Re: Uploading, info theory, and threads of consciousness

Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Fri, 1 Nov 1996 14:40:43 +0100 (MET)


On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Damien Broderick wrote:

> My take: obviously a non-destructive copy of a functioning person is another
> person.

Why is this obvious? As I love to point out, it is just a matter of how
you define yourself or people in general.

I prefer to define myself as a system that honestly thinks it is me.

> Frank Tipler's most absurd
> sophistry in THE PHYSICS OF IMMORTALITY is his claim that a perfect
> atom-for-atom emulation of you is continuous with you, hence *is* you, even
> if it's built 100 billion years in the future.

Actually, this isn't sophistry, just some weird ontology. If you buy into
platonic materialism, then by the No Clone Theorem a perfect emulation
(probably quantum.by-wantum) would *be* you in a strict ontological
sense.

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Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
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