128 replies to this topic

[amordaad]

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your argument. If they are indeed capable of becoming different individuals, does that not make them different individuals in the first place?

I can not imagine that a real equality will take place for two individuals or even for an individual changing through the time . You are not even equal to the Kraemahz which you were right one minute ago ... but you are still Kraemahz ...
Ok let me ask you a question : You listen to a song on your tape recorder and some day you will go to a concert and by chance the same music will be played for you and you say Aha this is the song I listened some day ... " the same " ; but are these really the same ? Are these to playings really equal ?

[amordaad]

It is *my* soul and no one else's and as there is only one to go around then it can't exist in two places at once so one must be eliminated.

For Kraemahz and Lazarus :
What I called it a macro is not the TROPE you said ; Trope is a commun reaction to an idea but Macros are reactions ( may be commun ) that you do immediately hearing some special words not paying enough attention what really the speaker is trying to cofingure .
When I use the word "reincarnation" at once you say Ok he is a soul believer and so on . You can see the same reaction in Lazarus's reply . He feels that when I say the "original should be destroyed" I am refering to my belief about soul and that it could not be present at the same time in two places ... but as I try to find a method to be immortal I that I shoul not experience the death . So when I start my new life in the new body the old one should be destroyed thinking that he will be continuing to live in a new body and with this preparation in mind he will be ready to sleep calmly and then the process of COPY and PASTE will start , unless he will experience the death after a life.
So destroying the old body is for avoiding the death .

[amordaad]

Please everyone try and describe any tangible properties of the soul that are not coincident with how we describe the mind?

Lazarus , the reason I chose my current signature in such forums is based on this question you asked , and I think there is no tangible feature for the "soul" so I think that it does not exist. [thumb]

[Lazarus Long]

Lazarus , the reason I chose my current signature in such forums is based on this question you asked , and I think there is no tangible feature for the "soul" so I think that it does not exist. 

So is it fear or resentment that makes you require the elimination of the original copy of you?

Do people fear judgment from the one being that truly could be said to know you?

Is there a heretofore unknown property of space/time that you're appealing to like matter/antimatter to describe how the two could not coexist at the same point in time?

[Lazarus Long]

When I use the word "reincarnation" at once you say OK he is a soul believer and so on . You can see the same reaction in Lazarus's reply . He feels that when I say the "original should be destroyed" I am referring to my belief about soul and that it could not be present at the same time in two places ... but as I try to find a method to be immortal I that I should not experience the death.
So when I start my new life in the new body the old one should be destroyed thinking that he will be continuing to live in a new body and with this preparation in mind he will be ready to sleep calmly and then the process of COPY and PASTE will start , unless he will experience the death after a life.

So is it a form of grand deception that you are suggesting is required for the individual to retain their sanity?

So destroying the old body is for avoiding the death .

Actually this is contradictory and does not follow logically from your argument.

Amoradaad I also suspect that you have incorporated many macros and tropes into your definitions of self, as well as what constitutes the requisites of life. And I notice that you have been slipping between an obligatory condition of the process and implied necessity for continuation after the process. (should vs must)

One implies it is needed for the process to function and the other implies it is about making the result a better experience.

BTW I also should ask; do I understand you correctly to suggest that the original should not coexist with the copy because it may experience the death of the original (as traumatic) and so to prevent this you would destroy (kill) the original in the copying process?


Could two copies coexist?

[Infernity]

First- I have to mention I enjoy these supreme argues, with wise people who truly know what they're talking about and not like trying to explain to a hopeless lost case such as my class members which I have first to explain plenty of basic logics...

Now,

Amoradaad

And more , why you are trying to find the "exact" features in the Copy ? Let me ask you :
Are you the exact person of yesterday ?

To the first question- good one, I truly don't know.
To the second one- no I am not the exact same person. Well I am the same person, because I have no one else to compare it to, but assuming there was me AND the me whom has passed only till yesterday of my life- than we are different. So no, I am not exactly the same person.

Laz,
I have to say I enjoy your posts ) .

[kraemahz]

Laz,

For the soul thing: unspiritually, to me the difference between a 'soul' belief and the mind is that the soul is an indescribable object that defines a person and gives rise to their behavior, which cannot be dilluted. Actually, I really like Shiro Masamune's anime Ghost in the Shell (specifically the series Stand Alone Complex) for its soul discussion. Not because I think it's really correct but because it attempts reconcile a very old belief with the coming of a new technology (in Ghost in the Shell most of the characters have been "cyberized" which, among other things, allows them to communicate from mind to mind through wifi and hack a person's mind for information).

cosmos,

Thanks, I'll try to integrate some of the points brought up there into this discussion. Feel free to bring up points of contention yourself. I am for the most part a novice debator so this is proving an excellent opportunity for me to stretch my legs.

Amordaad,

I can not imagine that a real equality will take place for two individuals or even for an individual changing through the time . You are not even equal to the Kraemahz which you were right one minute ago ... but you are still Kraemahz ...
Ok let me ask you a question : You listen to a song on your tape recorder and some day you will go to a concert and by chance the same music will be played for you and you say Aha this is the song I listened some day ... " the same " ; but are these really the same ? Are these to playings really equal ?

Right, things change over time but are the same object because they experience continuity at all points of their existance. I am not the same person by a few skin cells and a few neurological reactions from five minutes ago, but because every single part of me with those few tiny changes has remained the same I am still fundamentally the same object and person.

However, this is not what you are describing. You are suggesting taking an entirely different piece of flesh that at no point was even in direct physical contact with me and imprinting the pattern of my mind upon it. The copy's existance does not affect me in the slightest, since you are maintaining that the copying process keeps the original intact during it. I am no different because of that copying than if I had never had it. There is nothing about my individuality that relies on that copy, it has in no way caused me to be who I am. Because of this, continuity is broken between me and the copy and we cease to be the same individual. Even if the copying process were to malfunction and I were to be damaged in the process but a perfect copy was made, that copy is not more me than me: we are seperate individuals. It is the copying process (the intervening data transfer) that damaged me, not the copy itself.

Essentially, what you are saying is that without back and forth communication a mind can exist as only data without structure and then be imprinted on another mind and the two are the same. Would you be arguing the same thing if that intervening data transfer involved you existing on a template that was incapable of thought? For instance: printing out all your quantum states and chemical structures onto a piece of paper. Let's say every piece of data to be transfered was instead printed out, and then your body was destroyed. Are you still alive in that piece of paper? Would burning it be killing you (as opposed to you having died when your body was destroyed)? Before you answer, keep in mind that it is possible to do the same thing with the paper as it is with this "copying process," that is, make a perfect duplicate body and mind.

[amordaad]

So is it fear or resentment that makes you require the elimination of the original copy of you?

Do people fear judgment from the one being that truly could be said to know you?

Is there a heretofore unknown property of space/time that you're appealing to like matter/antimatter to describe how the two could not coexist at the same point in time?

There is no fear and no resentment but a requirement ! I think in a point of time either the Copy and the Original may exist and many other copies may coexist with them and there is no limitatiotime=zero , they will be many different individuals any of them with his/her own unique position and as the time passes the differences will be more and more and more important is that all of them will die after a while AND WE DO NOT WANT THAT because I think we are lookink for immortality and trying to conquer death aren't we ? [lol]

[amar]

Or you could all just buy guns and shoot yourselves in the head with them. Then you will no longer have to worry about death.

Edited by amar, 07 March 2005 - 08:26 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

Where is the fun in that Amar?

Anyway who is worried?

Since it appears that you like the idea of such a game perhaps you would demonstrate how it's played and go first.

[Lazarus Long]

Actually all joking aside Amar isn't it obvious to you that it is not death that everybody here is concerned with but life instead?

Other than offering a sarcastic innuendo perhaps you could contribute a suggestion as to how to better fulfill that quest for life, rather than end it. )

[DJS]

Laz, I haven't taken the time to read this entire thread, but has anyone here brought up your *hive* or *collective* mind concept, where duplicates periodically merge/ reconcile their memories thereby becoming an integrated whole with multiple memories at any point in space/time? I find this idea, which you were the first to bring to my attention, fascinating -- and filled with a great deal of possibility.

[Lazarus Long]

No not yet but Kraemahz has come the closest.

[ocsrazor]

This is all pretty old hat territory, but I see it being rehashed so let me summarize the technical problems with this proposal.

[quote]amordaad
1 - First of all we should prepare a copy of the information in the brain .[/quote]

This is the single most difficult technical problem known to man. The human brain is the most complex physical system known to man. A true copy will require at the very least a positional map of all 100 trillion synapses in a brain (and possibly all dendritic spines as well, which is an even larger number). This is a staggeringly hyperastronimical number. Moreover, these connections change extremely rapidly and are in constant motion. This does not even begin to consider the dynamics you would have to reproduce. Then this would require extemely mature nanotechnology or a radical breakthrough in EM scanning technology to do the scan.

[quote]2 - Then a clean body with clean brain which is empty of any information should be dfeveloped in any way just like clonning , etc .[/quote]

The cloning bit is very doable and soon. A functional adult brain with no information is not possible ever though. Brains require sensory sitmulus to develop correctly. For example, people who are born blind never develop a visual cortex. If you did it biologically, you would need to start with an embryo and condition that brain exactly as the original's had been conditioned

[quote]3 - The information copied should be pasted in the new brain .[/quote]

This is not possible without full-on molecular assembler nanotechnology. To 'paste' information into a brain there are only two ways of getting the information in. One, you make the new brain experience everything the founder brain has experienced, in exactly the same order that the donor brain experienced. It can be accelerated somewhat, but not very much, making this method extremely time consuming. Two, you can restructure the connectivity of the brain using molecular nano, but remember, thats a least 100 trillion connections required to be structured. Even if you do this in an artificial substrate it still requires a system with at least the complexity of the human brain. We are talking mind-bogglingly immense (pun intended :D) amounts of computational power, data storage, and probably a healthy dose of artificial intelligence to carry out the process.

[quote]4 - Finally the old body and brain should be annihilated and the new one will be switched to work .[/quote][quote]

I wont jump into this argument which is already well underway


For the reasons stated above I believe full mind upload (or copy and paste as stated here) is one of the farthest endpoint technologies we can imagine and is unlikely to happen anytime in the near future. I find it quaint that after all the ttrouble of copying you would want to be put back into an organic brain. If you have the technological capability to do a full brain scan you will also have the ability to build extremely robust artificial brains which will very quickly exceed the capacity of a human brain and be much less susceptible to aging , disease, or injury.

What is likely soon though are brain enhancing technologies and gradual replacement of diseased or disfunctional tissues with neural prosthetics such as artificial sensory input. Also, through robust communication linkages to computer systems we will be able to rapidly structure an offline software system which mirrors our biological brains so that the artificial system beigns to mimic many of our behavioral responses

[ocsrazor]

Laz, I haven't taken the time to read this entire thread, but has anyone here brought up your *hive* or *collective* mind concept, where duplicates periodically merge/ reconcile their memories thereby becoming an integrated whole with multiple memories at any point in space/time?  I find this idea, which you were the first to bring to my attention, fascinating -- and filled with a great deal of possibility.

I also find the idea of linked minds extremely fascinating, even more so because I think an early stage of this is possible NOW with something along the lines of an implantable cell phone which I have proposed previously in great technical detail. I think this is an extremely interesting idea, the probable first killer app (pun intended) will probably be military/intel. DARPA will certainly be interested because of the ability to have small teams of special forces or intelligence agents communicate "telepathically" and be able to carry out highly coordinated missions. I am interested in this type of technology for my own reasons and would love to experiment with deeper connectivity between highly functional individuals.

Best,
Peter

[amar]

Well, change of one kind or another is inevitable, and the original can't be preserved like a robotic copy could, so I'm all for making a copy, but in all seriousness see no reason to destroy the original human. Transhumans can be immortal. Humans probably cannot.

[DJS]

Ocsrazor

I am interested in this type of technology for my own reasons and would love to experiment with deeper connectivity between highly functional individuals.

I also think it would be fascinating to connect with others -- especially if this connectivity could be developed into a sort of *file sharing* of information. (Yes, of course I realize that we are talking about tech that is still a ways off.) I must also admit, however, that the thought of such an intimate "connection" creates some hesitation on my part. Granting another individual access to one's mind is not something to be taken lightly.

[ocsrazor]

Initially Don I am only talking about enhancing communications to the point where your phone becomes a completely transparent technology, but as it progresses you would likely be able to consciously share information in more than one sensory modality. "File sharing" will not be possible for a looong time yet, i.e. letting someone else search your brain would require connectivity at many points across your entire cortex, where conscious output would only require a relatively small number of connections.

[Lazarus Long]

I don't have time right this moment to weigh in with more depth on the matter of developing Super-Consciousness but I want to thank you for raising it Don. I also want to thank Peter for fact checking-in here too.

This thread has been kind of a synopsis of previous discussions and I have to agree with Peter on most of what he has said but I have some suspicions about the communications issue that I will return to later that I suggest may represent a more profound opportunity for File Sharing sooner than he (who is far more expert than me) and most think currently possible.

He is a professional and should err on the side of a precise conservative analysis. I don't have such an obligation and so I am more free to speculate )

I do promise to come back later to this subject though.

[kraemahz]

Since we've gotten back on the whole pattern vs. continuity debate, I thought it was just about time to introduce my own theory of uploading. I feel that it solves any of the ambiguity created by this debate. Though it makes some assumptions about technology advacement, it seems to be technically feasible.

This has two possible approaches: 1) is simpler, but may end up being technologically impossible, 2) requires more technology and is more round-about but serves as the back-up approach if 1 fails. The conclusion of either of these steps is to cause a single entity to have their conciousness extended across multiple objects.

1.) This is basically the approach already being worked toward by BMI researchers: read the brain's signals as unobtrusively as possible through electrode caps and inserted probes. Should it become possible to establish two-way communication with the brain without damaging it, this is the preferred approach. As stated by Andy Clark in Natural Born Cyborgs, the human mind adapts to use extra limbs or appendages as easily as its own innate abilities. Though we are not physically connected with our calculators, we already have begun to rely on them to perform the necessary calculations, where the brain supplies the framework of problem solving. The idea, then, is to supply the brain with added functionality within the two-way communication to a machine. The shift in this way is actually much more appealing, it becomes natural to "think with the machine." Eventually the load shifts toward the machine, with the brain becoming the secondary thinking tool. Very simply the mind now occupies both places at once, it is an expanded conciousness that from the machine can spread outward to communicate with more machines. Should the link be severed, the brain maintains enough functionality to run on its own as does the machine conciousness and they can (concievably) be re-integrated by reestablishing the connection. However, before that point it would be one conciousness that was acting over two seperate objects.

2.) The second option involves cell-by-cell destruction of the brain to establish a stratum more suited for machine communication. If it proves unfeasable for a two-way direct communication between the brain and a machine, then the brain must be altered so that it is possible. In short, nanodevices are designed and interspersed into the brain. The function of these devices is to observe the function of a single neuron, once it is able to fully mimic the function of the neuron it kills it and takes its place. Then, when most of the brain has been piece-by-piece replaced the nanodevices whether directly or by radio communicate up the signals it is processing establishing two-way communication. The process then follows fairly much the same from #1.

Since the body is left alive and functional at the end of this process, I call it the "Avatar," the physical presence of a machine conciousness in the world.

[ocsrazor]

Actually kraemahz, #1 is technically much easier and the direction I see us going in based on current technological trends in neuroengineering (see last line of my above post). #2 is the Moravec scenario, proposed in Mind Children. I think is highly improbable for a number of technical reasons and molecular nano (which would be required to even think about doing this) shoud make destructive scanning unnecessary, but I do think a very slow process of enhancement and or replacement may be likely.

[kraemahz]

Right, which is why I say 2) is a back-up process to 1) if for any reason it becomes technically unfeasable to have back and forth communication without heavily modifying (damaging) the brain. It is much easier to do 1) than 2). I just don't fully trust 1) because there are deep portions of the brain that are inaccessable by external probes, and the more internal probes included the greater the chance there is for damaging things. The problem as I see it is that externally we can only read surface thoughts, and internally we can only read the reactions around a few specific neurons, when what we want is to read everything.

I only used destructive replacement as an example because I was short on time writing my post. I doubt it would be necessary for the nanomachine to actually destroy the neuron, it could instead integrate with it for the same result. I didn't know where it came from specifically though (I happened across it on a website), thanks for the reference.

The thing about 1) is that it doesn't even necessarily need to be specifically attempted to occur. The brain's malability can cause it to adapt in this way naturally given a slow addition of cybernetics.

[DJS]

Ocsrazor

Initially Don I am only talking about enhancing communications to the point where your phone becomes a completely transparent technology

What about a key board? How far off is the tech that would make it possible for me to have an implant that allows me to train my mind to have a mental keyboard? I think this is more realistic in the short term isn't it, since it only relies on an external projection of thought.

[DJS]

And yes, I know a crude form of what I am talking about already exists for the physically handicap, but I'm talking about realistic tech that would make the act of typing much much faster -- almost like typing by talking to yourself...

[kraemahz]

You could always get some speech-to-text software, Don.

[DJS]

Laz, I haven't taken the time to read this entire thread, but has anyone here brought up your *hive* or *collective* mind concept, where duplicates periodically merge/ reconcile their memories thereby becoming an integrated whole with multiple memories at any point in space/time?  I find this idea, which you were the first to bring to my attention, fascinating -- and filled with a great deal of possibility.

One's philosophical position on duplication is also directly relevant to whether multiple duplicates could function as one "collective" unit. I think it is entirely possible that, even in a world rapidly approaching singularity, the philosophical conundrum that surrounds the concept of duplication may not be resolved. In such a scenario, certain individuals who could not accept the legitimacy of duplication would be incapable of such a merger of like minds. And even if such a person were to be duplicated, their duplicates would share the same aversion that they did. Thus, the coordination and commitment necessary for such an arrangement would not be possible.

[DJS]

You could always get some speech-to-text software, Don.

Ah, that stuff stinks. [lol] I'm invisioning implants more as an extention of my mind. (Note: I recently got done reading Natural Born Cyborg so some of the concepts are still fresh in my head. )

I mean wouldn't it be cool to, by only the power of your mind, be able to turn off the light, turn on your car, turn on the stove, type at the computer, talk on your cell... the possibilities seem endless. Then again, who would want to have nodes surgically implanted on their brain...sounds risky... [mellow]