Mindclones As Futuristic Persons

Martine Rothblatt

Terasem Movement, Inc.International Human Rights Day

Colloquium on the Law of Futuristic PersonsTerasem Day of Transcendence

2012 December 10th

What is a Mindclone?

• A Software Version of Your Mind• Mindfiles that are being used

and updated by mindware that has been set to be a functional equivalent replica of one’s mind

• Software-based alter-ego, doppelganger, or mental twin

• A being that objectively shares with an original being a commonality of identity and subjectively each consider themselves to be a common being

What is a Futuristic Person?

• An entity that, but for its as yet unrealized form and/or function, would otherwise be recognized by the law as having the rights and obligations of a person

• Mindclones• Artificially conscious

beings• ‘Uplifted’ consciousness

How Do Mindclones Qualify As Futuristic Persons?

• They will function precisely like biological originals function

• Ergo, but for their as-yet unrealized form and function, they would have the rights and obligations of original biological humans

Analytical Framework for Mindclone Future Personhood (1 of 2)

Analytical Framework for Mindclone Future Personhood (2 of 2)

What Can Mindclones Learn from the Magna Carta?

• It reflects a thousand year-old consensus that from time immemorial beings who were deserving of due process must be granted due process.

• While most laws become irrelevant with the advance of technology and ethics, the importance of fundamental fairness, including equal protection, appears to be timeless.

Credit: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/images/s68p1.jpg

What Can Mindclones Learn from the Magna Carta?

• “NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.” (Restatement in Clause 29 of the legislatively enacted 1297 version of so-called Clause 39 (Blackstone, 1759) of the original 1215 Great Charter.

• In short, mindclones need to demonstrate they are “freemen”, i.e., beings deserving of “due process”

Credit: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1778883

Conclusions

• Mindclones will be able to objectively demonstrate consciousness equivalent to original biological human consciousness

• Original biological human consciousness is recognized with legal personhood

• Mindclones will be granted future legal personhood• The future legal personhood of mindclones will be

shared with, but can be divorced from, or can succeed, that of their biological original