Comments on: Don’t Go Lawnmower Man Just Yet…

By: m65

m65 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:46:23 +0000

good read thanks for the share. i really like the way the article is written and also the design of the website

By: Cryogenics – Stonesoup Readers Say – Not Really Crazy « stone soup

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:09:13 +0000

[...] of life, it might just be the creation of another person who is very very similar to me. While the preservation of a version of oneself might be someone’s preference, even if they can’t experience it, that doesn’t particularly appeal to me; children [...]

By: Neel Krishnaswami

Neel Krishnaswami — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:34:54 +0000

I suspect (and perhaps a mathematician can prove) that if a black box perfectly replicates a certain I/O behavior, then it necessarily has internal states isomorphic to the internal states of another box with identical I/O (say, a brain).

In fact, this is not true. Systems that have identical IO behavior are only equivalent up to bisimilarity (ie, mathematician talk for “have the same IO behavior”), not to isomorphism.

If you know a little about regular expressions, recall that the minimal DFA recognizing a regular expression doesn’t have to be isomorphic to the an arbitrary DFA recognizing that expression (in fact, that’s why there’s any point to minimizing them).

By: Weekend Readings - Ross Douthat Blog - NYTimes.com

Weekend Readings - Ross Douthat Blog - NYTimes.com — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:05:11 +0000

[...] (See also Bryan Caplan versus Robin Hanson versus Caplan again, with interventions from Julian Sanchez and Will Wilson, on cryonics and personal [...]

By: Weekend Readings - Ross Douthat Blog - NYTimes.com

Weekend Readings - Ross Douthat Blog - NYTimes.com — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:05:11 +0000

[...] (See also Bryan Caplan versus Robin Hanson versus Caplan again, with interventions from Julian Sanchez and Will Wilson, on cryonics and personal [...]

By: Winter’s Haven » Who Knows?

Winter’s Haven » Who Knows? — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:56:31 +0000

[...] in silicon, and personal identity. I suggest skimming the original two posts and then reading Julian Sanchez’s take on the question — he approaches the issue with more caution and more philosophical expertise than either [...]

By: Glen

Glen — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:26:14 +0000

I think the following video sums things up nicely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc

By: Living Forever in a Computer « Rortybomb

Living Forever in a Computer « Rortybomb — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:57:52 +0000

[...] and Adam at Modeled Behavior respond, and so does Julian Sanchez: Suppose that via some kind of Star Trek replication or some combination of cloning, highly [...]

By: sam

sam — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:36:20 +0000

There’s a nice treatment of the issues raised here in John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War”. See Chapter 5.

By: The Elephant in the Room » Postmodern Conservative | A First Things Blog

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:38:18 +0000

[...] There I was, quietly chuckling over Bryan Caplan and Robin Hanson’s back and forth (and forth) on the reasonableness of cryonics, when somebody decided to bring Derek Parfit into things. [...]