Re: Cryonics and uploading as leaps of faith? (was Re: Uploaded Omniscience)

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 23:58:04 MDT

  • Next message: Brett Paatsch: "Re: Cryonics and uploading as leaps of faith? (was Re: Uploaded Omniscience)"

    On Thursday 26 June 2003 08:00, Brett Paatsch wrote:
    > 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.

    I find it a greater leap of faith that either process will work as advertised
    any time soon. Besides, defining "person" much less "same person" is a very
    slippery topic.

    >
    >
    > 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.
    >

    So the newly resurrected/revitalized/thawed/translated X-whatever probably
    would not choose to worry excessively about it? I presume you are saying
    all the worry would be on the part of the original.

    > 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.
    >

    This is a poor analogy on multiple levels. Candle flames are not unique and
    certainly not remotely as complex as humans. There is no consciousness
    involved.

    > 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.
    >

    If it depended on continuity we would already be cooked.

    > 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?
    >

    Personally, I don't find the question very interesting. I will be perfectly
    content if something very much like me survives the process whether you may
    agree it is "me" or not. Now, I certainly wouldn't volunteer for such a
    procedure unless I had little choice or I had a high degree of certainty that
    the advantages of the upload state were so great that it was silly to
    continue in a relatively enormously limited mode and I judged the procedure
    to be quite dependable. As an aside, I would expect the first few dozens,
    hundreds, perhaps more, uploads to be largely a disaster.

    > 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?

    Hmmm. How many things can you name that are part of life's choices that are
    not to some extent "leaps of faith"? Especially, how many actual advances
    to something new and different are not in this category?

    - samantha



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