Uploading: End of the mundane and trouble with duplicates

jakob rębild (bluerabbit@designnet.dk)
Thu, 20 Aug 1998 16:30:24 +0200

mark@unicorn.com wrote:

> Scott Badger [wbadger@psyberlink.net] wrote:
> >My thoughts exactly. Program the copies to self-destruct in 8 (or whatever)
> >hours
> Uh, how? The best I could see would be to set a timer which would delete
> their process after 8 hours, but can you really see yourself working hard
> when you know that in eight hours you'll die? This is a copy of you we're
> talking about, remember?
> >and assimilate the information into your consciousness. In fact,
> >program thousands of short-lived copies and assimilate their experiences and
 > >you got your own personal singularity going.
> Uh, how? It's all very well to talk about "programming copies" and
> "assimilating information", but as far as I'm aware no-one has a clue
> as to how to program a neural network or assimilate parts of one into
> another.

mark is right. if the copy is exact, it will not work as planned knowing that it will be destroyed, any less than you will blow your own head off during vacation. again, i also see a problem with the duplicate that knows you've made a program that deletes it after 8 hours. a system clause would have to be included in the duplicate, something much like a hypnotic command that the duplicate is unaware of. if anyone takes care of the problem with programming neural networks, i'll figure out how to set the 'destruct timer' in the meantime. ;)

> On this subject, I'm toying with a low-budget movie idea about the real
> perils of duplication (i.e. that the copies are exact duplicates of you
> and won't do all those neat things you planned); does anyone know of any
> movies which have handled this properly in the past? That is, where
> the duplicates really are exact duplicates rather than different versions
> of the same person? Everything I can think of seems to have gone the
> 'Jekyll and Hyde' route. Mark.

a movie with michael keaton came up some 2 or 3 years ago with this theme, can't remember the title i'm afraid. for the funniest stories about the subject, try out the old issues of 'calvin and hobbes'. calvin made duplicates to make his homework for him and well..., you can imagine the rest.

maybe what we need to make uploading work is to make the duplicates more perfect than us. e.g. 'would we trust our work to be done by ourselves?'

jakob :o)