[ExI] Uploading and selfhood

[Michael Miller]

John,

I think my previous reply may have covered these issues, but to clarify: principally, the self and thoughts are not reducible to the machinery which generates them, whatever that machinery may be. They are not 'reducible' at all, especially the self, as it is not an isolatable thing. Therefore, to think that it can be 'transferred' from one set of hardware to another is to posit some kind of supernatural or metaphysical entity as the self. Secondly, the self is not identical with thoughts. The self, whenever we use the concept, is better understood as being based in social action.

I have never experienced an identical set of atoms to my body, but if I were in that situation I would probably argue that my conscious experience correlated with what was happening to only one of those groups. However, I think we're barking up the wrong tree as soon as we start trying to pin down 'me' to a specific material object. There's no such thing as 'me'. And unless we're positing some kind of non-physical essential self, how can uploading be any kind of 'transferrence' or 'sequel' other than a simulation?

----- Original Message ----
From: John K Clark <jonkc at att.net>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 4:51:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood

Michael Miller Wrote:

> the self (and specifically, thoughts) are not something located in or
> identical with the brain

Exactly, and that's an idea fans of uploading have been trying to get
across for years; we don't have thoughts we are thoughts, and thoughts
are not responsible for the machinery that happens to think them.
Why you believe that is a refutation of the uploading concept is beyond me.

> 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.

Yea yea yea, I've been hearing that line for years, and whenever I do I ask
"even if it's true how does it explain the fact (well you think it's a fact)
that a collection of atoms right there is undoubtly you but an IDENTICAL
collection of atoms over there is not you"? I seldom receive an answer to
my question and when I do it's just a thinly disguises load of religious
mumbo jumbo filled with euphemisms for the word "soul".

  John K Clark




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