. But the recipe, along with a good chef, 
a kitchen, and basic ingredients, could RESULT in a cake, exactly like any other 
cake, and an edible one at that.



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Message #32869
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: david pizer <[email protected]>
Subject: uploading thought experiment

Here is a thought experiment that should show you why uploading will not work as a survival option for you.  I explained this to Mike Perry about 25 years ago.

1.  If you can upload a real person's mind into a computer, then you can also make a duplicate of that real person.

2.  Imagine a duplicate of YOU has been made.

3.  They bring the duplicate of YOU into the room across from you and you become convinced that the duplicate has your exact mind and is a duplicate of you in every way.

4.  Then they point a gun at you and say "Since you are convinced the duplicate is an exact copy of you, do YOU mind if we kill you now and let the duplicate exist on?"

5.  Even if you thought that the duplicate was an exact copy of you, you would not want them to shoot YOU.

Why?

Because somewhere in YOUR mind you would realize that the duplicate was not YOU.  Perhaps YOU cannot completely realize that the duplicate is not YOU until you are faced with the prospect of the duplicate continuing on and YOU becoming dead and ceasing to exist.  It is when one thinks of himself stopping to exist that they realize that a duplicate continuing on is not them surviving.

Until you are ready to say "no, I don't mind" (without any other conditions) when they ask if you mind if they kill you and just let the duplicate continue on, then you don't really believe that any duplicate is you.

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