Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: merkle@parc.xerox.com (Ralph Merkle) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: First upload Message-ID: Date: 10 Feb 91 04:35:40 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 25 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu The assumption that the first person to be uploaded will do so because he wants to save his own life does not appear to be the most plausible scenario. A better motive is money. As an example, consider that Steven Spielberg is the center of a major multi-billion dollar business. Let us suppose that he became terminally ill, with no prospect for recovery. Uploading, regardless of whether it preserved Spielberg's "consciousness" and regardless of the various philosophical debates, would preserve his skills and abilities. His business partners, faced with the prospect of a major financial disaster, would have clear and obvious motives. With an appropriate PR campaign and a battery of lawyers, it seems likely that the various obstacles that might otherwise hinder such an undertaking could be dealt with. There would also be substantial sums of money available to pay for the various expensive procedures that might be needed. There are a number of other reasons for uploading which have little if anything to do with personal survival. There are also a number of motives for recovering partial information from human brains which have nothing at all to do with uploading, and in which the consent of the individual being analyzed would not be a significant consideration....