Uploading

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Tue, 25 Aug 1998 00:52:19 -0400

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Randall R Randall <rrandall6@juno.com> wrote:

>If you assume that all the copies are the same person,
>then they aren't having a *last* thought, but only a few
>that are unrelated to the next,

But they are only the same person if they have the same thoughts and in your example the thoughts of the two were not the same, in fact they could not have been more different.

>This seems to me to be a pretty clear reversal, since you
>have previously argued that the copies in a situation like
>this are all manifestations of one

But these are not copies and I'm not talking about subtitles here, the mental state of the two are astronomically different.

Joe Jenkins <joe_jenkins@yahoo.com>

>One of the fundamental premises of uploading is accepting
>the idea that your identity is preserved if an emulation of
>all relevant physical processes of your mind is preserved.

It's the only fundamental premises of uploading, and it must be true unless we have a soul undetectable by the scientific method.

>If you accept this definition of identity you must also accept
>all of the counter intuitive implications that come with it.

Yes if you want to be consistent and I do, not that I can prove rationality to be better than irrationality, it's just my preference.

>It worries me that John Clark, someone well known for
>his extraordinary ability to tackle counter intuitive issues,
>is unwilling to follow his own definition of identity to its
>logical conclusions.

If the physical state of my brain is in a state that causes me to think that I will be dead in 60 seconds and if my semi copy does not think he will be dead in 60 seconds or even 60 years, then a physical process in my brain is not being emulated by my "copy". When a bullet stops that physical process the sense of identity it produces at that moment is destroyed also because it has no backup. I'm not saying John Clark would be dead, the other fellow would have just as much right to that title as I do,
but as I stared at the gun I would know that the very focus of my existence, that is, the thoughts I'm having right now, would not continue. This would scare the hell out of my and I'll bet you dollars to donuts it would scare you too. I would only be happy if my copy were made right now, but how long is "now"? I thing it would depend on the intensity of your conscious experience at the time (staring down the barrel of a gun is pretty intense), but on average I think "now" is about a second or two long.

So why don't I find amnesia as frightening as the thought experiment with the gun and the imperfect copy? Because in the real would you only find out about amnesia after it happened.
I wake up in a hospital and the doctor tells me that yesterday you
hit me on the the head with a baseball bat, he says I'll be OK but
I've permanently lost all memories for the last week, I think no big
deal I feel fine now and if I comb my hair over my gash you can hardly see it. Perhaps the John Clark of one week ago is dead but
I don't care because I'm not him, I'm the John Clark of right now.
On the other hand if I see you coming bat in hand ready to perform
some more amateur brain surgery I'm going to run like hell.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net

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