[ExI] The Upload Game

[The Avantguardian]

--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

> The Avantguardian writes

> > Ok Lee. Imagine Executron the Overmind version 2.5 with service pack 3
>offers 
> > to upload you. You agree.
> > You get put into some weird MRI-like apparatus, some colored lights
> > flash, and the procedure is done. You don't feel terribly different.
> > Executron assures you that the upload went without a hitch and that
> > every bit of information that is you has been scanned into the machine. He
> says
> > you may now transfer all your assets to your uploaded self and proceed to
> the
> > "showers" at the recycling facilities. Let's say you ask for proof that the
> > procedure worked.
> > Executron rolls his CCD sensors and flicks on a monitor and
> > sure enough there you are jacuzzying with Lara Croft looking
> > like you are having the time of your life. Executron flicks off
> > the monitor and slides a Power of Attorney/Last Will and
> > Testament before you. Do you sign it and go to the recycling
> > plant?

Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> writes:

> Destructive upload?  Or do I get to be both "here" and "there"?
> It's always necessary to specify that.

Well I purposely blurred the distinction between the two. You could call this
the "delayed destructive upload" scenario. Which for all intents and purposes
is a destructive upload except in so far as the original stays alive just long
enough to be convinced that the upload worked. Presumably so that if something
"went wrong" it could be attempted again. As opposed to botched destructive
uploads where there would be no "do overs". 

> Under *this* scenario?  Of course not.  I must emphasize it
> again:
> "Uploading" is taken to mean *successful* uploading, which
> is taken to me that no identity questions---except the most
> abstruse ones---remain.

Would it make a difference in your answer if Executron shows you a stack of
nature and Science papers detailing the authenticity of the process, video
footage of experts extolling the virtues of the process, and you get to
interview yourself or any number of satisfied customers?
 
> Moreover, you didn't say why the original had to die. Was
> it part of a weird A or B choice thought experiment? In RL
> there is no reason my original body wouldn't continue to
> live (on a non-destructive upload methodology as you 
> have presumed here), and no reason for it to die just
> because the uploaded version had life so much better.

It is just a hypothetical constraint on a thought experiment. It could be any
number of reasons. Executive order #10110100011, for example, or perhaps the
property taxes on your body have exceeded your income, or the Soylent Green
market is booming and you are hoping to cash in. I was trying to figure out if
your enthusiasm for uploading extended to sacrificing your subjective self for
the benefit of another entity that is to any arbitrary degree of measurement
objectively you. It relates to whether an otherwise healthy individual has any
rationale to destructively upload since presumably no subjective spark jumps
the gap. Or does it? 


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Life is the sum of all your choices."  
Albert Camus


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