Re: Uploading: End of the mundane and trouble with duplicates

Scott Badger (wbadger@psyberlink.net)
Thu, 20 Aug 1998 13:19:20 -0500

From: jakob rębild <bluerabbit@designnet.dk>

>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)

I think the movie title was Multiplicity or something like it.

Anyway, you guys are probably right, and as I think about it, I would be much less interested in limiting the lifespan/consciousness of any copy of myself (or anyone else) and much more interested in figuring out how to assimilate knowledge from others' experiences.

Scott