10 replies to this topic

[A941]

And again Iam back to my favorite Topic:

 

As you may know Iam not a fan of the Idea of Uploading since the original will not be the copy.

I would favor procedures which gradually replace the substrate of the brain while the brain is still working and being conscious, so that continuity is not interrupted.

Over the years I have read many Ideas about how to overcome this very difficult Problem, how to keep the person intact without letting him/her experience Death through a sudden interruption of his/her consciousness*, but what would really be interesting is to have some sort of test to determine if the original consciousness has ceased to exist during such a process.

 

This sounds really difficult, cause "Hardware" A  generating a Consciousness doesnt differ from Hardware B which does the same afterwards or at the same time.

But could it be possible to set some sort of ongoing signal that "roums" the "brain" and which would collapse if the continuity is destroyed?

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Some people are even okay with the Copy-living-on-instead-of-me-thing (Anissimov was, back in the early 2000s when we had a very long discussion about uploading)

[addx]

Consciousness is a tool of the body. It is engaged when needed. Your subjective awareness of consciousness (awareness of existence and existence are not the same thing) is limited and controlled by the body(or more lower nervous tissue tiers in cascade/sublimating fashion) engageing and disengageing consciousness (and even the subjective awareness that is aware of it). Consciousness is an extra processor, like a 3d accelerator, switched on when needed. Subjective awareness is another extra chip modulating the consciousness chip by monitoring the experience, logging it and using the log to modulate it - this chip is basicly switched off in dire situations(mom saving child from harm) and reduced in highly conscious situations (high adrenaline, playing sports etc). Consciousness chip is switched off during sleep and coma and such.

[Brafarality]

Consciousness is a tool of the body. It is engaged when needed. Your subjective awareness of consciousness (awareness of existence and existence are not the same thing) is limited and controlled by the body(or more lower nervous tissue tiers in cascade/sublimating fashion) engageing and disengageing consciousness (and even the subjective awareness that is aware of it). Consciousness is an extra processor, like a 3d accelerator, switched on when needed. Subjective awareness is another extra chip modulating the consciousness chip by monitoring the experience, logging it and using the log to modulate it - this chip is basicly switched off in dire situations(mom saving child from harm) and reduced in highly conscious situations (high adrenaline, playing sports etc). Consciousness chip is switched off during sleep and coma and such.

 

I am familiar with the global workspace theory and the currently accepted theory that consciousness is not localized but arises during a particular wave pattern of brain activity. I will not try to describe the pattern with detail or great understanding, because I have neither! But, I get the gist...I think.

 

Thing is, consciousness is just an oddball feature to arise from non-localized brain activity. This just brings us to the familiar philosopher's zombie. If you observe a brain, built one neuron at a time, in a lab, or in gestation, and end at a fully developed brain, which then lapses into the wave pattern synchronization, you can't observe the moment consciousness arises. Based upon our understanding of natural laws, it really doesn't seem necessary. The brain just does it all by itself, down to the last neuron.

 

Old argument, I know. But, one without a real answer. That is why I guess even most hardcore physicalist neuroscientists admit it is still something of a mystery.
 

[addx]

The "wave pattern" is just a general observation.

The wave is caused electrical-chemical firing rates of neurones that are different for serotonergic, dopaminergic, noradrenergic, cholinergic, opioidergic, glutamatergic and other types of neurones as well. Subtypes of these also have different firing rates but for example dopaminergic (action) are usually a lot faster than serotonergic (state) as they need to modulate actions in real life meaning modulating moving hands by tracking distance to goal position every 1/10th of a second for example.

I beleive these main networks provide typical "alpha", "beta" etc brain waves. Neuron pathways mostly run parallel to each other from one brain region to the other in bundles. Neurons of a single type from a single region fire in synchrony causing an observation of wave like phenomena along those pathways.

There is a small part of the brain that actually has all the "experience of all senses" go through it, forgot what it's called, it's a small spot on the right back side somewhere. I wish I could remember, I think it was a part of anterior cingulate or something. But it's just a converging point, it is not a brain part for consciousness.

Consciousness is supported by a complex mechanism of regions that do a specific task. It is not supported by an amorphous mass of neurones.

Consciousness as in ability to respond to surroundings arises very early. But as "newer"(evolutionary and developmentaly) brain parts grow during maturation, consciousness is increasingly wired to more and more senses and internal models(brain parts keeping a functional internal representation of outside objects) and simply gets fed more "types of data". The process is seamless as a person matures. For example the vmPFC is the last brain part to evolve providing "wisdom" as explained somewhere. Wisdom is a sense of being an object in a context that "works" that object (being a policeman on the street, being a parent on parents council, being a teach on parents council). That means detecting that a context has caused you to become an object of that context and the experience of being such an object was related to being other objects in history and concluded that this new object role is not beneficial. Now, notice that kids have quite an issue around detecting what object they are in a context. As they grow up their brain, if properly nurtured will increasingly begin to recognize assigned or engulfed object roles within contexts and will learn to avoid or aproach those object-contexts that they enjoy. As this starts to happen kids will increasingly "practice" this new brain part by playing practical jokes on each other (making the other person an object of a negative context in some way, placing them in awkward situations, leading them on etc). Parallel to that modern kids also start objectifying themselves into narcissistic "monsters" in order to avoid "shaming by context"(school-coolness) causing an overdevelopment of consciousness(being a successfull object of a context, being a cool guy in a cool-demanding crowd) and underdevelopment of "awareness" or vmPFC (awareness of objectifying contexts) causing an inability to perceive the context as unhealthy (refuse to care aboud cool-demanding crowd).

The development of these brain parts is controlled by success and failures of these "practices"(practical jokes etc) and also real experiences during maturing.
Success and failure causes opioid release which directly controls neuron progenitor stem cells to proliferate(success - enjoying - mu opioid - heroin) or differentiate(failure - learning - kappa opioid - saliva divinorum).

Edited by addx, 06 June 2014 - 04:10 PM.

[A941]

I may have been a bit too concerned about uploading in this case.

Lets say in the future, someone is shot in the head during a robbery, and if he lived today, he would be dead after this point in time, but now a system of Nanomachines which have been present in his body, start to repair the brain, to reconnect neurons, mend them and bring everything back in place. The "dead" would come back to live and wonder what just happend.

 

Was he dead or is he another entity "in" the same brain?

 

Personally I think hes would be the same, because as important as continuity is for a replacement process, here it would be kept through the substrate, withe the conscioussnes being non operational, but not not erased.

 

So I think at least on of those two things must stay intact: the continuity of the C. or the substarte, or a large part of it, being undamaged.

 

Is my logic faulty?

[addx]

Nanomachines could not really repair such damage. Neurones that underwent apoptosis are destroyed irreversibly with their contents being engulfed by neighbouring cells or lost to bloodflow. You may build another one but it will not be connected in the same way and will not be charged in the same way and so "thought schemas" would be lost causing the person not to be exactly the same as before the damage occured.

Continuity of consciousness can be lost in many situations like coma, or even sleep. This does not pose a problem. Losing the "thought schemas" (complex neuron network loops that are associated to provide a memory/incentive/value/whatever about something sensed/detected to the consciousness for decision making) would present a problem because this would cause the consciousness to behave differently (being fed different thoughts/emotions about the experience being currently endured) meaning the person would be different behaviourally.

Being afraid to lose consciousness is an emotion provided by being aware of consciousness (this is humans only, being aware of existence and self). "Awareness of consciousness" or awareness of self is a "thought stream" that is at most times fed to your consciousness and provides this notion of awareness or notion of self or notion of existing as an object in this world, in a context. This is provided by vmPFC. It can be disengaged in certain situations like mothers saving children from danger or running from imminent death. This reduces brain functioning into that of a lower mammal who is unaware of existence but simply does what needs doing as if he were, but he has no choice about it and so no responsibility either. He could not contemplate his seizing of existence but he will attempt to defend his existence by instinct as if he was aware of it. If a context leads a lower mammal to be abusive towards another group member he will simply be abusive and feel no responsibility for it. vmPFC allows us to weigh the following: if I act abusive towards a group member I will become the abuser of the group, being the abuser makes others hate me and is not a good role/position. I will then refrain from abusing (which might bring me immediate satisfaction) in order to keep myself from becoming an abuser which is beneficial in the long term if I depend on the group in some way and the group can also be aware of my abusive nature rather than just being aware of them being weaker than me and having to suffer abuse merely because of it.

Anyway, point is, parts of the brain can engage and disengage and change the experience of consciousness in various ways. vmPFC provides a certain "feedback loop" of the experience of consciousness back to the consciousness in an organised way (ego - inventory). This feedback loop allows "awareness" of consciousness and thus also provides a fear of losing consciousness - losing that which one is aware of having (but takes it for granted so cannot recognise this distinct stream of awareness thoughts from vmPFC). The notion of being convinced that losing consciousness (or rather awareness of it) will be the end of you is provided by the current "session" of consciousness having the vmPFC feedback loop engaged. It will be the end of the current session in fact, it may not be the end of future sessions consciousness being engaged by the same body and being provided the same thought schemas.

The notion of consciousness interruption being an issue is a subjective thought stemming from an emotion of fear that is there regardless of how you rationally understand the underlying mechanisms. Thoughts about oneself "from the outside" are only supported by vmPFC - the awareness. When thoughts from the vmPFC are given focus our consciousness ventures to "the outside" to see you as an object within a context(the world you live in) - from an outside perspective. The "thinking you" then becomes "mentally" separated from the "existing you". The "thinking you" is contemplating about the "existing you" and concluding that it will not be able to do so if it is disengaged and the only thing providing awareness of the "existing you" will so be lost. The "thinking you" can not perceive how it is to experience "not thinking"(disengaging) as it can not remember such an experience so it wonders where it will go if the "existing you" is shut down. The same reasoning brings us to invent religion so our "thinking yous" supposedly have somewhere to go(heaven) after our bodies are shutdown.

Edited by addx, 07 June 2014 - 12:34 PM.

[ADVANCESSSS]

I may have been a bit too concerned about uploading in this case.

Lets say in the future, someone is shot in the head during a robbery, and if he lived today, he would be dead after this point in time, but now a system of Nanomachines which have been present in his body, start to repair the brain, to reconnect neurons, mend them and bring everything back in place. The "dead" would come back to live and wonder what just happend.

 

Was he dead or is he another entity "in" the same brain?

 

Personally I think hes would be the same, because as important as continuity is for a replacement process, here it would be kept through the substrate, withe the conscioussnes being non operational, but not not erased.

 

So I think at least on of those two things must stay intact: the continuity of the C. or the substarte, or a large part of it, being undamaged.

 

Is my logic faulty?

A941, and anyone else, come see my thread called my baffling question about cryonics, which I have really explained exactly in complete sense at thee bottom right now why the conscious has to stay going and does when we sleep and how other wise in any case it is stopped like for surgery or rebuild it should be another new consciousness, come see my thread on this.

 

In short the answer is but come over to the thread is "There (is) many of us consciousnesses seperate from eachother and when one dies its dead and others are still conscious and if you had a exact copy form beside you, that proves it wouldn't of course be you and just be another seperate consciousness and so if both of you are dead and your body was created again it would be yet another consciousness and you'd never be conscious ever again"

Edited by ADVANCE, 08 June 2014 - 07:06 AM.

[serp777]

I'm posting this from another thread because I think it's relevant-

 

Posted Today, 11:43 PM

cryonicsculture, on 08 Jun 2014 - 9:59 PM, said:

Ok, I think I can sum up your question as:

 

1. "If an exact quantum level copy of myself is made, how is one different from the other?"

2. "If they aren't the same because one didn't exist prior, why would a cryonicist be the same person or any different than the quantum copy after being thawed?"

 

That is a good question, and we generally answer it with the parallel of a heart surgery or a surgery where the patient is ametabolic and for all intensive purposes dead. That or we use the scenario of someone being saved by CPR after their heart is stopped. 

 

I can't say I can answer that one without doing an observational study. Either both are just as much the original as the original or one is the original and one is a copy. But I wouldn't say that both are copies because one was never made from something else.

 

With exact quantum copies, the only difference is the point of reference and history of travel through the 4 dimensions. Perhaps one is you because it originated as an embryo and the other is just a copy because it didn't learn to be what it is, but rather is what it is and nothing more. 

 

I'll give it some more thought and maybe post further later. 

 

I think it's the most reasonable position to say that the two copies aren't different from each other. They are the exact same consciousness, but neither consciousness has access to each other's thoughts obviously. This resolves the archaic thinking of "where would the original consciousness actually be if nobody knew which person was the clone?" There simply is no original consciousness; let me explain-

 

The most logical answer is that consciousness is not one continuous entity anyways. Each frame of "consciousness" that occurs at each instant is different from the previous consciousness, but has all the previous memories of the consciousness before it. For example, how would you know if you were created 5 seconds ago with the memories of your previous lifetime? You wouldn't, because there is no way to distinguish memories from those that might be false and created outside your existence. So your experience of consciousness is merely an illusion created to convey continuity, which would help members of the species recognize causality of events. Understanding causality is important for the survival of the species. This solves every kind of consciousness issue you could think of, such as atomic transportation, because it shows that no one is ever the same person/consciousness anyways after an instant of recognizable time. People simply assume that consciousness is this kind of static abstract thing. My argument would suggest that it is an entirely physical phenomenon and composed of a timeline of different, unique consciousnesses.

Edited by serp777, 09 June 2014 - 05:53 AM.

[Soma]

The "continuity of consciousness" is entirely contingent upon the ability to form and store memory and the ability to access such memories. Without interactions with the memory center, there is no continuity of consciousness and thus, no enduring self. There is no enduring conscious self apart from self-referencing memories. There is no self that is conscious, but rather a brain that generates consciousness- a consciousness that accesses memories stored in that brain, and from this constructs the notion of a constant self. But this constant self is just an idea and not a reflection of an entity that has any existence.

This is why, from your perspective, you began existing when you reached the stage of brain maturity where memories could be properly formed, stored, and readily accessed. Before that, you did't exist to yourself. That is why it can ne rather strange seeing picture of yourself as an infant and toddler. Although you objectively existed then (to those around you) you didn't subjectively exist (i.e., you didn't exist to yourself).

So, consciousness does not inherently imply a sense of self in any moment or over a string of moments. Only consciousness + memory = constructed self.

[Blink]

So many good answers in this thread! The continuous consciousness - or the continuous self - might be sort of an illusion constructed by memories. However, there is still awareness of it all right now - awareness of the memories and so on. So what is awareness?

 

I think awareness can be seen as non-individual - i.e. the awareness in me is precisely the same as the awareness in you. What then makes us into individuals are the different phenomena which arises in awareness (like sensory input and memories). Awareness come and goes in different parts of the brain, like it does in different parts of the universe, in countless beings. And I guess these ideas converges with the basic philosophy of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta - that we are all basically one Self etc.

 

 

[Soma]

I think awareness can be seen as non-individual - i.e. the awareness in me is precisely the same as the awareness in you. What then makes us into individuals are the different phenomena which arises in awareness (like sensory input and memories). Awareness come and goes in different parts of the brain, like it does in different parts of the universe, in countless beings.   

Yes, it would be logical that it is a singular "substance" or phenomenon. In this way it is sort of like electricity and light bulbs. Electricity is electricity. The same electricity flows into each lightbulb, but is informed by particularities of the lightbulb (filament, shape of bulb, color of bulb). In this way the brain is kind of like a battery/light bulb in one. The battery emits electricity and the light bulb is like brain structure, genetics, memories, etc.