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A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

blog.brainpreservation.org

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Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#31

Post by SCHiM »

davidgerard wrote: post #30
SCHiM wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_thermodynamics_and_i... http://phys.org/news/2014-09-entropy-black-holes.html http://phys.org/news/2014-09-black-hole-thermodynamics.html Ben Crowell, phd in physics: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/83731/entropy-inc... The reason I didn't/don't back up those claims is because I'm really not knowledgeable about those subjects. I'm not sure what good sources are/how l…

None of your links support your claim that winding the clock back is even theoretically possible, and the stackexchange link seems to say it isn't: "The resolution is that entropy isn't a measure of the total information content of a system, it's a measure of the amount of hidden information, i.e., information that is inaccessible to macroscopic measurements." Even if you're assuming a physical God, that physical God…

I think that perhaps our views of the world are slight off-kilter/incompatible.

I agree with you that even godlike-AI must have an upper bound on what they can extract from a 'puddle of atoms'. It's obvious that given a handful of atoms it's not possible to predict what happened to a completely different bunch of atoms 5 billion years ago at the other side of the (observable) universe. That's also not what I'm claiming.

What I do claim is that, given enough smarts, it's possible to do this to a bunch of molecules present in the brain-goo.

I'm assuming here that whatever it is that makes the brain 'tick' is located on the molecular level, and not a lower level.

As to your claim of being able to 'turn back time', don't we do this all the time?

If we look at the link we've both referenced, say we had two pictures of the last milliseconds of the book falling, and we knew the exact time between when these pictures were taken then we can turn back the time right? We know exactly how/when/where the book was if we can interpret those pictures.

In a similar way, the information about the locations of the molecules in the 'brain goo' is available to a 'sufficiently advanced AI'. Thus what I'm arguing is that this is not information that is 'lost' in the way that we've been discussing so far.

Therefore it's also not 'magic' when people refer to such AI, because when they do they have this in mind. Not some law-bending/breaking super godlike-ai, but rather a system with the resources needed to stitch together the complete video from the last two images.

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#32

Post by jessaustin »

vidarh wrote: post #28
ttty wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please add a load balancer too. I hope we can have an interface like amazon ec2, but for brains

That would have been a somewhat less ridiculous explanation for The Matrix. "Oh, those vats full of humans? They're our neural network cloud".

Yes, and considering that The Fall of Hyperion was published in 1990, that scenario should have been obvious to the Wachowskis.

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#33

Post by hvs »

maaku wrote: post #6

Note that this approach should be compared with cryonics, which attempts to vitrify the brain and preserve it in a glass-like state at liquid nitrogen temperatures: http://www.alcor.org/ Personally I have some reservations about the plastination approach to personal longevity. Depending on your philosophical views on the nature of consciousness, it may be that under this procedure you would die and cease to exist, wh…

Buddhism has some interesting views on the nature of consciousness and "selfness". I think this is an interesting opportunity to think about what being "you" really means.

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#34

Post by davidgerard »

SCHiM wrote: post #31
davidgerard wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of your links support your claim that winding the clock back is even theoretically possible, and the stackexchange link seems to say it isn't: "The resolution is that entropy isn't a measure of the total information content of a system, it's a measure of the amount of hidden information, i.e., information that is inaccessible to macroscopic measurements." Even if you're assuming a physical God, that physical God…

I think that perhaps our views of the world are slight off-kilter/incompatible. I agree with you that even godlike-AI must have an upper bound on what they can extract from a 'puddle of atoms'. It's obvious that given a handful of atoms it's not possible to predict what happened to a completely different bunch of atoms 5 billion years ago at the other side of the (observable) universe. That's also not what I'm claimi…

> I think that perhaps our views of the world are slight off-kilter/incompatible.

Yeah, possibly. I blame LessWrong fatigue. It's an entire site made of handwavy claims that, no matter how far you trace back through the links, never quite actually get backed up. So I tend to be harsh on similar claims, particularly when they appear to be from that sphere (judging by the buzzword "sufficiently advanced AI", which is in practice used to put forward outlandish claims and then try to reverse the burden of proof).

I actually started reading the site because of a friend who was getting into cryonics. I'd hitherto been neutral-to-positive on the idea, but the more I investigated it the more I went "what the hell is this rubbish." (Writeup is at http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cryonics which is a very middling article, and is still about the best critical article available on the subject ...) The handwavy claims are endemic, quite a few rely on effective magic (actual answers from cryonicist: "But, nanobots!" or "sufficiently advanced AI") and it really is largely just ill-supported guff, even if I'm being super-charitable to the arguments. Extracting a disprovable claim is nearly bloody impossible itself.

> As to your claim of being able to 'turn back time', don't we do this all the time? >If we look at the link we've both referenced, say we had two pictures of the last milliseconds of the book falling, and we knew the exact time between when these pictures were taken then we can turn back the time right? We know exactly how/when/where the book was if we can interpret those pictures.

But we couldn't do that if the data had been destroyed. That's the claim way up there: the information is recoverable from the mashed-up goo. The two pictures have been destroyed, we have the book sitting on the floor, there's nothing to reconstruct the fall in sufficient detail.

I say this because whenever I've seen an actual neuroscientist who's been asked this sort of question (can we recover the information with a magic AI or whatever), they answer "wtf, no, it's been utterly trashed. No, not even in theory. You can't even measure it. It's been trashed utterly." The questioner usually comes back with "but if we use a SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED AI ..." i.e., if we let them assert their conclusion. And first they'd have to show you could measure stuff on the nanometre scale without messing it up. Let alone, e.g., reconstructing the precise locations of proteins in a cell after they've been denatured by cryoprotectant. Remember that it's a claim about physical reality that's being made here.

(A couple of examples, from scientists who would LOVE to be able to preserve and get back this information: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/8f4/neil_degrasse_tyson... http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/14/and-everyo... )

>In a similar way, the information about the locations of the molecules in the 'brain goo' is available to a 'sufficiently advanced AI'.

Remember that there is no way to distinguish two molecules of the same substance. You're requiring more information than can actually be measured (Heisenberg).

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#35

Post by jimrandomh »

danieltillett wrote: post #2

I am glad progress is being made here, but until we can avoid the destruction that occurs in the last 24 hours of expected death (eg cancer), or the damage that occurs with unexpected death (eg heart attack or trauma) from sitting at room temperature for hours after death, then all we are going to be preserving is grey mush.

I agree. But I also think this work (and future work like it) will help with that; having convincing proof that a preservation process works will make it easier to get obstacles to prompt preservation out of the way.

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#36

Post by maaku »

fallous wrote: post #15
sanoli wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, its very probably not the same. The brain doesn't shut off when you go to sleep. It keeps going, it keeps doing it's stuff, messing with memories, thoughts, all the bodily functions and a whole extra stuff that we don't know too well, but which probably still makes you you. Killing that brain and then simulating it somewhere else is not the same.

More importantly, does anyone suggest that running the original brain and the copy doesn't result in two separate diverged intellects? If running two results in separate consciousnesses then obviously they are not the same.

That's obvious to me, but I've learned that it's not obvious to everybody. It's an instance of the mind projection fallacy that your or I think that is a simple obvious truth but others think the opposite is just as intuitive. I sometimes wonder if different people have different experiences of consciousness and self-identity...

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#37

Post by maaku »

x1798DE wrote: post #16
fallous wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, does anyone suggest that running the original brain and the copy doesn't result in two separate diverged intellects? If running two results in separate consciousnesses then obviously they are not the same.

I don't think that follows. If "your" consciousness is just the consciousness that has a continuity of memory with a previous version of you, then the two copies would both be you, but they would not be one another.

Let's say that I a suitably advanced fMRI is developed that is able to map out the connectome non-destructively, I use this device on you to create a copy of your mental state, and then let you go about your day. At some point later I turn on a whole-brain simulation from this data. What do you, the you-that-walked-into-the-scanner expect to experience?

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#38

Post by aperrien »

sanoli wrote: post #10
danieltillett wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this the same as saying you are a different person every morning and that the person that went to sleep and the person that woke up are separate people?

No, its very probably not the same. The brain doesn't shut off when you go to sleep. It keeps going, it keeps doing it's stuff, messing with memories, thoughts, all the bodily functions and a whole extra stuff that we don't know too well, but which probably still makes you you. Killing that brain and then simulating it somewhere else is not the same.

What about what happens during hypothermia? Both during Cardiopulmonary bypass and cold water immersion, the brain is cooled enough that activity stops.

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#39

Post by Shorel »

maaku wrote: post #6

Note that this approach should be compared with cryonics, which attempts to vitrify the brain and preserve it in a glass-like state at liquid nitrogen temperatures: http://www.alcor.org/ Personally I have some reservations about the plastination approach to personal longevity. Depending on your philosophical views on the nature of consciousness, it may be that under this procedure you would die and cease to exist, wh…

What about the Ship of Theseus paradox applied to brains?

If you don't 'feel' your death but all parts in your brain are eventually replaced by 'equivalent' ones, are you still yourself?

Re: A major milestone has been reached in our Brain Preservation Prize

#40

Post by toomuchtodo »

ttty wrote: post #24
iLoch wrote: post #7

One step closer to me being able to spin up multiple instances of my brain to work on my side project and play video games with.

Please add a load balancer too. I hope we can have an interface like amazon ec2, but for brains

That postulates that everyone's brain is worth simulating.

In the beginning, only the most "valuable" neural mappings will be worth the computing time required to simulate them. And rights! Does a simulated neural network of a human being have the same rights as a human being? One couldn't argue that simply because the underlying processor is silicon-based instead of carbon-based rights are lost.

Many philosophical questions to answer.

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