18 replies to this topic

[A941]

In 2002 Back in the old forum (i dont know if these threads are still available) I and Michael Anissimov have had a lengthy discussion about uploading.
My viewpoint was that if you upload yourself to, for example, a clone body, a robot or something else, you still would die if your original body dies, because there is no continuity between your original body and the 2nd one, because it is just a copy, you would still experience death, and because you are the one for whom it matters uploading would be a bad deal.

BUT (IMHO) if the substrate* on which your software is running, if i may put it that simple, is exchanged gradually with you beeing alive through the whole process, continuity is not destroyed and dieing in this way avoided.

What do you people think about uploading and/or my thoughts on it?
Is Michael Anissimov here(reading this posting) and wants something to ad?








*Something more durable than your gray/white matter

[Clifford Greenblatt]

From what I recall, the Moravec procedure was proposed with the idea that a person would remain conscious throughout the uploading process from organic brain to new substrate for the mind. I think it is intended to ensure that the uploaded person is the same as the original person throughout the process by continuity of conscious experience. I do not believe continuity of conscious experience is essential to assurance of same personhood. We are not at all aware that we had any conscious experiences during times of dreamless sleep or unconsciousness. The crucial question is that of whether there is something about conscious experience itself, rather than the person's physical makeup, that is truly essential to the matter of personhood. I have treated this issue in a peer reviewed paper, which is in the final stages of editing. I am hoping the paper will be published by December, though there have been a number of delays in the publication queue.

[A941]

-If this upload process would work that way it may avoid the problem but i have my doubts.
-We may not be fully aware during dreamless sleep, but this state can barely be compared with being recreated on another hardware (independently).
What ever, I would like to read that paper when it is done.
Thank you for your posting.

[N.T.M.]

I've often thought the same thing. Still, though, relative to the other body you'd still be alive, and with perceived continuity. From this you could easily argue that you dying would be no more significant than a copy of yourself dying, which, somehow, seems more palatable. It's funny to support something so adamantly when there's no logical basis for it.

Edited by N.T.M., 27 October 2013 - 12:18 AM.

[A941]

It's funny to support something so adamantly when there's no logical basis for it.

Do you mean my stance on it (you die even if there is a copy), or the other position (you live on in your copy)?

With all this in mind i would prefer a solution through biotechnology/nanotechnology instead of being uploaded... as the puppetmaster from Ghost in the Shell said "A copy is just a copy.".

[Clifford Greenblatt]

-If this upload process would work that way it may avoid the problem but i have my doubts.
-We may not be fully aware during dreamless sleep, but this state can barely be compared with being recreated on another hardware (independently).
What ever, I would like to read that paper when it is done.
Thank you for your posting.

A dreamless sleep would be a period of time without conscious experience, unless it is really present and totally forgotten. Something much more significant to the question of person preservation would be changes in a person's mind over a very long period of time. We could compare the following two things.
1. How closely do the mental states of the new system approximate the mental states of the brain prior to the upload?
2. How much have a person's mental states changed from the start to the end of a very long period of time in the person's life?
From a physical perspective, it would appear that a sufficiently comprehensive upload of mental states would preserve the person much better from the start to the end of the upload process than natural biological processes would from the start to the end of a very long period of time in the person's life. My paper discusses how the physical perspective may fail to account for the true nature of personhood. I'll plan to inform you of the publication, whenever it may occur.

[revenant]

Agreed, it would of course be nice if our physical bodies could be maintained in an animated and relatively static state of non decline until it became possible (incrementally or not) to transform into a more robust form. Though I would take a trapped and glitchy copy of consciousness, even after being frozen, over oblivion.

[N.T.M.]

It's funny to support something so adamantly when there's no logical basis for it.

Do you mean my stance on it (you die even if there is a copy), or the other position (you live on in your copy)?

With all this in mind i would prefer a solution through biotechnology/nanotechnology instead of being uploaded... as the puppetmaster from Ghost in the Shell said "A copy is just a copy.".

I was referring to a perspective bias. Although there's no objective difference between you dying and your clone living or the reverse, I know that you (and me) would prefer that the clone be the one to die.

[A941]

Although there's no objective difference between you dying

Yes there is no objective difference, but a subjective, and that matters a lot, maybe it is all that matters.
If my clone dies i wouldnt feel any change, but if I die i disappear and experience death (if this could be called an experience), and i see no reason for us to pursue the creation of clones which will live 10k years if we still kick the bucket.
If there would be a continuity of consciousness we might be able to build such things, if we could replace our biological brain through a more durable one without shutting it up.

Offtopic: Maybe it would even be possible to create two people from one persons brain by simply taking apart the original and adding the needed rest. As far as i know our personality is spread over booth hemispheres. Crazy thought isnt it?

[N.T.M.]

Although there's no objective difference between you dying

Yes there is no objective difference, but a subjective, and that matters a lot, maybe it is all that matters.

I agree completely.

[etizsupplyusa.com]

From what I recall, the Moravec procedure was proposed with the idea that a person would remain conscious throughout the uploading process from organic brain to new substrate for the mind. I think it is intended to ensure that the uploaded person is the same as the original person throughout the process by continuity of conscious experience. I do not believe continuity of conscious experience is essential to assurance of same personhood. We are not at all aware that we had any conscious experiences during times of dreamless sleep or unconsciousness. The crucial question is that of whether there is something about conscious experience itself, rather than the person's physical makeup, that is truly essential to the matter of personhood. I have treated this issue in a peer reviewed paper, which is in the final stages of editing. I am hoping the paper will be published by December, though there have been a number of delays in the publication queue.

While I am not sure I agree with this perspective, it is very interesting. Could you link a draft of its paper? Or if your worried about people stealing it pm it too me (hell I'd even sign a non-disclosure before you do this, I'm just interested in reading it).

It reminds me of Ray Kurzweil's "patternist" viewpoint of consciousness, which he discusses in "The Singularity is Near"


Thanks-

Bill at etizsupplyusa.com

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Hello Bill,

Thank you for your interest in my paper. I do not yet have the editor's comments, but he indicated he will be suggesting many changes to such things as the organisation of the paper, although the basic argument will not change. It would probably be best to make the paper available when it has been revised to the editor's satisfaction, which should then be very close to the publication date anyway. The editor emailed me that he was planning for a November publication, but I would guess January given the history of delays. I plan to provide a link when it becomes available, but I do not think it would be good to provide any advanced copies.

-Clifford Greenblatt

[Clifford Greenblatt]

While I am not sure I agree with this perspective, it is very interesting. Could you link a draft of its paper? Or if your worried about people stealing it pm it too me (hell I'd even sign a non-disclosure before you do this, I'm just interested in reading it).

It reminds me of Ray Kurzweil's "patternist" viewpoint of consciousness, which he discusses in "The Singularity is Near"


Thanks-

Bill at etizsupplyusa.com

There was a long delay, due to the loss of Jeff Lucas, who was the publisher's President-Treasurer, but the article is finally published. The article can be accessed at http://infidels.org/...sonal-soul.html

Edited by Clifford Greenblatt, 06 March 2014 - 11:58 PM.

[A941]

Any one else who wants to give us his/her views on the topic?

[addx]

My idea is that existence is realised subjectively through an "awareness" of conscious experience. Conscious experience is behavior towards a goal that belongs to a recognized context/moment (both of which the person is conscious). Conscious experience is bound to corporal senses. Awareness is bound to conscious experience and is able to compare two conscious experiences that were experienced. Awareness is only able to inhibit a context by dispelling it using a previous conscious experience and relating them(this results from proper integration of experience). The way this relation is done is probably the most "magical"(subjective) part of the human thinking apparatus.

Anyway, loss of awareness is explained by people as "I was out of myself when doing that". It happens in dire situations(mother saving child or friends saving friend) when the context(dire conditions) is so strong it completely shutdowns its top down controller - the awareness and this results in uninhibited(context demanded) conscious behavior. The people that endure such moments clearly remember what they've done and can probably demonstrate that what they've done was not insane but in accordance and consciousness of the surrounding elements. So, what was "out of the person" at that time? The awareness.

"The awareness" is identified by meny mental disciplines such as buddhism, also psychological/psychiatrical disciplines. Most importantly I identified it as the last evolved part of the brain (vmPFC) providing humans "individuality" or the ability to choose and discard contexts(aproach/avoidance learning) that induce conscious behavior(contexts in which the self has a desire or a fear causing behavior - this is identified by buddhism correctly). The last evolved part, as all evolved parts of the brain is a top-down controller of the previously evolved part - the mammalian consciousness - PFC. Nature evolves "better control" so awareness evolutionary point is to realise that while a behavior in a context results in sucesss, the long term effect of such successes is ultimately self-defeating(the awareness should interrupt such self-defeat scenarios). Awareness point is to remove "bugs" that are inherent by only having consciousness which are obvious in lower mammalian life forms whom we deem "stupid" or "unaware" while in fact they are unable to mentally exit or step out of their context(of being a rat for example). Difference between rats and us is not a number on the IQ scale, its more that we have an extra circuit that enables more thinking procedures/abilities.

Consciousness can be easily demonstrated by SNC. Only mammals respond to incetive successive negative contrast meaning - mammals are DISAPPOINTED by a reduced reward. A rat will be frustrated and refuse to drink 8% sucrose water after trying 32%. I'm not sure if anyone used this to prove what consciousness actually is but it makes sense to me.

Consciousness is a second layer. It knows the subconscious goal(it is always projected outward to be resolved in the external) and consciousness works to achieve it by "consciously responding/adapting to unexpected within the context or anticipating the expected within the context". So, "the context" is all there is for conscioussness.

Awareness is a third layer - it allows seeing consciousness do its thing from the outside. This enables acting, humor, lieing, choosing your group, pretending to be a part of the group. It enables you to see the context not through the consciousness of it but through an awareness of it and in doing so you can see yourself as part of the context, a mere object playing a role. The ability to see yourself as a puppet on strings of contexts gives you ability to perceive your existence and choose your individuality.

So, the key to keeping a person "subjectively alive" is to have its awareness fed by conscious experience. Conscious experience itself is a sublimation of senses and their interpretation. So, I would suggest expanding the conscious experience with artifical additions(a chip+sensors hooked into the brain, an interface) and allow the awarenesss to include and learn awareness of this artificial addition to the conscious experience. Then, one can begin gradually removing the corporal originators of experience and in the end be left only with the artificial addition "pushing experience" towards awareness. The awareness has thus remained experiencing something for the whole time, gradually moving to a new kind of experience.

The biggest issue is that corporal originators of experience also provide the motivation to repeat it or simply do it. The motivation is in fact the contexts that produce conscious goal directed behavior. The awareness only inhibits so thus without a context that causes behavior the awareness can just sit there and contemplate(as buddha does).
This means that whatever we're replacing consciousness with is supposed to have inbuilt schemas for inducing or learning goal directed behavior if we're to continue "behaving" rather than just contemplating. In corporal nature this is done via "emotions"(motivators) that punish and reward. How does this translate into the "digital ether" and how would we conclude what is to be punished and what rewarded when one is in the form of a digital or artifical entity? Would you submit to such a conviction of a man made device providing intrinsic judgement(emotions) for motivation?

Anyway, even if this is achieved we're still left with "organic awareness" that has not been transfered into something artificial and durable but rather everything leading up to it is replaced by artifical parts. I am not sure we can move beyond that point in continuity. The awarenes needs to cease in order to be trasnferred and when it awakens it will function but the question of it being the same subjective field of awareness is probably the most difficult question in the world.

Edited by addx, 16 April 2014 - 04:54 PM.

[Gareth]

Addx, thank you for your post. The neuroscietific information seems quite insightful, and I appreciate your analysis of awareness and consciousness.

 

 

I have considered this philosophical problem before. Personally, I would much rather go through this "Moravec procedure" (i.e. gradual uploading while awake) than have my mind simply copied and then destroyed. In fact, I feel that whether one truly dies in such a copy-then-destroy process is itself subjective; therefore, I feel that the answer to the problem necessarily varies between people.

[addx]

I thought about this after I answered as something was still bothering me, had to wait for it to become clear.


As said, people can lose their awareness and act only with their consciousness, usually in dire situations. So it seems awareness can be ceased and restarted.

It seems the ability of awareness and consciousness to "resume" depends on all the memory/objecting relating schemas that are learned to simply exist. You turn them on, they immediately get access to all the memory schemas ands and simply resume functioning. This happens when exiting comas as well. So if we consider to resume our existence in those cases it should be possible.

It should also be possible to clone it as well. It seems both should simply feel as if they were the old you.

I do believe our inability to "intuitively" accept this to be a "sure thing" comes from our standard inability to imagine our own cease of existence. You can not imagine a situation that you can not experience and "cease of existence" is most importantly "cease of awareness of existence" so the "awareness" mechanism can never actually be "aware"(and take notes of experience) while at the same time also be "off". This inability makes us imagine the afterlife because we can't imagine stopping to exist. People invent stuff from heaven to hell to simply eternal darkness in a coffin, but ceasing of existence can only be imagined as a non-emotional, non-intuitive, non-subjective fact.

Same thing is with infinity. The lower level senses can never experience infinity, they can not *see* an infinite length(there is always only a finite part visible), they can not experience infinite time. Brain patterns that "remember" dimension sizes and relate them to each other are not capable of processing "infinity" and relating it to non infinite dimension sizes or using infinity in any "intuitive" thinking (like the one that says 1+1=2, the ones that form mathematical axioms which are intuitive). So such things can not be computed except by devising a system(mathematical) that works with infinities(and making that system workable/operetable by the brain) and submitting to it.

[Layberinthius]

Yeah sure you can trick the human brain to believe practically almost anything, just take a look at fanatical religion.

 

But, do you really want to become 100% computer?

 

You are human at the moment, during the moment of transfer from biological to synthetic you may not be aware of it, but you could very well end up recoiling in fear and shock horror after the fact after your human brain dies and you reach the point of no return.

 

Infact without a strong cocktail of "digital" drugs I wouldn't be suprised if most receipients of an upload to a mainframe and/or personal computer will do the same thing.

 

This is why I'm hesitant to signing up to Alcor.

 

I believe in the complete augmentation of the human brain, with a second voice in your head, much like many various forms of Sci-Fi has previously demonstrated, an augmented human brain is entirely possible and is infact already here, think of the iPhone and Siri.

 

Its just not as quick as we need it to be and not connected directly to our brains.

 

Fact of the matter is, we will be very quickly obsolete if we don't augment our mathematic, logic, and memory sections of our brain with solid state logic circuits.

 

Our councious mind is who we are, everything else is disposable.

 

Reason #1:

To me there is no point to uploading yourself 100% of the way to a computer, except to augment your current brain with the support that an information system can provide the current human brain and/or for redundancy. I have solved this with a personal and private mediawiki on a heavily redundant (and backed up) server. Everything that I consider to be very personal and useful to know is in there.

 

Reason #2:

There will be a reason to maintain a biological brain for various personal reasons, most of all the people who believe in a spirit will want to remain biological, and hey its only human to want to remain biological. And it will be impossible for a very long period of time to replicate the exact nature of a human mind too. if we are computers we can easily modify our thoughts and feelings at the whim of our councious mind, so therefore we are no longer a limited human being, so therefore we will become little emperors capable of undergoing extreme amounts of torture and being able to shrug it off, this is unfair to other people, to other brains which refuse to upgrade, so there will need to be a method of levelling the playing field.

 

Reason #3:

There is no point to replacing the human brain as we will be able to reinvent its pathways to make them more resilient to damage and disease, more resilient to stress and invent addons which will provide the processing power that we need, a simple $50 calculator from the 1980s for example tapped into the human brain would provide the processing power equal to an autistic savant.

 

I personally believe that there will be a form of control from government (if there is still going to be government) which will licence or restrict the ownership of brainpower. Each civilian is born with a certian level of augmentation with the use of electronics, as that person then becomes a larger part of society, a larger piece of the pie is given to them.

 

No doubt there will be people living permanently on other planets in our solar system by then. I think we should probably stop using that as a benchmark sometime soon.

 

IMHO there will be a cultural shift towards thinking of people who are 100% uploaded to be "Ghosts in the machine" and people who are still biological will be the only ones who think it as this way, the "souls" which live in cyberspace will see another person as just another aspect of their reality of their existence. But one thing is certian, for quite a few hundred or thousand years, people will be considered to be lesser than a pure biological entity if they are 100% uploaded and 100% uploaded people will consider people to still be biological to be lesser than that of a soul or digital entity. or to borrow from Gibson a "Cyberspirit".

 

I personally want a capsule made from pure nickel or stainless steel 1 inch thick to protect my biological human brain, with nanobots to maintain and repair the brain, everything else however is either plugged into a computer or is a physical part of an exoskeleton in the real world.

 

I haven't decided yet upon the capsule material as there is many factors to consider, it probably won't be my descision to make.

Edited by Layberinthius, 21 April 2014 - 10:44 AM.

[addx]

I do agree that cyberizing ourselves is much more realistic than full upload. I do infact think that biological immortality is in fact more realistic than full upload.

Although I have no aspiration towards augmenting my brain or cyberizing myself. I'd like to rest, I've spent too many hours busy thinking. If my brain gets unlimited thought controlled access to all data of humanity I'll go into a stupor of mania.

I don't think brain augmentation is necessary. Just think star trek -> Tools. Tools don't have to be attached. Captn. picard just says "computer - cross reference the database of this with that and calculate the best way to do that". The computer hears him and does what he says. I can't really see how anyone would want such a service in an implant(that's gets full access to your brain and you don't understand the first thing about how it works) rather than in a separate-from-body device. For example just think of malfunction issues. You take the device to service. If it is an implant then you need to "malfunction with it" to service, if you can make it. Since its wired into your brain, you may not be able to think at all if its malfunctioning.

All you need is a really smart android to do your bidding and immortality (lets say an advanced sick-bay capsule or something you visit each day and it induces or performs repair/maintainence) and you're good to go. People have always needed slaves. It's a result of evolution. The weaker serve. It makes them want to get stronger. And it makes bad masters fall and good masters evolve the civilization.

If the sick-bay capsule thing is governemnt controlled I can imagine scenarios of "buying life time" as in that movie where people have a limited time to live displayed on devices on their hands and the "time" represents currency, the only currency. People litteraly pay with their life.

Turning yourself into a computer is simply self-objectifying. The idea is to "subjectify" yourself so "tools" do your bidding.

Edited by addx, 25 April 2014 - 03:23 PM.