[ExI] Essential Upload Data

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 07/05/2020 16:56, Re Rose wrote:
> I don't think an uploaded copy of my brain pattern in any way will or 
> ever can be "me". The slow-replacement theory isn't persuasive, as 
> each component acclimates to the surroundings slowly which I think is 
> ok. That's not a massive uploading event. The thought-experiment I 
> trust the most, which is against uploading,  is the one where you 
> consider uploading a copy made before you are dead into a new body. If 
> you aren't "in" that new agent animated by your copy (since you're 
> still alive) -- well, how will you ever be able to be "in" that or any 
> other copy ? IMHO, you can't. Not ever. A copy is a copy. Fun and 
> maybe comforting for your surviving friends and family, and to be sure 
> it is an agent in its own right - its just not you.
>

You seem to have changed your mind about uploading. I recommend reading 
"A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind Uploading" by Keith Wiley, and 
having a look at this site: https://carboncopies.org/writing/

You assume that there can only be one 'you'. So far that has been true, 
but there's no law of physics that says it will always be true. A 
perfect copy of your mind would necessarily be you, unless you subscribe 
to some form of dualism, and think people have 'souls' in the way that 
religious people mean.

You say 'a copy is a copy'. True. But what does that mean? I'm a copy of 
the me of 2 seconds ago. I'm still me. A copy of Beethoven's 9th 
symphony is a copy. It's still Beethoven's 9th symphony. As long as the 
copies are identical, it doesn't matter if after the process, there are 
two items or still one item (in the case of destructive copying). Or a 
hundred. There's nothing inferior about 'a copy', as long as its 
fidelity is high enough (a thing we don't yet know about brains is just 
how high the fidelity needs to be, for an upload).

When an amoeba splits into two daughter amoebas by copying all of its 
parts, which is the 'real' amoeba, and which is the copy? Not only is it 
not possible to tell (even by radiolabelling its food), the question 
doesn't really mean anything. It has branched into two identical 
amoebas. Each has as much claim to be 'the real one' as the other. I can 
see no reason the same thing wouldn't be true of a copy of a mind.

-- 
Ben Zaiboc