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Re Rose <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:rocket@earthlight.com"><rocket@earthlight.com></a>
wrote:
<br>
<br>
"Since the agency of an individual is subjective we have to be very
careful
<br>
we're not creating new beings with our uploading technology and
still dying
<br>
as individuals - unless your goal is to make an animated library of
people
<br>
patterned on existing people who died (or maybe didn't even die
yet). We
<br>
might all agree it would be very, very great to have certain
people's
<br>
connectomes preserved and reanimated - I'd have dinner with a
reanimated
<br>
Feynman or Turing in one second flat while jumping with joy for the
good
<br>
their re-existence would do the whole damn world while I'm at it,
but if
<br>
the originals would still be dead and gone - well, if that's the
case, we
<br>
should know that it is."
<br>
<br>
<br>
This whole concept of a 'me that is not me' baffles me. Leaving
aside ideas like the 'soul' (which I hope we can all agree is
nonsense), what is it that constitutes an individual? More
importantly, what is it that constitutes an individual that is
somehow inherently not reproducible? I can't think of a single
candidate. There are several ideas about what is necessary for an
individual mind to exist, but all of the elements involved are
reproducible.
<br>
<br>
I don't think anyone would argue against the idea that a copy of a
mind is not the same as the original, but the mistake lies in
thinking that this means it doesn't recreate the <i
class="moz-txt-slash"><span class="moz-txt-tag">/</span>same mind<span
class="moz-txt-tag">/</span></i>. Just as copying a CD of
Beethoven's 9th Symphony recreates the same music.
<br>
<br>
Arguments centring around continuity don't work, and it doesn't
require proof of the quantisation of time to show why. People have
had all brain activity stopped for hours and been successfully
revived (accidents involving falling into icy water and 'dying'
before they drowned). Arguing that they therefore can't be the 'same
person' is rather silly, and would be impossible to prove.
<br>
<br>
Ben Zaiboc
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