75 replies to this topic

[drus]

this topic has been done a few times, but it's always interesting to philosophize about. i for one am of the belief that from an existential 1st person perspective your copy is not you, but at the same time it is you in a manner of speaking. your existential 1st person experience of consciouness cannot be in 2 places at once. our memories do not define who we are as human beings. at our most fundamental and basic level we are all just pure raw sentient consciousness. as you live, you gain knowledge and experience and form memories. your reactions, interactions (with your environment, particular set of life circumstances and people associations), relationships and choices will carve out a perceived identity to which you identify 'yourself' with, but in truth none of it can really be called 'you'. your dna forms your physical structure, brain included, consciousness is a self emergent property of your brain, it is this very basic raw sentient consciousness that is the 'true self'. it is choice and relationship that matter more than memory, in my opinion. memory only serves as a bridge to the past (and is likely an evolutionary survival mechanism of the brain/body), it is the choices you make and the relationships you form that will define 'you' far more than your memories. this can be a tuff concept for most people to grasp because most people fall victim to the illusion of 'ego generated self'. i have found personally in life that only negative things are experienced through the ego self, all the best things in life come from the realization of the 'true self'. with the exception of slight genetic variance, all people in a sense are the same. your environment and even your genes serve to limit the realization and expression of your true self, it's a catch22 sort of lol, probably nature's little joke! your copy will be a seperate individual from an existential 1st person experiential 'true self' viewpoint imo.

[Oliver_R]

Either way I won't personally upload until I'm sure that I'll come out as me on the other side. I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to be stupid about it and I don't want to be one of them.

I agree. I am still not covinced that if you just copy your brain contents (and then the original dies or is destroyed? - of there are two of you?) then that counts as still "you" - it is a real philosophical conundrum though, especially if we think of the mind as software and the brain as hardware - since there is not really any way to say that a copied piece of computer software is any different from the original.


I think the copy is akin to a twin - more than just a normal biological identical twin, because not only does the "twin" share your body structure but it also shares your memories etc, but there would still be a break of consciousness and from the moment the twin is created then experiences would diverge again.

I agree with Vgamer that somehow interfacing with a computer and then destroying the biological part and then uploading the mind to a new body, might work.

However if continuity of consciouness is the key then we lose that every night when we go to sleep.. is that different from my consciousness being copied and put into a new body with no continuity? But somehow it is the fact that the consciouness awakes in the same physical space that makes it seem like it's still "me'" I guess. The same issue would apply to being revived from cryostasis.

The film The Prestige had an interesting take on this whole area [spoilers] - there was a stage magician who made use of a machine that teleported him - or seemed to... to another part of the theatre -- in fact it was duplicating him and only one "him" was teleported to another part of the theatre, the other dropped through a trapdoor in the stage and was drowned in a water tank. We never really know whether it is the original who dies or not - and neither does the magician, who continues to do it for the sake of his fame... as whether the telported one is the original or not, they both share the same copied memories.

It's a real conundrum. I guess we don't know enough yet about consciousness to really tease out the facts here properly

[Vgamer1]

However if continuity of consciouness is the key then we lose that every night when we go to sleep.. is that different from my consciousness being copied and put into a new body with no continuity? But somehow it is the fact that the consciouness awakes in the same physical space that makes it seem like it's still "me'" I guess. The same issue would apply to being revived from cryostasis.

My comment on this is that when we sleep, we don't have a "break" or "discontinuity" of consciousness. On some level you are still having experiences (dreams), although you may not remember most of those experiences upon waking.

[Oliver_R]

However if continuity of consciouness is the key then we lose that every night when we go to sleep.. is that different from my consciousness being copied and put into a new body with no continuity? But somehow it is the fact that the consciouness awakes in the same physical space that makes it seem like it's still "me'" I guess. The same issue would apply to being revived from cryostasis.

My comment on this is that when we sleep, we don't have a "break" or "discontinuity" of consciousness. On some level you are still having experiences (dreams), although you may not remember most of those experiences upon waking.

true, but is there any evidence they are totally continuous? Are there not perhaps moments where we are experiencing nothing at all? Hard to say, I guess. By the way , talking of dreams, they are a rather interesting of a form of virtual reality aren't they? One that nature/evolution has managed to come up with -- we are seperated off from input from outside and our minds create new experiences in our inner world instead. Clever stuff

Edited by orlando, 28 September 2009 - 09:04 PM.

[Vgamer1]

true, but is there any evidence they are totally continuous? Are there not perhaps moments where we are experiencing nothing at all? Hard to say, I guess

Yes, very hard to say. There is no evidence. Kind of a scary thought... maybe that's where faith comes in for us transhumanists.

[Vgamer1]

We are looking for the answer, yet we don't know it. It comforts us to believe that we don't die every night, so we believe it. At least I do.

[Oliver_R]

We are looking for the answer, yet we don't know it. It comforts us to believe that we don't die every night, so we believe it. At least I do.

Yes. I won't want to go to bed now, and it's 11.08 here

PS did you read my edit about dreams? When you think about it they really are very like the kind of super-advanced VR Kurzweil imagines in the future, where nanobots shut off all external signals and generate new virtual experiences to replace them

Edited by orlando, 28 September 2009 - 09:11 PM.

[Vgamer1]

I didn't read your edit until just now.

You are correct in a way. I'm assuming you've heard of lucid dreaming?

Edited by Vgamer1, 28 September 2009 - 09:14 PM.

[Oliver_R]

I didn't read your edit until just now.

You are correct in a way. I'm assuming you've heard of lucid dreaming?

yes, heard of it. Not experienced it though - as far as I remember. Simpler than the nanobot version I guess!

[Oliver_R]

anyhow, should go to bed now... g'night

[Vgamer1]

yes, heard of it. Not experienced it though - as far as I remember. Simpler than the nanobot version I guess!

I've experienced it basically on accident a couple times. It's pretty much awesomeness. I just wish I could do it at will.

There are ways to help induce lucid dreaming. One of the toughest things is to not get too excited and wake up...

I've done that a couple times and it can be frustrating.

[Oliver_R]

Sounds interesting. Yes, I have read about methods, but not really tried hard.

[Vgamer1]

Sounds interesting. Yes, I have read about methods, but not really tried hard.

Want to skype or gtalk sometime?

[Oliver_R]

Sounds interesting. Yes, I have read about methods, but not really tried hard.

Want to skype or gtalk sometime?

yes, why not? Just try me sometime. Hope you had a nice meal yesterday. See you around

[Oliver_R]

your copy will be a seperate individual from an existential 1st person experiential 'true self' viewpoint imo.

Interesting philosophical ponderings Drus. What you say sounds reasonable. I guess we will know more though when we understand better what consciousness is.

I suppose "I" am not just my memories, as you say, - for a start most of them are in storage and not being used at any one time. My sense of "I" is as you say, more of an immediate thing.

[Taelr]

Orlando,

true, but is there any evidence they are totally continuous? Are there not perhaps moments where we are experiencing nothing at all? Hard to say, I guess. By the way , talking of dreams, they are a rather interesting of a form of virtual reality aren't they? One that nature/evolution has managed to come up with -- we are seperated off from input from outside and our minds create new experiences in our inner world instead. Clever stuff

All of these things are not confusing when you realize that you are your brain. You are not something seperate. Let's start with sleep and dreams. Why do we do either? Sleep must be important for us to be essentially unconscious and unaware for a signficent time to offset predatory dangers that would have been around us in ancient times. Most animals sleep to some extent although many with smaller brains seem to not to take any signficant time or just nap for seconds at a time - their survival depends on being alert all the time.

Sleep and dreaming are closely associated with the synapses in the brain. These are the trillions of connections between neurons (some 200 billion of them). While we could think of the neurons as being essentialy electrical the synapses are not. The synapses are primarily protein that is consumed as signals are passed between neurons. These proteins are being replaced constantly but while we are awake the amount of neural activity and consumption far outweighs our ability to re-fuel. You feel this depletion in the form of tiredness. If you were to attempt to stay awake for excessive periods then you would likely die as the brain would cease to become operable. Hence sleep - that period when brain activity stuts down and allows the synapses to regenerate. So what is dreaming? The problem of messing with the synapses is that as they change/recharge they will cause some degree of neural firings, i.e. brain activity. Since these are somewhat random and as the brain has a wonderful technique of always trying to make some sense of everything then these firings become what you term as dreaming.

Note that the synapses are also the primary target for most of the recreational drugs, and nicotine, etc. Mess with the synapses and the brain does some strange things.

So back to uploading - for this to be meaningful the neural networks that comprise what is essentially you must be transferred to a processing engine that will reflect how the brain operates. If the process is accurate then the result will be a copy of you. And hopefully in a more resilient medium that does not require sleep and hence no dreaming.