What do you think happens in the infinite loop that “runs you” moment to moment? Passing the same instance of consciousness to itself, over and over?
Consciousness isn’t an instance. It isn’t static, it’s a constantly self-modifying waveform that remembers bits about its former self from moment to moment.
You can upload it without destroying the original if you can find a way for it to meaningfully interact with processing architecture and media that are digital in nature; and if you can do that without shutting you off. Here’s the kinky part: We can already do this. You can make a device that takes a brain signal and stimulates a remote device; and you can stimulate a brain with a digital signal. Set it up for feedback in a manner similar to the ongoing continuous feedback of our neural structures and you have now extended yourself into a digital device in a meaningful way.
Then you just keep adding to that architecture gradually, and gradually peeling away redundant bits of the original brain hardware, until most or all of you is being kept alive in the digital device instead of the meat body. To you, it’s continuous and it’s still you on the other end. Tada, consciousness uploaded.
I think SOMA made it pretty clear we’re never uploading jack shit, at best we’re making a copy for whom it’ll feel as if they’ve been uploaded, but the original remains behind as well.
Yeah, like replacing individual braincells with more durable mechanisms.
Idk, maybe they would be cellular as well.
…that makes me wonder, maybe it is possible to transfer consciousness even with traditional biological mechanism?
That’s what I’ve always thought more or less, to have a chance you would need a method where mental processing starts to be shared in both, then transfers more and more to the inorganic platform till it’s 100% and the organic isn’t working anymore.
You would have to functionally duplicate the exact structure of the brain or its consciousness while having the duplication mechanism destroy the thing it was reading at almost exactly the same time. And even then, that’s not really solving the issue.
Not necessary. Imagine you begin suffering Alzheimer. And the artificial neurons are making a copy of your brain. Once a neuron stops working the backup one replaces it. Your mind, if it worked, could see the new neuron as part of the same brain and work with it seamlessly.
I don’t see an issue with that. A prolonged brain surgery that meticulously replaces each part with a mechanical equivalent in sequence. Could probably remain conscious the whole time.
Yeah, but it’s still a Ship of Theseus problem. If you have a ship and replace every single board or plank with a different one, piece by piece, is it still the same ship or a completely different one, albeit an exact replica of the original. It’s important because of philosophical ideas around the existence of the soul and authenticity of the individual and a bunch of other thought-experimenty stuff.
I think so long as you maintain consciousness that issue is fairly null in this particular circumstance. There’s lots of tolerance for changes in thought while maintaining the same self, see many brain damage victims. So long as there is minimal change in personality, there are lots of other circumstances that have a stronger case for killing one person and having a new person replace them due to change of consciousness, imo, I don’t think most people would consider a brain damaged person killed and replaced by a new consciousness, or a drug addiction with radically altered brain chemistry, etc.
You see, with Effective Altruism, we’ll destroy the world around us to serve a small cadre of ubermensch tech bros, who will then somehow in the next few centuries go into space and put supercomputers on other planets that run simulations of people. You might actually be in one of those simulations right now, so be grateful.
We are very smart and not just reckless, over-indulged douchebags who jerk off to the smell of our own farts.
It would be easier to record than upload. Since upload requires at least a decode steps. Given the fleeting nature of existence how does one confirm the decoding? This also requires we create a simulated brain, which seems more difficult and resource intensive than forming a new biological brain remotely connected to your nervous system inputs.
Recording all inputs in real time and play them back across a blank nervous system will create an active copy. The inputs can be saved so they can be played back later in case of clone failure. As long as the inputs are record until the moment of death, the copy will be you minus the death so you wouldn’t be aware you’re a copy. Attach it to fresh body and off you go.
Failure mode would take your literal lifetime to reform your consciousness but what’s a couple decades to an immortal.
We already have the program to create new brains. It’s in our DNA. A true senior developer knows better than to try and replicate black box code that’s been executing fine. We don’t even understand consciousness enough to pretend we’re going to add new features so why waste the effort creating a parallel system of a black box.
Scheduled reboots of a black box system is common practice. Why pretend we’re capable of skipping steps.
It wouldn’t really matter until you get to the brain. Very little of your body’s “processing” happens outside of your brain. Basically all of your consciousness is in there. There are some quick nerve paths that loop through your spine for things like moving your hand away when you touch a hot object, but that’s not really consciousness.
I think that really depends on the implementation details. For example, consider a thought experiment where artificial neurons can be created that behave just the same as biological ones. Then each of your neurons is replaced by an artificial version while you are still conscious. You wouldn’t notice losing a single neuron at a time, in fact this regularly happens already. Yet, over time, all your biological neurons could be replaced by artificial ones at which point your consciousness will have migrated to a new substrate.
Alternatively, what if one of your hemispheres was replaced by an artificial one. What if an artificial hemisphere was added into the mix in addition to the two you have. What if a dozen artificial hemispheres were added, or a thousand, would the two original biological ones still be the most relevant parts of you?
Why would you want a simulation version? You will get saved at “well rested.” It will be an infinite loop of put to work for several hours and then deleted. You won’t even experience that much, your consciousness is gone.
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So, I’m curious.
What do you think happens in the infinite loop that “runs you” moment to moment? Passing the same instance of consciousness to itself, over and over?
Consciousness isn’t an instance. It isn’t static, it’s a constantly self-modifying waveform that remembers bits about its former self from moment to moment.
You can upload it without destroying the original if you can find a way for it to meaningfully interact with processing architecture and media that are digital in nature; and if you can do that without shutting you off. Here’s the kinky part: We can already do this. You can make a device that takes a brain signal and stimulates a remote device; and you can stimulate a brain with a digital signal. Set it up for feedback in a manner similar to the ongoing continuous feedback of our neural structures and you have now extended yourself into a digital device in a meaningful way.
Then you just keep adding to that architecture gradually, and gradually peeling away redundant bits of the original brain hardware, until most or all of you is being kept alive in the digital device instead of the meat body. To you, it’s continuous and it’s still you on the other end. Tada, consciousness uploaded.
I think SOMA made it pretty clear we’re never uploading jack shit, at best we’re making a copy for whom it’ll feel as if they’ve been uploaded, but the original remains behind as well.
I wonder how you ever could “upload” a consciousness without Ship-of-Theseusing a Brain.
Cyberpunk2077 also has this “upload vs copy” issue, but doesn’t actually make you think about it too hard.
Yeah, like replacing individual braincells with more durable mechanisms. Idk, maybe they would be cellular as well. …that makes me wonder, maybe it is possible to transfer consciousness even with traditional biological mechanism?
That’s what I’ve always thought more or less, to have a chance you would need a method where mental processing starts to be shared in both, then transfers more and more to the inorganic platform till it’s 100% and the organic isn’t working anymore.
You would have to functionally duplicate the exact structure of the brain or its consciousness while having the duplication mechanism destroy the thing it was reading at almost exactly the same time. And even then, that’s not really solving the issue.
Not necessary. Imagine you begin suffering Alzheimer. And the artificial neurons are making a copy of your brain. Once a neuron stops working the backup one replaces it. Your mind, if it worked, could see the new neuron as part of the same brain and work with it seamlessly.
I don’t see an issue with that. A prolonged brain surgery that meticulously replaces each part with a mechanical equivalent in sequence. Could probably remain conscious the whole time.
Yeah, but it’s still a Ship of Theseus problem. If you have a ship and replace every single board or plank with a different one, piece by piece, is it still the same ship or a completely different one, albeit an exact replica of the original. It’s important because of philosophical ideas around the existence of the soul and authenticity of the individual and a bunch of other thought-experimenty stuff.
I think so long as you maintain consciousness that issue is fairly null in this particular circumstance. There’s lots of tolerance for changes in thought while maintaining the same self, see many brain damage victims. So long as there is minimal change in personality, there are lots of other circumstances that have a stronger case for killing one person and having a new person replace them due to change of consciousness, imo, I don’t think most people would consider a brain damaged person killed and replaced by a new consciousness, or a drug addiction with radically altered brain chemistry, etc.
A lot of people don’t realize that a ‘cut & paste’ is actually a ‘copy & delete’.
And guess what ‘deleting’ is in a consciousness upload?
It’s all good as long as you’re always on the better side of the coin flip.
You see, with Effective Altruism, we’ll destroy the world around us to serve a small cadre of ubermensch tech bros, who will then somehow in the next few centuries go into space and put supercomputers on other planets that run simulations of people. You might actually be in one of those simulations right now, so be grateful.
We are very smart and not just reckless, over-indulged douchebags who jerk off to the smell of our own farts.
There are many languages I would rather die than be written in
More like
It would be easier to record than upload. Since upload requires at least a decode steps. Given the fleeting nature of existence how does one confirm the decoding? This also requires we create a simulated brain, which seems more difficult and resource intensive than forming a new biological brain remotely connected to your nervous system inputs.
Recording all inputs in real time and play them back across a blank nervous system will create an active copy. The inputs can be saved so they can be played back later in case of clone failure. As long as the inputs are record until the moment of death, the copy will be you minus the death so you wouldn’t be aware you’re a copy. Attach it to fresh body and off you go.
Failure mode would take your literal lifetime to reform your consciousness but what’s a couple decades to an immortal.
We already have the program to create new brains. It’s in our DNA. A true senior developer knows better than to try and replicate black box code that’s been executing fine. We don’t even understand consciousness enough to pretend we’re going to add new features so why waste the effort creating a parallel system of a black box.
Scheduled reboots of a black box system is common practice. Why pretend we’re capable of skipping steps.
Conscience?What if every part of my body is replaced by computer part continously. At what point do I lose my consciousness?
I think this question is hard to answer because not everyone agrees what consciousness even is.
It wouldn’t really matter until you get to the brain. Very little of your body’s “processing” happens outside of your brain. Basically all of your consciousness is in there. There are some quick nerve paths that loop through your spine for things like moving your hand away when you touch a hot object, but that’s not really consciousness.
I get this reference
I think that really depends on the implementation details. For example, consider a thought experiment where artificial neurons can be created that behave just the same as biological ones. Then each of your neurons is replaced by an artificial version while you are still conscious. You wouldn’t notice losing a single neuron at a time, in fact this regularly happens already. Yet, over time, all your biological neurons could be replaced by artificial ones at which point your consciousness will have migrated to a new substrate.
Alternatively, what if one of your hemispheres was replaced by an artificial one. What if an artificial hemisphere was added into the mix in addition to the two you have. What if a dozen artificial hemispheres were added, or a thousand, would the two original biological ones still be the most relevant parts of you?
It’s still a surviving working copy. “I” go away and reboot every time I fall asleep.
Why would you want a simulation version? You will get saved at “well rested.” It will be an infinite loop of put to work for several hours and then deleted. You won’t even experience that much, your consciousness is gone.
Joke’s on them, I’ve never been “well rested” in my life or my digital afterlife.
Yup. Read this and you will forever be against brain-uploading:
https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
In a language that has exceptions, there is no good reason to return bool here…