<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">John,<br><br>I think my previous reply may have covered these issues, but to clarify: principally, the self and thoughts are not reducible to the machinery which generates them, whatever that machinery may be. They are not 'reducible' at all, especially the self, as it is not an isolatable thing. Therefore, to think that it can be 'transferred' from one set of hardware to another is to posit some kind of supernatural or metaphysical entity as the self. Secondly, the self is not identical with thoughts. The self, whenever we use the concept, is better understood as being based in social action.<br><br>I have never experienced an identical set of atoms to my body, but if I were in that situation I would probably argue that my conscious
experience correlated with what was happening to only one of those groups. However, I think we're barking up the wrong tree as soon as we start trying to pin down 'me' to a specific material object. There's no such thing as 'me'. And unless we're positing some kind of non-physical essential self, how can uploading be any kind of 'transferrence' or 'sequel' other than a simulation?<br><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">----- Original Message ----<br>From: John K Clark <jonkc@att.net><br>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><br>Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 4:51:59 PM<br>Subject: Re: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood<br><br>
Michael Miller Wrote:<br><br>> the self (and specifically, thoughts) are not something located in or<br>> identical with the brain<br><br>Exactly, and that's an idea fans of uploading have been trying to get<br>across for years; we don't have thoughts we are thoughts, and thoughts<br>are not responsible for the machinery that happens to think them.<br>Why you believe that is a refutation of the uploading concept is beyond me.<br><br>> they are a facet of an entire entity, dependent just as much on the whole<br>> body and the social processes of which we are a part.<br><br>Yea yea yea, I've been hearing that line for years, and whenever I do I ask<br>"even if it's true how does it explain the fact (well you think it's a fact)<br>that a collection of atoms right there is undoubtly you but an IDENTICAL<br>collection of atoms over there is not you"? I seldom receive an answer to<br>my question and when I do it's just a thinly disguises load of
religious<br>mumbo jumbo filled with euphemisms for the word "soul".<br><br> John K Clark<br><br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>extropy-chat mailing list<br><a ymailto="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</a><br></div><br></div></div><br>
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