[ExI] Current uploading sales brochure?

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Adrian,

This sounds like a very interesting and beneficial Project.  For the 
past 4 or 5 years I've been working on a survey project to survey the 
worlds best experts about how consciousness works. I've been attending 
conferences on consciousness and interviewing experts, and integrating 
all of their best ideas on consciousness into the open survey being 
collaboratively developed by all at Canonizer.com.

My personal interest in this is precisely because I want to know what 
the best expert theories are, and what the leading theories are predict 
will be possible with uploading, most importantly, what will or could it 
be subjectively like to be uploaded to a much more capable system.

So far, about 50 people have participated in integrating their theories 
into the survey, already including diverse people like Daniel Dennett 
(http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/21), Steven Lehar 
(http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/17), David Chalmers 
(http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/8), and a growing number of others.  
There is also a growing number of supporters of each of their respective 
camps.  As more experts participate in the survey, it's ability to 
provide a real time measure of expert consensus, about each of the 
concisely stated leading theories being developed, will continue to 
improve, in a horse race kind of way.  Everyone can watch this and be 
educated by it, as we approach the demonstrable science that will surely 
soon falsify all but the one true camp.  By definition, everyone will 
definitively know how close we are, as the leading experts start to 
abandon the various competing theories, and converge on the one theory 
that works.  At least one camp has already been falsified by the data 
coming out of the large hadron collider. Currently there are about 3 
leading theories with the most consensus, and lots of 'noise' camps (due 
to the fact that nothing is censored on the way in) which can be easily 
ignored.

The surprising thing is how much consensus has been achieved with the 
consensus building system, despite the diversity of experts already 
participating.  The near unanimous emerging consensus is so far focusing 
arround what the experts have now agreed to call "Representational 
Qualia Theory" (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6). This is the basic 
idea predicting that a redness quality, is not a quality of the 
strawberry, but instead, is a quality of our knowledge of the strawberry 
or a property of the final result of the perception process.  The only 
disagreement seems to be about the nature of the relationship between 
such qualities we can experience, and the underlying neural correlates 
responsible for them.  So far, the leading Neck and Neck camps are 
Chalmer's "Functional Property Dualism" which is predicting the 
relationship is Functional, and Hameroff's "Material Property Dualism" 
which is predicting the qualities are a quality of some material stuff, 
and without the right material, no redness quality experience. 
Obviously, each of these are very falsifiable, and it's only a matter of 
time before the experimental neural scientist demonstrate which one is 
the true theory, to the falsification of all others.

Given this theory the experts seem to so far near unanimously agree on, 
there is a conscious world in our head, which is our knowledge of the 
world we are consciously aware of, through it via our senses.  At the 
center of this conscious world, is our knowledge of our "self", which 
unlike most of the rest of our knowledge of the world, doesn't have a 
referent in realty. However, despite this lack of a referent in reality, 
it and it's continuity is still something that is very real, and 
important to what we are and how we might want to be uploaded.

The consensus seems to be predicting that we will be able to create 
significantly expanded and diverse phenomenal conscious worlds on 
artificial platforms, and consciously merge these worlds of knowledge 
(via effing of the ineffable techniques being predicted by the various 
different theories) with the worlds currently being produced by our 
brains.  With that, our knowledge of our self spirit, even though it 
doesn't have a referent in reality, well be able to traverse back and 
forth between these two conscious worlds (the one currently in our bran, 
and the expanded and consciously connected one running on the greatly 
enhanced artificial platform.) much like an out of body experience.

I've written a short story narrative describing exactly what these 
theories are predicting will be possible and what it could consciously 
be like for us.  It is contained in Chapers 5 and 6 of the short story 
entitled "1229 Years After Titanic" 
http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742 
<http://home.comcast.net/%7Ebrent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742>. It's 
still kind of crude, but if you are interested I'd love to know your 
thoughts of any of it.

Most people are afraid of uploading, because they think there will be no 
possible continuity between one's self and the upload, and no way of 
knowing if that upload is the same as the real me.  But the leading 
theories are now predicting that this need not be the case.  The 
prediction is that people's knowledge of themselves, their knowledge of 
their 'spirits' if you will, will be able to represented as if we are 
having an "out of body experience" as we move from one platform to 
another, much like is roughly portrayed in the movie Avatar.  I think 
getting people to understand this kind of stuff, will definitely get 
them interested in understanding what will be possible.  The result 
being people loosing all fears of being uploaded that so many still 
struggle with.

If any sales brochure could communicate that, it would surely be a great 
success at motivating people to push towards uploading, and the singularity.

Anyway, that's just how things currently appear to me.  I'd love to 
follow what you are working on, and see any results you end up with, as 
I am keenly interested in all such!

Upwards,

Brent Allsop















On 4/21/2013 12:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Alan Grimes <ALONZOTG at verizon.net 
> <mailto:ALONZOTG at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>     I want to cover the subject of what it will actually be like to be
>     an upload in extreme detail, accuracy, and honesty. To that end, I
>     need to brush up on what the current claims are as to why it
>     should be so great and, in the greatest possible detail, how it
>     will work.
>
>
> One scene you could do: have an upload come across a former
> chassis, possibly interleaved with memories of its destruction.
> "I was killed...but I know who did it and exactly how.  In theory,
> I can visit the same death upon them  The difference? They
> can't come back."
>
> Bonus points if this wasn't the original biological chassis, the
> death of which spurred the upload, but just another drone body -
> and if this has happened before, so the protagonist has already
> wrestled with the question of revenge.
>
> As to the day to day operation, I'd suggest analogs to disabled
> people where the host is less capable than a human body - and
> similar thoughts where the host is more capable.  Either way,
> the upload is "living with" new limits in exactly the same way
> any normal human with a long term condition that impacts
> quality of life is "living with" it.  (Lose an arm, and it'll be a week
> until you get a replacement?  You're one-handed for a week.
> Super-strong?  You learn - quickly - how to control it, so you're
> not wrecking your house; you almost certainly aren't still having
> major accidents weeks later.)
>
>
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