A view on cryonics (was Re: [extropy-chat] Bad Forecasts!)

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Slawomir Paliwoda wrote:
> 
> Suppose the location of any mind in the future is recorded using 4
> parameters (x,y,z,t). At the moment of creation, my clone's mind will
> necessarily occupy a different location than my original mind. Therefore, I
> will be able to prove my originality by presenting a log detailing
> locations of my mind in space and time, which will show different values for
> x, y, z, and t from the values of someone who claims to be me. As long as I
> can show that the set of space-time position parameters for any two minds
> never share the same exact values, I will always be able to prove identity
> of any mind.

This definition is trivial to deflate.  Just suppose that we interlace two 
sets of neurons and synapses, neither interconnected with the other, but 
both occupying the same volume of space.  Better yet, suppose that we run 
two minds on the same neurons, the neurons having time-sharing registers 
that swap between the two identities twenty times per second.  How does 
your spatial algorithm distinguish between these two minds?

Try to solve this problem and you will instantly be entangled in defining 
continuity of computation, which is, of course, what uploading and 
splitting is all about.

I would also be interested in hearing how you deal with many-worlds theory, 
under which "you" are constantly branching into different volumes of 
quantum configuration space, even as you remain in what an observer in a 
certain exactly right frame of reference would deem to be the "same" 
spatial location.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence