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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25/12/2025 11:23, Keith Henson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.39.1766661821.15606.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I have argued for 20 years that a technology able to upload a person
should be able to reverse the process. For marketing, if nothing
else.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25/12/2025 11:23, John K Clark
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.39.1766661821.15606.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">There's no reason<span
class="gmail_default" style=""> that shouldn't be possible because both uploading and downloading rely on the same fundamental technology, the ability to place atoms where you want them to go.</span></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
For 'marketing' purposes (or PR purposes, at least), I can see the
logic. However, I doubt that a full mastery of nanotech will be
necessary to do uploading, I'd think that something less than that
would be used first. The ability to scan and record the relevant
data from a brain, then arrange the data in a pre-prepared computing
substrate of some kind, which would then run the mind, seems to me
to be sufficient for the first uploads. That technology is still in
the future, but is still much less than what would be required to do
the reverse, and 'download' a mind into a biological brain (which
might well require nanotech., or at least something more advanced
than the initial uploading tech.).<br>
<br>
So I think that the first uploads would not be reversible, and would
apply to people who are not in a position to be fussy, or not really
interested in a 'test-drive' (i.e. dead or dying people who want to
upload). Later on, the technology could well allow downloading, but
as John says, it seems unlikely that anyone would want to, unless
the quality of uploaded life was much worse than we anticipate (and
even if so, that would surely be a temporary situation).<br>
<br>
One thing that occurs to me is that a snapshot of the relevant brain
data could be kept, and repeated attempts made to create a
functioning upload from it, until it works properly. This would be a
step beyond cryonic preservation, but still short of an upload (I'd
certainly want some very robust and reliable backup arrangements
made, though, that were at least as safe as the data residing in a
cryopreserved biological brain. Although aldehyde-stabilised
cryopreservation sounds the most robust, it can't be turned into
multiple backups, so turning your data into digital form as soon as
possible might be the safest option, even if the data has to then
wait around for a few decades or centuries before being used to
create an upload. The crucial question then becomes: What data,
exactly, is needed? Get that wrong, and you're permanently dead, no
matter what).<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben</pre>
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