[ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia

[Brent Allsop]

John and Spike,

There is no longer any need to digest over 15 years of extropy archives 
to know concisely and quantitatively what we all believe at this very 
moment (and if any of us have converted from one camp or another, and 
for what reasons).

John, your thinking that 'almost everyone on this list' believes in 
'vitalism and the soul' is obviously completely wrong.  What lots of 
transhumanists do believe, or at least those willing and able to declare 
such, is now concisely and quantitatively specified in this topic on 
theories of the Mind:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88

You can see precisely what theories are well accepted, and how well 
accepted.  You can see this for the general population with the default 
canonizer, or you can select the Transhumanists canonizer to see what 
Transhumanists believe and how this compares.  You can do the same for 
Mormons, PhDs, and so on.

 From the POV of the most well accepted scientific theory camp which I 
am in along with many leading theoreticians like Johm Smythies and 
Steven Lehar, and many more (many are transhumanists):

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6

As is stated therein, you and Spike are simply missing the important 
difference between the phenomenal and the behavioral.  When you say: "if 
we know enough about a carbon atom, we can write a computer simulation 
of one," this is all true, but you are missing the most important point 
that just because something is 'behaving' like something else, it is in 
no way fundamentally and phenomenally like it.  Sure, a one and a zero 
can behave like, or abstractly represent red vs green.  But, from a 
consciousness perspective, this is to completely miss what is 
phenomenally important about red vs green and the difference between 
them, and all this has to do with the well accepted idea around the so 
called  'hard problem' which you seem to completely, dismiss, ignore, 
and are ignorant of.

And to jump to the assumption that just because someone believes that 
matter has both behavioral and (soon to be effable) phenomenal 
properties, as concisely described in this camp:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/2

is just plain ignorant and mistaken.  Saying such clearly reveals your 
complete ignorance of any of what these world leading theoreticians are 
talking about in their now concisely stated and quantitatively 
represented camps.

Upward,

Brent Allsop



spike wrote:
>  
>
>   
>> ...On Behalf Of John K Clark
>> ...
>>
>> People wail "but that upload just wouldn't be me" but when 
>> asked exactly why it wouldn't be you the response I get is 
>> always the same; I receive paragraphs and paragraphs of 
>> verbiage, but every single one of the grand sounding 
>> pseudo-scientific phrases in them turn out to be nothing but 
>> euphemisms for the soul or plaintive cries that silicon could 
>> never hope to equal meat, it just couldn't.
>> ...
>>
>> And it's not just Extropians, my premise is too shocking for 
>> Shock Level Four also. Sorry if I sound a bit cranky, but 
>> that's the way I see it.
>>
>>  John K Clark
>>     
>
>
> OK but your contention surprises me.  Guess I never really do follow the
> endless identity threads very carefully.  I have always assumed that if we
> know enough about a carbon atom, we can write a computer simulation of one,
> and if we know enough about neurons, axons and dendrites we can simulate a
> brain cell in software, and if we can simulate a brain cell using the carbon
> atom sims, and we can sim 100 billion of them working together using the
> brain cell sims, and if so, 100 billion brains working together and if so,
> that meta-sim is not only us but better than we are, a superset of us.  This
> superset is desperately needed, for humanity seems to be at a critical
> historical choke point, presented with two small holes over which we fight
> for access, like the ants, instead of finding a meta-solution.
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
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