But is that person based on my mind file, who migrates across many computational substrates and who outlives any particular thinking medium, really me? This consideration takes us back to the same questions of consciousness and identity that have been debated since Plato’s dialogues (which we examine in the next chapter). During the course of the twenty-first century these will not remain topics for polite philosophical debates but will have to be confronted as vital, practical, political, and legal issues.
