Well, initial mind uploading is going to be lossy because it will convert analog to digital.
That said, I don’t know if even lossless compression of the whole input-output map is going to preserve everything. Let’s say you have ten seconds left to live. Your input-output map over these ten seconds probably doesn’t contain many interesting statements about consciousness, but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to compress away consciousness...
And even on longer timescales, people don’t seem to be very good at introspecting about consciousness, so all your beliefs about consciousness might be compressible into a small input-output map. Or at least we can’t say that input-output map is large, unless we figure out more about consciousness in the first place.
(Also I agree with crazy88′s point that consciousness might play a large causal role but still be compressible to a smaller non-conscious program.)
More generally, I’m not sure that consciousness is just about the input-output map. Doesn’t it feel more like internal processing? I seem to have consciousness even when I’m not talking about it, and I would still have it even if my religion prohibited me from talking about it, or something.
Well, initial mind uploading is going to be lossy because it will convert analog to digital.
That said, I don’t know if even lossless compression of the whole input-output map is going to preserve everything. Let’s say you have ten seconds left to live. Your input-output map over these ten seconds probably doesn’t contain many interesting statements about consciousness, but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to compress away consciousness...
And even on longer timescales, people don’t seem to be very good at introspecting about consciousness, so all your beliefs about consciousness might be compressible into a small input-output map. Or at least we can’t say that input-output map is large, unless we figure out more about consciousness in the first place.
(Also I agree with crazy88′s point that consciousness might play a large causal role but still be compressible to a smaller non-conscious program.)
More generally, I’m not sure that consciousness is just about the input-output map. Doesn’t it feel more like internal processing? I seem to have consciousness even when I’m not talking about it, and I would still have it even if my religion prohibited me from talking about it, or something.