Topic: Value Uploading

Camp: Agreement / no option

Camp Statement History

Not Live
Statement : This camp believes that it is not possible to load the mind into a computer. The possibility of uploading your mind derives from the computational functionalist metaphor that likens the mind to software running on the brain as hardware. This is mere analogy as the brain is very different in composition and operation from a computer.
You may object that, given substantial technical advances, it will be possible to simulate the human brain on a computer. indeed, the Blue Brain project ( has achieved at least the first step towards this goal. The point is that this is simulation and not the system being simulated (compare a map to the territory mapped). A simulation of the sun may accurately describe the conversion of hydrogen into helium but neither these gases nor the fusion process are present in the computer. Similarly, a future simulation of your brain may faithfully reproduce the changes relevant to your thinking but it is only in your brain that the thinking is happening: there is nothing of the kind going on in the computer.

Edit summary : First Version
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Submitter Nick Name : richwil
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