[ExI] Uploading and selfhood

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 6:11 PM, Michael Miller <ain_ani at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply G.
> I think the basic gist is, how can we even talk about 'self' without the
> social, embodied context which generates our sense of having a self - both
> in terms of 'oneself' and others? To assume that the self at its core is
> information, effectively replicates a religious supernaturalism in claiming
> that action and interaction (which are the processes by which our thoughts
> and feelings come to happen) are irrelevant. Can a self develop or persist
> without an environment in which it gains definition?

I think John summed things up quite well: "don't have thoughts we are thoughts".

I don't think we are talking of " 'self' without its social contest":
a member of a upload society would still have social interactions,
probably much richer than we can conceive, with other uploads and AI.

The body: I assume a upload society would have technology able to
simulate sensorial experiences up to any level of detail. Think that
in 15 years we went from email to _almost believable_ VR worlds like
Second Life, and that our primitive VR technology is progressing fast
and may soon achieve full realism via direct neural stimulation.

Back to our current meat bodies: of course I do not deny that our
bodies have a very deep influence on our thoughts (us). But I do not
consider headaches as an important defining factor of self. Insisting
on our current weak and buggy bodies as a necessary part of a
definition of self sounds to me too much like worship of nature, deep
ecology, and other things we can do without.

G.