[wildmusings]

>2) Brain uploads are dumb. Let me ask you this: I create a 'brain upload' program, run it on you, and tell you, "OK, now your brain is uploaded!" Will you walk willingly into a blender? You are your body. It does not matter what sort of digital derivative has been made of you, your subjective experience is tied to your corpse.

I agree with you about the brain uploads, but I think that the final conclusion is that either continuity of consciousness is an illusion, or it spans all life (i.e. pan-consciousness). Most cells, and all atoms, in your body will be cycled many times before you die. Why would there be any continuity of consciousness across those total changes? How is it fundamentally any different than the brain upload scenario?

The only reason why you think that your consciousness is continuous from even a moment ago is that you have memories of it (just like your uploaded self would, by the way). Just as you insist that you are the same person you were a minute ago, your uploaded self would insist it is the same person as it was before the upload.

[astazangasta]

Yeah, my subjective experience is an illusion. But:

1) My uploaded self would probably immediately be appalled at the loss of that subjective experience. You identify deeply with your embodied self; I am my vagus nerve and the intestinal distress it transmits as much as I am anything.

2) My embodied self would still have its own subjective experience and would experience dying, none the happier that there's some counterfeit digital version running around claiming to be me.