[extropy-chat] Neural Engineering

[Anders Sandberg]

fredagen den 19 mars 2004 17.40 wrote Adrian Tymes:
> --- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > As I tend to think of it, we own the contents of our
> > minds just as we own our
> > bodies. We have the sole right to determine what to
> > do with our internal
> > information, whether to reveal it or remain silent.
>
> So...do we need an automatic copyright of experiences?

Yes. At least our own unique neural recordings of them.

> Sharing of which, without the full consent of everyone
> involved or special government circumstance, would be
> a criminal act?

Not as I see it, but my argument was an ethical rather than a legal one. There 
are jurisdictions (Germany comes to mind) where everybody in a photo has a 
right to demand at least compensation. But this seems rather cumbersome, and 
besides that would make a lesser right (the right to privacy) stronger than a 
more important right (the right to mental integrity, plus freedom of speech). 
If I show pictures of my latest amorous escapade my partner might not be very 
happy, but the court case would be about damaging reputations, not whether I 
had any right to release the pictures. Of course, with copyrighted 
appearances things get more iffy...

> And if corporations who make products 
> that contribute the the experience can be considered
> to be "involved" (watching a DVD or reading a book
> yields obvious involvement, but extend that to include
> situations where the DVD's case or a book happens to
> be on the shelf in the background of a shared
> moment)...
>
> Yes, this is (somewhat) tongue in cheek.

We had a lovely discussion on the Swedish transhumanist list about taking IP 
to the logical conclusion, where mental objects were owned by various parties 
and you had to pay for using them mentally. We ended up with a scenario of 
beings whose bodies and minds were all owned in part, but whose emergent 
properties were their only (internal) belongings.


-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.