Definition virtual machine: a system which takes a set of data/things/objects and evolves it.
Example 1: math: take an equation or such and evolve it into all the truths that can be derived from it.
Example 2: circuits: take a circuit diagram, and evolve all the outputs given inputs.
Example 3: code: take some code in some programming language, and derived all data structures as the code is executed.
Example 4, and my point: take the states in a brain, and evolve its future states aka thoughts and actions.
All those can run on a variety of hardware, at least in principle. For example, math can run on my brain, your brain, and Mathematica.
It makes sense to think of a human mind as the set of objects that evolve on top of some kind of virtual machine. Right now, we only have some strange wet, neurally-connected substrate for it that dies easily and takes years of training. But it is fraying at the edges: Facebook is augmenting.
It won’t be too long until minds will stop being locked into the hardware they were born with, and are able to migrate somewhere else.
You can’t even begin to imagine the power plays. Infanticide? That’s childs play.
This is certainly going to happen before 2100.
After that: roaming minds. On a substrate, which has the mother of all power plays built into it.
How does a mind compete against a body? All minds against all bodies? Who wins? Sometimes? Always?
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