[ExI] Uploading and selfhood

[Michael Miller]

Not quite. I'm saying that there's no such 'thing' as a self, in terms of being a delimitable object. The self is determined and defined by what happens around and to the body, not what happens inside 'the mind'. I suppose I think we're best off seeing selfhood as a process rather than a static entity. 

So, I wonder what will happen to selfhood when it is reduced to a pattern of information. Rules a reimposed upon us (it seems) by the physical world. But if our pattern of information is uploaded into a virtual world where, if laws exist at all, they will be very different than the natural ones, then how will this change our concept of individual identity? Will we still be able to talk or think in terms of individual identity?

It's true that, while asleep we are less aware of the physical world and so seem to be reduced to our thoughts bouncing off each other (in the form of dreams). But still the physical world influences us. We have all experienced hearing the alarm clock as part of our dream, or the coldness of the room. But yes, I would say that selfhood, to all intents and purposes, has disappeared from us while we are asleep because we are relatively inert and not fulfilling the criteria for being a self at that time. Again, unless we're postulating some kind of metaphysical coherent self, how can it not? Even if we identify self with thoughts, during non-REM sleep there are no thoughts or perceptions, so where then is the self? The body is clearly present, but I don't think any of us would want to identify merely a living body with the self. Willed action is surely an integral part of the notion.

Similarly, can a human living entirely in isolation be a self in the same way a highly social human is? Without the psychological/behavioural connection to other agents, the notion of what constitutes their identity appears somewhat dissolved. A tree may fall in the forest and create vibrations, but it is only a perceiving ear which turns those moving particles into "sound".

----- Original Message ----
From: Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at insightbb.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2008 2:44:20 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood

    
     Cana self develop or persist without an environment in which it gainsdefinition?
  
  
  
  
But while you sleep you are not interacting with the world. Are yousaying that you cease to persist?







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