[ExI] Current uploading sales brochure?

Gordon gts_2000 at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 22 04:08:07 UTC 2013


I'm glad to see that you're still working on this project, Brent. I don't know if you remember me (I used to sign off as '-gts") but some years ago I took the position here that consciousness cannot be duplicated or created on digital computers, i.e., that digital uploading is impossible. I engaged in a lengthy debate about it. Some important voices here gave me a lot of grief (I was even called a "troll") so I left for another venue.

-Gordon 

 


________________________________
 From: Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2013 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Current uploading sales brochure?
 




Hi Adrian,

This sounds like a very interesting and beneficial Project.  For
      the past 4 or 5 years I've been working on a survey project to
      survey the worlds best experts about how consciousness works. 
      I've been attending conferences on consciousness and interviewing
      experts, and integrating all of their best ideas on consciousness
      into the open survey being collaboratively developed by all at
      Canonizer.com.

My personal interest in this is precisely because I want to know
      what the best expert theories are, and what the leading theories
      are predict will be possible with uploading, most importantly,
      what will or could it be subjectively like to be uploaded to a
      much more capable system.

So far, about 50 people have participated in integrating their
      theories into the survey, already including diverse people like
      Daniel Dennett (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/21), Steven Lehar (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/17), David Chalmers (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/8), and a growing number of others.  There is also a growing number of supporters of each of their respective camps.  As more experts participate in the survey, it's ability to provide a real time measure of expert consensus, about each of the concisely stated leading theories being developed, will continue to improve, in a horse race kind of way.  Everyone can watch this and be educated by it, as we approach the demonstrable science that will surely soon falsify all but the one true camp.  By definition, everyone will definitively know how close we are, as the leading experts start to abandon the various competing theories, and converge on the one theory that works.  At least one camp has already been falsified by the data coming out of the large hadron collider.  Currently there are
 about 3 leading theories with the most consensus, and lots of 'noise' camps (due to the fact that nothing is censored on the way in) which can be easily ignored.

The surprising thing is how much consensus has been achieved with
      the consensus building system, despite the diversity of experts
      already participating.  The near unanimous emerging consensus is
      so far focusing arround what the experts have now agreed to call
      "Representational Qualia Theory" (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6).  This is the basic idea predicting that a redness quality, is not a quality of the strawberry, but instead, is a quality of our knowledge of the strawberry or a property of the final result of the perception process.  The only disagreement seems to be about the nature of the relationship between such qualities we can experience, and the underlying neural correlates responsible for them.  So far, the leading Neck and Neck camps are Chalmer's "Functional Property Dualism" which is predicting the relationship is Functional, and Hameroff's "Material Property Dualism" which is predicting the qualities are a quality of some material stuff, and without the right material, no redness quality experience.  Obviously, each of these are very falsifiable, and it's only a matter of time before the experimental neural scientist demonstrate which one is the true theory, to the
 falsification of all others.

Given this theory the experts seem to so far near unanimously
      agree on, there is a conscious world in our head, which is our
      knowledge of the world we are consciously aware of, through it via
      our senses.  At the center of this conscious world, is our
      knowledge of our "self", which unlike most of the rest of our
      knowledge of the world, doesn't have a referent in realty. 
      However, despite this lack of a referent in reality, it and it's
      continuity is still something that is very real, and important to
      what we are and how we might want to be uploaded.

The consensus seems to be predicting that we will be able to
      create significantly expanded and diverse phenomenal conscious
      worlds on artificial platforms, and consciously merge these worlds
      of knowledge (via effing of the ineffable techniques being
      predicted by the various different theories) with the worlds
      currently being produced by our brains.  With that, our knowledge
      of our self spirit, even though it doesn't have a referent in
      reality, well be able to traverse back and forth between these two
      conscious worlds (the one currently in our bran, and the expanded
      and consciously connected one running on the greatly enhanced
      artificial platform.) much like an out of body experience.

I've written a short story narrative describing exactly what these
      theories are predicting will be possible and what it could
      consciously be like for us.  It is contained in Chapers 5 and 6 of
      the short story entitled "1229 Years After Titanic"  http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742.  It's still kind of crude, but if you are interested I'd love to know your thoughts of any of it.

Most people are afraid of uploading, because they think there will
      be no possible continuity between one's self and the upload, and
      no way of knowing if that upload is the same as the real me.  But
      the leading theories are now predicting that this need not be the
      case.  The prediction is that people's knowledge of themselves,
      their knowledge of their 'spirits' if you will, will be able to
      represented as if we are having an "out of body experience" as we
      move from one platform to another, much like is roughly portrayed
      in the movie Avatar.  I think getting people to understand this
      kind of stuff, will definitely get them interested in
      understanding what will be possible.  The result being people
      loosing all fears of being uploaded that so many still struggle
      with.

If any sales brochure could communicate that, it would surely be a
      great success at motivating people to push towards uploading, and
      the singularity.

Anyway, that's just how things currently appear to me.  I'd love
      to follow what you are working on, and see any results you end up
      with, as I am keenly interested in all such!

Upwards,

Brent Allsop















On 4/21/2013 12:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:

On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Alan Grimes <ALONZOTG at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>I want to cover the subject of what it will actually be like to be an upload in extreme detail, accuracy, and honesty. To that end, I need to brush up on what the current claims are as to why it should be so great and, in the greatest possible detail, how it will work.
>>
>
>
>One scene you could do: have an upload come across a former
>chassis, possibly interleaved with memories of its
              destruction.
>"I was killed...but I know who did it and exactly how.  In
              theory,
>I can visit the same death upon them  The difference? 
              They
>can't come back."
>
>
>Bonus points if this wasn't the original biological chassis, the
>death of which spurred the upload, but just another drone body
          -
>
>and if this has happened before, so the protagonist has already
>wrestled with the question of revenge.
>
>
>As to the day to day operation, I'd suggest analogs to disabled
>people where the host is less capable than a human body - and
>similar thoughts where the host is more capable.  Either way,
>the upload is "living with" new limits in exactly the same way
>any normal human with a long term condition that impacts
>quality of life is "living with" it.  (Lose an arm, and it'll
          be a week
>until you get a replacement?  You're one-handed for a week.
>
>Super-strong?  You learn - quickly - how to control it, so you're
>not wrecking your house; you almost certainly aren't still
          having
>major accidents weeks later.)
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat 

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20130421/8adf69a5/attachment.html>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list