Posted 05 October 2002 - 07:55 AM
I think upgrading is a lot more plausible than uploading. Uploading must mean translating your hardware and software together into a new substrate. For example, I insert nanotech intra and inter cellular molecular supercomputers and cell-change/repair machines into my body. These form a distributed computer system linked to my more macro neural network. Then I insert specialized "new" cells, e.g from dendrimer polymers, and computronium materials as add-on for memory storage. Then I create broadcast linkage mechanisms of high efficiency for communication purposes and interaction with VR. If there is a big enough computronium bed, full of VR and sentient sectors, how do I transfer to it? I can visit it easily enough, by sensory extension and allied "software transfer" but how do I physically add my neural hardware and its software to it? The problem is the two are linked. Making a copy of the software - short of a perfect quantum copy - simply makes a close duplicate that's not me and therefore not relevant. I can't leave my "original" brain behind. If I have upgraded completely to a more flexible system I guess I can stick my head into a computronium socket and squeeze my brain into it, keeping continuous connection. That might do it over some period of time. Another solution might be to have a small "core brain" and have physical plug-ins and add-ons. Also maybe you could actually "plug" your brain in directly to the computronium web at times (like cable, only funnier - your "brain" could "run" or "wave-flow" along the cable-blank-brain if it was efficient enough). Guess we'll find out soon enough.
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Just as a further thought - I really don't believe in the concept of "software" - there are only subsets of hardware. The "software" is still physically existant, just like writing is made of lead pencil or a movie is photons hitting a sheet. Even a computer's software is electronic action within a chip and moving parts in a hard drive etc.. This makes me very suspicious of those who argue about "versions" of themselves running around without continuity. These are different beings who look similar, even if it is down to the atomic level, but are different.