Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sundc!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: szabo@sequent.uucp (Nick Szabo) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: First upload Message-ID: Date: 10 Feb 91 04:47:08 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc Lines: 65 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article ems%nanotech@princeton.edu writes: >I grant you that the mechanics of uploading will be worked out in >exhaustive detail and tested on lower animals, long before any human >trials are attempted. The crux of the problem lies in verifying that >your upload technique has achieved true transference, and not just >produced an almost perfect copy. If you're wrong then you've just killed >the original person, no matter how traditional your line of research. How can an upload be verified? There may be no philosophically satisfactory or even scientific way to do it. We can measure statistical differences in various behavior patterns, but these be significantly different just due to differences in the physical media. >Another problem with this line of development is that, by the time >nanotechnology is on the verge of achieving upload, there will be few >if any terminal patients around to do the experiment. I can't think >of any disease or accident where it wouldn't be simpler to repair the >body using assemblers. Events violent enough to damage a human beyond >the reach of assembler repair would also be apt to leave nothing >to be repaired. (Like crashing into the sun, for instance. Pfft! :-) An upload could be done as a copy, without risking damage to the source media (in this case the physical body and mind). It could be tried thousands of times, and if it fails, so what? Erase the RAM and try again. >Imagine a situation where some research group *thinks* they have >achieved uploading, but really have copying. The copies themselves >swear by the technique and advertise it to all their friends and the >original "templates" aren't around afterwards to point out the mistake. >Later, a second research group shows by refined measurement techniques >that the first research group was in error. Now aren't you glad you >waited? On what basis can it be stated that there has been a "copy" but no "upload"? What is the difference? >... >False uploading, to coin a phrase, will not be the disaster that >death is today, of course, since a near-perfect copy of the original >results, with differences indetectable by normal human senses. The >only real problems would be psychological, for the copy and his/her >close acquaintances, and legal, since now inheritance laws would come >into play. * Insert a few new beliefs here and personality traits there while uploading. Gives a whole new meaning to "born again". * Upload one person with the ability to mimic another that was also supposedly uploaded. Yesterday it was misquoting, today it is forged photographs, tommorrow forged personalities... -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com Embrace Change... Keep the Values... Hold Dear the Laughter...