[ExI] Uploads are self

[John Clark]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2026 at 9:35 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*I recently met one of the leading researchers involved in the fruit fly
> brain scanning effort. He, and others mentioned two common objections
> people have to the idea of brain preservation (with the eventual goal of
> uploading):*
>
>    - *The first is the idea that silicon computers can't host human
>    consciousness.*
>    - *The second is the idea that even if my upload were conscious, "it
>    wouldn't be me."*
>
> *I told him I would prepare a brief essay that uses the latest
> philosophical arguments to serve as a counter to these objections (written
> to be understandable to laypersons).*
>
> *So if there are people in your life who resist your choice to pursue
> brain/cryro preservation, this document can help them understand the
> various reasons for we can expect uploads not only to be conscious, but
> also capable of extending one's very own subjective self and identity.*
>
> *Here is the document:*
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/103wDTRC7-AA6mHVzRj1JptqeulBRXinzvIdfC1Z50t8/edit?usp=sharing
>

*I read your document and I thought it was excellent. I do have a few
comments on the subject of personal identity and the soul, all of them are,
I think, in harmony with your views. *

*If what are you call "Empty Individualism" is true then I will not survive
an upload, but then I have not been "surviving" from one second to the next
since the day I was born, my brain changes to a different quantum state
many trillions of times a second and I have become a different person each
time. And yet here I am, all those deaths have certainly not bothered me
very much! That's not to say there might be an element of truth in the
idea, I don't think survival is an all or nothing matter, after all the six
year old John Clark no longer exists, although there are similarities we
are different people. But if that is what is meant by "death" then death is
not a big deal. And subjective consciousness is always continuous, although
the objective outside world can jump discontinuously. *

*As for the "soul", it is a word that means the essential part that makes
you be you and me be me, and I agree there must be something that causes
that, but the religious claim it can never be understood so we might as
well give up even trying, and I disagree with that part.  I can only
conceive of 3 things existing in the universe, matter, energy, and
information. Atoms are interchangeable, energy is fungible, so information
must be the thing that causes you and I to be different people. *

*I think information is as close as you can get to the traditional concept
of the soul and still remain within the scientific method. The soul is non
material and so is information. It's difficult to pin down a unique
physical location for the soul, and the same is true for information. The
soul is the essential, must have, part of consciousness, exactly the same
situation is true for information. The soul is immortal and so,
potentially, is information.   *

*But there are also important differences. A soul is unique but
information, at least conventional non-quantum information, can be
duplicated. The soul is and will  always remain unfathomable,
however information is understandable, in fact you might even argue that
information is the ONLY thing that is understandable. And  Information
unambiguously exists, I don't think even the most religious would deny
that, but even if the soul exists it's existence it will never be proven.  *

* John K Clark*
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