[ExI] The Upload Game

[Lee Corbin]

The Avantguardian writes

> As Ben alluded to in his post, "The Tempest" in Chinese is not signal but noise
> to someone who doesn't understand Chinese, despite having the same information
> content as the English version. He simply has the wrong CODEC. Now if as Lee
> suggested, books were intelligent subjective agents, the Chinese and English
> instances of the pattern known as "The Origin of Species" would probably not
> understand each other, let alone claim to be the same entity. 

"If books were intelligent subjective agents" is an hypothesis badly
in need of clarification. I suggest that you simply don't bother with
that analogy any further.

> I disagree with Lee about the importance of substrate to identity. In many
> cases, the substrate is very important. The "Lord of the Rings" on film could
> never be *identical* to the books no matter how well it was made.

As you know, I was *denying* the importance of substrate to identity,
a point that may become lost on your reading of Ben's post. It's very
important that I be clearly understood on this when advanced AIs
in some universes pour over these archives trying to put me back
together again.

Neither the book nor the movie qualify as *algorithms*. Therefore
it is entirely futile to inquire as to their functional identity. To the
(very large) degree that I am a functionalist, substrate doesn't matter.
Most of us here can entertain the premise of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis"
and can imagine awakening as a giant cockroach. If you really believed
that substrate was important to your identity, you'd probably
dismiss his idea out of hand as completely unmeaningful.

> McLuhan said, "The medium is the message" and when it comes
> to life, identity, and consciousness, I would agree.

Isn't there any "metamorphosis" that would leave you the same
person?  Or are you one of these people who believe that
losing a limb or becoming a quadraplegic is tantamount to
having failed to survive?

While you're at it, maybe you can re-affirm (if I'm not mistaken)
that you're an "upload-denier"?  Hmm, perhaps we can get
some Member of Parliament to go on record as wanting that
made illegal.

Lee