[ExI] Uploading and selfhood

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Sun Mar 30 16:51:38 UTC 2008


On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Michael Miller <ain_ani at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Apologies if this has already been covered, but I've been thinking for a
> little while about uploading and the attendent reduction of selfhood to
> brain processes. The following review (from New Scientist) makes some
points
> which I think present the most compelling case against the viability of
> uploading. That is, that the self (and specifically, thoughts) are not
> something located in or identical with the brain - they are a facet of an
> entire entity, dependent just as much on the whole body and the social
> processes of which we are a part.

I have discussed exactly this topic in an article published
here<http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/comments/uploading_cyborgisation_teletrasporto_rianimazione_postcrio/>in
Giulio Prisco's blog (unfortunately in Italian).

In short - while the idea that "consciousness" may have to do not just with
the brain, along the line that peripherals are ultimately part of the
computer, is likely to have some merits (the real experiment here have
nothing to do with uploading, but rather with keeping a disembodied brain
alive, connecting it to h some electronic interfaces, and seeing if and how
it still works) - I do not believe that the case is so very compelling.

When you have achieved a real-time low-level emulation of a human brain, to
extend it to an emulation of an entire body is just a couple of orders of
magnitude away in computing power and complexity, top. So, the real hard
part is to achieve the first, the rest that might end up being necessary is
likely to be trivial enough in comparison.

Stefano
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