---John Clark <jonkc@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> I had a similar idea a while back and wrote a post about it on
> March 15 1997.
Given your stand on identity and survival, it is still unclear to me what survival utility you find in such a technology - and also what survival utility you find in destructive upload technology.
I know you've been consistent here. At first, I was a little confused because I had always assumed the characters in your fiction (about copying and uploading) were portrayals of irrational people - not yourself. It seems clear now that you were portraying your own position which, given your stand on the issues of identity, is not irrational.
In addition to John, I pose the following questions to anyone on the
list who wants to respond:
If non-destructive technology were available, would you choose to
upload and keep your biological self alive or terminate
If yes, would you want this process to terminate the biological/cyborg?
If no, would you not expect that after sufficient divergence that that biological/cyborg self would not feel the pressure of being a massive resource wasting relic of the past because of his (living in the physical world) status and want to upload himself?
If yes, do you not see a problem with this infinitely repeating cycle?
Then do you see some sort of logic in the madness?
Or, do you think there will always be a place in the physical/non-uploaded world for sentient beings on the forefront of posthuman competitiveness? Of course, I'm not trying to imply that eventually nothing will exist in the physical world. And I do recognize the importance of probes and sensors connected to uploaders in real-time. But, I see artificial reality as being the place of choice for all the movers and shakers of Posthumanity. I think manipulation of the physical world will be mostly automated with little real-time involvement from sentient beings of the Posthuman rank. Thus, I see the above cycle as eventually coming to a halt as the biological/cyborg realizes the error of his ways.
Joe Jenkins
joe_jenkins@yahoo.com