Let us say there is a quality that makes you “you.” It is what distinguishes you from me. Evidence is starting to suggest that the difference is mostly one of bandwidth, but that is irrelevant. It is reasonably obvious from human aesthetics and philosophy that we do not experience qualia in the exact same way as each other, and so we do not “stand in the same place.” So, you are you and I am me and never the twain shall meet unless we do some complicated neuroscience. This division creates something we might call continuity of experience, and most notably, separate ones.
Now, a common objection against uploading and similar possible technologies is that your continuity of experience is not transferred...
Your information, whether the recording is destructive or not, “wakes up” on this new substrate. This new being might be you in every way, we might copy you down to the last molecule, but then those two look at each other, and because there is only weak, noisy bandwidth between their brains (eyes, ears, etc.), they have different continuities. So this continuity is something that is not your brain’s connectome -- not simply your information -- that makes you into “you.” Given prior history on this conversation, we might call this a “soul,” for it is something that makes up your personal identity that is not identical to your brain.
This objection suggests uploading needs to be a more complicated process if we want to preserve our continuity of experience -- our “soul” -- through the transfer. There’s lots of arguments about how this can be done and whether that matters and so on and so forth, but suffice to say it is a major stumbling block in transhumanism.
Here’s my problem:
If my lover dies, and I want them back, I don’t care if it’s them or a copy of them. The person will be the same in all respects save one I will not experience. I will grieve that their “soul” has been lost, and I will feel empathy for the departed, but if you give me the option to perfectly copy them, if you give me back all the moments of joy and happiness I was hoping to have with them, I will smash the button, unless their last will directs me otherwise. Likewise, the world can benefit from certain individuals being preserved and recreated in this way, even if their “soul” has gone. Because we know we are in a physical universe made of physical things, if this copy is indeed flawless, then aside from the resources spent, the difference between bringing them back and them continuing to live is one we cannot taste, as it were. If we decide that, say, Stephen Hawking has not finished his life’s work yet, a work we consider important, and we have a copy of his connectome, we might well decide to restore him from backup in the event of his tragic demise.
For you, your death under this scheme would be a loss, absolutely. I do not wish for anyone to die. But for everyone else, restoring you -- even if it is “just” a copy of you -- is a gain. A gain of a person they were happy to see, who they miss in absence, who they want to love and laugh with. A person who others might reckon was more important than they thought themselves.
So...
What does your soul matter, anyways?
I don’t want anyone to die, but... I don’t want anyone to be alone, either.
