[ExI] Is anyone an expert on Aristotle and Life?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 09:58:43AM -0800, Tara Maya wrote:

> This is where most transhumanists disagree. Why could the program not be run on a different substrate?

The word program is a poor description for what is going on in the
space between our ears.

But, yes, the idea that there are substrate-invariant activity
patterns which are extractable and transferable is one of the 
core idea behind migrating cognition to a new substrate. 
Which is a staple of transhumanism.

It is interesting that the awareness is slowly keeping in into
the mainstream, driven by virtual environments of games and
virtualization technology in IT (where background snapshots 
and live migration to different hardware is daily routine).
It no longer is a leap of faith, or something outlandish.

The normative power of the factual is rapidly rendering 
objections coming from armchair philosophy as immaterial as
animism and phlogiston of yore -- and good riddance.

The only fly in the ointment is that innovation proceeds by
way of the graveyard. What an awful waste of human life.