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Welcome To Life

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Re: Welcome To Life

#51

Post by entropyneur »

sodiumphosphate wrote: post #36

While it does make for some entertaining fiction, and may provide some benefits to the living, I do not believe that 'uploading' is a desirable experience. In fact, I don't believe that one can experience it at all. Imagine the procedure (for a conscious person): your brain is connected to a computer interface and a copy of your mind is taken. Great. Now there is a digital copy of your mind. So what? You still get to…

This was my favorite subject for a while and I arrived to a similar idea of transformation, except without nanobots: the computer becomes a continuation of your brain and then your biological brain is gradually killed cell-by-cell.

However, the idea that you still get to die after backup is based on an assumptions that I don't find neither obvious nor true: that the stream of consciousness is fully continuous and never stops. I've recently seen a documentary about a guy who was declared brain dead and yet recovered into being himself again. So it might still be possible to "upload" a dead brain in which case your experience is that of a resurrection which doesn't sound so bad.

Re: Welcome To Life

#52

Post by oskarth »

sodiumphosphate wrote: post #36

While it does make for some entertaining fiction, and may provide some benefits to the living, I do not believe that 'uploading' is a desirable experience. In fact, I don't believe that one can experience it at all. Imagine the procedure (for a conscious person): your brain is connected to a computer interface and a copy of your mind is taken. Great. Now there is a digital copy of your mind. So what? You still get to…

I agree that human metamorphosis is extremely interesting, but this line I really don't get:

> Consciousness is mortally bound to the physical body, and will die along with it regardless of how many mental copies are made.

I don't understand how you can put out a statement like that, like it's taken for granted or something. It's far from granted, and I've never heard of something remotely approaching a proof for this type of assertion. To my mind it's the same kind of reasoning which proved we would never fly, nor go to space.

It's an open problem. Please keep it that way until we know more.

We don't have the proper tools to understand consciousness in a scientific way yet (consider the extremely limitations of EEG and MRI) For those interested in this philosophical question, there's an area called Philosophy of Mind [0] which deals with this and related questions.

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind

Re: Welcome To Life

#53

Post by ericb »

maxerickson wrote: post #50
ericb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly . It baffles me that even very smart people can't see this bug. If it can theoretically exist separately while you are alive, it can't be you. For example, if You and Digital You (tm) were alive at the same time, I could put you in one room, and Digital You in another, and smash Digital You without You having any idea. You could live your whole life not knowing if Digital You was "alive." Whatever your defini…

In "Altered Carbon", a character that has lived for hundreds of years destroys an instance of his self in order to prevent the upload of a mind virus into a backup copy of his self. In doing so, he loses a few days of experience. Is that situation utterly contrived because he destroyed his mind, or are you insisting on a limited definition of self? (Let's set aside the part where there is mind replicating technology…

I view self as an instance of an object.

Re: Welcome To Life

#54

Post by pbw »

sodiumphosphate wrote: post #36

While it does make for some entertaining fiction, and may provide some benefits to the living, I do not believe that 'uploading' is a desirable experience. In fact, I don't believe that one can experience it at all. Imagine the procedure (for a conscious person): your brain is connected to a computer interface and a copy of your mind is taken. Great. Now there is a digital copy of your mind. So what? You still get to…

> Great. Now there is a digital copy of your mind. So what? You still get to die.

You get to do both. The concept of "you" changes once there is a copy, see the Ship of Theseus [1]. Each post-you entity has a legitimate claim to being pre-you. The copy woke up that morning, ate your breakfeast, went to the uploading clinic, and went to sleep as a digital being. The copy has perfect continuity. The biological you on the other hand stayed biological and will die.

A gradual replacement doesn't change the fundamentals, the biological you has to die. The gradual replacement just makes for an unusual twilight, its mind commingled with an arising digital being.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Re: Welcome To Life

#55

Post by ericb »

JonnieCache wrote: post #39
ericb wrote: post #35

I'm not excited about this future. Whatever is uploaded isn't me, it is merely like me--a copy. Anything that is theoretically capable of running while I'm still alive is just a copy--it isn't me .

What makes you so sure of that? What is the important difference between the copy and you, assuming that they behave identically? How much "like" you would a copy have to be before it caused you ontological distress?

It isn't about degree of similarity.

If I don't have access to their mental state, they are not me. I think I am like an instance of an object, and my identity is related to my path through space and time. To be me, they'd have to be standing where I stand, and have stood where I stood.

A 100% copy of the mona lisa is still not the mona lisa--it lacks the history.

Re: Welcome To Life

#56

Post by ericb »

dmbass wrote: post #45
ericb wrote: post #35

I'm not excited about this future. Whatever is uploaded isn't me, it is merely like me--a copy. Anything that is theoretically capable of running while I'm still alive is just a copy--it isn't me .

The "copy" becomes the "real" you because it has extended life. Both you and the "copy" consider yourselves to be the "real one" (or maybe you accept the coexistence), but you are going to die and the copies will live forever. You think: "That copy isn't me, ericb!" * dies * Copy thinks: "Great! I, ericb, just got a new lease on life!"

That is great for the copy, but not helpful for me. Death of my consciousness can't inflict a new identity on the copy. The copy is a copy--he's awesome, just like me, but not me because I am dead.

Re: Welcome To Life

#58

Post by sovok »

sodiumphosphate wrote: post #36

While it does make for some entertaining fiction, and may provide some benefits to the living, I do not believe that 'uploading' is a desirable experience. In fact, I don't believe that one can experience it at all. Imagine the procedure (for a conscious person): your brain is connected to a computer interface and a copy of your mind is taken. Great. Now there is a digital copy of your mind. So what? You still get to…

> I want to inject nanorobots into my body which will transform it gradually, cell by cell into an improved synthetic one. In this way, immortality and superhumanity can be achieved without loss of continuity.

Just last night I thought about this and went to sleep in despair :>

If someone scans my brain, builds an artificial copy, instantly cuts out my brain and inserts the new one, I clearly die (because I got my brain/me cut out) and my copy lives on. From the outside, I'm the same, but the first me died.

So instead, I get my neurons replaced with artificial ones, one at a time. If I drink a few beers, brain cells die but I'm still conscious. So gradually replacing my neurons one by one should be no problem; there clearly is no loss of continuity, I'm still me.

But what's the difference? Let's assume one neuron is replaced every second. No problem, nice and gradual. What if it's one every millisecond, every picosecond? Should make no difference, because it's still one by one. But, the faster you do it, the more it approaches "instant". And instantly replacing all my brain cells is the same as replacing my whole brain. Thus, I'm dead and my copy lives on...

Re: Welcome To Life

#59

Post by ajdecon »

dmbass wrote: post #45
ericb wrote: post #35

I'm not excited about this future. Whatever is uploaded isn't me, it is merely like me--a copy. Anything that is theoretically capable of running while I'm still alive is just a copy--it isn't me .

The "copy" becomes the "real" you because it has extended life. Both you and the "copy" consider yourselves to be the "real one" (or maybe you accept the coexistence), but you are going to die and the copies will live forever. You think: "That copy isn't me, ericb!" * dies * Copy thinks: "Great! I, ericb, just got a new lease on life!"

True, but in that case, the motivation for having a copy in the first place gets a lot lower.

It isn't immortality. At most it's another version you create so your friends and family don't have to give you up. Which I can see being pretty motivating... but on the other hand, I can see the friends and family being totally unwilling to have a meaningful relationship with a second, slightly-diverged person after the first one died. And then the copy would be lonely. :-(

Re: Welcome To Life

#60

Post by stephengillie »

Rhapso wrote: post #44
sodiumphosphate wrote: post #36

While it does make for some entertaining fiction, and may provide some benefits to the living, I do not believe that 'uploading' is a desirable experience. In fact, I don't believe that one can experience it at all. Imagine the procedure (for a conscious person): your brain is connected to a computer interface and a copy of your mind is taken. Great. Now there is a digital copy of your mind. So what? You still get to…

this goes back to the ages old problem of, "In Star Trek, the transporter killed you every time" We have this almost social idea of Body Continuity. As long as there is the same body the entire time you are still you and still "alive". A scarier truth is that all it takes is a decent change to how you brain is structured (bullet, railroad spike, fork through the skull) and you can very suddenly for all intents and pu…

One example from history (railroad spike through the head in 1848); https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Phineas_Gage
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