Cross Posting From CI Discussion Board

Cross posted from Cryonics Institute Discussion Board, due to
its relevance to this blog's topic matter. By the time the end
of the posting is reached, the advocacy of bioreanimation-only
patients having representation by a cybertwin is the main theme.

As Posted on CI Board, Tue Jul 27, 2010 5:52 pm

--- In Cryonics_Institute@yahoogroups.com, ettinger@... wrote:
>
> Glad to hear from you, Fred. However, I don't think
> the shortcoming of the uploading thesis is merely that
> its falsity is possible--I think its falsity is highly
> probable, and that I have demonstrated this in Youniverse
> and elsewhere. There are several separate reasons for this
> each a respectable stand-alone. I won't repeat them all
> here, but just a reminder of one or two.

Glad to hear from you too, Bob. Perhaps the largest gap in the
level of discomfort some feel with respect to uploading is the
question of what it would take in the way of reanimation repair
to satisfy an individual that the outcome would "really be me"
vs. "something that 'thinks' it's me", without reflecting for a
while on the fact that in the final analysis, all any of us are,
are biological things that "think we are who we think we are"!

If an amnesia victim wakes up and seems to have no recollection
of who he or she is, we still (by continuity of knowledge of
where their physical person was during whatever period of 'being
unconscious' might have occurred) attribute the identity of 'who
they were' to them and help them to adjust, to resume their role
in family and society. In like manner, if we were to do our best
to biologically repair a brain in a reanimation process and the
outcome were no better than to produce a "reanimated" patient who
was otherwise much like an amnesia victim, and assuming that some
social connectivity existed (family and friends), we would no
doubt attribute identity to the reanimated person and attempt to
help them regain a detailed perception of who they were, as well
as attempting to help them adjust to whatever changes might have
taken place during their period of cryonic suspension.

Now, by extension of this to the situation of "uploading", the
limiting case is that we achieve the capability to produce an
undeniably self-conscious personality, even with characteristics
that are a close match with that of a formerly living person, by
means not only of mindfiles but by reference to genome imputed
biochemistries and their equivalent in the "simulation" (if we
wish to call such a being a mere "simulation"). But, at the
outset, let us assume that otherwise, this cyber-person has
no recollection of a "past life" (based on the genome involved).
Would, or would not, the community into which such a person
emerged attribute to such a person the 'identity' from which
that person was derived?

I submit that in such a case, the outcome would be as much a
matter of the 'community' that brought such a cyber-person to
consciousness as any opinion that might be held by an outsider
who might disclaim that the cyberperson was a reasonable
fascimile of the "original". Assuming that we are talking about
an era when cyberconscious people have acquired "rights" that
make their existence on non-biological substrates as acceptable
to society as those still enjoying biological substrates, the
acceptability of such an "uploading" outcome would be as much a
matter of the discretion of the community as any opinions from
outside, as to the validity of such a person "carrying on" for
the earlier biological personality from which 'it' was derived.

Now, why might even a person who was strictly convinced that only
a purist "biological" reanimation would be "them" want to have any
such "emulation" of them brought to consciousness? Here we are
close to an issue that could be critical to the wishes of those
who, above all, feel that anything non-biological "would not be
them"! The issue has to do with "patient advocacy".

Suppose that it came to be that many biological-substrate persons,
in a future era of high technology, elected to "emigrate" to the
state of cyberconsciousness we've described above? Suppose it
became so commonplace to declare that biological brains were
"obsolete" that most would cast aside their biological bodies
and take whatever sense of "self-ness" could be imparted to them
into cyberspace, rather than to remain in a state of "pre-
cybernetic consciousness"?

Then, who would speak on behalf of the cryonicist who had stoutly
maintained that "only biological reamination was acceptable?"
Who would be the "patient advocates" for such suspendees,
unflinchingly defending their positions that nothing but
bioreanimation would 'really be them'? Would it be the patients'
families? Perhaps not! Many signed up for cryonics have
families who are ready to stand in the way of their being frozen
in the first place. Even if a family member had vowed to be an
advocate, defending the specific wishes of the patient, they
themselves might be in suspension, when their support would be
most essential.

Perhaps an important safeguard to having a staunch advocate
for one's position, if one were set on strictly biological
reanimation, would be to permit an "emulation" of oneself to
be brought to consciousness, based on one's own ideas about
reanimation, one's own writings about these matters, that
(in one's opinion) soundly defended one's own point of view.
Where else could one expect to find such a patient advocate,
than in a cyberperson based on one's self, who would protest,
in defiance of all who might challenge this, by saying, "I am
*not* a 'reanimation' of my biological 'twin', and insist,
"Don't you dare call me a 'reanimation' of that person. In
fact, I am here to defend my biological twin's right to remain
frozen forever, if need be, rather than to be 'emulated' and
be told that he or she had been 'reanimated'!"

Many people on both sides of the uploading issue have strong
feelings about their own preferences, and it is important that
these preferences be honored. The above ideas not simply a
response to a posting here, but are the essence of a talk given
in Second Life on December 10, 2009 by myself, of a paper
co-authored with Linda Chamberlain, titled "Empowerment of
Cybertwins as Trustees, Surrogates for Reanimation Decision
Making, and Guardians of Cryonauts, Prior to Personality
Interface Implementation by Mutual Consent." A Power Point
video is online at: http://vimeo.com/10001382 and the paper
itself is at http://www.lifepact.com/cybertwins.htm

Linda and I are still firmly committed to being suspended,
prepaid in cash with CI, for the reason that at present, this
is the only feasible way to assure that our brains are not
merely consigned to disintegrate if we were to die. That,
in our opinion, would constitute the loss of a great deal of
association path information, which whether or not it could
ever be the basis for biological reanimation, might be the
basis for either an independent 'reanimation' by uploading
from a brain map, or even (as suggested in the above talk)
be coupled into the 'cybertwin' to form the same sort of
'bilateral' personality that is presently represented by
the bio-coupling of our right and left brains.

My anticipation is that the 'uploading' thesis will not by any
means 'replace' cryonics, but will greatly expand the demand
for it, by persons who anticipate that they will not only want
to have extensive mindfiles, but a brain that might be added
to this, the association paths in which cannot by any stretch
of the imagination be simply 'digitized' at present, or in the
near future. Without cryonics, the brain is lost at death,
unless it is preserved by some kind of chemopreservation, and
presently that is not offered by either CI or Alcor, so, it
is not presently something we can choose.

This has been far too long (or far too short) a message,
depending on whether you are an "anti-uploader" or an "uploader".
In either case, I hope it adds something constructive to the
conversations on mindfile emulation and other topics related to
transhumanism, which seem to be on the rise, not only in many
other places on the Internet, but in discussions by CI Members,
among whom there are sure to many differences of opinion.

boundlesslife (AKA Fred Chamberlain, with substantial 'over the
shoulder review' and editorial assistance by Linda Chamberlain,
prior to posting)