[ExI] Uploading and selfhood

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 4:40 PM, Michael Miller <ain_ani at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Apologies if this has already been covered, but I've been thinking for a
> little while about uploading and the attendent reduction of selfhood to
> brain processes. The following review (from New Scientist) makes some points
> which I think present the most compelling case against the viability of
> uploading. That is, that the self (and specifically, thoughts) are not
> something located in or identical with the brain - they are a facet of an
> entire entity, dependent just as much on the whole body and the social
> processes of which we are a part. Robert Pepperell puts it well in his book
> the Posthuman Condition when he says "Consciousness is the function of an
> organsm, not an organ".
>
>
> I wonder, how do the proponents of uploading argue against these ideas?
>
>
> Mike

In terms of common-sense values and priorities, core business vs. overhead.

My fingernails are as much a part of my body as my lungs, but lungs
are much more important. My body will stay basically the same without
fingernails, but will die without lungs. So I think (like everyone)
that lungs are more important than fingernails.

Similarly, I agree that "Selves require bodies as well as brains,
material environments as well as bodies, and societies as well as
material environments". But in some very clear sense I would still be
more-or-less-me without my body and surrounding environment, while I
would not be me at all without the informational content of my brain.
So I give much more importance to the informational content of my
brain and would accept an uploaded copy, where only the information is
preserved, as a valid continuation of my current self.

Note that, if your valid point is taken too strictly and literally,
then the WC in your toilet is as much a part of your core self as your
thoughts and feelings. Sure you don't mean that!

G.