[ExI] Philosopher claims - Consciousness can't be uploaded

[Keith Henson]

If it is possible to upload a brain, the same tools should allow the
reverse.  So you could upload for the weekend and go back to a meat
brain on Monday.  I wrote about this in The Clinic Seed, which most of
you have read.

https://terasemjournals.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/henson-chapters-1-2-3-with-bio-no-illustrations.pdf

The 7000-word story starts about 5 pages down.  It's almost 20 years old.

It is a little related to Spike's comments about Africa.  A couple of
years ago, I posted a conversation with an AI about the fictional AI
in the story.  Surreal.

Keith

On Tue, Sep 2, 2025 at 5:03 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2025, 6:00 AM BillK via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> Consciousness can't be uploaded
>> Digital immortality is a metaphysical mirage
>> 1st September 2025
>> William Egginton   Decker Professor in the Humanities
>>
>> <https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-cant-be-uploaded-auid-3352?_auid=2020>
>> Quote:
>> Uploading minds to computers isn’t just technically impossible—the
>> whole idea rests on a deep misconception of consciousness and our
>> place in reality. So argues William Egginton, whose recent book
>> explores the relationships between the philosophies of Kant,
>> Heisenberg and Borges. Drawing a parallel between minds and spacetime
>> singularities inside black holes, he argues that to try to know such
>> things involves trying to go beyond mere appearances to reality as it
>> is in itself—a futile project, he claims. And if minds cannot be truly
>> known, they certainly can’t be copied or uploaded to computers.
>> Futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Dmitry Itskov, who aim for cybernetic
>> immortality, are chasing a metaphysical mirage.
>> -------------------
>>
>> Quite a long article.
>> His main point seems to be that minds are not just data. If you don't
>> fully understand how consciousness arises in the first place, copying
>> it is impossible.
>> OK, so we need to understand consciousness better.
>> Let's hope that is not an impossible task.
>
>
> I haven't read the article, but just going off your description of it, it seems unsound to say both: "we don't know what consciousness is," and at the same time say, "we know it's impossible to upload consciousness."
>
>
> Contray to my his claim, I would say we already have good logical reasons as well as empirical evidence to presume mind uploading is possible.
>
>
> From: https://loc.closertotruth.com/theory/resch-s-platonic-functionalism
>
>
> "When it comes to deciding whether functionalism is true, he says, we're faced with the following four propositions.
>
> 1. No computer program can emulate the human brain.
>
> 2. An emulation is possible, but it wouldn't be conscious.
>
> 3. The emulation would be conscious, but not in the same way. Or
>
> 4. The emulation would be conscious in exactly the same way.
>
> We have cause to doubt (1) because all known physical laws are computable, and also because we have biologically accurate models of neurons that don't assume any exotic non-computable physics.
>
> We have cause to doubt (2) because it makes consciousness into a pointless epiphenomenon, with no reason to evolve; furthermore, it makes scenarios like the zombie universe possible, wherein philosophers write books about consciousness without being conscious.
>
> We have cause to doubt (3) because, as Chalmers shows, it would mean qualia could dance and fade without one noticing (Chalmers, 1995a), or, as Zuboff's partial visual cortex replacement argument shows, one could have inverted colors in half of their visual field without any impairment in function (Zuboff, 1994).
>
> If we reject the first three possibilities, then only one option remains. We thereby conclude that an emulation of a human brain would not only be conscious but must be conscious in the exact same way as a functionally equivalent biological brain. Thus, Resch concludes, functional organization fully defines the character of both consciousness and qualia."
>
>
> Jason
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