I had some further musing during the night a couple of nights ago,
that I'd thought I'd share. Let me ask the question:
If someone offered you a replacement mechanical brain which the
surgeons guarantees would emulate your current brain state perfectly,
would you take up the offer?
Douglas Adams considers this possibility in a light way in
"Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy", where the mice (aka
hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings) offer to buy Arthur Dent's
brain, offering a replacement brain.
Of course, if you accept Bruno's COMP principle, then you may very
well take up the offer, if there's something in it for you. But
there's a catch. Noone can prove that the person that went into the
operation is the same person who comes out. Sure the person coming out
has the same memories, the same personality etc - from a 3rd person
point of view is the same - but what's to say the the person going in
who's old brain has been destroyed hasn't consigned themselves to
oblivion?
If you only believed in a single track universe, I think this is
tantamount to asking someone to commit suicide on the bet that a
better afterlife awaits for them.
However, in the Multiverse, its equivalent to asking someone to commit
quantum suicide. At least there will be a future life of some sort,
even if its not with the shiny new brain. One would want to carefully
check out the likely outcomes of the operation should the transplant
fail, but so long as these are OK, presumably it would be safe to
proceed.
Much the same sort of considerations apply before stepping into Bruno's
teleportation device at Brussels...
Cheers
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A/Prof Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile)
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (")
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
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Received on Wed Jun 19 2002 - 16:48:44 PDT