8 replies to this topic

[psudoname]

Do you think quantum uncertancy is a problem for uploading?

[bgwowk]

No. The brain does not store information quantum mechanically. Even if you believe that important parts of brain operation are quantum mechanical (a view with little neuroscientific support), that's an issue for how you must design your new brain to operate, not how you port into it before booting.

---BrianW (an uploading agnostic)

[bgwowk]

I believe that if in the morning a brain exists that is in nearly the same physical state as my brain when I ordinarily wake up in the morning, then that brain IS my brain, regardless of how it came into existence. I believe this because I see no way to philosophically distinguish nanotechnological brain reconstruction from "natural" maintenance and molecular turnover.

If, on the other hand, someone turns on a computer that merely mimics the neural information processing of my brain in the morning, it's less obvious to me that my subjective identity is preserved. It's more of a philosophical leap, although there are powerful argument for it.

The important point is that material duplication vs. duplication of abstract information processing are philosophically distinct concepts, although people often confuse them.

Yes, Penrose did (does?) maintain that certain brain operations happen on a quantum mechanical level. But so what? If quantum mechanics proves necessary for human-level intelligence, then artifical human intelligences will then be built that use quantum mechanics. It's ridiculous to believe that AI can't be achieved unless it's Turing equivalent.

I'm reminded of the old Isaac Asimov (or was it Arthur C. Clarke?) riddle: How big must a machine be to duplicate all the functions of a human brain? Duh! No bigger than a human brain of course!

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 08 October 2005 - 05:59 AM.

[johnuk]

I believe that if in the morning a brain exists that is in nearly the same physical state as my brain when I ordinarily wake up in the morning, then that brain IS my brain, regardless of how it came into existence.  I believe this because I see no way to philosophically distinguish nanotechnological brain reconstruction from "natural" maintenance and molecular turnover. 

[snip]

I'm reminded of the old Isaac Asimov (or was it Arthur C. Clarke?) riddle: How big must a machine be to duplicate all the functions of a human brain?  Duh!  No bigger than a human brain of course!

---BrianW

I like.

I fail to see how any degree of serious reasoning, based on demonstratable evidence in particular, can produce the conclusion that the human brain operates at a quantum level. I have also read one explaination by a guy describing how neurons communicate by both connective as well as magnetic / inductive coupling. An interesting proposition given the threshold voltages of axons, the axon currents involved, the current frequencies, current rise and fall times and the inductance of such short, straight conductors. And that you don't suffer any brain damage when you hold a magnet against your head, or, for that matter, when you put your head inside an MRI scanner.

Also, to the proponents of quantum computing believing it to be in universally superior, don't get too carried away. Even the people who design quantum computers have already recognised that standard, discrete logic computing is quite capable of competing with, or even bettering, quantum computers for certain tasks. Organic neural tissue would also seem to be missing an interface with the quantum domain; I am struggling to see how synaptic junctions / axon depolarisation could realiably carry quantum information given the macro structures and modes of operation they possess.

I think the bigger, and substantially more realistic, problem of uploading is that organic tissue takes quite a long time to grown / interconnect. It has to execute this task to retain certain / long term / complex logic. If it didn't, learning a new skill, like playing an instrument, would only take up the amount of time it takes to reset the logic at the pre-existing junctions which, yes, could theoretically be the same time it takes to grow / interconnect neural tissue. But I'm kind of ruling that out, assuming the volumes of research and evidence we already have that suggests this is, one of, if not, the main ways in which things are learnt and remembered is enough for now.

I believe micro scale uploads could occur rapidly, and that logic embedded in the junctions of pre-existing junctions could also be altered so as to change the micro attributes of the bulk objects; attributes of a memory rather than it's fundamental content. But that rapid uploading of macro scale, bulk objects, like the memory of how to fly a helicopter and kung-fu box someone to death in three moves (Matrix style) is beyond the capability of normal organic brain tissue. In this sense, upload speed would be limited to the rate at which the tissue could grow / interconnect. This could be enchanced on normality by subjecting the tissue to "continuous learning input" rather than the bursts it normally gets from reality (Practicing an instrument for days subconsciously rather than few a few hours a day in the real world). It could also be improved by injecting neurotrophins and other stimulates into the tissue to accelerate neural tissue activity rates; like growth / interconnection.

My main goal is download. Provided I can download my concious mind into a more reliable form, I don't really have any major problem with remaining in that form for a while. I would much rather be able to live an extra thousand years than have the ability to learn kung-fu ninja MDK skillz in a few seconds tomorrow. I can learn the MDK skillz in my extra thousand years of life, I can't do the same visa versa.

Downloading would not involve supplementary growth or interconnection of the tissue, only to read what is already there. So download rate would be limited to the speed at which the data could be replicated at it's new location; asymmetric duplex communication.

Also consider the possibility of running out of neural drive space. Only 5% of the human brain may be active for 90% of our conscious run time, but only a few percent of my hard drive is active for 90% of the time I'm on the computer. Doesn't mean I'd be happy with the rest being wiped; 5% active at any one time isn't the same as 95% spare for use.

If you're talking about uploading sensory data (Optical / vision manipulation, smell, sound, touch experiences), then in that case, I'm sure we can equal, if not exceed, our organic form. Optical Lab CCDs have sensitivities, resolutions and shutter times that can exceed anything our eyes can do, we just can't plug them into brain tissue yet. Added to that, our brain ignores most of what is being uploaded to it from it's sensory net anyway (A lot more than most people realise I think, relative to the capacity of our sensory net). My model of the brain includes a gigantic time based multiplexer strapped to the nerve bundle inputs. The multiplexer is fed from our subconscious IRQ set that informs it on what is important and what isn't. Set you arm on fire, the temperature of your foot doesn't really matter anymore.

Human consciousness being based on organically occurring quantum mechanics is the call of my latest model, "the pseudo-religious scientist". Smart enough not to join an organised religion, stupid enough to believe he's so much more than a machine.

Edited by johnuk, 29 November 2005 - 02:42 AM.

[bgwowk]

Human consciousness being based on organically occurring quantum mechanics is the call of my latest model, "the pseudo-religious scientist". Smart enough not to join an organised religion, stupid enough to believe he's so much more than a machine.

[lol] [lol] [lol] [lol]

---BrianW

[armrha]

Penrose's book comes off to me as 'I don't think strong AI is possible because it scares me, and being skeptic makes me sound hip.' The expansion of air in a heated close container is also dependent on quantum effects, but that doesn't mean we can't predict it with great accuracy with a single equation. I like your distinction of the 'psuedo-religious scientist', johnuk.

[johnuk]

I like your distinction of the 'psuedo-religious scientist', johnuk.

Thanks, it's something I've begun to apply a lot more in recent months.

My brothers are both atheists and think that religion is a joke. They both also agree that humans don't possess some kind of soal or ether that will go on after death, that they're simply expressions of genetics, machinery.

My older brother regularly tells me how it annoys him when people accuse him of being critical when he makes Dawkins like statements, that we're all just "f**king machines trying to get our genes into the next generation". Strangely, this is the same brother who has the greatest problem with me reducing humans further towards machines by suggesting that most of the individuals considered to be incredible artists throughout history have only been thought of as such because they've displayed machine like characteristics, such as carving statues that look remarkably like their subject or painting pictures so's that they produce photographic like qualities on viewing. I made these points because I love CNC machining and am always amazed at how a screen full of numbers can be transformed into a solid object in the real world that's so superior to anything a human could make with their own hands. Yet CNC machines, which are themselves expressions of another human's excellence if nothing else, obtain not even a passing degree of respect from the vast majority despite possessing this ability that we so heavily rely on. And because I like CNC, people assume I don't appreciate art or lack 'soal', emotion and feeling. I do like art, although I also notice the machine like characteristics of a lot of it and dislike the hypercritical attitude people view this quality in when it's from a human hand; if I'm lucky they'll go as far as accepting that it is machine like, but not much more. I would argue that the only true art can therefore be abstract art, the abstract qualities of a machine like replication or art drawn by children, who care much less about how the picture looks and more about what it's about. And so I'm not only used to being called critical for believing Dawkins to be somewhere near correct, as my brothers do, but also by the 'artistic' percentage of the world, of which my older brother would like to consider himself a member I feel. Once I'd accepted that pretty much everyone I met was going to consider me in this way, for the views I already have and that I simply don't possess the lifespan needed to convince them all of, I didn't really see much point stopping to explain myself to them and decided to reduce humans to the greatest extent I possibly could; to allow them no magical properties whatsoever.

I detected the 'psuedo-religious scientist' element in my brother when he quickly replied to my artist remarks with "It's not the artwork itself that's impressive but that the artist has decided to put the subject in that position" etc. This would mean he would equally, or more so, enjoy modern art, which is based very loosely on reality and more on what it's saying. I know this to be untrue because he also tells me on a regular basis what he thinks of the Tate Modern and modern art in general, and in one word that's "s**t". In fact, he goes further to tell me that art should have 'skill' behind it, that it can't just be something put together purely to say something; skill, obviously, referring to machine like, replication of reality qualities in this context, as this is what modern art lacks.

A discontinuity therefore emerges that I can only explain as him attributing something 'magical' to humans that means when a human does something it's infinitely better than when a machine does the same thing, but at the same time humans also possess assumedly superior forms to begin with, that is until the individual realises how they're going to shoot themselves in the foot with that line and comes out with "well a machine is designed to do that".

My brother is a pretty open minded person, but even he has problems with me reducing humans to this degree. The majority of other people just don't bother giving me the time, including scientists.

These people are the same people who would have told Darwin he was smart but wrong purely because what he was suggesting detracted from their belief of having immense superiority over animals. Even people now, while accepting the idea of evolution, hate the idea of being likened to an animal, it's still used as an insult. A personal favourite of mine is the Ritalin kids who have a 'neurological predisposition' for being violent and nasty towards others and so have to be treated specially, but that predisposition is purely genetic, nothing to do with their upbringing, but they're not animals! [huh] Another is that love isn't simply the urge to have as much sex as possible. Attempting to go deeper than this and suggest that we are literally just signals in brain tissue is superficially acceptable, but even those who say that Dawkins is only making the points he does because you, like they already have, need to accept them to advance from an animal stage seem tested at this point. If you're in for Darwin, you should be in for what I'm saying. And that's the humans are nothing more than machines. If you believe otherwise, I don't consider you much better than the religious, who are just uniformly lazy basically!

Far worse than the religious and pseudo-religious scientist are the plain lazy, the "oh well, we all have to die I guess" types. I was watching Aubrey De Grey's videos just recently. I noticed quite an incredible relationship existing beween those who do want to live longer and those who don't. Those who do are almost solely children, those who don't are almost solely adults who've had sex and children of their own. I don't think it's too unreasonable to take a guess at what's going on in the psyche as these decisions are made.

Best wishes,
John

Edited by johnuk, 17 December 2005 - 07:41 PM.