This is a special post for quick takes by Kabir Kumar. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
The mind uploading stuff seems to be a way to justify being ok with dying, imo, and digging ones head into the sand, pretending that if something talks a bit like you, it is you.
If a friend can very accurately do an impression of me and continues to do so for a week, while wearing makeup to look like me, I have not 'uploaded' myself into them. And I still wouldn't want to die, just because there's someone who is doing an extremely good impression of myself.
A tree doesn't simulate a meaningful algorithm, so the analogy would be chopping it down being approximately just as good.
When talking about running algorithms, I'm not making claims about identity or preserving-the-original in some other sense, as I don't see how these things are morally important, necessarily (I can't rule out that they might be, on reflection, but currently I don't see it). What I'm saying is that a biological brain doesn't have an advantage at the task of running the algorithms of a human mind well, for any sensible notion of running t... (read more)