[ExI] Uploads are self

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 8:08 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 22/03/2026 11:33, Jason Resch wrote:
> > Consider the case where you upload your mind to 5 different computers at
> once.
> >
> > Subject each of the 5 instances to gradual modifications (via different
> experiences) so that you end up in the end with 5 very distinct persons
> with different memories and even personalities.
> >
> > Have you have become these 5 different people?
>
>
> Of course.
> What other possibility is there?
>
>
> > If so what principle makes them them all you (when they're run on
> different computers and have different psychologies)?
>
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by 'what principle'. Each one of them is an
> upload of you, that has changed in some way. Each one is no different to if
> you had remained biological and made the same changes (assuming the
> suggested changes are possible in a biological person).
>
> Are you having difficulty with the 'branching identity' idea (do you not
> think that there can be 5 'you's), or is it something else?
>


I am illustrating the fact that identical psychological states are not
bearers of identity.

For if you could survive as these divergent people, then we can imagine
surviving via more substantive modifications. For example slowly and
gradually tweaking the weights of your brain over time to exactly equal the
brain state of your friend Bob. Now then you must conclude that you have
survived this process, and yet, now we have the situation where Ben's brain
has become identical with Bob's brain.

Does this imply that you and Bob are now essentially same person? Would
backing up and uploading Bob's brain not count equally as preserving your
brain? Could you then survive as an upload of Bob?

What if we skipped the transformation process we subjected you to, and
simply uploaded Bob? Would you survive as the upload in that case?

If not, what does the act of putting Ben through the experience of morphing
into Bob add to the situation?

If this morphing from Ben to Bob were done in the Andromeda Galaxy
unbeknownst to you here on earth, would that provide the necessary glue to
stitch your minds and thus enable your survival?

What if this morphing happened in some other branch of the multiverse?

Across the multiverse every physically allowable transformation between any
two mind states happens somewhere.

Drawing ubique personal boundaries around minds then becomes rather
difficult.

Jason
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