[ExI] Bodies

[Adrian Tymes]

--- On Thu, 3/18/10, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
> wrote:
> > Ben writes
> > > I just don't understand the attitude that
> uploading
> > somehow
> > > represents a /narrowing/ of choice, instead of a
> vast
> > broadening of it 
> > 
> > Again, it's probably just a failure to communicate
> what we
> > mean.
> 
> I think you're right.
> 
> If even some people who join this list seem to
> misunderstand it, what chance do other people have? 
> Especially when the main examples of virtual worlds we have
> atm are dedicated to fantasy.

Existence proof.  What we have right now is not what most
people would call "uploading".  While there is an online
virtual presence directly controlled by the user, it is in
the manner of a tool, not as an extension of one's body
(save perhaps for the most highly skilled experts, which by
definition excludes the vast majority of people, and in any
case is not primarily due to the technology).  At a
minimum, we will probably need direct neural interfaces
(multi-channel ones, not the current generation that reads
the entire brain to change one variable) before most people
would agree that "uploading" exists.

This is important because many people will not understand a
thing until they can see it.  How difficult would it have
been to explain the mass public impact of the Web in 1990,
even to people who knew about and used the Internet?  And
yet, simply by using it, the basics of it are now
understood by most.