Does that impact who we are? Does it just play into the Many Worlds concept that "I" am just one of many iterations of "I"?
Is there a difference between transferring a psyche and the existence of a soul? What if we start to create our own customized after-lifes to transfer ourselves into?
I don't think it has much to do with the Many Worlds point, but it has *everything* to do with the Buddhism point.
Remember, the key idea here is that consciousness and mind are fleeting, momentary things, with less meaningful continuity than we tend to think. "Me" of now gives rise to "me" of five minutes from now, but that's about it. In that model, uploading is simply a matter of process -- a mind encapsulated in human form giving rise to one encapsulated in machine form.
Moreover, this model renders almost irrelevant the usual argument of uploading, which is "what happens to the soul?". If I upload *before* death, so there are now two of me, the traditional conundrum is where the soul has gone; indeed, that point is often used to conclude, quite firmly, that uploading is monstrous, since it *must* be creating a mind without a soul. Whereas from my viewpoint, that's essentially nonsensical (or at least, irrelevant): one mind has given rise to two minds. So what?
The problem with the soul is the word "the". In most formulations, it is something utterly ineffable and eternal. I increasingly disbelieve in anything of the sort, and that turns out to make a lot of difficult philosophical problems simply irrelevant. (It gives rise to different ones, of course, but I've found that I'm fairly comfortable with them.)
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Date: 2012-03-23 04:58 pm (UTC)Is there a difference between transferring a psyche and the existence of a soul? What if we start to create our own customized after-lifes to transfer ourselves into?
I don't think it has much to do with the Many Worlds point, but it has *everything* to do with the Buddhism point.
Remember, the key idea here is that consciousness and mind are fleeting, momentary things, with less meaningful continuity than we tend to think. "Me" of now gives rise to "me" of five minutes from now, but that's about it. In that model, uploading is simply a matter of process -- a mind encapsulated in human form giving rise to one encapsulated in machine form.
Moreover, this model renders almost irrelevant the usual argument of uploading, which is "what happens to the soul?". If I upload *before* death, so there are now two of me, the traditional conundrum is where the soul has gone; indeed, that point is often used to conclude, quite firmly, that uploading is monstrous, since it *must* be creating a mind without a soul. Whereas from my viewpoint, that's essentially nonsensical (or at least, irrelevant): one mind has given rise to two minds. So what?
The problem with the soul is the word "the". In most formulations, it is something utterly ineffable and eternal. I increasingly disbelieve in anything of the sort, and that turns out to make a lot of difficult philosophical problems simply irrelevant. (It gives rise to different ones, of course, but I've found that I'm fairly comfortable with them.)