> > Answer: First you need a product, and that product is you. After
having
> > your wetware converted into a new infinitely variable cut-and-paste
> > consciousness you're ready to start production. You're not in control
of
> > your production, but everyone else is. Instead you manage the marketing
> > side, you've got to sell the product. Why would anyone want to buy you?
>
> I assume you haven't yet read Robin Hanson's essay (If Uploads Come First,
> http://sunsite.unc.edu/jstrout/uploading/hanson_uploads.html) about upload
> economy? He seems to reach the same conclusion as you.
And here's me thinking I'm original.
> However, there are a lot of other things that can be traded: virtual
> environments of differing complexity and uniqueness, access to the
physical
> world, knowledge and experiences.
None of which are directly beneficial to you (unless someone agreed to copy
you in return, although knowledge and experience may be a mild form of
copying)
> > They don't, they reproduce you. Maybe you've got a great sense of
humour, a
> > brilliant understanding of quantum theory or you're just easy. Whatever
the
> > reason, I like you and I want a copy. So I either copy the parts of you
I
> > like into a new individual, or I cut and paste them into myself. Well
done,
> > you've just reproduced.
>
> This is where you diverge from Hanson; he assumes uploads are essentially
> indivisible since they are complex, interconnected structures with no
> clear modularity - my sense of humour exists as an emergent property
> of my whole neural net, which makes it hard to copy. I would say this is
> the likely state in the beginning, but as soon as we begin to learn how
> to reverse-engineer our minds, then things can get interesting.
I agree, the first thing I'm aiming for is scalability and modularity.
Otherwise the AIs will have me for dinner.
> > The more you reproduce, the safer you are. Reproduction has always been
the
> > main priority in the biological world and the same can be said of the
upload
> > world. But rather than passing your genes along, you're passing along
your
> > memes. And the more your mind sprawls into every corner of the
memesphere,
> > the safer you are and the more computation you're getting done. But if
it's
> > possible to copy consciousness, why not just copy yourself? Everyone
will,
> > they'll keep copying themselves repeatedly and you'll have not distinct
> > advantage over anyone else. But what if you marketed yourself so well,
they
> > also copied you? Now you have an advantage.
>
> Now you know why I want to become an open standard for information
> gathering and organisation... :-)
Better start submitting yourself to the ISO.
~WaX
P.S. If a qubit can store more than one value by using parallel universes,
where do the parallel universes store their numbers?? :-)