Uploading yourself can be fun, aka....

[Gov Kodos]

Besides being a copy, it's reactions and development will not be identical to the original any more than twins react identically. Once disconnected you're separate beings. The copy is no more you than any random person in the street. Over time, the copy will become less like the original. What is the point of it? Once uploaded that copy isn't you and never will be unless you keep it turned off. What the point of that would be I can't imagine. If the copy isn't self aware and capable of self development, just a spanky recording, then it's just a glorified autobiography. Neither one is the original who if this is their idea of a good time, is likely no great loss to the future.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Why does it matter that after some time the digital version of you will be different than you at the time of the transfer? We're constantly changing and we're bags of meat and water. You are a different person now than you were 10 years ago and you'll be different 10 years from now.

 

[bbjeg]

This thread should have had a "Would you upload yourself" poll.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

While the notion of time uploading itself is crazy, I find the claim that the uploaded copy is not you to be unsupported by science and a vain exercise in self-importance...

Actually, it's just simple logic. Inasmuch as a photocopy of my face is not my actual face, a download of my personality is not my personality. That one could attach a highly detailed photocopy of my face to a robot that otherwise looks like me doesn't change the fact that it IS a photocopy of my face and is, by definition, not my real face.

What we know about our consciousness is that the information stored and processed in our neurons. The matter composing it makes a difference as much as it governs the way the processing happens, but there is no evidence of you being tied to these particular bits of matter, or of there being an independent soul.

Exactly. So what actually lacks evidence is the assertion that the copy actually IS you because you have somehow imbued it with your soul. Again, much like claiming that the photocopy of my face will also have all of my facial expressions because it, too, possesses my soul.

Besides being a copy, it's reactions and development will not be identical to the original any more than twins react identically. Once disconnected you're separate beings. The copy is no more you than any random person in the street. Over time, the copy will become less like the original. What is the point of it? Once uploaded that copy isn't you and never will be unless you keep it turned off. What the point of that would be I can't imagine. If the copy isn't self aware and capable of self development, just a spanky recording, then it's just a glorified autobiography. Neither one is the original who if this is their idea of a good time, is likely no great loss to the future.

I can think of quite a few practical applications for that. Blackmail, for example: there's no more reliable insurance policy against your victim murdering you than the knowledge that you've already uploaded your personality to a server that will surely go to the press as soon as it finds out its original is dead. In a similar vein, you could always download a copy with an "activate at the moment of my death" note and give the copy a bucket list of all the things you never got to accomplish while you were alive. Making sure your kids finish college, making sure your wife doesn't sell the house, etc etc. That of course would make a lot of really wealthy people a complete pain in the ass to deal with.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Why does it matter that after some time the digital version of you will be different than you at the time of the transfer? We're constantly changing and we're bags of meat and water. You are a different person now than you were 10 years ago and you'll be different 10 years from now.

And it will be equally irrelevant to you to just die with no uploaded self.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Well damn... I just realized that brain uploading technology would pretty much ruin online gaming FOREVER. The uploaded copies would have no life outside of the game and would therefore become UNSTOPPABLE. It would just be a running arms race between human-derived AIs in a game that is increasingly inaccessible to actual humans, especially so once the AI versions of the players figure out that they can become even more powerful by creating and more copies of themselves and working cooperatively.

 

[bbjeg]

^There will be level caps and realms for high level characters.

The more this thread goes on, the more I believe that I'd probably upload myself. Even though I personally wouldn't experience my copies experiences, it would be fun just to watch 'myself' in a game or movie or whatever I'm uploading myself into.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Actually, it's just simple logic. Inasmuch as a photocopy of my face is not my actual face, a download of my personality is not my personality.

Well, given that my argument follows the premise that one's personality is information being processed and nothing more than that, your analogy would have to read:

"Actually, it's just simple logic. Inasmuch as a copy of the PDF of my dissertation to a flash drive is not the PDF of my dissertation, a download of my personality is not my personality."

(Of course, because of the physical constraints that would corrupt your personality during the download/upload procedure, in practice it is closer to an unreadable photocopy of your printed dissertation, but I was talking about theoretical magical uploading that's exact.)

By the way, your face is already not your face, all cells in it have been replaced during your lifetime so it is a photocopy.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Actually, it's just simple logic. Inasmuch as a photocopy of my face is not my actual face, a download of my personality is not my personality.

Well, given that my argument follows the premise that one's personality is information being processed and nothing more than that, your analogy would have to read:

"Actually, it's just simple logic. Inasmuch as a copy of the PDF of my dissertation to a flash drive is not the PDF of my dissertation, a download of my personality is not my personality."

That assumes that any two personalities are basically independent of the hardware on which they "run." This is DEMONSTRABLY false: personality can be strongly affected by traumatic brain injuries, psychotropic drugs or even long-term health problems.

Digital computers are turing machines: they're designed with parts and components that can be arranged a (theoretically) infinite number of ways, based on a set of rules (software) that model behaviors within the machine. Brains are NOT turing machines: they do not run on software, and most of their functions are the result of mechanical relationships between specialized parts that do what they do because they cannot do anything else. Likewise, you can program a computer to keep track of time, you can even program its interface to resemble that of an analog clock. If you're good enough, you could even create a faithful 3D model of the clock with all of its gears, springs, pallets and sprockets. But since analog clocks do not actually run on software, then the software that makes the simulation work is an entirely distinct phenomenon from the clock it is based on.

Software is nothing more than a mathematical abstraction that MODELS a real thing; anything in the universe that ISN'T a turing machine doesn't actually run on software, nor can that software be "downloaded" from one medium to another. You can, with a little work, devise a piece of software that can accurately model the behavior of something, and that's basically what "brain uploading" boils down to. But the model REMAINS a model no matter how accurate it is, and most importantly, your perspective will never shift from that of your flesh-and-blood body to that of the machine copy (the copy will have memories of being flesh and blood, but it will never genuinely experience it after it is activated).

By the way, your face is already not your face, all cells in it have been replaced during your lifetime

So what? It's still my face. Just like "My dinner" becomes "my dinner" when I buy it and ceases to be my dinner until I either puke it up or take a shit. Just like "my car" becomes "my car" when I buy it and then it ceases to be "my car" when I sell it to someone.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

That assumes that any two personalities are basically independent of the hardware on which they "run." This is DEMONSTRABLY false: personality can be strongly affected by traumatic brain injuries, psychotropic drugs or even long-term health problems.

No, it assumes no such thing, I even did say I believe the uploading isn't likely to work at all because it is too dependent on the hardware. What I do assume is that the hardware is itself information, which last century or so of discoveries in physics would seem to indicate to be true. Now uploading all of that to a computer is demonstrably insane, one brain might need a computer the size of the moon. At least.

 

[bbjeg]

^If you explained the power of a smart phone to someone in the 40s, they'd probably think that computer was the size of the moon too. Who knows what technological advances will be created 70 years from now.