Could you maybe explain to me why the afterlife should be assigned a negligible probability? My point is simply that we can't know.
I'm not sure if I give the proposition of an afterlife a 1% probability. But I think whatever chance of an afterlife we have, it is not going to change our research priorities right now at all. And it does not affect my views on uploading, for reasons you will see at the bottom.
1) The mind requires a body, the human body evolved itself an electrochemical computer. Intelligence, to me, means that which operates. We operate in our own particular way in the universe.
2) There is no evidence of an afterlife. If there is one, and someone has guessed what it's like - that's luck. But I don't claim we have discovered/created everything we are going to discover/create. I think the probability that we are close to discovering everything in our particular "reference class" is high. You can read about the "Doomsday Argument" if you're interested in the previous sentence. But I'm not sure about any of that.
3) I am confident that all of the criteria I have for a mind is fulfilled from my point of view by a system. I could go into this but it would take a long time.
4) I am aware of the illusive nature of the mind. I have read Nietzsche, Dennett, Blackmore, and other related authors, and I believe that illusions are quite intrinsic to what we call consciousness. Illusions are more efficient than full rational representations.
5) I don't think birds are magic, so I don't think consciousness is non-physical. All of the features I ascribe to intelligence and consciousness seem quite Turing Computable, including the part of my consciousness that says "I'm not just a pattern". Although intuitively it may feel confusing at times, I am able to understand logical definitions of consciousness and intelligence well enough to know that what we call consciousness, what we mean when we say "consciousness", is Turing Computable. It would be a surprise if evolution used some special non-physical feature of the universe to communicate with heaven. Essentially, believing in an afterlife is similar to believing in god or an obnoxious computer scientist.
6) I do agree that we could be living in a simulation, but I think there are some holes in that idea. Why would a super-intelligence simulate us? Why wouldn't they start something bigger, or start us off with something better? I'm not sure if our kind of universe seems like something that would be simulated. And I'm not sure it is even rational to assume there are other universes - that's the Self Sampling Assumption (SSA) and it's a good strategy in our universe, but who knows if that keeps working. I think we will be able to answer those questions at some point. I also don't know why super-intelligent beings would be interested in preserving our consciousness. It would make no sense at all. BUT, I agree it is a possibility. That's probably why I give the afterlife maybe a 1% chance.
7) Basically, of all of the things to worry about, this one is very low in priority.
8) Other priorities would be, "What would I risk by not trying it?" or "what if sex is evil and I go to hell?", the list goes on. Can you tell me a reason why any particularly one of such ideas would be of particularly high priority?
9) I should add, I support further brain research before I upload myself.
10) I reason that mind-uploading will be successful. We have the cognitive sciences and philosophers of mind to argue that it will be successful. To say it would not succeed is to posit a sort of permanency of forms, in a world where various intelligent agents have shape-shifted for over a billion years.
Now, I should add that I am mixing probability with logic:
If there is an afterlife, than as far as I know I still want to upload myself. I don't want to move in with the creator if the creator is playing such a game - I doubt there is anything in it for me in such a situation. And I think, if there is an afterlife, I don't know why it would be good, or better than staying on Earth.