The article from the latest issue of "Journal of Consciousness Studies".

Carboncopies Comments:

Greg Nixon: "Philosophical look at the role of social construction in identity, complexifying the issue but neither "pro" nor "con" with regard to Mind Uploading."

Randal Koene: "Group Admin The author is Sim Bamford, a long-time friend who's been active in the area of neural prosthesis. Check out his other papers."

Greg Nixon: "One thing about this article I think is mistaken is that it ignores human developmental stages. Of course we need contact with others to develop language and an objective view of ourselves (see G. H. Mead) & become a cultural being. In fact, primary intersubjectivity or primary empathy may be all that's needed to be aware of other minds: we experience others (especially primary caregivers) before we learn to consciously recognize ourselves. (No need for "mind-reading".) BUT this is early development. Once we merge our objective self image with our embodied experiencing, we become a self (a self-process, really), a self among selves, that will change considerably throughout life yet maintain continuity of identity. The "others" we needed for our initial development become to a large extent internalized in our inner monologues (which are often really dialogues). Because of this, we can, as mentioned elsewhere, carry on a conversation with a volleyball l we've named Wilson. Point being we no longer need the same actual others to maintain our self-identity. In life, people move to new locations, divorce, get locked up, or otherwise undergo major changes in social circumstances, yet they still have essential continuity in their personal sense of identity. SO, though I agree with the importance of social construction, I disagree that, after maturity, we need continuity in actual social circumstances & relational others to maintain self-identity. Mind-uploading may continue its research w/o feeling the need to upload an identity and all its attendant social links & settings."

Abstract

Humans have long wondered whether they can survive the death of their physical bodies. Some people now look to technology as a means by which this might occur, using terms such 'whole brain emulation', 'mind uploading', and 'substrate independent minds' to describe a set of hypothetical procedures for transferring or emulating the functioning of a human mind on a synthetic substrate. There has been much debate about the philosophical implications of such procedures for personal survival. Most participants to that debate assume that the continuation of identity is an objective fact that can be revealed by scientific enquiry or rational debate. We bring into this debate a perspective that has so far been neglected: that personal identities are in large part social constructs. Consequently, to enable a particular identity to survive the transference process, it is not sufficient to settle age-old philosophical questions about the nature of identity. It is also necessary to maintain certain networks of interaction between the synthetic person and its social environment, and sustain a collective belief in the persistence of identity. We defend this position by using the example of the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhist tradition and identify technological procedures that could increase the credibility of personal continuity between biological and artificial substrates.

Source

Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 24, Numbers 11-12, 2017, pp. 6-30(25)

Buy Whole Article $18.27 plus tax on ingentaconnect.com here.