[ExI] The digital nature of brains

Spencer Campbell lacertilian at gmail.com
Wed Jan 27 05:03:54 UTC 2010


Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>:
> You may one day be
> in a position one day of having a brain prosthesis or uploading your
> mind to a computer. Do you think it's just trivially obvious that that
> would be OK, or have you arrived at the conclusion through extensive
> reading and thinking?

Neither!

I have not given more thought to the subject than what I've attained
with idle, wandering imaginings, and only casually investigated
whatever relevant literature happened to be dropped in front of me. I
am of the opinion that this is more than sufficient for the time
being. Until I have the ability to realistically project a date at
which I would have the opportunity to upload my mind, for example, I
have much more pressing issues to devote my processing power to.

But, to address the question: I would leap at the chance for brain
prostheses without much concern for my existential status, but I doubt
I could ever be convinced to upload my mind directly from its current
wetware. After I've converted to a more reliable, well-understood
technology maybe. Nanobots replacing neurons with silicon simulacra.
That sort of thing. My current working theory goes no further than "I
should be okay as long as I make the shift incrementally".



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