[ExI] Let's play What If.

[Richard Loosemore]

Alan Grimes wrote:
> While I'm waiting for my evening medication to kick in, lets see if I
> can finish a quick little vignette before I go to sleap.
> 
> 
> Lets say you went in for a non-destructive uploading. Lets say that, to
> your great surprise, you woke up in both situations simultaneously.
> While retaining your original consciousness, you also, at the same time,
> and in the same way, experienced everything your upload did (and vice
> versa).
> 
> What say you to that?
> 
> I would say that I would find that situation very interesting and I
> would work to improve the situation of both sides of my being without
> malice or prejudice. If the link between the two halves of my being were
> sufficiently robust, I would evolve the uploaded part so that it would
> be as effective as possible in its situation while providing my original
> self with the upgrades it wants and use both halves to work towards
> paradise. =)

This makes no sense.

The newly created entity and the original would each have their own 
consciousness, by default.

Are you postulating that some mechanism be set up to unify the two?  In 
that case you have to decide how the two cognitive systems are to handle 
conflicts.  That is a VERY big job, but until you do it, every answer 
depends on assumptions about that reconciliation.

And, it makes no sense to say that "to your great surprise, you woke up 
in both situations simultaneously" because you would know ahead of time 
whether this situation was going to pertain.

All this is based on a coherent theory of consciousness.  Without that, 
any answer would be idle speculation.


Richard Loosemore