<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1252">
</head>
<body>
On 28/03/2020 15:53, billw wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.26.1585410821.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Imitating
biochemistry: the brain initiates a lot of behavior that other
organs carry out, such as endocrine glands. So - will an upload
contain or create virtual endocrine glands? Virtual leg muscles
for virtual running? Liver etc. for virtual digestion? And so
on. Will they disconnect links to how to curl your toes?</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">It seems that you
all want a brain that is pure thinking, and there is so much of
it that is devoted to other things that maybe you will upload
far less than what is in your full brain. What good will
uploading your medulla do? No lungs, no heart,etc. Or the
cerebellum - no motor control needed.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Will all emotions
be included? Could we just not upload fear? Or whatever?</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Personally, I think the sensible approach would be to start by
emulating everything that you can. Including the stupid things, the
things we don't know why they exist, the things that seem
irrelevant, etc. So yes, endocrine glands, leg muscles, liver,
toe-curling reflexes, the lot. And that includes all the emotional
responses (which you probably couldn't avoid anyway).<br>
<br>
Initially.<br>
<br>
Then, we're in a good position to start fine-tuning things. Think
the recurrent laryngeal nerve is a nonsensical by-product of blind
evolution? (Yes, of course it is). Right, then re-route it. Bear in
mind this is all an emulation, so such things would be easy, once
the basic emulation is working. Did that work? Any unexpected
side-effects? No? Fine, carry on. Tweak one thing after another, go
cautiously, maintain rollback points, undo things that didn't go as
expected. Imagine how much we will learn! It will take a long time,
yes, even at software speeds, but you can probably see that
gradually, an improved virtual organism would emerge.<br>
<br>
<br>
"It seems that you all want a brain that is pure thinking"<br>
<br>
This is <b>far</b> from the truth. Anyone who gives any serious,
informed thought to the matter of uploading will realise that a
sense of embodiment will be essential. The aim, initially, would be
to emulate as much as possible everything that we can sense, plus
the things that we can't directly sense, that contribute to our
selves. Only after we have mastered that would we start to tinker
with the design, and who knows where we might go after that.<br>
<br>
Here's how I would describe it:<br>
Imagine that you woke up one morning, and someone told you that
you'd been uploaded (or you remember making the decision to upload,
the previous day). But <i>nothing has changed</i>, subjectively.<br>
<br>
You feel exactly the same. Things look, feel, taste, smell, exactly
the same. The world is the same. Your emotions are the same, your
body is the same.<br>
<br>
Then someone shows you that by thinking certain things, or even by
using a control panel in your environment, you can change things
selectively. Press this button, and you get 2cm taller. rotate that
knob and your apparent age goes up and down (with all the attendant
internal changes as well as your appearance). You realise that your
body doesn't hurt in the small ways that biological ageing has
gradually brought on. Then you learn that you can make much bigger
changes, including to your environment. Over a period of subjective
months or years (which may or may not be real-world months or
years), you learn more and more how to change things, control
yourself and your environment, and how to communicate in many
different ways with other people, including other uploads. At some
point, you learn to use an interface with the real world, and
perhaps inhabit the body of an avatar, or a non-human robot, or,
well, or just about anything really. A hummingbird. A dinosaur,
whatever.<br>
<br>
At no point do you even remotely feel like a disembodied mind
(unless, that is, you normally used to!). At no point do you notice
anything <i>missing</i>. Except the things that you deliberately
change, like that arthritic pain you always got in your left hand.
Maybe at some point you decide to find out what it's like to do
without the feelings of hunger. Maybe that doesn't go so well, so
you reverse the decision. And so on, and so on, for many many
centuries. Or more.<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
</body>
</html>