From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 09:00:47 MDT
Lee Corbin writes:
> The psychological problem that most people have
> against uploading, of course, is that of "being
> inside a computer", or of knowing that one is really
> just on a silicon chip.
Perhaps its because I haven't read enough about it, but,
the reservation, I have against uploading, and also
cryonics is that I just not convinced that, appearances
not withstanding, the me that goes in, will be the me
that comes out.
Perhaps it is a bit different between uploading and
cryonics because uploading changes the matter substrate
on which one perceives one exists more radically.
Let's stipulate that the means to do a complete atomic
level recreation of all parts of a cryonically preserved
person, including the sense of self, and a consistent set
of memories from one's early childhood up until the
moment one voluntarily consented to undergo a cryonic
procedure. Like consenting to a life saving general
anaesthetic. Let's assume the nanotech is good enough
to rebuild the exact atomic replica of person X.
My current sense is that, to everyone else person X
*will* appear to be the *same* person both before
and after. Person X prime, (Xprime), will perceive himself
to be person X, but it seems to me that neither Xprime's
opinion, nor the opinions of other people are fully
satisfactory when one puts oneself in the place of person
X considering undergoing cryonics or uploading. It seems
that person X's predisposition to cryonics or uploading is
something of a leap of faith or perhaps the sense of having
nothing little to lose.
How can X know that Xprime is any more than a very
complete copy? The same process that reproduced one
Xprime from the information in X could also produced
multiple copies.
Let me try and use what seems to be an appropriate
analogy. A candle flame, 'energy' can be transferred or
spread from one candle (a matter substrate) to another
without being extinguished. The flame might also be
extinguished on the original substrate and relit. Or with
nanotechnology we may rebuilt a candle that, atom by
atom, is the same as the original candle and relight it,
but the *particular* flame, the *particular* energy flow
on the substrate will still have been interrupted. Indeed
it will have been snuffed out.
It seems to me that "death" may be analogous to the
candle flame (i.e. a continuous flow of energy dancing
on a matter substrate). Because we eat and exchange
atoms throughout our lives the analogy could be
extended to say wax is added to the candle whilst the
flame continues to burn. But, extinguish the flame, stop
the continuous energy flow, and perhaps you extinguish
the continuing phenomena, the 'super-consciousness',
(to coin a term covering conscious and unconscious
processes) that are the subjective experience of life. I
guess what I'm positing is that, one's life, one's self,
may depends on continuity. Perhaps something
important to the identity of a person is lost if the energy
flow or 'super-conscious' is interrupted. Actually the
consciousness is interrupted sometimes in life but not
along with the unconscious so far as I know.
Following a successful cryonics procedure everyone,
including the reconstructed X, Xprime, thinks X has
been preserved, this I freely concede. But X the
original, is no longer around or in a position to confirm
that X the original, X's super-consciousness, X's self,
rather than an excellent replication has actually emerged
from the process.
So, does it finally come down to a "leap of faith" on behalf
of the potential cryonaut or the potential upload that
*they*, X, will *actually* survive?
Or, and this I would like to be convinced of, are there in
fact deeper levels of understanding still available to an
inquiring mind, *this* side of the cryonics or upload
procedure, perhaps in physics, or perhaps around
(or avoiding) the fuzzy phenomenon I've termed the
super-conscious, that would allow one to more rationally
avoid the sense that the prospective cryonaut or upload
are undertaking a one way journey that is in many ways
every bit as much a "leap of faith" for them as the "leaps
of faith" taken by people of religious viewpoints since
time immemorial?
- Brett Paatsch
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