Still, “Hayworth’s naiveté is beyond dispute.” is a model of arrogant assertion without proof. You may be right, but the arrogant tone does not help your credibility.

I’ll pass on uploading for the moment. Don’t count me out entirely, but I’d want more than a classical-mechanic perfect replica of me.

and yes, the identity problem you allude to is perhaps even construable as evidence for a quantum substrate to consciousness

“This isn’t cryonics, where maybe you have a .001 percent chance of surviving,” he said.

Sadly after that I can only admire his guts.

Those of us who have hashed this over for years know that such “probability” estimates cannot be based on evidence. The data points in this experiment lie in the future. The .001 percent guess is an opinion: the conventional it’ll-never-work opinion of the visionless in their echo chamber. Sorry to put it so rudely.

If you go back to the fundamentals, what you can say with some confidence is that: (1) ultra-low-temperature storage provably achieves indefinite long term preservation — the Arrhenius equation, (2) biological synthesis at the cellular level — the ribosome et al — are a proof-of-principle of the feasibility of precise nano-scale manipulation — replacement or repair — of bio-molecules, and (3) the open-ended nature of progress in science and technology suggests that whatever can be done, that is of value, will first become crudely feasible at significant expense, and then progressively easier and less expensive, until eventually it becomes universally trivial and cheap. Making fire was once Shamanistic magic, now we have matches and lighters.

Consequently, even with today’s crappy suspension techniques, my guess is, that the success of the cryonics experiment — the successful recovery of self from long-term, ultra-low temperature storage — is a near certainty.

The manifestation of personality has substantial material evidence demonstrating its connection to and dependence on material reality. There is no material evidence for the existence of souls.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so the possibility of the existence of souls remains. But grounded as it is in ancient superstition, it has no place in a science-reality-evidence-based discussion.

http://consc.net/online/

Hayworth’s naiveté is beyond dispute.

Fine. But where is any kind of fact with which to make a case. The absence of any facts upon which to base your point of view suggests to me that you are talking about faith-based mysticism, but are too timid to say so, rightly expecting to be ridiculed for such a view, based as it is on fact-free, evidence-free superstition.

If you have an evidence-based case, make it.

Problem 2: You have to prove that quantum computation is in any way tied to consciousness. What makes it somehow more significant or important than any other component of the brain?

Remember, just because it’s “quantum” doesn’t suddenly make it some sort of magic.

Same here. Eventually I would want intelligence amplification via nanobots though, when and if available. In combination with my biological neurons.

And if, at a certain point, my thinking is 99.9% non-biological anyway.. well, then if my body were to die, it wouldn’t be that big a loss at that point.

@aus: I think you are right.His uploaded mind could be it’s own entity, not himself.

I also wonder where he gets his numbers from e.g 0.001 for cryonics and 100 years till xy.

Howeveer any documentation of your lives is probably useful.

For all we know, consciousness may depend upon quantum processes that haven’t even been discovered, yet. Also, certain chemicals may have to be involved, so a simulation may just be a cartoon of the real thing. I won’t say that it’ll never, ever happen, but I can’t imagine it even becoming possible in this century.

The slowing growth of computing power is going to delay even testing it, too.

I am all in for indefinite life spans, but in my own brain and ideally in my own body.

By the way, he looks young, so he will probably not die from aging anyway.

Oh, and BTW, quantum state can only be transported, not duplicated (consider it a file “move” rather than a file “copy”). We could possibly measure quantum state and store it in a computer somewhere… but not in such a way that it can be precisely known. We could perhaps preserve the quantum state in a quantum computer — if one existed — (the equivilant of a “mind upload”) that would truly be THE individual. This individual… truly you… could live in a virtual environment, occupy a robot brain, or be moved once again into a biological brain/body.

If this is the way things work, it would solve all the issues associated with multiple copies of you that all claim to be you. It would also throw a major complication into the notion of backing up one’s mind file and restoring if you were killed.

I guess there is some value in creating an avatar or computer program that looks and behaves just like you…that could follow your instinctive decision tree at 99.99% rates, that you could will all your assets to when you die and it could continue on on your behalf, doing things you think were of value for the world. Maybe you create an avatar of your “best self” and give it a set of rules or constitution of sorts (even including the objective to upgrade itself or to keep making money, stay with the singularity and not get out of date, etc..). Then it is a focused meme of you to live on forever. Maybe this then is better than just having a company you made up live on, or writing a book or influencing the world from a past state of being….. a next best legacy for YOU. I guess this could also help protect your family for example if you died unexpectedly and it could get your affairs in order, know your last wishes, or maybe even continue to work or create income, etc..

This movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(film) brings up some interesting dilemmas when a copy of you is made, sent to the moon to work and is fooled it is the real one (finish up a multi year work trip, then return to loving home/family) only to find out it/he is one of dozens of clones…and the work copy (slave to original?) and designed to burn out and die on the moon….one of a never ending cycle of clone copies. (what if you woke up and realized you were the clone to work hard while the original you got to live up the good life instead?).

Lots of fun moral and ethics dilemmas to explore…. what if your clone back up…designed to be turned OFF until your death is turned on by accident ahead of time… trained to be YOU…. then finds YOU and now has a sense of self so strong that it does not want to be put back to sleep, maybe indefinitely now that you can extend your life indefinitely and this copy no longer needed… but fights for its life….even may want to kill you and sneak in as the replacement.