Searle's Wager

Journal article

Nicholas Agar has recently argued that it would be irrational for future human beings to choose to radically enhance themselves by uploading their minds onto computers. Utilizing Searle’s argument that machines cannot think, he claims that uploading might entail death. He grants that Searle’s argument is controversial, but he claims, so long as there is a non-zero probability that uploading entails death, uploading is irrational. I argue that Agar’s argument, like Pascal’s wager on which it i...

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Authors: Levy, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Journal: AI & SOCIETY Journal website
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 363-369
• Publication date: 2011-11-01
• Language: English
• Keywords: Radical enhancement; Searle; Uploading; Probability; Agar; Consciousness
• Subjects: Ethics of the biosciences; Philosophy; Ethics (Moral philosophy); Practical ethics