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On 28/03/2020 00:46, billw asked:<br>
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cite="mid:mailman.24.1585356370.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"><br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Thanks for all
that, Ben - just one question:</div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">The body is
designed not to die or suffer injury. It will attempt to
shut down things that will do that. Now suppose that we
have an uploaded person: Suzie. She is a sex maniac and
spends most of her time having an orgasm. If she had a
body, that would probably produce heart failure or blow out
blood vessels . It might produce inhibitions in the brain
trying to dampen the orgasms.</div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Is there
anything to keep an uploaded person from just spending all
their time with peak experiences like orgasms? I assume
that issues of tolerance and addiction will not apply. Those
are biochemical changes. Or will the totally uploaded brain
try to do what the biological body would do? This is far
from clear to me.</div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">One more
related example: your taste (tongue plus nose) diminishes
with each bite you take of something. Will this happen to
Suzie?</div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">bill w</div>
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<br>
OK, good questions. The main answer is, I don't know. But I'd expect
that any upload would be well aware of these potential problems -
perhaps through an 'orientation package' for all uploads - and be
able to come up with sensible solutions.<br>
<br>
One thing that I would probably want to do would be to define a set
of conditions under which automatic systems would override my
conscious decisions. Eg., if the decision threatened my survival.<br>
<br>
Another factor is that Suzie the Sex Maniac could very possibly keep
the sensations of orgasm from having the effects you describe. It
should be possible to subjectively experience something that
normally involves bodily sensations without those sensations causing
the usual 'real-world' bodily reactions. I've been musing for quite
a long time now about such a dual-world existence, where you can
choose whether what you experience comes from - and affects - the
external environment (meaning, in this case, the body), or is purely
in a virtual environment, or is a mixture of the two.<br>
<br>
i have no idea if this would be practical or feasible, but I don't
see any theoretical reasons that it wouldn't be possible. You could
for example, call up virtual overlays on your normal sensory input
(an extension of the 'heads-up display' concept), that gives you
information that comes from other sources than your bodies senses,
or you could take your attention into a totally synthetic virtual
world for a time while your body is occupied doing something mundane
and easily automated, and have 'firewalls' between these two domains
of experience, that only allow through signals that you specify.<br>
<br>
"I assume that issues of tolerance and addiction will not apply.
Those are biochemical changes. Or will the totally uploaded brain
try to do what the biological body would do? This is far from clear
to me."<br>
<br>
This is one of the main points: We will be able to specify whether
or not we want to apply the features of naturally evolved brains to
our experience, and to what extent. Biochemistry is nothing special,
it can be emulated (if that's not true, the whole uploading thing is
a non-starter). To whatever degree you want. And of course, once
emulated, you have much greater control over what happens. You're in
the position of someone with a thermostat who gets it replaced with
a digital temperature-control system, and realises that they have
far more control over how it works now. Whereas before all they
could do was set the temperature of the house, and hope it works
well enough, now they realise they can set a huge range of
conditions and responses, so that it automatically keeps the house
nice and cozy when you're in, and lets the temperature fall when
you're out, adjusts for sunny vs rainy days, makes it a bit cooler
when there are a lot of people in the house, maybe learn that you
often get up earlier than normal on a Tuesday, so put the heating on
earlier on Tuesdays, etc.<br>
<br>
So the answer to your question is, issues of tolerance and addiction
will apply to the degree and type that you specify. The uploaded
brain will try to do what the biological body would do, to the
degree that you want it to, including not at all. Suzie could
potentially learn to be in a state of constant orgasmic bliss while
going about her normal life unimpeded. Very likely, we'll discover
other modes of being that aren't possible at present, and that
nobody has even imagined.<br>
<br>
The potential for this all going horribly wrong, is of course
immense. People will need to be educated to use these abilities
properly, and will probably need to be protected from themselves
until they know what they're doing. In the long run, though, we'll
all know a hell of a lot more about ourselves than we do now. And of
course, it will lead to people becoming something different to what
we are now, not just physically, but mentally as well. We will
hopefully, become proper Post-humans, not just monkeys with more
bananas.<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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