[ExI] Destructive uploading.

[The Avantguardian]

From: john clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>
To: The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2011 9:25 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Destructive uploading.

On Fri, 9/9/11, The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"There is an assumption there that identity is a property of matter moving through the system."
>Yes.
> "Matter is fungible"
>Yes.
>"the configuration state of the system"
>The word for that is information.

Again this is another assumption. The quantum information in a wave function i.e. the true states of a quantum system, are hidden and unknowable by theory. All you see are the eigenvectors of the true states no matter how clever the experiment. Unless you have proof that the mind is a classical physical system then it is an assumption that the mind can be represented by classical information any better than say a three dimensional sphere can be accurately portrayed on a two-dimenional surface. Take for example the warping of Greenland to monstrous proportions in Mercator projections of the globe. Not realistic.  
 
> "is not."
>What?? Of course it's fungible! Saving a Word document to your hard disc and then complaining when you retrieve it that its not the same information but only a >copy would be as silly as depositing a dollar in a bank and complaining when you withdraw it the next day that its not the same dollar bill.
 
You are not just information; you are information in context, in runtime, constantly interacting with everything around you. If you had written your sweetheart's number on the dollar that you deposited, it would be perfectly rational to want that particular dollar bill back.   
 
> When you sent me your message you did not use the postal service, you did not send me paper or any matter at all, you just sent information and if it wasn't >fungible there is no way I could even be discussing it.
 
Some information is more fungible than others. Our emails are pretty fungible but some information like missile launch codes or Spike's uber-primes are not.
 
 >> "In your example, there was something both physical and continuous about you despite the turnover of matter in your body over the year.
 
>"Yes, and that is the part that is saved in a successful upload. 

 
Perhaps if uploaded to a quantum computer.
 
>
>> "That something was metabolism, a continuous complex chemical reaction"
 
>Complex yes, that is to say it is made of many parts, but if the interaction of the parts (you) are not to act in a random incoherent way some order must exist between the parts. A part must have some knowledge of what the other parts are doing and the only way to do that is with information.
 
Agreed, I am just saying that you are assuming that mind is a classical system. I am suggesting that if the mind is simply classical information, it would have likely been adequately explained by now by the likes of Euler, Boltzman, Turing, or Shannon. 
 
 >But maybe communication among the parts is of only secondary importance and the major work, the generation of the soul or sense of self, is done by the parts themselves.
 
But the parts themselves are ultimately atoms and electrons. Classical physics arises as a special case of quantum mechanics in realm of high energies by mass or otherwise. Why would you assume you yourself are not some superpositioned quantum superstate of a mindboggling but finite number of entangled quantum systems? Classical physics had every opportunity to explain mind. It has failed to date. What makes you so certain that mind is not itself a separate special case of Quantum Mechanics distinct from Classical Physics.  
 
>  But that is complex behavior so the parts must be very complex and be made of sub parts. However this nesting of parts and sub parts and sub sub parts can not continue forever because eventually you will come to the simplest possible part, a part that can change in only one way, say on to off, or zero to one, and that can be recorded on a computer hard disc. 

What if you are not bits but qubits? Qubits are both zero *and* one at the same time until you back them into a corner by measuring them, then they become zero or one. A classical upload would probably be little more than a database of your life that answered to your name because you would have been measured and backed into corner. It would simply be a two-dimensional representation- a slice of John if you would- that could never be trusted to accurately answer what variety of martian cheese is John's favorite because John-prime had never had the opportunity to try any martian cheese at all before he got "flat scanned". 
 
>>"The water in Niagra Falls continuously replenishes itself every second. That doesn't mean it is no longer Niagra Falls.
 
>If we disassembled Niagara Falls atom by atom and then reassembled it just as it was before would it still be the same Niagara Falls?
 
No it would only still be Niagra Falls if people didn't start calling it "Reagan Falls" or something equally arbitrary. Same would probably go for your upload. If someone hacked into your upload and did a search and replace on your memories and substituted Fred for every occurance of John, would you still be John Clark or would you then be Fred Clark? 
 
Stuart LaForge
 
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things bought and sold are legislators." - P. J. O'Rourke