[ExI] nondestructive uploading of sorts

[spike]

>.Frankly, you're next.

 

We are a looooong long ways from true uploading.  Even the very young among
us are unlikely to live to see that.  But we could likely do some kinda
fakey pseudo-uploading which could be a great toy, and will make a buttload
of money for whoever gets it to the market.  

 

Those of us who have children often crack up when our five year old comes up
with some saying that we know they learned from us, some quirky mannerism
perhaps or odd spike-ism.  Example: Saturday my seven year old son's
playmate did a fully splayed flying pancake into the dirt.  I didn't see it,
but we noticed he was dusty from knees to chin.  I said "This must have been
some fall, huh?"  My son popped up with "Ja, it was quite spectacular."  He
used the same accent and mannerism I use when I make those kinds of
comments.

 

So now we have these computers with cameras, and they can read what we write
and listen to what we say, taking digital samples of our voice as we talk on
Skype and so forth.  We can imagine a kinda-sorta uploading where the
computer imitates our style using our digitally recorded voices and our
image on the screen.  Using only current technology, we might be able to rig
something that feels like we are visiting with our digital selves.  Clearly
that is a form of nondestructive uploading in a very loose sense, a toy
version of it anyway.  

 

We would know it isn't really uploading, for uploading requires
machine-based or artificial intelligence.  The universal rule is that any
algorithm which we can understand is not artificial intelligence.  If we
don't understand something, then it is magic.  We know true intelligence is
ineffable, incomprehensible, magic.  So if we can understand it, it is
comprehensible and thus becomes not magic, therefore it isn't intelligence,
and isn't uploading.

 

Someday we may figure out how neurons actually work and how they work
together.  Then the workings of the brain become at least theoretically
comprehensible, and therefore less magic and less intelligent.  So the more
we learn, the dumber we get.  If we figure it out completely, then we may
eventually discover what I have already begun to suspect: that we are
stupid.

 

I could imagine using the above toy with our parents and grandparents, so
that after they are gone, we could have a better-than-nothing Eliza-ish
"discussion" of sorts with their avatar.  

 

Would that be cool or what?  

 

{8-]

 

spike

 

 

 

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