After you mind-upload...
Nihilated 27 May 2008
or
Would it be like an afterlife where you may or may not remember your old life, but the main thing is that you can indulge in any kind of pleasures and play around with new powers?
For me, I lean towards the "afterlife" scenario.
Live Forever 27 May 2008
Nihilated 27 May 2008
None of the options really make sense for me, at least for most traditional mind uploading scenarios. (the whole brain "copy" vs brain "move" debate) The uploaded being will be increasingly divergent from the un-uploaded being ("you") as time goes on. It won't be "you" in the strictest sense of the term experiencing the post-upload reality. Of course, if you mean something more along the lines of a brain move (mind transfer, or whatever phrase you want to use) instead of the classic mind upload, then the poll would make more sense to me.
That wasn't what I was actually asking. I'm asking what you would do with your life assuming that it is possible to upload your mind and retain your self.
Ben Simon 27 May 2008
That wasn't what I was actually asking. I'm asking what you would do with your life assuming that it is possible to upload your mind and retain your self.
Wait... but if you retain your 'self' would that not include memories? What definition of self are we operating with here?
I would lean towards thinking that whatever new creation our uploaded mind would end up being, memories would be one of the easiest items of the self to maintain. The pathways of the brain seem to me to be potentially transferable. What would be more difficult I'd wager would be replicating the way the brain interacts with the rest of our biology, be it our hormones, our sexuality, hunger, spacial relations, all five senses, etcetera. ...This complex series of relationships would seem very important to self hood as well.
As for what I would hope for? I am confident that at some point, with enough changes, you are not you anymore. I don't drink alcohol for this very reason, viewing drunkenness as a negation of the self by way of manipulating brain chemistry. So my preference would be for a completely successful copy which retains all elements of the self entirely, even though I think this might prove almost impossible. From there we might go about refining a few things... eliminating obstacles to what we might think of as our 'fully realised selves', if we were so inclined, but I would proceed with caution.
forever freedom 28 May 2008
Uploading myself, or getting to any other safe harbor (even a completely perfected SENS where we don't age anymore would do it) is my ultimate goal. After that, i plan on changing my life completely, since my main drives and goals will also have changed. I will become more hedonistic and become, at least for a certain period of time, very, very, useless lazy ass style. Like if uploaded i would spend years just playing MMORPGs (that would be really fun once we are the ones in there), then maybe partying (or whatever equivalent there will be by that time), then i would HAVE to go lone wolf in the middle of the woods or mountains for a few years.... and i got some other stuff that i wanna do like spending years just fallying in love for different women and enjoying those silly love games.
When you think about all that you would do if you had enough time, it's really dumb that we only have 80 years on average. I mean, that can't even get us warmed up.... there are just so many things to do.
affinity 28 May 2008
Under the assumption it were just an artificial means of consciousness I imagine I would be more aggressive (Active and Eventful).
affinity 28 May 2008
TianZi 03 Aug 2008
Frankly, it's absurd to consider this a path to true immortality, except to the extent you consider preserving a copy of yourself to give you some semblance of immortality. And if this is how you achieve "immortality", you might as well look for that "immortality" through the passage of your genes to your descendants.
lunarsolarpower 18 Sep 2008
Uploading myself, or getting to any other safe harbor (even a completely perfected SENS where we don't age anymore would do it) is my ultimate goal.
...
I will become more hedonistic and become, at least for a certain period of time, very, very, useless lazy ass style.
I don't think you're realizing the possibilities that become available once you've digitized yourself. You could simply divide yourself in two assigning a more driven version constructive "noble" goals and allowing your other "inner child" to run amok in the digital realm. Thus you wouldn't be losing any time at either endeavor. And lest someone suggest this is taking advantage of the digital realm in an unfair way, think about people who undergo hemispherectomies. You already have two different versions of yourself with different skill sets running in parallel inside your head. Obviously they've been joined at the hip long enough that each might require a bit of additional hardware to get up to speed and be fully functional in its own.
lunarsolarpower 18 Sep 2008
Would you consent to merging your mind with everyone else's?
That depends if it's heavenly or dystopian or somewhere in the middle. Is joining Myspace or Facebook or Twitter an act of merging your mind with others?
platypus 19 Sep 2008
forever freedom 19 Sep 2008
Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Vogons have already uploaded our minds onto their computers on planet Vogsphere. What's our benefit?
If we're still here (and not just in a simulation), then they just made copies of us, then it wouldn't matter. My idea of a simulation/mind uploading is not making a copy of me, but to transfer my consciousness to a computer. Unless the copy of me shared the same consciousness as the "me" that stayed in my real body. Then it would be as lunarsolarpower suggested, which is ok to me.
Edited by sam988, 19 September 2008 - 07:48 PM.
Mixter 19 Sep 2008
Egan's Permutation City is a must read, although he's actually slightly too pessimistic for me in the end.
Heliotrope 19 Sep 2008
Unsure, but hopefully my consciousness survives and I get to do more living.
of course, i'd like personal immortality and not just containuation of a copy of me. there're other ways to try and i wouldn't bet on this technology. but would use it as a last resort if mind-transferring matures and really pans out, as the process shouldn't destroy my original body anyway, why not try? it'd be the next-best-thing, but there's gotta be better ways, like totally Biological Immortality first before a physical computerized data immortality.
to above post, yeah i'd try to get permutation city when i've got time. I read a novel: The Footprints of God by Greg Iles that deals with this issue too.
i'm fairly confident Homo sapiens will evolve to some form of highly enhanced transhuman , meta-human , post-human god or whatever and be near real immortality, not "immortality" in the seemingly crude technology of copied brain
Edited by HYP86, 20 September 2008 - 12:11 AM.
Mixter 20 Sep 2008
time that a conscious being can leave behind. IMO, there is no I,
but survival of the pattern of the mind. How- and wherever this exact
pattern is run, it will feel like I.
This is proven as long as you have a scientific world view. Of course it's not if
you believe in something 'higher' than matter, or that biology can not be explained,
or only explained by quantum level activity. I once thought so, thinking Penrose's
idea that synaptic microtubules are quantum systems make sense -- but if brain
activity depended on it, it would be much too disruptible! You can survive a head
traume or be hit by a lightning in which all brain cells are disrupted -- and still be you.
There is no real continuity of consciousness through time, just continuity of your neural
pattern on a molecular scale -- and disruption or change on the scale of some organelles will
not eradicate the I, because awakening after anesthesia, or just deep sleep after
a night of heavy drinking, you're still you. IF neural quantum action exists, then only the
immediate perception of "I" in every moment, but if so, this perception changes every
femtosecond, so it is not a permanent "you".).
Since everything else can be mapped by cellular processes, although these are not at
all understood by us yet, a mind-upload with a resolution somewhere between 5-200
Angstrom and a fully functional cell emulation (even if some repetitive operations present
in all cells are not computed for every cell, etc.), MUST lead to a replication of "I-ness"
if the scientific world view is largely correct.
In the consequence you could slow yourself down or speed yourself up relative to actual
time, given the computation power, and you could make copies, which would basically
ALL be you -- just eventually diverging through different actions, but nonetheless you, like
in a parallel world perhaps best imaginable like in the sci-fi series "Sliders". This will lead
to scary consequences and uncomfortable facts, but objectively seen, it's just a reality
given the scientific worldview holds, and it's even now, before any of this technology exists.
Nova 22 Sep 2008
That who does not trust in immortality of a body it will be obligatory to believe in God sooner or later.
Luna 22 Sep 2008
At the person the brain reboots every night in a dream. In the morning we wake up the same people.
That who does not trust in immortality of a body it will be obligatory to believe in God sooner or later.
No.. a person does not reboot every night, the person's body and brain are all functioning, you simply have slower phase of thoughts, lower senses activity and perform some tasks such as memory cleaning.
Shannon Vyff 30 Sep 2008
So, bring it on--I'm not letting worry of how thing might be, get in the way of being a signed cryonicist, or supporting A.I., A.G.I., Singularity, Evo Devo, Transhumanism--etc. What will be, will be. I just hope I get to see some of it, even if it is all vastly different than what we currently expect. (finding out we are a simulation, or that one of the religions is right, or we get contact with other life forms and decide to stay in our solar system with terra-forming and then solar system manipulation, or one of a myriad of dystopic ideas, etc.)
RighteousReason 30 Sep 2008
this sounds kind of neurotic. whether uploaded or not, ideally one would work in harmony ... with one's self.Uploading myself, or getting to any other safe harbor (even a completely perfected SENS where we don't age anymore would do it) is my ultimate goal.
...
I will become more hedonistic and become, at least for a certain period of time, very, very, useless lazy ass style.
I don't think you're realizing the possibilities that become available once you've digitized yourself. You could simply divide yourself in two assigning a more driven version constructive "noble" goals and allowing your other "inner child" to run amok in the digital realm. Thus you wouldn't be losing any time at either endeavor. And lest someone suggest this is taking advantage of the digital realm in an unfair way, think about people who undergo hemispherectomies. You already have two different versions of yourself with different skill sets running in parallel inside your head. Obviously they've been joined at the hip long enough that each might require a bit of additional hardware to get up to speed and be fully functional in its own.
RighteousReason 30 Sep 2008
I knew this would inevitably come up- now to smash it to miserable smithereensI didn't vote at all. It's simply a copy of your consciousness. "Download" it (somehow; never mind the particulars for this hypothetical exercise) into a biological or other construct, including a clone of your own body, and it is not "you", it is a copy of you. This is illustrated by the simple fact that you and your copy could co-exist.
Frankly, it's absurd to consider this a path to true immortality, except to the extent you consider preserving a copy of yourself to give you some semblance of immortality. And if this is how you achieve "immortality", you might as well look for that "immortality" through the passage of your genes to your descendants.
To use Eliezer's thought exercise... imagine replacing one neuron at a time (or if you are really picky, use a lower scale) with a totally functionally equivalent non-biological component (doing so with the understanding that you replace all the atoms and molecules in your body constantly, so nothing fundamentally different or special is occuring). If you imagine doing it over a long period of time, you would continue thinking, remembering, and behaving as your usual conscious self after any given neuron is replaced. Use the process of induction here- once you have replaced all of the neurons, you are still exactly the same, yet totally digital. Now compress the time component so that everything happens in one instant. There you have it- you have uploaded from a biological to a computational substrate, without losing anything whatsoever.
So taking your argument to the logical conclusion, you would be saying that anytime we lose a particular atom or molecule that we *totally die*, because to replace just one atom with a different one would be a "copy", and thus not technically 'you'. There is your absurdity my friend.
Believe me- there is nothing supernatural about that lump of carbon between your ears (although I can certainly understand calling it magical or mystical in a purely romantic, non-literal sense).
Edited by Savage, 30 September 2008 - 03:16 AM.
RighteousReason 03 Oct 2008
I knew this would inevitably come up- now to smash it to miserable smithereensI didn't vote at all. It's simply a copy of your consciousness. "Download" it (somehow; never mind the particulars for this hypothetical exercise) into a biological or other construct, including a clone of your own body, and it is not "you", it is a copy of you. This is illustrated by the simple fact that you and your copy could co-exist.
Frankly, it's absurd to consider this a path to true immortality, except to the extent you consider preserving a copy of yourself to give you some semblance of immortality. And if this is how you achieve "immortality", you might as well look for that "immortality" through the passage of your genes to your descendants.
To use Eliezer's thought exercise... imagine replacing one neuron at a time (or if you are really picky, use a lower scale) with a totally functionally equivalent non-biological component (doing so with the understanding that you replace all the atoms and molecules in your body constantly, so nothing fundamentally different or special is occuring). If you imagine doing it over a long period of time, you would continue thinking, remembering, and behaving as your usual conscious self after any given neuron is replaced. Use the process of induction here- once you have replaced all of the neurons, you are still exactly the same, yet totally digital. Now compress the time component so that everything happens in one instant. There you have it- you have uploaded from a biological to a computational substrate, without losing anything whatsoever.
So taking your argument to the logical conclusion, you would be saying that anytime we lose a particular atom or molecule that we *totally die*, because to replace just one atom with a different one would be a "copy", and thus not technically 'you'. There is your absurdity my friend.
Believe me- there is nothing supernatural about that lump of carbon between your ears (although I can certainly understand calling it magical or mystical in a purely romantic, non-literal sense).
"But I am not an object. I am not a noun, I am an adjective. I am the way matter behaves when it is organized in a John K Clark-ish way. At the present time only one chunk of matter in the universe behaves that way; someday that could change."
-- John K Clark
from Eliezer Yudkowsky at OvercomingBias.com
Edited by Savage, 04 October 2008 - 06:36 PM.
Shannon Vyff 05 Oct 2008
RighteousReason 08 Oct 2008
Well, once you have all that stuff replaced with artificial components, you could stick a wireless reciever in your head and just run everything from a giant remote server somewhere.I was referring more so to uploading and things of that nature, rather then replacing your brain with artificial neurons, which would in no way seperate the body from the mind.
In regards to that comment though, I do not see how replacing all the neurons in your brain makes it digital in any way.... artificial yes, but how is it digital? You just have a brain that is not made of biological components(a reasonable proposal though, a good idea for treating very neural dissorters, ranging from brain damage to tumors).
Also to make artificial neurons that could connect up/substitute for the biological neurons they would have to be fundamentally similar to the biological neurons their replacing, ei carbon based, same physical, chemical, and electrical makeup. Therefore wouldn't they have the same inherent problems and break down in a similar faction and require constant replacement? All material breaks down over time, admittedly some more then others.
I don't know if you have ever used something like SSH, but basically its like opening a command prompt on your home computer from a remote computer. You can use that remote shell to interface with your home operating system, but you can export whatever code you are running to a remote location.
Though I do agree with your basic point that this kind of stuff is too shocking to approach rationally for most people.
See Future Shock Levels.
DukeNukem 09 Oct 2008
Edited by DukeNukem, 09 October 2008 - 03:20 PM.
immortal7 10 Oct 2008
Savage: I think Yudkowsky should ponder http://en.wikipedia....ee-body_problem The idea of piece replacement presumes that reactivity of parts is a nonthing
right now, there is no known way to say if three separately moving objects will truly collide at the same time, thus simulating a neuron with billions of atoms moving at the same time with hundreds of thousands or millions of neurotransmitter molecules each being a little piece of potentially meaningful transmitted pattern is ...to simulate
I can both multiply as well as divide, yet I could build a mechanism from water baloons that also multiplies n divides The baloon calculator n I would be different yet yield the same results when asked about division
thus most replacement parts upload scenarios are a continuum between "chinese box AI" <------------> an actual person
the Yudkowsky argument is that a calculus like zeno convergence is a proof, yet the wikipedia things says convergence has actually been eliminated (kind of) as a proof of the 3 body problem
there remains much room to upload though, If a persons physiological brain just sort of kept growing additional hemispheres which thought as well as said they were full persons when separated I would tend to believe the budded humans were conscious
Also I think there is room amongst the atoms of a physical brain to create a connectivity neural network grid such that If a bunch of progenitor neurocytes were dumped on the grid, which kind of makes me think of an aerogel with quantum dots neural network that simulates seven 9s everything the actual person would "say" or "do" the actual fresh neurocytes would arrange to complement the data grid, the artificial brain would say there was a There there but it might still be a p-zombie
actually you could have a person with cm sized chunks of their brain networked at a few meters each, moving each cm sized chunk. Then asking the person if there was still a There there might yield areas of criticality plus build up a database where if we found out that say with two thirds of connected across a gap brain chunks the person reported there was a There there then that would give a likeliness ratio to such things as neurocyte goop on a computational gel
with physics, if Plancks constant is modified kind of like with the Asimov story where they shrink atoms then travel through a human body then each atom could be surrounded with replacement atoms as well as computational linkages; since shrunken atoms as well as normal atoms would have a different light cone the three body problem criticism of atom replacement might be skipped as swapping atoms might be outside the light cone of normal sized atom atom nteractions
actually, if I were to upload I would be concerned about the effect on other people, would it be my duty to create a P-zombie version that brought out the greatest "moral" development as well as greatest happiness among There there others I mean if you create P-zombie duplicates you can be kind to street people all day as there is no destination as the P-zombie is already absence of thereness
RighteousReason 10 Oct 2008
If I saved/uploaded a copy of my complete mental self, it wouldn't change a thing for me. I cannot stress this enough. My copy basically becomes a new person over time. It's just another person wondering the Earth, not too unlike a twin, which are nearly exact clones at birth, but then become different people over time as they grow up. There is no continued life for me if I'm slammed by a bus and my copy continues. And frankly, that's all I care about -- my continued existence, not a copy's.
I, me, my
"But I am not an object. I am not a noun, I am an adjective. I am the way matter behaves when it is organized in a John K Clark-ish way. At the present time only one chunk of matter in the universe behaves that way; someday that could change."
-- John K Clark
although I can't say I don't share your "yuck" reaction, this is a fundamental philosophical hurdle.
suppose your full brain state was backed up upon each molecular operation. when you get hit by a bus and revived, how would that not be you?
see below about zombies before posting an objection, if you have one.. otherwise, do you agree?
Edited by Savage, 10 October 2008 - 12:19 AM.
RighteousReason 10 Oct 2008
http://upload.wikime..._Lazy_Jones.ogg as well as
Savage: I think Yudkowsky should ponder http://en.wikipedia....ee-body_problem The idea of piece replacement presumes that reactivity of parts is a nonthing
right now, there is no known way to say if three separately moving objects will truly collide at the same time, thus simulating a neuron with billions of atoms moving at the same time with hundreds of thousands or millions of neurotransmitter molecules each being a little piece of potentially meaningful transmitted pattern is ...to simulate
I can both multiply as well as divide, yet I could build a mechanism from water baloons that also multiplies n divides The baloon calculator n I would be different yet yield the same results when asked about division
thus most replacement parts upload scenarios are a continuum between "chinese box AI" <------------> an actual person
the Yudkowsky argument is that a calculus like zeno convergence is a proof, yet the wikipedia things says convergence has actually been eliminated (kind of) as a proof of the 3 body problem
there remains much room to upload though, If a persons physiological brain just sort of kept growing additional hemispheres which thought as well as said they were full persons when separated I would tend to believe the budded humans were conscious
Also I think there is room amongst the atoms of a physical brain to create a connectivity neural network grid such that If a bunch of progenitor neurocytes were dumped on the grid, which kind of makes me think of an aerogel with quantum dots neural network that simulates seven 9s everything the actual person would "say" or "do" the actual fresh neurocytes would arrange to complement the data grid, the artificial brain would say there was a There there but it might still be a p-zombie
actually you could have a person with cm sized chunks of their brain networked at a few meters each, moving each cm sized chunk. Then asking the person if there was still a There there might yield areas of criticality plus build up a database where if we found out that say with two thirds of connected across a gap brain chunks the person reported there was a There there then that would give a likeliness ratio to such things as neurocyte goop on a computational gel
with physics, if Plancks constant is modified kind of like with the Asimov story where they shrink atoms then travel through a human body then each atom could be surrounded with replacement atoms as well as computational linkages; since shrunken atoms as well as normal atoms would have a different light cone the three body problem criticism of atom replacement might be skipped as swapping atoms might be outside the light cone of normal sized atom atom nteractions
actually, if I were to upload I would be concerned about the effect on other people, would it be my duty to create a P-zombie version that brought out the greatest "moral" development as well as greatest happiness among There there others I mean if you create P-zombie duplicates you can be kind to street people all day as there is no destination as the P-zombie is already absence of thereness
As for the zombies, see this: http://www.overcomin...04/zombies.html
I think this is your particular fundamental philosophical hurdle.
RighteousReason 10 Oct 2008
uploading - still you or just a copy?
This thread already exists. I have copied stuff over there. Please move the conversation accordingly.
http://www.imminst.o...showtopic=22841
TianZi 01 Nov 2008
The mere fact that a clone + a "download" of a snap shot of my mind could result in two (or a thousand) of "me" walking around simultaneously demonstrates that the copy simply isn't the real me.
Mind uploads are not an avenue to true immortality anymore than cloning would be.
There has never been a "mind upload". There is no evidence that a mental blueprint of a person's mind stored in electronic form, if such a thing ever becomes possible, would share consciousness with the original person from whom the blueprint was made. And without shared consciousness, that mental blueprint is only a copy.
(edited by Matthias: 3 inappropriate posts from Savage and 2 responses from TianZi deleted. Posts p=274231 & p=275252 merged)
Edited by Matthias, 05 November 2008 - 11:59 AM.