A New Uploading

Genesis, PART ONE, VII.

"A new uploading gave a new Brannock..." (p. 84)

"Immediately after an uploading, the two information-patterns of his basic self were essentially identical." (p. 85)

A brain contains information and is conscious with a self whereas a book or a computer contains information but is unconscious and has no self. We can say, e.g., "This book refers to itself...," but this means only that the subject and object of the sentence are identical, not that they refer to a subject of consciousness. Thus, the transference of an "information-pattern" does not necessarily entail the transference of consciousness. However, we are to understand that, in this case, consciousness is transferred. The new Brannock is "...eager to go." (p. 84)

The Brannocks:

"...existed not in short-lived, vulnerable flesh, but in enduring molecules and in data flows, complex energy exchanges..." (p. 85)

Flesh, molecules, data and energy can exist either with or without consciousness. "Data" is ambiguous. Sense-data are conscious. Digital data recorded in a binary code is unconscious although it is recorded and accessed by conscious beings.

Can inorganic molecules, data flows and energy exchanges be made conscious?