Re: Uploading

Hal Finney (hal@rain.org)
Mon, 31 Aug 1998 11:35:55 -0700

Joe Jenkins asks:
> Where do others stand on this list? So far, it seems I'm the only one
> on the list with this idea of identity. If I'm the only one on this
> list, I'm probably the only one in the world. What a lonely and cold
> feeling it is to be the sole resident of this memetic fitness bump.
> What are you guys selecting for anyway? Anyone want to party at my
> place?

Personally I think Joe's treatment is pretty reasonable. In a world in which making temporary copies was easy, I suspect that I could get comfortable with pushing the self-terminate button if I knew that a very recent copy was continuing on. Similarly I could face my own death with considerably more ease if I knew that I had a recent backup.

As Joe has written, there are a few reasons for this:

Hal