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.)
:fresh:
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.
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.
Quote from: Regret on May 18, 2010, 12:30:50 PM
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.
Quote from: Regret on May 18, 2010, 12:30:50 PM
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.
Quote from: Regret on May 18, 2010, 12:30:50 PM
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.
Quote from: Rumckle on May 18, 2010, 12:44:32 PM
Quote from: Regret on May 18, 2010, 12:30:50 PM
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...
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.
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:
(http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20100512.gif)
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.
Quote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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.
Quote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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)
Quote from: Iptuous on May 18, 2010, 02:11:29 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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.
QuoteQuote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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.
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.
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.
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
QuoteFor 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.
Quote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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.
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 02:24:45 PM
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.
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.
Okay, that seriously just broke my head. And not in a good way.
Quote from: Regret on May 18, 2010, 03:59:30 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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.
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 02:24:45 PM
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.
Quote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 02:18:20 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on May 18, 2010, 02:11:29 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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.
QuoteQuote from: Triple Zero on May 18, 2010, 01:37:53 PM
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.
So the first major problem after developing the technique, is obviously going to be "The Mr Smith program, is out of control"
So the remedy on the , . . what was that film called again?. . . . . . It doesn't matter, . . . .let's all take some Pills, and do Kung-Fu!!
Awesome!
Quote from: Rumckle on May 18, 2010, 10:15:39 AM
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.
Folk psychology is the process by which a human attributes desires/thoughts/feelings etc to other people in order to predict how others will act, or explain why they acted that way, its not a study of anything.
Quote from: Cramulus on May 18, 2010, 03:13:39 PM
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.
Not gonna happen. The first digital paradise will exist for a period of time until everyone gets bored of the interface and the flash gifs... then there will be a new digital paradise which 90% of the consciousnesses will get transferred into. That one will exist until everyone starts having serious concerns about the moderators and censorship. This will spawn yet another digital paradise which about 80% of the already digitized consciousnesses will sign up for. It will be extremely popular until security issues make it a veritable incubation chamber for consciousness viruses and trojans. A new network for digital paradise will emerge, but only about half the consciousnesses will sign up for that service, because they'll be suspicious of the company that owns it.
Meanwhile, there will be a few consciousnesses at all of the older digital paradises, wondering where everyone has gone to, why no one checks out their links/PM's and digital paradise memes. These will become like ghost towns, with only a few angry inhabitants that waylay other digital consciousnesses that took a wrong turn somewhere off the digital highway and will never be heard from again...
Quote from: Ratatosk on May 18, 2010, 08:00:28 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on May 18, 2010, 03:13:39 PM
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.
Not gonna happen. The first digital paradise will exist for a period of time until everyone gets bored of the interface and the flash gifs... then there will be a new digital paradise which 90% of the consciousnesses will get transferred into. That one will exist until everyone starts having serious concerns about the moderators and censorship. This will spawn yet another digital paradise which about 80% of the already digitized consciousnesses will sign up for. It will be extremely popular until security issues make it a veritable incubation chamber for consciousness viruses and trojans. A new network for digital paradise will emerge, but only about half the consciousnesses will sign up for that service, because they'll be suspicious of the company that owns it.
Meanwhile, there will be a few consciousnesses at all of the older digital paradises, wondering where everyone has gone to, why no one checks out their links/PM's and digital paradise memes. These will become like ghost towns, with only a few angry inhabitants that waylay other digital consciousnesses that took a wrong turn somewhere off the digital highway and will never be heard from again...
Well, isn't SOMEONE bitter. :lol:
that's actually part of the plot of the book.
the characters find themselves in this gigantic structure like a mall, where each kiosk offers a different type of experience. In reality, they are dead, and the electrical patterns which constitute their consciousness have been copied into this supercomputer which is sitting deep beneath the earth, powered on geothermal energy. There is no way to leave or delete yourself.
Over time, they start to realize that nothing manmade can really be paradise. And in fact the designers built it to be flawed so that the denizens wouldn't just become lazy consumer blobs of uniform bliss. For some, it definitely becomes a form of hell.
oh sweet, here it is:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PLf944cQ8rUC&dq=the+heaven+virus&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=y-jyS6z7McH6lwf--9GGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Quote from: Ratatosk on May 18, 2010, 08:00:28 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on May 18, 2010, 03:13:39 PM
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.
Not gonna happen. The first digital paradise will exist for a period of time until everyone gets bored of the interface and the flash gifs... then there will be a new digital paradise which 90% of the consciousnesses will get transferred into. That one will exist until everyone starts having serious concerns about the moderators and censorship. This will spawn yet another digital paradise which about 80% of the already digitized consciousnesses will sign up for. It will be extremely popular until security issues make it a veritable incubation chamber for consciousness viruses and trojans. A new network for digital paradise will emerge, but only about half the consciousnesses will sign up for that service, because they'll be suspicious of the company that owns it.
Meanwhile, there will be a few consciousnesses at all of the older digital paradises, wondering where everyone has gone to, why no one checks out their links/PM's and digital paradise memes. These will become like ghost towns, with only a few angry inhabitants that waylay other digital consciousnesses that took a wrong turn somewhere off the digital highway and will never be heard from again...
So this Digital eden, this new dimension of pure information, of lightspeed communication, and instant thought transference, to any other point of the virtualality we'd all live in, forever, without Death, or the need for 12 stones of meat based electro-chemical power plant to drag around all the time. Of digital immortality, and Psychic unity, based upon the sudden realisation that there would be nothing to fight over, as we all would have as much physical substance as an electromagnetic field. And an end to the obscenity of Government, no more morbid obesity, cheek by jowl with malnutrition, disease, or hunger.
And you just think it's going to be as big a bucket of fail, as the present system? A little bit pessimistic, don't you think?
Where are your dreams, your hopes for mankind? Where little black cyberimps, playing in the long, empty cyberstreets, with little white cyberimps, A whole new dimension, whose only limits are the bounds of our imagination! I'm going to stop here before I start singing some crappy old Prog rock Anthem, probably by Rush, or Yes.
I always know I'm pushing my credibility when "Yours is no disgrace" or "Spirit of Radio" start playing in my Head-pod. Gotta run now, bye.
Quote from: Cramulus on May 18, 2010, 08:23:40 PM
that's actually part of the plot of the book.
the characters find themselves in this gigantic structure like a mall, where each kiosk offers a different type of experience. In reality, they are dead, and the electrical patterns which constitute their consciousness have been copied into this supercomputer which is sitting deep beneath the earth, powered on geothermal energy. There is no way to leave or delete yourself.
Over time, they start to realize that nothing manmade can really be paradise. And in fact the designers built it to be flawed so that the denizens wouldn't just become lazy consumer blobs of uniform bliss. For some, it definitely becomes a form of hell.
oh sweet, here it is:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PLf944cQ8rUC&dq=the+heaven+virus&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=y-jyS6z7McH6lwf--9GGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Isn't that also one of the subplots from
The Matrix?
Quote from: BadBeast on May 18, 2010, 08:24:04 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on May 18, 2010, 08:00:28 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on May 18, 2010, 03:13:39 PM
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.
Not gonna happen. The first digital paradise will exist for a period of time until everyone gets bored of the interface and the flash gifs... then there will be a new digital paradise which 90% of the consciousnesses will get transferred into. That one will exist until everyone starts having serious concerns about the moderators and censorship. This will spawn yet another digital paradise which about 80% of the already digitized consciousnesses will sign up for. It will be extremely popular until security issues make it a veritable incubation chamber for consciousness viruses and trojans. A new network for digital paradise will emerge, but only about half the consciousnesses will sign up for that service, because they'll be suspicious of the company that owns it.
Meanwhile, there will be a few consciousnesses at all of the older digital paradises, wondering where everyone has gone to, why no one checks out their links/PM's and digital paradise memes. These will become like ghost towns, with only a few angry inhabitants that waylay other digital consciousnesses that took a wrong turn somewhere off the digital highway and will never be heard from again...
So this Digital eden, this new dimension of pure information, of lightspeed communication, and instant thought transference, to any other point of the virtualality we'd all live in, forever, without Death, or the need for 12 stones of meat based electro-chemical power plant to drag around all the time. Of digital immortality, and Psychic unity, based upon the sudden realisation that there would be nothing to fight over, as we all would have as much physical substance as an electromagnetic field. And an end to the obscenity of Government, no more morbid obesity, cheek by jowl with malnutrition, disease, or hunger.
And you just think it's going to be as big a bucket of fail, as the present system? A little bit pessimistic, don't you think?
Where are your dreams, your hopes for mankind? Where little black cyberimps, playing in the long, empty cyberstreets, with little white cyberimps, A whole new dimension, whose only limits are the bounds of our imagination! I'm going to stop here before I start singing some crappy old Prog rock Anthem, probably by Rush, or Yes.
I always know I'm pushing my credibility when "Yours is no disgrace" or "Spirit of Radio" start playing in my Head-pod. Gotta run now, bye.
Humans are humans... from the first analog cave to the last digital grave.
Quote from: BadBeast on May 18, 2010, 08:24:04 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on May 18, 2010, 08:00:28 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on May 18, 2010, 03:13:39 PM
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.
Not gonna happen. The first digital paradise will exist for a period of time until everyone gets bored of the interface and the flash gifs... then there will be a new digital paradise which 90% of the consciousnesses will get transferred into. That one will exist until everyone starts having serious concerns about the moderators and censorship. This will spawn yet another digital paradise which about 80% of the already digitized consciousnesses will sign up for. It will be extremely popular until security issues make it a veritable incubation chamber for consciousness viruses and trojans. A new network for digital paradise will emerge, but only about half the consciousnesses will sign up for that service, because they'll be suspicious of the company that owns it.
Meanwhile, there will be a few consciousnesses at all of the older digital paradises, wondering where everyone has gone to, why no one checks out their links/PM's and digital paradise memes. These will become like ghost towns, with only a few angry inhabitants that waylay other digital consciousnesses that took a wrong turn somewhere off the digital highway and will never be heard from again...
So this Digital eden, this new dimension of pure information, of lightspeed communication, and instant thought transference, to any other point of the virtualality we'd all live in, forever, without Death, or the need for 12 stones of meat based electro-chemical power plant to drag around all the time. Of digital immortality, and Psychic unity, based upon the sudden realisation that there would be nothing to fight over, as we all would have as much physical substance as an electromagnetic field. And an end to the obscenity of Government, no more morbid obesity, cheek by jowl with malnutrition, disease, or hunger.
And you just think it's going to be as big a bucket of fail, as the present system? A little bit pessimistic, don't you think?
Where are your dreams, your hopes for mankind? Where little black cyberimps, playing in the long, empty cyberstreets, with little white cyberimps, A whole new dimension, whose only limits are the bounds of our imagination! I'm going to stop here before I start singing some crappy old Prog rock Anthem, probably by Rush, or Yes.
I always know I'm pushing my credibility when "Yours is no disgrace" or "Spirit of Radio" start playing in my Head-pod. Gotta run now, bye.
Because the same things that give us great potential, our creativity, adaptability, emotions and passions, are the same things that inevitably cause disaster.
As rat said, you can't take the human out of humanity.
I'd like to add something. This conception of the Brain as the sole arbiter of consciousness is misplaced reductionist absurdism. We have 2 (TWO!) fully developed nervous systems (each with their own chemistry-flow and 'blood-brain barrier'). Trying to envision duplicating an individual consciousness by recreating the brain (even to perfection) is like trying to figure out the 'correct' place to write the words "happy', 'sad', 'love', and 'hate' on this picture to show where those emotions come from:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Heart.jpg)
Quote from: Telarus on May 18, 2010, 09:02:02 PM
I'd like to add something. This conception of the Brain as the sole arbiter of consciousness is misplaced reductionist absurdism. We have 2 (TWO!) fully developed nervous systems (each with their own chemistry-flow and 'blood-brain barrier'). Trying to envision duplicating an individual consciousness by recreating the brain (even to perfection) is like trying to figure out the 'correct' place to write the words "happy', 'sad', 'love', and 'hate' on this picture to show where those emotions come from:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Heart.jpg)
TROOF!
Quote from: Ratatosk on May 18, 2010, 09:03:08 PM
Quote from: Telarus on May 18, 2010, 09:02:02 PM
I'd like to add something. This conception of the Brain as the sole arbiter of consciousness is misplaced reductionist absurdism. We have 2 (TWO!) fully developed nervous systems (each with their own chemistry-flow and 'blood-brain barrier'). Trying to envision duplicating an individual consciousness by recreating the brain (even to perfection) is like trying to figure out the 'correct' place to write the words "happy', 'sad', 'love', and 'hate' on this picture to show where those emotions come from:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Heart.jpg)
TROOF!
Reminds me of an article in an old Bizzarre Mag, about people who had died for some reason or another, and when the Pathologist was doing the post mortem, and went check to check out the brain weight, he's sawn open the head, only to find no brain there at all. Just a thin, membrane around the inside of the skull. There was a nub of grey cells around the top of the spinal chord, about the size of a walnut, but no brain. The man who had died, was about 55, and the cause of death was something like a leaky duodenal ulcer or something. The man was a Store Manager for a Supermarket chain, with a normal life, family, and no behavioural problems, or mental deficiency of any kind. The Pathologist then did some research, and found that it's not as uncommon as you'd think. All the other cases that he dug up, had only been discovered by accident, during post mortem. And none of them had shown any sign of deficiency. Then he began researching as to how such a thing is possible, and found that a lot more of what we think of as brain activity, actually occurs in the spinal column, and in the nervous system itself. It's only in the last 2000 years, apparently, that the general concensus of the head, being the seat of consciousness has been
widely accepted. The ancient Greeks thought the heart was where the "self" lived, and the Egyptians thought it was in the stomach. There have been a lot of people who have had organ transplants, reporting that they have inherited memories along with the donated organ. One of these cases, a girl who recieved the liver from someone who had been murdered, was actually so disturbed by the memories, she made enquiries about the donor, discovered her organ came from a murder victim, and was able to go to the Police who were investigating the case, and pick the murderers mugshot out from their books, leading to a conviction, so it just goes to show that as far as consciousness goes, we really know very little about how it works, or where it lives or even what it does most of the time. It's one of the most difficult biological functions, to quantify with any degree of certainty at all.
Quote from: Telarus on May 18, 2010, 09:02:02 PM
I'd like to add something. This conception of the Brain as the sole arbiter of consciousness is misplaced reductionist absurdism. We have 2 (TWO!) fully developed nervous systems (each with their own chemistry-flow and 'blood-brain barrier'). Trying to envision duplicating an individual consciousness by recreating the brain (even to perfection) is like trying to figure out the 'correct' place to write the words "happy', 'sad', 'love', and 'hate' on this picture to show where those emotions come from:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Heart.jpg
I'm assuming you're talking about the visceral/autonomic nervous system.
I agree with you though. Our minds are not simply in our heads, they extend to all portions of our bodies, and even a short distance from when it comes to tactile reception. We are our whole neural network, not just the stuff above the clavicle.
All I know is that if I can't have a Robot Nixon body, then why the hell do we pay these so called "scientists"?
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 09:38:40 PM
Quote from: Telarus on May 18, 2010, 09:02:02 PM
I'd like to add something. This conception of the Brain as the sole arbiter of consciousness is misplaced reductionist absurdism. We have 2 (TWO!) fully developed nervous systems (each with their own chemistry-flow and 'blood-brain barrier'). Trying to envision duplicating an individual consciousness by recreating the brain (even to perfection) is like trying to figure out the 'correct' place to write the words "happy', 'sad', 'love', and 'hate' on this picture to show where those emotions come from:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Heart.jpg
I'm assuming you're talking about the visceral/autonomic nervous system.
I agree with you though. Our minds are not simply in our heads, they extend to all portions of our bodies, and even a short distance from when it comes to tactile reception. We are our whole neural network, not just the stuff above the clavicle.
More specifically the Enteric nervous system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system), which is capable of autonomous function, has it's own 'blood-brain barrier', develops separately from the Central Nervous System during gestation, and then is linked back to it via the Vagus Nerve later in development. It is classically considered a part of the Autonomic Nervous System, but I think it's differentiated enough to consider a primary system by itself.
I wish I had paid more attention in biology class in H/S, but then again, they never mentioned the cool shit like this.
Then we're on the same page because that's what I was talking about.
Even though you convinced me that it won't be anything close to human i still think it would be an interesting experiment to simulate a living brain.
Dammit. i hate being wrong.
There is something about PD that rubs my face into the shittyness of my ideas.
It is addictive.
Quote from: Regret on May 18, 2010, 10:23:37 PM
Even though you convinced me that it won't be anything close to human i still think it would be an interesting experiment to simulate a living brain.
Dammit. i hate being wrong.
There is something about PD that rubs my face into the shittyness of my ideas.
It is addictive.
Oh, I think that would be bloody awesome/excellent. Probably not the best bet for a personal computer, but if you could simulate a great number of human-like neural networks working on a problem, it could possibly come up with some novel solutions.
As for the op's "mind transfer" hypothesis, yeah, its really just a fantasy. But sometimes dreams and fantasy can spur discovery.
Quote from: Regret on May 18, 2010, 10:23:37 PM
Even though you convinced me that it won't be anything close to human i still think it would be an interesting experiment to simulate a living brain.
LEARN TO PROGRAM
BUILD ARTIFICIAL LIFE/EVOLUTION PROGRAMS
IS GREAT FUN
SIR
YES
SIR!