Can someone do a science to

[BadBeast]

Actually upload someone's entire consciousness, from the carbon based information system, that is our wetware, to a silicon based information system, like, for instance, my PC?  (And of course, into the univirtual interwebz?)  I suspect such a thing might be being worked on, by some fiendish,
Frankengatesian type, somewhere, but is it going to be happening, like anytime soon, (next 30-40 years?) Because that would be something to hang around for, wouldn't it? Not that I'm planning on going anywhere, but it would be  better than just  incontinence, brittle bone disease, and encroaching senility to look forward to, wouldn't it? I don't mean some illusary Matrix type thing, but a limitless, instantaneous, meat free, playground of lightspeed,
cyberkicks, and teralulz.. So come on all you sciencers, pull your virtual thumbs out of your arses, and invent me a modem, that I can squirt my awareness in and out through my spare USB2 port, please.  (If it's not too much trouble, I mean.)




 

[Rumckle]

From my understanding there are several problems we have to work out first, and I'm not sure they will all be figured out in the next 50 years.

1) We don't have much idea of how the brain works, one of the biggest problems in cognitive philosophy at the moment, is trying to link "folk psychology" (study of the mind through how our beliefs, desires, consciousness work [which we aren't even sure about anyway]) and neuroscience. Which means that we would be forced to just create an entire replica of the brain (either in simulation or an actual physical replica), because there may be parts of a the brain that are more important than we think.

2) Even if can just create an entire brain replica (which would be fucking difficult, especially without destroying the original brain), as we don't know how it works, we wouldn't really be able to hook it up to anything. Which means no robot body, no computers, no anything.

3) There isn't really any difference between a live brain and a dead brain (unless the person died because of some kind of head injury or brain tumour or what have you), so even with a complete replica, there is no guarantee it would work.

4)  Even if we copy your brain perfectly, if you die in the process, who knows if the new brain is you or just a complete replica of you.


Personally I believe the best way might be to just gradually replace each individual neuron with an artificial one, until your entire brain is artificial, but I'm not sure if artificial neurons would actually work.


Then again, I don't know that much about Neuroscience, so someone may be able to correct me.

You could also try looking up some H+ stuff, though a lot of it is just pretentious wankery.

[Reginald Ret]

1) True.

2) We would be able to hook it up to artifical limbs and organs in a decade or two, they've gotten pretty good at understanding most of the connections. Directly linking to computers would be more difficult, and i don't actually see the point
Just create an interface that is like an artificial limb and presto, connection.

3) Untrue, you are thinking purely of the physical parts. the brain's function derives from the interaction between the physical cells and the electric and chemical flowpatterns between these cells. Dead brains don't have flow, and therefore no flowpattern. This would take a retarded amount of processing power so this step depends on the development of better computers.
In theory one could simulate the cells in a computer and copy the flowpatterns onto that simulation. doing so without sensory input would be kinda mean though, so dont do this untill you have that part done and functional. Also, these flowpatterns are likely to be at least partially chaotic so there is no room for error in copying if you want to make a perfect copy. This means knowing both the position and velocity of the quantum particles, ie impossible.

4) The distinction between a perfect copy and the original is irrelevant, unless you believe in souls.

Artificial neurons aren't that hard to  make, but very hard to place without disrupting the pattern. also, they would most likely be quite large when compared to wetware complicating things further.

[Rumckle]

2) We would be able to hook it up to artifical limbs and organs in a decade or two, they've gotten pretty good at understanding most of the connections. Directly linking to computers would be more difficult, and i don't actually see the point
Just create an interface that is like an artificial limb and presto, connection.

Yeah, I guess it would just be the same principle, just slightly more complicated.

3) Untrue, you are thinking purely of the physical parts. the brain's function derives from the interaction between the physical cells and the electric and chemical flowpatterns between these cells. Dead brains don't have flow, and therefore no flowpattern. This would take a retarded amount of processing power so this step depends on the development of better computers.
In theory one could simulate the cells in a computer and copy the flowpatterns onto that simulation. doing so without sensory input would be kinda mean though, so dont do this untill you have that part done and functional. Also, these flowpatterns are likely to be at least partially chaotic so there is no room for error in copying if you want to make a perfect copy. This means knowing both the position and velocity of the quantum particles, ie impossible.

It is jump-starting that flow pattern that would be the problem though.

4) The distinction between a perfect copy and the original is irrelevant, unless you believe in souls.

From an external view sure, but probably not from an internal view.
I mean, would you have a problem with me making a perfect copy of you, and then destroying the original you?
I would. Because although to others the copy would be exactly the same, to me it wouldn't.

[Elder Iptuous]

4) The distinction between a perfect copy and the original is irrelevant, unless you believe in souls.

From an external view sure, but probably not from an internal view.
I mean, would you have a problem with me making a perfect copy of you, and then destroying the original you?
I would. Because although to others the copy would be exactly the same, to me it wouldn't.

I think the issue here is a discontinuity of awareness.  the gradual replacement notion seems more comfortable to me.
also, how would that affect your psyche to kill off your original body/mind against its will?  would you live the rest of your life haunted by the notion that you are not the real 'you'?  a feeling of fraudulence?
i guess that would depend in part on the state of health of the original body at the time of copy...

[Reginald Ret]

So we destroy the memory of the copying.
problem solved.

i'd prefer to have only one of me, i don't think i would like me very much if i met me.
so if you have to make a copy i'd prefer the original destroyed.

[Triple Zero]

there is nothing to jump-start. making a biological artificial neural network is kind of like building a city in SimCity while the game is paused. You put all the components there, and then you press "play" and the simulation starts.

however, I also have to disagree with Regret. We do not yet know just about enough about real neurons to completely simulate them. we got pretty far, but there's huge holes in our knowledge in all sorts of places big and small. scientists are still simulating rapid pulse neurons on sea anemones just to see what sort of patterns they can produce if you place them connected on a cylindrical grid, which is just about the simplest thing you can do. while on the other end of the scale they are trying to simulate an eeny meeny teensy bit of a rat's brain by brute forcing the chemical reactions on a cluster of supercomputers, which is cool but you end up with something that calculates so much numbers and data that you still don't have a clue what's going on inside.

I do agree with the bit about quantum uncertainty. Although that is just a theoretical limit, there are also several real hard practical limits to our accuracy of measuring that have to be solved before we can "copy" all the activity and configuration in a brain. And not just limits of the "we need more sensitive equipment" type either. Also, I think these errors would be not on the level of slightly different "starting points" of the same person, but probably actual real braindamage-like.


finally, about the clone problem, this is also relevant:




However if someone makes a copy of me, don't destroy any of them until we've finished making out. Because I would like me very much if I met me.

[Elder Iptuous]

I do agree with the bit about quantum uncertainty. Although that is just a theoretical limit, there are also several real hard practical limits to our accuracy of measuring that have to be solved before we can "copy" all the activity and configuration in a brain. And not just limits of the "we need more sensitive equipment" type either. Also, I think these errors would be not on the level of slightly different "starting points" of the same person, but probably actual real braindamage-like.

Does the brain rely on continuity of neuron firing patterns for continued existence?  i would have thought it more robust than that...  i guess i imagined that the brain had a physical structure and an electrical state such that, while the current train of thoughts and whatnot were encoded by the latter, if something were to upset that state, even clearing it out... that it would be able to work unhindered by reliance on the physical state.  i mean, all the firing patterns would start back up again properly, and all memories maintained, etc.

However if someone makes a copy of me, don't destroy any of them until we've finished making out. Because I would like me very much if I met me.

yes.
i think my wife would appreciate it, too, if my clone were not destroyed.

also, would the issue of primacy be reduced or increased if you were to have even more copies made?

also, if there was two of me, i would like to have a 'sync' function, as well.  (if not a direct perceptive link)

[Triple Zero]

I do agree with the bit about quantum uncertainty. Although that is just a theoretical limit, there are also several real hard practical limits to our accuracy of measuring that have to be solved before we can "copy" all the activity and configuration in a brain. And not just limits of the "we need more sensitive equipment" type either. Also, I think these errors would be not on the level of slightly different "starting points" of the same person, but probably actual real braindamage-like.

Does the brain rely on continuity of neuron firing patterns for continued existence?  i would have thought it more robust than that...  i guess i imagined that the brain had a physical structure and an electrical state such that, while the current train of thoughts and whatnot were encoded by the latter, if something were to upset that state, even clearing it out... that it would be able to work unhindered by reliance on the physical state.  i mean, all the firing patterns would start back up again properly, and all memories maintained, etc.

hm, well if you put it that way, maybe.

it could go either way, really. on the one hand I expect all sorts of real sensitive chaotic systems to be hiding in the consciousness machinery, but you got a point, in the sense that if you hit a person on the head real hard, shaking up the brain, probably equivalent to quite an error, it'll blank out, reboot, but usually has a good chance of starting up more or less as the same consciousness. and yeah, probably having lost its train of thought

could go either way, but if we get down to it, we'll test it on all sorts of animals first and find out how that works for them, I suppose.

However if someone makes a copy of me, don't destroy any of them until we've finished making out. Because I would like me very much if I met me.

yes.
i think my wife would appreciate it, too, if my clone were not destroyed.

also, would the issue of primacy be reduced or increased if you were to have even more copies made?

also, if there was two of me, i would like to have a 'sync' function, as well.  (if not a direct perceptive link)

Ooh those are also nice extra options indeed.

Not just for my copies, but also for my gf, btw.

[Kai]

Here's the issue.

The whole of a person, who they are, their memories, desires, interests, everything,

emerges from a biological structure of complex connections between excitatory and inhibitory synapses.

And these 100 billion neurons, each with  typically 1000 to 10000 connections (thats 10 quadrillion synapses, btw), not only contain you, they ARE you. There is no floaty consciousness apart from the biology, no software, nothing to "upload". The mind doesn't even work on electricity as most popular science fiction seems to play, its a network of sodium flow and chemical signaling.

So, being that who you are = the neurons, YOUR neurons, making an exact copy of your neural structure isn't going to be you. It will think like you, but the essence of a person, the metaphysical self, is contained in the biology. Theres no magical transfer of self that happens. The body is this integrated emergent whole; you can cut out pieces to some extent and retain the original self, but much beyond sense organ amputation and, well, Alzheimer's doesn't sound like any fun.

As for what other people have said, you COULD replace, one by one, your neurons with artificial parts, kinda like a gradual creation of a cyborg, but I'm doubtful it would still preserve everything that you now hold dear to your identity. Kinda like a degenerative neurological disease, slow accumulation of errors in synapse connections. Plus the whole structure would be less labile, leading to more rigid patters of thought. Think of people who've had strokes, or diseases that turn their brains into swiss cheese, or physical damage or lobotomies.

One thing that MAY be possible, is a direct interface with sensory neurons. Maybe.

[BadBeast]

You'd have to have some kind of sentient buffering system, like they do on Star Trek, with the transporters. Then, when all the files are copied, from carbon, to silicon, the original buffering matrix would have to be overwritten with bits of random code, so there is no duplicate files to get all "please don't kill me" about their deletion. But keep a snapshot of the completely buffered upload. (Like system restore sometimes does in Windows) But you couldn't afford to have any of that "Windows cannot start because file "ntldr" is missing". Or you'd be stuck in the cyber, like John Constantines Hippy mate, who fried his brain up, on an old Acorn Apple. then tried to hi-jack Nergal's body. Bad scene.

[Cramulus]

Cliff Pickover has written entire books about this subject and how if we figure it out, it's going to change everything we know about everything.

This is how it starts:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124751881557234725.html

For the last four years, Henry Markram has been building a biologically accurate artificial brain. Powered by a supercomputer, his software model closely mimics the activity of a vital section of a rat's gray matter.

Dubbed Blue Brain, the simulation shows some strange behavior. The artificial "cells" respond to stimuli and suddenly pulse and flash in spooky unison, a pattern that isn't programmed but emerges spontaneously.

I read a magazine article about this. They think that it'll be a while before they can simulate a full human brain, but they also admit they are only limited by processing power. Which, on a long enough timeline, is not going to be a problem.



so imagine if we can duplicate a human brain in a digital environment.

The passage of time in a digital environment is moderated by processing power. It may be possible to have a little digital matrix with "humans" living inside of it, and it moves 10x or 100x faster than the real world.

So what we do is take the world's best scientists and engineers, scan their brains and put them inside this digital environment, press fast forward. BAM. What if we could get a year of scientific progress in a single month?



Cliff Pickover writes a book about an "afterlife service" you'll be able to buy in the future. When you die, they release your consciousness into this digital paradise, where it will live for the rest of time.

[Reginald Ret]

however, I also have to disagree with Regret. We do not yet know just about enough about real neurons to completely simulate them. we got pretty far, but there's huge holes in our knowledge in all sorts of places big and small. scientists are still simulating rapid pulse neurons on sea anemones just to see what sort of patterns they can produce if you place them connected on a cylindrical grid, which is just about the simplest thing you can do. while on the other end of the scale they are trying to simulate an eeny meeny teensy bit of a rat's brain by brute forcing the chemical reactions on a cluster of supercomputers, which is cool but you end up with something that calculates so much numbers and data that you still don't have a clue what's going on inside.

I'll take your word for it. usually i would check the internet before conceding, but i have to go to a family dinner now.

So, being that who you are = the neurons, YOUR neurons, making an exact copy of your neural structure isn't going to be you. It will think like you, but the essence of a person, the metaphysical self, is contained in the biology. Theres no magical transfer of self that happens. The body is this integrated emergent whole; you can cut out pieces to some extent and retain the original self, but much beyond sense organ amputation and, well, Alzheimer's doesn't sound like any fun.

Any learning process will change who you are. and you need to learn to live as a simulated human.
You will be different yes, but one can replace all the parts of a guitar repeatedly and even with different types of parts but it will still be the same guitar.
Identity is about perception, if you think it is (or you are) the same then for all intents and purposes this will be true.

gotta go, have fun discussing this topic.

[BadBeast]

Can't we just monitor the brainwave activity of X amount of people, then find the patterns, and algo thingy rythyms, and run it through some sequential number crunching software, until weve got the whole of the brains activity, mapped out in nice easy binary code?
If we squirted that through a USB, into a large enough runtime enviroment, then the transitional patterns of the human consciousness might not even need to be reproduced, but could flow easily from one medium, to the other. You wouldn't have to worry about making neurons, or anything, because it's the actual consciousness that would give us the major headaches anyway. So rather than remake the brain, why not use the brain itself. Like RAM memory in a PC. All the autonomous stuff, could be coded, and installed into a suitably large laptop, the brain, can keep the consciousness ticking over in a Alpha wave pattern, like a 2 gig RAM Chip might just run Windows Vista on standby,  then, maybe using a Hypnogogic brainwave stroboscope, synch the pattern from the brain, to the laptop, using an optical fibre unbilical rather than a USB,  How hard can it be? It's not Rocket Science, is it?
Are there no Cyber- Empathic drugs out there, being developed with this in mind? Like a sort of dissassociative/ Hypnotic, like Ketamine, but with the pattern finding qualities, lof Mescalin, or Plilocybin, but without the hallucinatory distraction of having to juggle little baby octopusses. Perhaps we could do it all with the right chemical cocktail. RAW'S Cosmic Trigger. But instead of pointing our nosecones at the stars, we pressure hose it straight into teh interwebz! PULSE, PULSE, PULSE, Synch, . . . . "please wait while windows checks for updates", . . . . . PULSE PULSE STROBE, THROB, . . . . . .   Boom Shaanka! And in one big Psychoneural burst of throbbing pulsed strobelights, an new species is borned.   Homo-CyberSapiens! I'd zip straight round to David Ickes PC, hack into it, and change all the passwords to  "Dracoregia Exsanguinus Protomorphicus" just to mess with his head. (I do actually like David Icke) because he did write all those books about Shapeshifting Royal Vampiric Lizard people, and messed with my head a bit.
Just thinking, I'd probably have made a fatal mistake straight away, and got snaffled by his Norton Antivirus. Shit. But I'd have been happy being the first, and happy getting zapped playing a well deserved trick, on a trickster.
And I might not have got zapped anyway.  Crikey Pikey David Icke, Get my arse off Norton's spikey! Yee haw!

And the man, with the big wide eyes, put on his forty league cyber boing boots, slung his virtual bag of tricks over his virtual shoulder, straightened his tin foil hat, winked at the faces, expectantly watching him from the other side of the monitor, said the magickal mystickel word that he'd heard, "Meh" and was never seen again.

[Kai]

Okay, that seriously just broke my head. And not in a good way.

however, I also have to disagree with Regret. We do not yet know just about enough about real neurons to completely simulate them. we got pretty far, but there's huge holes in our knowledge in all sorts of places big and small. scientists are still simulating rapid pulse neurons on sea anemones just to see what sort of patterns they can produce if you place them connected on a cylindrical grid, which is just about the simplest thing you can do. while on the other end of the scale they are trying to simulate an eeny meeny teensy bit of a rat's brain by brute forcing the chemical reactions on a cluster of supercomputers, which is cool but you end up with something that calculates so much numbers and data that you still don't have a clue what's going on inside.

I'll take your word for it. usually i would check the internet before conceding, but i have to go to a family dinner now.

So, being that who you are = the neurons, YOUR neurons, making an exact copy of your neural structure isn't going to be you. It will think like you, but the essence of a person, the metaphysical self, is contained in the biology. Theres no magical transfer of self that happens. The body is this integrated emergent whole; you can cut out pieces to some extent and retain the original self, but much beyond sense organ amputation and, well, Alzheimer's doesn't sound like any fun.

Any learning process will change who you are. and you need to learn to live as a simulated human.
You will be different yes, but one can replace all the parts of a guitar repeatedly and even with different types of parts but it will still be the same guitar.
Identity is about perception, if you think it is (or you are) the same then for all intents and purposes this will be true.

gotta go, have fun discussing this topic.

The human brain is a bit more complex in organization than a guitar. Also, see my point about intelligence, learning and synapse lability.