Debate: Would an upload be you?

Uploading would be survival

You are a pattern of information. If the pattern is preserved and continues to run, you survive, whatever it runs on.

Best argument

Your atoms are constantly replaced; what persists is the pattern of organisation. If that pattern is copied exactly and continues on another substrate, everything that makes you you continues. Hans Moravec and others argued that a gradual upload, replacing neurons with artificial ones one at a time while you stay conscious, would make the continuity especially clear.

Strongest objection

If the scan is non-destructive, there will be two of you: the original, still in a biological body, and the upload. The original will feel no different and will clearly not have moved into the computer. So uploading creates a copy, not a transfer.

The reply

Pattern theorists answer, with Derek Parfit, that in that case both have what matters in survival, and that the gradual method avoids the problem by never creating a duplicate.

Defended by

Hans Moravec, Ray Kurzweil, David Chalmers

Uploading would be death

An upload, even if conscious, would be a different person. You would die and be replaced by a digital twin.

Best argument

Identity requires physical continuity of the brain, or of the organism. A computer running a simulation is a different physical object. The duplication problem shows that copying is never moving: if the copy were you, then two copies would both be you, which is impossible.

Strongest objection

If gradual replacement of neurons with silicon would preserve you, as many think, it is hard to see why a fast replacement would not. And your neurons' atoms are replaced over time anyway.

Defended by

Eric Olson, Susan Schneider

There would be no one there

A simulation of a brain would not be conscious at all. Uploading would produce an elaborate puppet, not a person.

Best argument

A simulation of a hurricane does not make anything wet. On biological naturalism, consciousness depends on biological causal powers, not on information processing. A simulated brain would behave as you do but feel nothing.

Strongest objection

If behaviour, reports and internal organisation are all exactly as in a conscious person, the claim that there is no experience seems impossible to test, and possibly to state clearly.

Defended by

John Searle

Where you stand

Where do you stand?

Choose one to see how people answer.

For the full background, variations and open questions, read the entry: Could you upload your mind?.