[ExI] Uploads (was: Covid)

[William Flynn Wallace]

Thanks for all that, Ben  - just one question:

The body is designed not to die or suffer injury.  It will attempt to shut
down things that will do that.  Now suppose that we have an uploaded
person:  Suzie.  She is a sex maniac and spends most of her time having an
orgasm.  If she had a body, that would probably produce heart failure or
blow out blood vessels .  It might produce inhibitions in the brain trying
to dampen the orgasms.

Is there anything to keep an uploaded person from just spending all their
time with peak experiences like orgasms?  I assume that issues of tolerance
and addiction will not apply. Those are biochemical changes.  Or will the
totally uploaded brain try to do what the biological body would do?  This
is far from clear to me.

One more related example: your taste (tongue plus nose) diminishes with
each bite you take of something.  Will this happen to Suzie?

bill w

On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 1:00 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 26/03/2020 19:08, Dave Sill wrote, then billw wrote:
>
>
> Ideally we'd want to move past playing by the rules of biochemistry in
> order to do non-biological things.
>
>> I don't know what that means.  You want to do non-biological things to a
>> biological body? bill w
>>
>
> I don't know what Dave has in mind here, but to me, the long-term thing
> will be moving past the distinction between 'biological' and 'artificial'.
>
> Consider that even an uploaded mind will need a physical substrate of some
> sort to run on (one reason I've always objected to the term
> 'substrate-independent' - it implies somehow being independent of any
> substrate, which is clearly nonsense, outside of Star-Trekkian stories
> featuring beings of 'pure energy').
> Many people seem to assume that this substrate will resemble our current
> computers, and anyone who advocates for uploading must be happy to have
> their mind be a software construct running on something like the massive
> server farms we have today (which of course implies all sorts of practical,
> legal and ethical considerations that are actually quite scary, once you
> start thinking about them).
>
> While that may be a short-term prospect, I doubt it will be how things pan
> out in the longer-term.
>
> The way we are now, we create and live in elaborate virtual worlds that
> are generated by our brains. We have no choice in the matter, that's how
> things work. This doesn't mean that we don't inhabit 'real bodies', though.
>
> I see no necessary difference once we can upload (once the technology is
> mature, anyway). One factor that many people assume will be necessary for
> uploading is nanotechnology. Much better nanotech than what we currently
> use the word for. Another factor will necessarily be a much better
> understanding of biology. Biology of the brain of course, but also of other
> aspects of our bodies (even if only to provide acceptibly realistic - or
> tolerable - simulations of embodiment).
>
> This is where the 'moving past the distinction' bit comes in. With
> sufficient understanding and technical ability, we'll be able to craft
> bodies for uploads to live in that are not 'computers' as we know them
> today, and not biological bodies as we know them today, but something new.
> Something that serves as a physical substrate for the mind, and as a body
> to act in the world, Something that gives us the best of both worlds,
> virtual and real.
>
> Just because someone's mind runs in a synthetic brain doesn't mean they
> are inevitably stuck in a kind of limbo where nothing is 'real', where they
> can't experience smell or feel emotions, etc., etc. I expect that these
> kind of 'post-upload' people will not only be able to experience the full
> range of mental states that we can now, but a lot more. And most
> importantly, they will be able to control their own selves, in many ways.
> They won't be subject to the worst parts of being biological, or the worst
> parts of being a 'computer system'. No disease, ageing and decrepitude. No
> blue screen of death. No 'Singularity ruined by lawyers'.
>
> The technology used to construct their bodies (and don't just imagine
> 'Cmdr. Data' - type bodies, they could be anything you like) would be
> advanced enough that trying to classify them as biological or artificial
> would be hopelessly naive. At this point, even the question 'Are you an
> upload?' would be difficult to answer in a meaningful way. Even the phrase
> 'post-biological' might not be strictly accurate.
>
>
> --
> Ben Zaiboc
>
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