> Uploaded Machines can do much much much more,....
> That's great,... providing you have eliminated the destructive
> tendencies / low-reptitian etc etc aspect of our Human makeup
The problem is that you cannot just eliminate the reptilian brain - it
is essential to our functioning on a very deep level (motivation,
attention, basic awareness, body control, wakefulness etc). We should
instead strive to refine it into something more survivable.
The common view of the brain/mind as advanced systems built on top of
more primitive systems, overriding their functions with "civilization"
is largely wrong. What we neuroscientists are arriving at is almost
the reverse: the "primitive" systems are really the core of our being,
our basic and most important functions, and the other systems just add
new capabilities. So what we should do is to add more
layers/capabilities of course (like a broad computer/brain interface,
making it possible to "plug in" software), and to find ways of
refining the core structures so that they no longer hinder us from our
goals. This is extremely hard and dangerous, but somebody has to do
it.
In an uploaded form this would be significantly easier than in a
biological form, since we can always undo changes, make backups and
run parallel copies of ourselves.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y