From: avatar (avatar@renegadeclothing.com.au)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 17:04:17 MST
Re the debate on "Duplicates"...
You won't see me terminating any beings created from my mind-brain template, whether they are close atomic-level similar beings or quantum level "split" divergencies. This is the same old debate, with the same blindedness regarding the issue of continuity and the same lack of precision in discussion with regard to broadcast neurological linkage, location of specific neurological awareness, neurological independence and sensory telepresence vs. "partials". I agree with author John Wright in that the issue of "partials" rights has to be considered, the question is whether they can exist at all with any degree of complexity without considering them sentient.
I don't think I am going to convince any uploaders of the folly of their ways but as long as they don't start claiming "duplicates" as their property, they are entitled to be as dumb as they want. Airy fairy discussions about how it is philosophically irrelevant if your masterful superintelligent "hard copy" resides elsewhere will fade away in the real world and be replaced by mixtures of augmentation and continuous broadcast linkage.
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As an aside, but with interesting connections, currently I am reading an old tome from 1987, "Ultimate Computing: Biomolecular Consciousness and Nanotechnology" (Stuart R. Hameroff), which spins the old microtubules debate including as to transfer of/nature of consciousness: "Symbiotic association of replicative nanodevices and cytoskeletal networks within living cells could not only counter disease processes, but lead to exchange of information encoded in the collective dynamic patterns of cytoskeletal subunit states. If these are indeed the roots of consciousness, a science-fiction like deciphering and transference of mind content may become possible. One possible scenario could utilize a small window in a specific brain region. Hippocampal temporal lobe, a site where memories enter and where electromagnetic radiation from outside the skull penetrates most readily and harmlessly, is one possible area where information distributed throughout the brain may perhaps be accessed and manipulated. Technologies such as laser interferometry, electroacoustical probes scanned over brain surfaces, or replicative nanoprobes immunotargeted to key hippocampal tubulins, MAPs, and aother cytoskeletal components might be developed to perceive and transmit the content of consciousness. What technological device would be capable of receiving and housing the information emanating from some 10 to the 15 tubulin subunits changing state some 10 to the 9 times per second? One possibility is a customized array of nanoscale automata, perhaps utilizing superconductive materials. Another possibility is a genetically engineered array of some 10 to the 15 tubulin subunits (or many more) assembled into parallel tensegrity arrays of interconnected microtubules, and other cytoskeletal structures."
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"Ultimate Computing is the common destination for the evolution of information processing systems in both biology and technology. At this point [1987] it is an extrapolation of converging trajectories, but Ultimate Computing may soon exist in the nanoscale."
"Shoulders (1961) extended the concept of the replicators to the nanoscale where their existence could have wide ranges of scientific and medical applications."
"Schneiker (1986) notes that simple microreplicators, augmented with STM/FMs could mass produce nanotechnology products in virtually unlimited quantities. Nanotechnology applied to new superconductive materials (and vice versa) may help to implement replicative micro-automata which in turn could turn out nanodevices in vast quantities."
Towards Ascension
34 After Armstrong
Maximum choice and minimum non-consensual force
Avatar Polymorph
Star A Star
Alpha Null
Radiant Era
Neon Orthogenesis
Axiom Flux
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 11:04 AM
Subject: RE: Duplicates are Selves
> Eliezer writes
>
> > Lee Corbin wrote:
> > > [Damien Broderick wrote]
> > > > Many extropians are only too happy to terminate a xox, or get rid of
> > > > a `meat' body, once the magic dust has been ported into a computer.
> >
> > I can't ever recall having heard this advocated.
>
> Well, I certainly have, and it looks like Damien has too.
>
> > > Look, *after* you've uploaded, think carefully about what you are
> > > about to do when you terminate your million-times slower biological
> > > self. *Why* do it???
> >
> > You're supposed to MOVE from point A to point B, not COPY yourself from
> > point A to point B.
>
> What the hell is the difference? (Except that copying is non-
> destructive, whereas moving is.) Ever happen to notice what
> happens to the original bits when you move a file to another
> drive?
>
> > I don't think I've ever heard someone proposing to
> > terminate "their" unsynchronized meaty self.
>
> In these kinds of scenarios, people ordinarily suppose
> that as soon as they've "moved" to their more advanced
> form, they'd no longer exist in the old carcass. (I
> guess they think that someone else is still there.)
> So it seems perfectly natural to them to stop
> supporting the old device.
>
> Lee
>
>
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