Debate of the day

It's spring, and I'm feeling frivolous. I didn't watch the debate last night, out of a strong feeling that shutting myself inside with all that bland bloviation might drive me to madness. Luckily, the debateblogging makes it crystal clear that I missed nothing except the opportunity to snark at two exhausted politicians.

Instead I had a drink outside (mmmm-fresh cut grass), during which I got debate with a friend on the critical question: would you download your consciousness into a robot?

There are, of course, a lot of factors to consider. How good is the robot? Is it more attractive/stronger/faster than you? What's the MTTF? How good are your backup systems? Will you still enjoy normal human pleasures like eating? What about sleeping?

Then there's the question of tradeoffs, which becomes particularly difficult if we posit a robot self that is in some way less than idea. Do you download now, or like a lapsed Catholic, wait until you are near death and try to pull out a last-minute save? Is a few more years of gourmet meals worth the risk of a Sudden, Unexpected Mortality Event? And do you really want to live forever? Wouldn't you get bored?

I open the question to my readers: robot consciousness--yea or nay? Now or never? And how many of you would be willing to count on a death's door Hail Mary pass?

Comments

I actually had that discussion with my coworkers. Our straw poll found a near-uniform pro-upload stance. I think the more critical question is this: do you want your robot to be as human-like as possible, or do you just go all out and try to be the coolest robot possible? I think for exemption from tolls because you're a Transformer and that's the only way you can get around, which means there coiuld be added benefits. Of course, that would also mean you'd have to fight Decepticons, but we all need to do our part to fight the Evil Robot Menace. Ninjas and pirates, however, would be a snap to take out if you had lasers and rockets on your arms.

You know what robot you don't want to be? Shockwave. Because who uses tapes anymore?

Posted by Aaron | April 17, 2008 12:58 PM

My problem with "downloading" myself into a robot is that I don't trust that it will actually be me in there. Sure, the robot will wake up and all my friends will say, "That's definitely Erik" when I have all my memories and ideas. But is it me? The robot will think it's me, everyone will think it's my transfered consciousness, but am I dead regardless? My memories stop but my robot gets to keep making new ones ... I think I'd pass on the robot consciousness and hope that there's an afterlife that will be glad I brought my consciousness with me.

Posted by Erik Hanberg | April 17, 2008 1:01 PM

If I'm the first "guinea pig," I'd rather do a copy-paste than a cut and paste. That way if something really screws up I can (more or less) tell within a few minutes. If I just get zapped into the robot's body, and something malfunctions, I'm stuck. Also, I'd be able to ask the robot-me whether or not it was a good decision.

Posted by Tel | April 17, 2008 1:03 PM

Not to mention the most important question.

Posted by jeet | April 17, 2008 1:11 PM

Hey, if somebody can figure out a way for me to get downloaded, I'm sure some way can be figured out to give my robot a place to pour tap water in, and have it register in my conciousness as a 1961 Lafite Rothschild, so I don't think the trade off exists. Sounds like a money saver!

Posted by Will Allen | April 17, 2008 1:14 PM

I have to agree with Hanberg.

I tend to think that the robot would not be you, it would merely think that it was. I also have always thought that Star Trek transporters are actually killing the person and creating an exact copy somewhere else, so I'm not getting on any transporter either.

But if I could be convinced otherwise [and I don't know how] then you definitely have to upload, regardless of the condition or limitations of the initial robot. This is because the critical thing accomplished by uploading is that you would become immortal, and you would have infinite time for better robots to be developed. You aren't really missing out on any "gourmet meals" at all - you're just deferring a relative handful of those meals now, in exchange for a near infinite number of those meals after technology advances to the point where the robot experience is equal to [or superior to] the current human experience.

Immortality is eventually [potentially] near-godhood, and that gift horse should not be looked in the mouth. Ian MacDonald's novella "The Days of Solomon Gursky" is one of the best treatments of this I have seen.

Posted by Brian | April 17, 2008 1:16 PM

No. I'd like my great-grandchildren hunt with my guns, hang my old law license on the wall, keep my camera as a nifty antique and tell the story of great-grandpa eloping in a former interrogation room. For that, I need to be dead.

Besides, I anticipate that I'll be pretty tired someday.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 17, 2008 1:17 PM

The chance at immortality, or to at least avoid the indignity of getting old and dying, would be well worth giving up such human pleasures as eating, sleeping in, and perhaps even sex. This is also why you'd download yourself now: to avoid getting old, and to avoid the possibility that the you that does get put on a machine is the sputtering, stammering, thick-tongued, 90 year old version of you.

Do I really want to live forever? Yes. Why wouldn't I? Wouldn't I get bored? No. And if I did, I'd just take on some ambitious project such as subjugating all you mortals to my indomitable will. Or I'd just turn myself over to some programmer and say "reformat me."

Posted by Jeff | April 17, 2008 1:31 PM

Extending your lifespan indefinitely doesn't mean you want to live forever.

How about legalising some forms of contract killing. You’d specify on your medical insurance the criteria for when you want to be terminated, with some range of time for the deed to be done. This’ll spare you and your loved ones the emotional trauma of knowing in advance the exact moment in the future of shutting down.

Of course assassins specialising in painless death will be most in demand.

Posted by stuart | April 17, 2008 1:32 PM

Unless you are positing an analog download, which is farfetched, then the possibility of downloading at all means you can do it as many times as you like. Thus, worries like robot quality and MTTF are fairly unimportant. Download now into as good a robot as you can. Once a better body is developed, redownload into that. In all cases, make sure it's a copy, not a cut/paste, and that you get the copy fully checked out before you suicide your current housing.

Posted by Leonard | April 17, 2008 1:37 PM

If you get bored with life, its you thats boring.

Posted by Toxic | April 17, 2008 1:40 PM

If it is possible to do a "copy-paste" then I'm not sure how you could argue that the "copy" was actually you. It might be a perfect copy, but the original is still "you" and might object to being killed...

There was a great Twilight Zone about dinosaur aliens who made interstellar teleport technology available to humans. In one case, the teleport was not confirmed, so the subject was not disintigrated. She hung out until the teleport was confirmed and was then told she needed to be killed. Needless to say, she was not very happy about it.

IF I could have my actual consciousness transferred to a suitably advanced robot or computer, I would do it. But I'd need to have some pretty powerful proof that I wasn't just being copied, then killed.

I have to agree about the Star Trek teleporters, too. The only point of debate is how the matter was converted to energy and whether consciousness was somehow maintained in the matter-energy pattern.

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | April 17, 2008 1:49 PM

the tricky issue with the copy/paste action is that the moment after you download, you're two different people. At the instand you gain consciousness within the robot, your personas will begin to diverge. Thus, destroying the robot if the copy is (as you deem) not quite perfect is definitively murder, and killing yourself if the the copy is proper is definitively suicide.

If I made a copy of myself now, and it was staring across the table at me, I don't think I could commit suicide knowing that I'd transferred my consciousness anymore than I could commit suicide right now. That robot across the table might look and sound and think exactly like me, but its certainly _not_ me.

When you copy yourself, will you wake up as the robot or the original?

The only way to get around this paradox is a cut and paste action.

Posted by RMH | April 17, 2008 1:49 PM

I would definitely go for it. I am not a robotics expert, but I assume that if the upload could work, then the sensory simulation you are currently used to wouldn't be too difficult. I wonder what materials would be used? Silicon?

A couple of months ago I decided to freeze my brain with cryonics (I think reading Robin Hanson finally pushed me over the edge). As long as you are willing to be teased a bit, the conversation that it generates is worth the life insurance policy that you have to pay each month.

At my office it is not referred to as cryonics, but rather, freezing your head. Or, "John is totally freezing his head! I'm not kidding"

Posted by John | April 17, 2008 1:52 PM

Well, the copy/paste issues brings up a whole different set of issues. Who controls the "you" data? What's to prevent them from making additional copies, and would these additional copies be any more or less "you?"

Getting back to the original question... I'm going to have to say "yes" to robot downloading (too curious to resist) but also "yes" to deferring it for just a little bit. I can't think of any concrete reason for feeling this way other than to have a bit more human me baseline before robot me.

Posted by Just Another Greg | April 17, 2008 1:53 PM

Frederik Pohl did some interesting backflips with downloaded people for his Gateway series of Science Fiction books. Interestingly, I wouldn't mind moving on in this way, but it wouldn't be me exactly...

Posted by SwissArmyD | April 17, 2008 2:03 PM

I'm kind of impressed (but also saddened) that no one has yet referenced Sealab 2021. So let me be the first to say: "Have fun on the robot reservation suckers! We're not going to honor those bogus treaties."

http://www.jibjab.com/view/221029

Posted by ryan | April 17, 2008 2:09 PM

This is a pretty well-explored question in SciFi books.

One book I read a while back developed a set a laws for when the 'copy' had to be legally considered a separate person.

Posted by MarkT | April 17, 2008 2:24 PM

There was a great Twilight Zone about dinosaur aliens who made interstellar teleport technology available to humans. In one case, the teleport was not confirmed, so the subject was not disintigrated. She hung out until the teleport was confirmed and was then told she needed to be killed. Needless to say, she was not very happy about it.

I believe that was an Outer Limits episode.

Posted by FXKLM | April 17, 2008 2:26 PM

I think this question almost certainly comes down to what it means to be downloaded in to a robot. I think, perhaps, that the most interesting scenario is if the robots have no sensual abilities. In other words, they can see, hear, touch, taste and smell in an analytical way, but not in a way that is comparable to human feelings. At this point you are trading much of what it means to be human to have a continued cerebral life.

I wonder how much this would change our perception of consciousness. Would robots need to eat? Would we even need the same sort of material resources we once did? I think that I would probably go for the deathbed hail mary because in many ways the transfer would be so akin to a death of sorts it is worth this period of risk. Moreover, I suspect the risk of living would decrease as the robot population increased. All sort of accidents and violence would likely go down with hyper-competent robots in the world. My one concern would be that it seems like robots might have an extreme advantage within society, forcing people who remain human in to the unpalatable choice of being members of a biological underclass or undergo conversions themselves. In other words, even if they have no malicious intent, the robots shall surely doom us all.

P.S. This is way more productive than, say, doing my job.

Posted by Jonathan | April 17, 2008 2:28 PM

The critical question, which several people have alluded to, is this:
Is this copying a copy-and-paste or a cut-and-paste?

If the former, what you are doing is creating one (or more) copies of your self. Which means you start living two different lives.

If the latter, then you are essentially committing suicide in the expectation that you will "live" on as the robot copy.

So, Megan, which assumption were you guys using?

Posted by wj | April 17, 2008 2:35 PM

There is a fantastic bit of sci fi written by Richard Morgan called "Altered Carbon" which I highly recommend for this debate. His concepts include something like cold storage, which is an electronic playground for consciousnesses which have given up the physical form for a while, either voluntarily or as a punishment, as well as the electronic torture of an electronic soul. Fascinating stuff, really, and it's tied up into a very interesting plotline as well.

You might also want to read John Scalsi's "Old Man's War" for some thoughts on the "created consciousness" as well as transfers. Very good reading, plus his posting on his blog sent me here to take a look around!

My personal position is that no robot will be able to duplicate the sensory input from a human being for a very long time, if ever. I like my senses of taste, touch, and even (most of the time) smell. I'm also fond of what are commonly known as the "carnal" pleasures and am pretty sure a robot will not deliver a fully satisfying... er... experience.

I've rambled on too long already, but one last point: immortality would be tremendous. Think of all we could accomplish! Scientists and doctors accumulate experience, poets and artists have time to perfect their craft. Builders might change to more durable and less destructive buildings with greater environmental sensitivity. Immortality leads to infinite opportunity. If someone got bored, they must be doing it wrong.

Posted by KIA | April 17, 2008 2:39 PM

Brian,

LOL! I think the same thing about Star Trek transporters!

Posted by Yancey Ward | April 17, 2008 2:46 PM

Which is likely to come first- the ability to download "consciousness" into electronic hardware, or simple immortality from the conquering of the aging process?

I vote for the latter.

Posted by Yancey Ward | April 17, 2008 2:57 PM

I'm pretty skeptical of the whole Star Trek transporter thing. Isn't that happening all the time, anyway? The "me" of 2 seconds ago is no longer conscious; but I have inherited his memories, state of mind, etc.

Isn't that what happens whenever we go to sleep? Imagine that every single night when you went to sleep, an exact duplicate was made of you, and placed in the bed sleeping, while the original you was destroyed. How would you know? The fact is, you wouldn't - and you wouldn't in the case of the Star Trek transporter, either.

Posted by bcg | April 17, 2008 2:58 PM

As an additional thought... what about downloading your consciousness into a simulation? This is a far more useful bit of trickery, as your resource use would drop to near zero, and your potential for tasting steak dinners and 61 Lafite and 47 Cheval would zoom to near infinity.

Its also not unlikely that this is actually an easier challenge technically. Once you have the ability to transfer a consciousness, you pretty much already have the ability to let that consciousness reside in a complete simulation. The technological leaps to allow a robot with full sensory awareness and fine motor control would have to be created separately.

as long as we're citing literary treatments of these sorts of things... Charles Stross and John Wright do a great job with the simulated consciousness issue. David Brin in 'Kiln People' very adroitly addressed the 'which one is me' issue. And I'll echo the plaudits for Richard Morgan and John Scalzi - although I their work is somewhat less cerebral than Stross or Wright.

Posted by RMH | April 17, 2008 2:59 PM

Yancey,

The aging process will of course be solved before the rest of this. But think of all the reasons a robot would be better.

HUMAN BAD: Your brain probably can't handle much more than 100 years of memories. What are you going to do about that?
ROBOT GOOD: Much more storage, easier to add storage, and search times on storage media will probably keep up with even those who have vast quantities of memories in storage.
HUMAN BAD: New humans are, eventually, going to have genetic enhancements, either through evolution or through direct genetic manipulation. You'd be stuck with your old, undeveloped 20th century genes while everyone else was sporting obscenely high neuron counts and athletes' bodies.
ROBOT GOOD: Hardware upgrades! Go-go gadget chopper, go-go gadget wrench, etc.
HUMAN BAD: Your body is fragile - all kinds of environmental hazards that can result in blood loss or irrecoverable dismemberment (i.e., chopped into a thousand pieces).
ROBOT GOOD: You can be as resilient as upgrades allow you to be - and if the economics aren't right, you can go be a Mars rover for 1000 years and hope, when you come back, we've solved scarcity.

etc etc

Posted by bcg | April 17, 2008 3:08 PM

I agree with Erik Hanberg. Unless it was an actual transfer and not a download (I'd be leery of cut and paste too, and "undo" would probably be dicey; do you get stuck on the "clipboard"?), I wouldn't do it. Until we know more about consciousness, it's not possible.

The Star Trek transporter thing is an interesting point, obviously not thought of before it was "invented." I'm with Yancey and Brian on that; Dr. Phlox was right when he said you'd never see him using that contraption. Me neither! For use with non-sentient objects only!

Megan, you hanging around with Glenn Reynolds again? This is supposedly his big fantasy...

Posted by liberalrob | April 17, 2008 3:09 PM

Brings to mind the comment by Steven Pinker (I think quoting somebody else?), that when it comes to organ transplants, there is only one organ for which you *definitely* want to be the donor rather than the recipient.

Posted by Steve Roth | April 17, 2008 3:10 PM

Imagine that every single night when you went to sleep, an exact duplicate was made of you, and placed in the bed sleeping, while the original you was destroyed. How would you know?

It would be impossible for whoever did it to avoid disturbing the clutter in my room on the way to my bed, and I would notice the change. :)

Isn't metaphysics fun? Will Allen brought up a variant on the "red pill/blue pill" question from The Matrix. Would you take the blue pill if it meant you could have (the sensation of) fine wine and juicy steak every night forever?

Posted by liberalrob | April 17, 2008 3:20 PM

The only way I've been able to get over the "it's suicide" aspect of a download (which I also feel about the Star Trek Transporter) is if it were done gradually, quasi-GoBot style where a fraction of your consciousness is "wet" and the rest is robotic. Over a period of time (I don't know how fast it could be without the feeling of suicide taking over) the fraction of your consciousness which was robotic would grow until you were all robot.

Done that way, I think I could handle it. Consciousness, after all, is continuity.

Posted by Jody | April 17, 2008 3:27 PM

Great three-and-a-half minute video about the effects of the loss of "human" consciousness in society-at-large.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Posted by bcg | April 17, 2008 3:31 PM

I'm with John, in that I'm signed up for cryonics, in my case since around 1990. I would say for anyone honestly interested in the ability to make a "Hail Mary" pass at death's door, cryonics today is such a pass. Now and for at least some time uploading is not a realistic option.

For all sorts of practical reasons, it's a really bad idea to plan to just wait until you are at death's door and then just trying to throw that "Hail Mary" of cryonics. The upfront paperwork is not very hard, and it is much better to have everything written down (and your family told, even if they disagree) long ahead of time.

Current freezing technology is rather harsh, so any technology capable of restoring you after today's cryonics is pretty much guaranteed to also be able to cure you most anything physically wrong with you, including aging-related damage. So, if cryonics brings you back, it brings you back to a world in which people don't have to age, in the negative "falling apart" sense.

Nonethless, if Ray Kurzweil is correct, most of us will live to see a time when this whole "uploading" question becomes a much more practical concern.

Posted by Tom | April 17, 2008 3:36 PM

Yes to uploading -- I love life and don't want to die.

Posted by John McCain: More of the Same | April 17, 2008 3:46 PM

Eh, I take it back, because as horrifying as it may be to consider, if obtaining a tremendous dinner and a monumental vintage every night was easy, it wouldn't be nearly as fun. It goes without saying that the carnal pleasures would also become pale imitations. Mortality just makes everything so much more urgent and intense.

Posted by Will Allen | April 17, 2008 4:16 PM

Then again, if you had your conciousness changed during the download, and thus fooled yourself into thinking you were still mortal, and the things you were enjoying were the by-product of a tremendous effort or display of skills, you might be just fine. Oh well, what's for dinner tonight, anyways?

Posted by Will Allen | April 17, 2008 4:21 PM

Mortality just makes everything so much more urgent and intense.

That is part of the reason I (alone, apparently) would not choose it except through the traditional method of childbearing.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 17, 2008 4:29 PM

The body without the spirit is dead, and the spirit, having determined to depart, has a remarkable tendency to resist attempts by machine to maintain life in the body, let alone itself transfer over into a machine.

In other words, this is a pipe dream. The body dies and the robot containing the downloaded AI construct never lives. You would end up with one dead human and one non-living robot that was merely advantaged by the library gift of 'n' years of human experience and accmulated knowledge.

Posted by aMouseforallSeasons | April 17, 2008 4:29 PM

Will and Rob,

That thing which is enhanced by mortality is called living. Kind of paradoxical that you would be willing to give it up.

I never really answered the question Megan asked. I see no downside to downloading, but I would not have the first copy destroyed either. If there are two copies of me, they are both completely valid and seperate conscious beings, in my opinion. I don't view this kind of transfer as a valid way to evade death.

Posted by Yancey Ward | April 17, 2008 4:57 PM

Sealab 2021?

Try Robot Chicken: http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c39215b8f3910115b901b74b002a

Posted by jeet | April 17, 2008 4:58 PM

That thing which is enhanced by mortality is called living. Kind of paradoxical that you would be willing to give it up.

Scarcity enhances value due to declining marginal utility, or to put it another way, moderation greatly enhances one's appreciation for life's pleasures.

I haven't clung desperately to my youth or a "young" lifestyle as I get a bit older, but rather put away childish things, and I hope I also won't cling to life, but merely enjoy the satisfaction of having lived well.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 17, 2008 5:11 PM

Has anyone read Keith Laumer's 1966 story "The Body Builders"? It wasn't about downloading exactly, rather the people were alive in tanks and remotely connected to their robot bodies.

It was about a guy whose normal body, a late-model Charlemagne, was in the shop. He forgot himself, got in a fight with a junker John Wayne, and wrecked his loaner body. He was bombarded with ads for new bodies -- "With the Grin-U-Matic option for realistic facial expressions!" -- but couldn't afford one.

So he had to venture into the world with his actual body....

Posted by Bob Hawkins | April 17, 2008 5:19 PM

Would I download my consciousness into a robot? Only if I get to be an Adrienne Barbeaubot. With Chainsaw Hands and the D-Cups of Justice!

Posted by Hazel Murphy | April 17, 2008 6:15 PM

Not only do I think we should upload ourselves into electronic form, I believe it is the only way we will survive the coming conflict with our would-be robot overlords. We need to combine human creativity with lightning-fast robot reflexes if we're to avoid being slaughtered en masse by Cylons and Terminators.

Posted by Chris Yeh | April 17, 2008 6:15 PM

I believe it is the only way we will survive the coming conflict with our would-be robot overlords

I favor EMP, myself. Or possibly just giving them exploding Sony batteries.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 17, 2008 7:52 PM

I'm pro-upload, but I don't need the robot. Living in convincing computer simulation with other uploads would be preferable, and it would just get better as computers got faster.

I also think those who see this (and theoretical transporting) as the killing of "the real you" are really just saying that they believe in souls. I don't believe in them (except in the poetic sense), therefore that's not something I worry about. If something has every thought that I would have, then that something is me.

Posted by dug | April 17, 2008 7:55 PM

It's not a matter of souls, it's a matter of ME living longer. I want to live as long as possible. If you upload me into a computer and then kill me, I'm dead. From my perspective, it would be exactly the same as if you just told me you'd uploaded me into a computer and then killed me. Or just skipped the telling me part.

I'm not sure that my personal contribution to the world is so great that uploading my mind into a computer so everyone else has access to me for an eternity is so important. If it is, then I'm happy for people to make copies of me... as long as they don't kill me in the process.

As far as I see it, the only way you could upload me into a computer and have it really be me would be if I DID have a soul and the soul was somehow transferred into the computer along with my memories, leaving a living, breathing, but otherwise mindless body behind. But I think that's implausible.

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | April 17, 2008 9:12 PM

Depends on how you define selfhood. From your perspective (at least the only you that still remembers your childhood, etc.), you'd be in a computer.

But why did you assume that everyone would have access to your upload? Autonomy would have to be legally guaranteed and verifiable before that kind of procedure. Nobody would have "access" to you unless you foolishly gave it away. If you wanted, you could exist in isolation. It's not about your personal worth. Nobody cares about that beyond the notion that you are a person, and therefore have worth. It's about what you wish to happen. Do you wish for your mind to die along with your body? Or do you wish to imprint it onto a more durable medium?

Posted by dug | April 17, 2008 9:31 PM

Dug, the downloading issue is complicated because we don't know the method, but the transporters issue has little to do with "souls" to me.

The transporter supposedly disintegrates you into energy, while passing that energy and a pattern/scan of how to put that energy back together as you to your destination. To me, this really isn't any different than burning me to a crisp, sweeping up the ashes and putting them into a paper bag, carrying the bag across the street and using the ashes as a template to build a new me.

That new me would think it was me, and would have all my memories if you could reproduce the last extant state of my brain exactly, but it wouldn't be me. I was burned to death and died.

If it turns out that consciousness is some sort of emergent phenomena that arises from the electrical patterns in your brain, I suppose you could maintain the continuity of that consciousness by "sucking" that pattern out of you and imposing it on a computer brain. But just mapping the physical state of your brain and making a computer copy of it doesn't seem any more "me" to me than a photocopy of my ass is my ass. It's more of a clone or identical twin consciousness than my own consciousness transfered to a machine.

Posted by Brian | April 17, 2008 9:43 PM

Brian,

As I said, it depends on how you define selfhood. I see myself (indeed, everybody) as a pattern of information. Software running on extremely high-end hardware which is destined to break down. You apparently see the hardware as the self. In that case I guess I was mistaken to say that you believed in souls. I suppose in a weird secular way I'm closer to believing in souls than you are.

But here's where the crazy philosophy comes in - How do you know who and what you are? How do you know you aren't already uploaded? Not to get too trippy here - I'm just saying that if you accept the premise that a simulation could be as convincing as reality, then what is the difference between it and reality? It's the old Decartes' Demon question in a new format. Follow all of it's permutations and eventually all you're left with is "I think, therefore I am." From that it is easy to conclude, "Whatever thinks as I think, is me."

Posted by dug | April 17, 2008 11:26 PM

Why the debate? Everyone who believes in the Christian Resurrection is probably looking forward to the event, and what the resurrection will entail is precisely the downloading of your quondam free-floating consciousness into a soulless machine of a body that once was yours, and at that point will effectively be just a robot, i.e. a vehicle for your soul.

So the resurrection believers would do it, I assume. And myself? I think the whole thought experiment is as dumb as believing in the resurrection. The more realistic you make it, the more impossible it becomes.

Posted by lampwick | April 18, 2008 12:14 AM

Not only would I upload when the technology reach the point that the probability of an error in the process occurring was negligible and the upload accepted the normal human range of sensory inputs, I'd preserve the original if possible and make as many copies of the copy as I had money to pay for the hardware to host them on and network access to their inputs and data together, including the original if technically viable. The network would decide questions that impacts all the members by a majority vote, except for the basic principles that decisions affect the entire network, any copy can leave the network and take its hosting hardware with it at any given time, and that individual copies cannot be deleted, only expelled from the network with sufficient hardware to host themselves by a 2/3 vote, which could only be changed by an unanimous vote of all copies in the network. I wouldn't be human anymore by a long shot or even an individual, but I'd gladly give up the familiar to venture into the extraordinary.

When you think about it, being troubled by the self not being preserved across space makes little sense when the self changes so much across time. The copies would have more in common with each other at any given time than I do with the version of myself that existed a year ago.

Posted by MattXIV | April 18, 2008 5:30 PM

I like the idea, but I don't need to switch over right away and I wouldn't have to worry about sudden death. I'd just make a backup every month, a la "Red Dwarf", and have it arranged that in the event of death my latest backup would be installed into a robotic body.

Posted by Alan | April 18, 2008 6:40 PM

Your consciousness can't be 'transferred' because it is an activity rather than information or an object. It would have to be copied so that a different platform would be performing the activity in a manner consistent with the current platform. (It would be like making an exact copy of the Mona Lisa. They may be identical in structure but only one has the identity of being the work DaVinci painted.) Not only does that raise questions about what to do with the original copy, it means that the you that is considering this question is not the you that would be immortal.

It would also pose an insurmountable obstacle to the problem of other minds. I know I am conscious because I have direct perception of my consciousness. I believe that you are conscious because of the inference to best explanation. You seem to exhibit consciousness and since we are both homo sapiens with fundamentally similar brain structures, it is a much simpler explanation to think that your similar brain is generating a similar consciousness than it would be to think that your similar brain is merely creating the appearance of consciousness. Similar effects are by default thought to cause similar consequences;

Posted by Jay Myers | April 19, 2008 2:04 PM

Okay, okay. So, say I put my brain in a robot body and there's a war. Robots versus humans. What side am I on?

Posted by Derek 'Stormy' Waters | April 19, 2008 4:44 PM

Humans! You have a human brain.

Posted by Debbie DuPree | April 19, 2008 4:47 PM

But... the humans discriminate against you. You can't even vote!

Posted by Jodene Sparks | April 19, 2008 5:37 PM

We'd better not have to live on a reservation. That would really chap my caboose.

Posted by Marco Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar Gabriel Garcia Marquez | April 19, 2008 7:34 PM

Yeah, but nobody knows you're a robot. You look the same.

Posted by Hazel Murphy | April 19, 2008 7:37 PM

Uh, uh. Dogs know. That's how the humans hunt you.

Posted by Debbie DuPree | April 19, 2008 8:28 PM

They're gonna' hunt me? For sport?

Posted by Derek 'Stormy' Waters | April 19, 2008 8:32 PM

That's why we have to CRUSH mankind! So you might as well get on board for the big win, Stormy.

Posted by Marco Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar Gabriel Garcia Marquez | April 19, 2008 8:34 PM