Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: morimoto@orion.oac.uci.edu (Michael Morimoto) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Is uploading suicide? Message-ID: Date: 12 Jan 91 03:25:49 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 21 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu Question to keep you up at nights: By extention of this argument, how can you know that your friends are really concious and 'alive' now and not just constructs, either by your- self or some _other_? They may act "real" but they could be a false 'reality' -- whatever reality means... Just a thought, -- Michael. [The answer to the question is that there is no prooflike, airtight assurance, but that most people have a predisposition to grant "selves" or consciousness, thoughts, feelings, etc, to other humans, and indeed to higher animal forms as well. I would claim that this predisposition in human psychology essentially defines what we mean by consciousness, in a practical sense, and makes it very likely that any information processing system exhibiting sufficient verisimilitude to human capabilities and reactions will be accorded consciousness by humans. --JoSH]