[ExI] A dispassionate examination of being an upload.

Alan Grimes agrimes at speakeasy.net
Sun Sep 19 15:19:58 UTC 2010


chrome://messenger/locale/messengercompose/composeMsgs.properties:
> On Sep 18, 2010, at 8:13 PM, Alan Grimes wrote:

>> Now, remind me again how you think you will be able to survive as
>> an upload? 

> Physically and philosophically uploading is a valid concept,

Yes, no respectively.

> but how long any given upload will survive depends entirely on the
> particular uploading culture it is put into, and we can only guess
> what that might be like.

Correct. =)

>> Also remind me why you would prefer to try to survive as an upload
>> rather than using medical nanites and other more direct means
>> to obtain physical immortality?

> Unfortunately I very much doubt my preferences will make the slightest
> difference. I don't think Mr. Jupiter Brain will allow stupid and
> primitive humans to live at the same level of reality as his precious
> hardware; he's bound to be a bit squeamish about that, it would be like
> a monkey running around an operating room.  If he lets us live it will
> be in a virtual world behind a heavy firewall, but that's OK, we'll
> never know the difference unless he tells us.

What a shocking statement! At first I was about to pick it apart like I
normally do but then I quickly became overwhelmed by how disgustingly
pathetic a mentality must be in order to think such a thing! Can I even
be reading you right that you are cheerfully looking forward to
accepting the tenuous existence within a cubic centimeter prison as a
second class entity with utterly no opportunities for growth or long
term survival? I'd be tempted to put a bullet in you out of the same
feeling that I would feel around a victim of something that had lost all
of his limbs, was bleeding out with his guts on the floor, with his face
torn up and screaming in agony. Worms as low as you deserve NOTHING, and
will probably get it. You really only have three options: 1. Become the
J-brain yourself. and 2. flee the solar system, and 3. Become
sufficiently powerful that you can hold a battlefront against such a
J-brain until the j-brain gives up and offers an armistice. There might
be one or two other options but nothing along the lines of what you
suggest should even be contemplated. =|

>> In the procedure of uploading, it is something completely different
>> from you

> That would be like saying my message that you're reading on your
> computer screen right now is completely different from the one on my
> computer screen, and if you were to print it out it would be completely
> different yet again. That would be ridiculous because schematically the
> information flow in all three instances is identical. If I haven't
> convinced you that I'm right about this it's probably because you
> haven't read my original Email that's on my computer, its ever so much
> better than the pale imitation you're seeing.

You are trying to substitute the laws governing a single thought in
place of those that govern an entire living/conscious/feeling being.

>> only blessed with a magical incantation and a label saying that it is you.

> I am of the opinion that if tomorrow there is an entity that remembers
> being the John K Clark of today then I will have survived for another
> day. I mean, what more could you possibly mean by "survival"?

I mean that there is a continuous trajectory of consciousness between
where I am and where I will be.

>> It could be the most perfect copy conceivable and I still would not care. 

> Well of course you wouldn't care, you wouldn't even know it had happened
> unless somebody told you, and even then you wouldn't believe it unless
> they provided ironclad proof. For all you know you're body was destroyed
> last night and was replaced by a perfect copy; it doesn't seem to be
> cramping your style so if you found out the same thing will happen to
> you again tonight I see no reason you should be concerned. 

But the me that's sitting here in this chair right now doesn't want to
experience being destroyed and coppied, or dying of old age. =P

-- 
DO NOT USE OBAMACARE.
DO NOT BUY OBAMACARE.
Powers are not rights.




More information about the extropy-chat mailing list