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Old 12-12-2009, 01:14 AM   #42
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by mindstalk View Post
Hmm, I guess that works. The backup is qualitatively more similar and reliable than a normal human heir, but for the purpose of tracking self-awareness loops, it's "I am dying, someone similar to me will step in" in both cases.

Oooh. A difference is on the other end. A son thinks "my father got himself killed", but if the restored backup is notified right away of what happened, it may think "I got myself killed." Technically inaccurate, yet natural. Father and son are different people, but the dead 'me' is everything I am and more, apart from the few moments I've had since restoration.
That's perfectly true, and it may explain why there are people who think that uploading is a way to survive the terminal failure of their organic bodies and brains. The upload would remember being them, and it might seem natural to it to talk about "what I did when I was organic." Of course, if it were my upload, and had my memories, then it would believe that it was a copy of someone who had died. It might even grieve for me. I wonder if an uploading facility would need to retain grief counselors, and if it would understand why they might be needed?

Hmmm. You know about the transgender phenomenon, where some people in male bodies feel totally convinced that those bodies are anatomically wrong and that they really are female, and vice versa the other way? I wonder if there might be people who had a deep inner conviction that a digital ghost would be them, and others who had a deep inner conviction that a digital ghost was only a reproduction of them and that uploading was a form of suicide? For the latter, uploading might be contraindicated, in a way analogous to the contraindication of transsexual surgery for, say, transvestites who don't really have sex/gender incompatibility: "Believing what you do, you would be profoundly unhappy after uploading, in a way that we can't repair."

Hmmm. What if it were possible to establish real-time interaction between an organic brain and a digital ghost emulation of it? To guarantee a unique linkage, you might use quantum communication. Perhaps a quantum channel could be what was needed to enable the actual locus of self-awareness to migrate.

Bill Stoddard
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