Re: NEWS: neurochip; LIT: Egan and uploading

Damien R. Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Fri, 28 Nov 1997 19:48:50 -0800 (PST)


On Nov 28, 4:11am, mark@unicorn.com wrote:

} much convinced that it is me in a real sense. But in this case I can
} see no good reason for believing that the internals of the network will
} bear any resemblance to mine, and hence it's unlikely to continue to

Umm... you're a plastic neural network. It's a plastic neural network.
It has received the same inputs you do. After 20 years, it produces the
same output you do. The only differences between the two of you are that
it probably started with a different structure (but yours was not
genetically fixed, and the jewel is plastic, so it can change) and that
you die faster than it does. Not resemble you? What the hell else
would it resemble?

I haven't read _Permutation City_, although I've heard he pulls
something out of his ass. _Quarantine_ was interesting, much of
_Axiomatic_ was really cool, and _Distress_ is looking good so far,
although the climax is still out of sight.

Advanced Oceania idea: find a submerged seamount, and grow your own
coral atoll.

-xx- ROU Bibliovore X-)

"The really ironic issue of late has been supercomputer exports. We now
have the spectacle of William Reinsch saying that export restrictions
on supercomputer *hardware* are unworkable because the technology is
available all around the world.

This is the very same Commerce official who still says with a straight
face that export controls on encryption *software* are workable and
desirable."