[extropy-chat] Changing sex is difficult (was: identity andcopies)

[Spike]

Actually when I read over Eliezer's comments, I found
myself in agreement with what he said.  It just surprised
me the way he stated it.  Somehow it didn't sound like
the Eliezer we all know.  {8^D

I agree sexuality is evidently hardwired into the
brain.  Sure seems like it.  Im counting on guys
like Eliezer to work out a method for me to upload,
for that is my only chance to be able to see the
world the way a hetero female sees the world.

spike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org 
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of MB
> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 10:10 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Changing sex is difficult (was: 
> identity andcopies)
> 
> 
> 
> Eliezer, I believe you are correct. I asked a transexual friend for
> an opinion on your post. Here is the response:
> 
> > I can tell you from my own experience that your
> > sexuality is hardwired in your brain. All that
> > time I spent being something I KNEW I was not,
> > I sectioned off the real me and played a part.
> > I did the things I thought were appropriate (and
> > I did a lot of reading to find out just exactly
> > what they were). I never felt comfortable and
> > resented the hell out of having to sublimate my
> > feelings to act "normal" (or supposedly normal
> > at the time).  No matter how much you try to
> > experience the workings of your opposite gender,
> > no matter how much you read about the way the
> > opposite gender acts and thinks, you can't
> > actually be that because of how our brains are
> > hardwired. And I firmly believe that wiring occurs
> > while /in utero /as a reflection of genetics and
> > hormonal influences.
> 
> Regards,
> MB
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, 19 Sep 2004, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:
> 
> >
> > Want to spend a few days wearing a female body?  Even at 
> this very shallow
> > level, we're dealing with some fairly massive remappings of 
> the somatic
> > map, the motor map, the reflexes, the motor skills, the 
> somatic connections
> > to the pleasure centers... and when all of that was done 
> you'd have a
> > vagina-shaped penis.  You wouldn't *be* a woman.  You'd 
> still be attracted
> > to girls, and no, that would not make you a lesbian; you'd 
> be a normal,
> > masculine man wearing a female body.  Xox yourself, and the 
> version of you
> > wearing a female body will flee from the original body and 
> pursue Cindy
> > Crawford.  The xox certainly wouldn't have sex with *you*.  Bleah!
> >
> > Want to actually *be* a female?
> >
> > Swapping out your Y chromosome for your father's X 
> chromosome doesn't make
> > you a woman.  Your neurons are already wired in a male pattern; you
> > developed from birth in the masculine pattern.  Maybe if 
> you swapped the
> > genes, your neurons would slowly start to rewire themselves 
> under the
> > influence of the new genetic instructions.  Maybe you'd end 
> up epileptic.
> > At best you'd end up as a half-assed cross between male 
> brain and female
> > brain.  Your brain wouldn't look anything like it would 
> look if you'd
> > developed as a female from the beginning.
> >
> > Leave aside, for the moment, the question of childhood memories and
> > experiences you don't have; the fact that you'll have never 
> been a little
> > girl and won't know how to apply makeup.  If you want to be 
> female, we need
> > to give you a female brain; female emotions, female 
> psychology.  We need to
> > do this while preserving your memories and skills that were 
> patterned onto
> > male brainware, male emotions and male psychology.  Imagine 
> the task of
> > taking an eighth-dan blackbelt in judo, and transforming his body to
> > female, while preserving his martial arts skills in such a 
> way that he is
> > still a competitive eighth-dan blackbelt.  It's not just 
> spinal reflexes;
> > he has conscious, learned memories for how to fight as a 
> man that don't
> > apply to fighting as a woman.  As with motor skills, so 
> with cognitive
> > skills.  You know how to operate a male mind; do you know 
> how to operate a
> > female mind?
> >
> > We're talking about a *massive* transformation here, 
> billions of neurons
> > and trillions of synapses rearranged.  Large enough to 
> disrupt personal
> > continuity?  If I fell asleep and woke up as a true woman, 
> not just in body
> > alone, I don't think I'd call her "me" - the change is too 
> sharp.  Will
> > your brain transform gradually?  Hm, now we have the task 
> of designing the
> > intermediate stages and making sure the intermediate stages make
> > self-consistent sense.
> >
> > What happens when, as a woman, you think back to your 
> memory of looking at
> > Cindy Crawford photos as a man?  How do you empathize with 
> your own past
> > self of the opposite gender?  Do you flee in horror from 
> the person you
> > were?  Are all your life's memories distant and alien 
> things?  Or do we
> > retain your old male brainware through the transformation 
> and set up a dual
> > male-female structure such that you are currently female 
> but retain the
> > ability to recall and empathise with your past memories as 
> if they were
> > running on the same male brainware that originally laid 
> them down?  Sounds
> > complicated, doesn't it?  It seems that to transform a male 
> brain into a
> > person who can be a real female, we can't just rewrite you 
> as a female
> > brain; we have to rewrite you as a more complex brain with 
> an architecture
> > that can cross-operate in realtime between male and female 
> modes, so that a
> > female can process male memories with a remembered context 
> that includes
> > the male brainware that laid them down.
> >
> > To make you female, yet still you, we must step outside the 
> human space of
> > mind designs in order to preserve continuity with your male self.
> >
> > And then when you go back to being a man, you need to keep 
> the female
> > brainware and dual architecture so that you don't throw up 
> when you think
> > back on all those wonderful sweaty men you had sex with during your
> > feminine vacation.
> >
> > (Assuming you did have sex as a woman, rather than fending 
> off all comers
> > because they didn't look like they were interested in a long-term
> > relationship.)
> >
> > So spending a week as a member of the opposite sex may be a 
> common sexual
> > fantasy, but I wouldn't count on being able to do this six 
> seconds after
> > the Singularity.  I would not be surprised to find that it 
> took three
> > subjective centuries before anyone had grown far enough to 
> attempt a gender
> > switch.
> >
> >
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