I do keep seeing that "general dislike of things physical" one
popping up over and over again, and I don't understand it at all.
Some people seem to somehow think that it is possible to have a
computational process without an identical corresponding physical
process. Uploading is not about leaving the body, it's about swapping
an old body for a new *physical* body, or about gradually transforming
one's body into a different *physical* body. It's distressing to
see silly dualistic metaphors pervading so much talk of uploading.
I am quite fond of my body. I find it wanting, primarily, in only
two areas: the planned obsolescence (accumulated delayed-action
death genes... our evolutionary conditions did nothing to weed out
fatal mutations that don't express until after 30 or so) and
inability to function under the conditions that obtain in most of
the physical universe. But I can't even form a coherent notion of
what it would be like to exist without a body. I just want a body
that isn't engaged in low-level self-destruction and that is more
comfortable to wear while traveling off-planet. Utility fog might
work nicely, if it can be built. ;)
-- Eric Watt Forste ++ arkuat@pobox.com ++ http://www.pobox.com/~arkuat/