[ExI] Obama keen on brain mapping

[Alan Grimes]

I've been meditating on this post for the past several hours.

Anders Sandberg wrote:
> I am not just saying that as a neuroscientist/neuropundit, but also 
> from the perspective of the safety of an upload transition. 

What the heck is an upload transition? Google wasn't very helpful. Don't 
you mean "My upload transition"? I mean, that would make sense, you 
know, to talk about your own future transformations. But to talk in 
terms of an infinitive/universal "upload transition" is simply wrong.

> The worst scenarios are all of the type that neuroscience arrives 
> last: we already have powerful computers and brain scans, we just cant 
> get them to run. Then a breakthrough happens, and suddenly we have 
> massive hardware overhang (very fast, multiple uploads can be run) and 
> rapid change society is unlikely to keep up with.

What rapid change? How would this "society" thing (whatever that is) 
feel obliged to "keep up with" it? Why not simply allow things to 
diffuse out into common usage the way any other meme would. Is there 
something I really need to know but haven't been told?

> The nicer scenarios get the neuroscience roughly right from the start, 
> and then show increasingly large animal models - the trend is obvious, 
> society has a chance to adapt, and the first uploads will not be 
> strongly posthuman. 

What is so special about this uploading thing that  society would have 
to "adapt"?

I think we need to have a Dialog about this, you know 2-way 
communication, where we talk about how this will affect each of us, and 
what actions might be necessary to preserve our rights and values. A 130 
page treatise (which I read, cover to cover) that goes over exactly how 
you plan to upload everyone including me and my cat does not count as a 
dialog.

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