RE: Uploading and Consciousness (was: electronic intelligence and ethics)

From: Joseph Sterlynne (vxs@mailandnews.com)
Date: Thu Feb 24 2000 - 14:24:05 MST


> Matt Gingell

> You raise some interesting points, but I think there's another way of
> looking at it.

I assume (based on your header) that you're responding to me and not to
QueeneMUSE.

> I tend to think of consciousness as an instantaneous phenomenon: In every
> instant we are alive, and in every instant we die and are then
> reborn. It's only memory that generates the illusion of continuity

I think that we can assume that we don't actually die every instant. This
is basically a sort of metaphor or fantastic reworking.

> Take, for example, Star Trek style transporter rays. You take me apart,
> an atom at a time, throw the remnants away and reconstruct a copy at a
> distance. In at least an intuitive sense, the copy 'isn't me.' You've
> murdered me, albeit in a peculiarly baroque way. The fact that there's
> someone else walking around who thinks he's me is, from my oblivious
> perspective, neither here nor there. I'm dead - just as dead as if you'd
> shot me or cut off my head. For the copy, of course, the experience is of
> course one of displacement.

You said that there's another way of looking at it but how is this
different than my description?

 



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