> We may well be able to simulate the 'functions' of a brain, but
> would this be a brain?
No. Abstract representation, though behaviorally similar is
nothing like the phenomenal representations and feelings we use to
represent information. Currently color detecting machines can tell us
what color things are many times better than we can. But what the
machine uses to represent this color knowledge is nothing like the
phenomenal, or spiritual if you will, stuff we use to represent color.
A simple abstract representation of us may behave the same but
when we ask the abstract simulation what the color blue is like it's
abstract representations of what we would try to say to describe blue
would simply lie since it would only represent information abstractly
and it wouldn't have anything to do with the phenomenal sensations we
represent such information with.
In order to upload ourselves we must do more than abstractly
represent such sensations. We must learn how to accurately reproduce
the precise sensations and feelings we now use to represent our
conscious knowledge, not just do it with abstract structures. I want
red to be much more than a certain pattern of abstract bits in my
future uploaded self. Abstraction isn't enough! We must have
identical phenomenal representations.
Brent Allsop