[ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)

Re Rose rocket at earthlight.com
Mon Apr 2 22:57:49 UTC 2018


If you agree that "...In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer
available for comment, most likely permanently, and thus become
irrelevant." then I don't see why we would be reanimating, or more to the
point, I don't really care how you reanimate me because if it's not me then
I'm dead and gone, which personally my goal is NOT to be. So I think we are
agreeing here, except I care about being continuous with my previous self
and you may not.

The proposal that both reanimation and consciouness-continuity are related
to the same phenomenon of self-continuity experienced after sleep (or more
persuasively, after general anesthesia) is interesting. As for sleep, I do
not agree such continuity is the same as reanimation after an upload would
be as I don't agree that consciouness is "off" during sleep in the first
place. Rather, I think of sleep as inducing an organized neural hub network
disconnection as per Susan Greenfield's thesis of small vs large neural
assemblies. Neural "hubs" dynamically assemble and these assemblies vary in
size related to the agent's level of consciouness -- the hubs assemble into
lager assemblies as consciouness levels increase or dissociate into smaller
assembles as the agent transitions into a sleep state. So, your brain
resumes its function in the same body. Also remember, your body maintains
continuous connectivity to your brain as well as having communication with
neural receptors scattered through organs other than your brain (ie, in the
gut). I see this as a complex system. A reboot in an exogenous body won't
the same, in a very fundamental way.

Since the agency of an individual is subjective we have to be very careful
we're not creating new beings with our uploading technology and still dying
as individuals - unless your goal is to make an animated library of people
patterned on existing people who died (or maybe didn't even die yet). We
might all agree it would be very, very great to have certain people's
connectomes preserved and reanimated - I'd have dinner with a reanimated
Feynman or Turing in one second flat while jumping with joy for the good
their re-existence would do the whole damn world while I'm at it, but if
the originals would still be dead and gone - well, if that's the case, we
should know that it is.



> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2018 19:46:00 +0000
> From: Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
>
>
> > Only your subjective, internal experience will allow you to be sure if it
> is you, and that agent will not be able to convince anyone else (including
> copies) of that.
>
> Two problems:
>
> 1) In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer available for comment,
> most likely permanently, and thus become irrelevant.
>
> 2) It is presumably possible for that agent to "convince" Re Rose of the
> argument that Re Rose just made.
>
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018, 11:47 AM Re Rose <rocket at earthlight.com> wrote:
>
> > "The only way we'll know for sure that any Cryonics procedure works is
> > when we
> > successfully revive somebody"
> >
> > Actually I'm not sure that will be helpful in all cases. I imagine a
> > scenario where a backup copy is uploaded to a host. Upon reanimation it
> > will be completely convinced its consciouness is as the person who was
> > uploaded. Why shouldn't it be? IMHO, the only individual who will even be
> > able to know if the copy is in fact "you" will be you - a copy will not
> be
> > able to tell. Not even your friends or partners can say if its you. They
> > may be convinced it is you. Only your subjective, internal experience
> will
> > allow you to be sure if it is you, and that agent will not be able to
> > convince anyone else (including copies) of that.
> >
> > --Regina
>
>
>
> From: Adrian Tymes
> Sent: Monday, April 2, 2018 12:46 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Cryonics for uploaders discussion: Video (John Clark)
>
>
> >?1) In the scenario describe, "you" are no longer available for comment,
> most likely permanently, and thus become irrelevant.
>
>
> Ja, by choice.  As soon as I realize I perished but now I am up and
> running again, I want to become Anders Sandberg.  If Anders is also up and
> running, he might not like that, so? I would then choose to become Andrew
> Wiles.  Or Martin Gardner.  Or John Horton Conway.  I can think of a couple
> dozen people I want to become if that is ever an option.  Staying me is in
> the top 40 choices somewhere (depending on what your definition of me is
> (assuming that term still has a definition in software.))
>
> spike
>
>
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