What is it like to be an upload?

For this week’s meetup I would like to address the question of whether human minds can be uploaded into a different substrate. This is a topic dear to transhumanists, opposed by spiritual holists, and really fundamental to the simulation argument. For this discussion, I would like to focus on the question of qualia, or the experience of sensation.

Should we allow Nagel’s assertion? "An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something that it is like for the organism."[1]

For uploading to be faithful to conscious agents, the simulated mind must have a subjective experience. It must feel like something to be an upload, and this qualia must be similar to the qualia felt by the flesh agent. Even if we allow the panpsychist view that all things are conscious to some degree (which I am quite willing to do), we should STILL expect that programs will tend to experience very different states of consciousness than fleshy things.

But I promise not to bully the group with my embodied cognition views. I look forward to discussing a broad range of views. For instance, Leo likes to assert that discussing consciousness is simply a way to argue for moral consideration. If I can convince you that I am conscious, then you won’t eat me. Under that view, it’s easy to imagine an advanced AI that could convince most people that it felt like something for it to exist.

Which should lead us to discussions of P-Zombies, etc.

Please join us for this well-worn but always exciting topic.

Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86337158633?pwd=NGovV2pqb0Ftdm15MUNVMnNYMUIzdz09

Meeting ID: 863 3715 8633
Passcode: 557817