Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: tcourtoi@jarthur.claremont.edu (Todd Courtois) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Drexler on immortality, source of nano books. Message-ID: Date: 23 Mar 90 02:36:19 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 Lines: 67 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu SXJ101@psuvm.psu.edu writes: >and decay. But I came across another book which advanced the idea that in >the future we would be able to store our brains onto computers (tapes). >By doing so, we would be able to make an exact duplicate of our brains and >we could make several copies of the tapes as to never lose them. Because >the information in our brains makes us what we are, it didnt matter if our >bodies decayed and died. We could have artificial bodies (limbs, e.g.) and >"download" our brain. This way we would never die > What do you think about this idea? The information downloaded onto the >tapes from our brains would only be the data. How would we actually run the >data and simulate our brains artificially? Currently, program and data are >separate parts of the software. The data would be the information in the >brain, but what about the program? Unless we write a program that simulates th >e brain's processor (i.e. mind), there doesnt appear to be other ways of >simulating the brain... I think the idea is naive. I have no doubt that, given lots of time and money scietists would (and probably will) discover exactly how the brain functions, and how to create a computer which does basically the same thing. However, aren't you missing a basic point here? SO WHAT if you create a computer that thinks just like you-- that doesn't make *you* immortal. It makes the goddamn computer immortal, but you'll die like any disillusioned genius. Do you believe that our "soul," which I suppose is deposited in our brains, would be transferred to the computer? I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the brain-like machine you create doesn't make your soul immortal. Sure, hundreds of years from now people might be able to chat with your computer embodiment, but will *you* as a person, a soul, experience it? No, I don't think so...that's a lot like saying that your photograph makes you immortal. Then again, some indian cultures DO believe that a photograph captures your soul, and they refuse to be photographed. In a sense, since your brain is captured on computer, your spirit and knowledge and whatever would "live on" into the future; but alas, you wouldn't be involved. Think of it this way: if you cloned yourself, or if you have an identical twin, then that is a whole other person whose life is completely seperate from yours. You don't experience everything your twin experiences, and even if your twin were immortal, what good does that do you? No, if we could figure out a way to slowly integrate our brains into circuitry until eventually our entire brain was constructed of indestructible parts, then that might work. But again, do you think your *soul* would transfer? What do other netters think? --Todd Courtois .sig ':^] [In fact, Hans Moravec describes exactly such a procedure ( to move your consciousness over into a robot, without breaking the stream of consciousness, and thus making sure there is a single, unbroken identity through the transformation). The larger answer to the question is that in our current technology, we are each the "keeper of the flame" of our own identities, ie, we're like people before they knew how to start a fire, and if they let it go out they were sunk. Nowadays nobody cares if you let a fire go out, it's easy to start a new one. I imagine that we'll be a lot more blase' about dying when we realize that our "selves" in some very substantial sense will keep going. --JoSH]