Our genes say we must soon die. I say they are not the masters.

[DBT]

Transporter copies?
The brain constructs a copy of 'you' based on memory every morning upon 'awakening.' For that matter 'you' are being constructed from moment to moment whilst the brain is consciously active.

Yeah, that's what intrigues me about the idea. The copy made by a transporter is actually much higher in fidelity and resolution than the copy made by my brain, and MUCH higher than the difference between the state of my body across a week. So, by that logic, if I am still me next week, then the transporter copy is still me. But what about the scenario where my original is not destroyed? Am I both copies, and where does my awareness reside? At that point, what effect does destroying one of the copies have on the continuity of identity? Or does it even matter?

In that case there are two of you. Given the technology to replicate people, the is no limit to how many versions of 'you' that can be constructed. You yourself being version of yourself constructed moment by moment by a brain, and changing from moment to moment. Tomorrow's 'you' being slightly different to today's 'you.'

Consequently, all the errant transporter copies of 'you' go their own way the moment they start having their own unique experiences. Experiences that shape and form their/your character and personality in specific ways. Over time each 'self' developing their own beliefs and outlook and becoming a unique entity.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, that's what intrigues me about the idea. The copy made by a transporter is actually much higher in fidelity and resolution than the copy made by my brain, and MUCH higher than the difference between the state of my body across a week. So, by that logic, if I am still me next week, then the transporter copy is still me. But what about the scenario where my original is not destroyed? Am I both copies, and where does my awareness reside? At that point, what effect does destroying one of the copies have on the continuity of identity? Or does it even matter?

In that case there are two of you. Given the technology to replicate people, the is no limit to how many versions of 'you' that can be constructed. You yourself being version of yourself constructed moment by moment by a brain, and changing from moment to moment. Tomorrow's 'you' being slightly different to today's 'you.'

Consequently, all the errant transporter copies of 'you' go their own way the moment they start having their own unique experiences. Experiences that shape and form their/your character and personality in specific ways. Over time each 'self' developing their own beliefs and outlook and becoming a unique entity.

Indeed. And having an identical twin is not a stepping stone to immortality. No matter how many copies there are, each is a different (and mortal) individual.

 

[PyramidHead]

In that case there are two of you. Given the technology to replicate people, the is no limit to how many versions of 'you' that can be constructed. You yourself being version of yourself constructed moment by moment by a brain, and changing from moment to moment. Tomorrow's 'you' being slightly different to today's 'you.'

Consequently, all the errant transporter copies of 'you' go their own way the moment they start having their own unique experiences. Experiences that shape and form their/your character and personality in specific ways. Over time each 'self' developing their own beliefs and outlook and becoming a unique entity.

Indeed. And having an identical twin is not a stepping stone to immortality. No matter how many copies there are, each is a different (and mortal) individual.

Right. Therefore, a transporter that makes a perfect copy of me and destroys the original would kill me if I were to enter it. Somebody with my memories and personality would exit the other side, but my awareness would not 'pick up' where it left off in his body. As DBT says, it would be another awareness, just as it would be if the original was not destroyed. So, any technology that would result in the destruction of both body and brain, even if it yielded an exactly identical copy, would not grant ryan immortality.

 

[ryan]

Indeed. And having an identical twin is not a stepping stone to immortality. No matter how many copies there are, each is a different (and mortal) individual.

Right. Therefore, a transporter that makes a perfect copy of me and destroys the original would kill me if I were to enter it. Somebody with my memories and personality would exit the other side, but my awareness would not 'pick up' where it left off in his body. As DBT says, it would be another awareness, just as it would be if the original was not destroyed. So, any technology that would result in the destruction of both body and brain, even if it yielded an exactly identical copy, would not grant ryan immortality.

If you are right, you do realize what this implies right? It means something even more interesting and crazy than even mind uploading. It means that we have a nonphysical aspect to us. Religious people call it a soul; atheists call it substance dualism.

*I want to add something. There might be a third possibility. There could be the possibility that a unique awareness is actually just something physical in the brain that is undiscovered. In this case, it may be the easiest solution to keep whatever it is that makes our unique consciousness in control and conscious.

Let's say that the latter is true. Then this nonphysical entity would simply cease to exist when the original body dies. But what if we could somehow keep track of the original molecules that created me. This could be done by very advanced simulators. So in the extreme event that I blow up from a supernova, incredibly advanced simulators somewhere will automatically know where my particles went, and "search parties" will automatically go find them. Then I can be reconstructed with the last scan that I took.

 

[PyramidHead]

Right. Therefore, a transporter that makes a perfect copy of me and destroys the original would kill me if I were to enter it. Somebody with my memories and personality would exit the other side, but my awareness would not 'pick up' where it left off in his body. As DBT says, it would be another awareness, just as it would be if the original was not destroyed. So, any technology that would result in the destruction of both body and brain, even if it yielded an exactly identical copy, would not grant ryan immortality.

If you are right, you do realize what this implies right? It means something even more interesting and crazy than even mind uploading. It means that we have a nonphysical aspect to us. Religious people call it a soul; atheists call it substance dualism.

*I want to add something. There might be a third possibility. There could be the possibility that a unique awareness is actually just something physical in the brain that is undiscovered. In this case, it may be the easiest solution to keep whatever it is that makes our unique consciousness in control and conscious.

Let's say that the latter is true. Then this nonphysical entity would simply cease to exist when the original body dies. But what if we could somehow keep track of the original molecules that created me. This could be done by very advanced simulators. So in the extreme event that I blow up from a supernova, incredibly advanced simulators somewhere will automatically know where my particles went, and "search parties" will automatically go find them. Then I can be reconstructed with the last scan that I took.

The original molecules don't matter, because those are being shuffled in and out every moment, like your cells. It's the continuity of the physical substrate that appears to govern whether or not your consciousness will survive. If you blow up in a supernova, you will die, and anything created out of what used to be your particles will just be a duplicate that thinks it's you. But you will be gone, because the continuity was interrupted for too long. At least that's my current thinking on the topic.

 

[ryan]

If you are right, you do realize what this implies right? It means something even more interesting and crazy than even mind uploading. It means that we have a nonphysical aspect to us. Religious people call it a soul; atheists call it substance dualism.

*I want to add something. There might be a third possibility. There could be the possibility that a unique awareness is actually just something physical in the brain that is undiscovered. In this case, it may be the easiest solution to keep whatever it is that makes our unique consciousness in control and conscious.

Let's say that the latter is true. Then this nonphysical entity would simply cease to exist when the original body dies. But what if we could somehow keep track of the original molecules that created me. This could be done by very advanced simulators. So in the extreme event that I blow up from a supernova, incredibly advanced simulators somewhere will automatically know where my particles went, and "search parties" will automatically go find them. Then I can be reconstructed with the last scan that I took.

The original molecules don't matter, because those are being shuffled in and out every moment, like your cells. It's the continuity of the physical substrate that appears to govern whether or not your consciousness will survive. If you blow up in a supernova, you will die, and anything created out of what used to be your particles will just be a duplicate that thinks it's you. But you will be gone, because the continuity was interrupted for too long. At least that's my current thinking on the topic.

Yeah, the continuity could be what gives us a unique consciousness. In that case, we have to figure out a way to say continuous.

When I read things like this,

With the entire universe made into a giant, highly efficient supercomputer, AI and human hybrids (so integrated that, in truth it is a new category of "life") would have both supreme intelligence and physical control over the universe. Humanity will still not possess infinite levels of any attributes, as the accelerating change of evolution never reaches an infinite measure (though it moves rapidly in that direction), becoming, as Kurzweil writes, "moving inexorably toward this monotheistic conception of God, though never reaching this ideal"; even with theories such as the holographic universe. The final chapter however notes that, if possible, the ability to create and colonize other universes (and if there is a way to do this, humanity's vast intelligence is likely to harness it, as with surpassing/bypassing the speed of light) could allow the intelligence of the human/machine civilization to extend indefinitely, akin to a mathematical singularity. If not, then saturating humanity's own universe will remain their ultimate fate.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil that claims that Ray Kurzweil made these predictions in his book The Singularity Is Near, I feel like anything is possible.

 

[PyramidHead]

That sure would be neat.

 

[Bomb#20]

Not following the reasoning there. The stored information in a frozen embryo is sufficient to construct a mind; that doesn't mean it contains a mind. What makes a petabyte of iron oxide any more of a person than a frozen embryo?

An embryo contains the information to construct 'a' mind, but not any specific individual's mind.

Say what? The baby an embryo will grow into if unfrozen and implanted isn't a specific individual?

Well, presumably the person setting up the collection of backup copies will also have set up some mechanism whereby if he ever stops sending "I'm still alive" messages to the database then it will do some due diligence and if satisfied that the original is gone for good then it will construct a robot body and download one of the backup copies into it.

How? What materials will it use, and what will its energy source be, at the heat death of the universe? How can the database itself even still exist at that point in time?

Heat death is a pre-big-bang concept derived from extrapolating the future of a closed system with fixed boundaries. A perpetually expanding universe never reaches thermal equilibrium.

 

[Bomb#20]

I don't think that a person can be conscious in a cloud of data. I think that uploading ultimately requires a clone to recreate you. But it wouldn't be like a typical clone that we can make now; it would be a clone right from the state you were in when you were "scanned". So the clone would even have your memories. Then it may be something like a 3D printer that will recreate you.

Ah yes, The 6th Day. Great Schwarzenegger movie!

 

[bilby]

An embryo contains the information to construct 'a' mind, but not any specific individual's mind.

Say what? The baby an embryo will grow into if unfrozen and implanted isn't a specific individual?

Not one that already existed, no.

Well, presumably the person setting up the collection of backup copies will also have set up some mechanism whereby if he ever stops sending "I'm still alive" messages to the database then it will do some due diligence and if satisfied that the original is gone for good then it will construct a robot body and download one of the backup copies into it.

How? What materials will it use, and what will its energy source be, at the heat death of the universe? How can the database itself even still exist at that point in time?

Heat death is a pre-big-bang concept derived from extrapolating the future of a closed system with fixed boundaries. A perpetually expanding universe never reaches thermal equilibrium.

Sweet. We have practically solved the entire problem of building a machine that can last forever without breaking down, and that can generate living brains with pre-recorded consciousnesses then

 

[DBT]

To drift off a bit, Cory Doctorow uses the idea of 'refreshing' one's mind with pre stored memories, uploading and storing consciousness, etc, in his book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom with some new twists....

"Refresh" or a "restore from backup" is the cure for dying; which consists of creating a "force-grown" clone and downloading into its mind a backup of one's own mind created earlier. Synthesized memories (from other data sources filling in the time gap between last backup and death) was an innovation created recently in the book.

 

[Kharakov]

There is a funny argument out there that allegedly proves there are only a few possibilities with respect to computer simulations of reality: either we will never advance far enough to create that technology, or we are all currently living in a simulated reality. The basic idea is that, if people in the future invent simulated reality that is indistinguishable from the real world, and it becomes commonplace, there will be many more simulated "realities" than the actual reality. So, by simple probability theory, we are probably inside a Matrix being run by some advanced civilization who wish to simulate the reality of their ancestors.

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

I like the idea of being able to recreate your own universe perfectly (not a simulation) just on a much smaller scale so time passes faster. If you become adept enough at energy manipulation, you can form your universe at a much smaller scale, fast forward to now, and insert yourself into the new universe which gives you tons more time to calculate stuff.

From within the faster, smaller universe, you create another smaller universe with the same technology, in which things occur many orders of magnitude faster than the other smaller universe. And so on and so forth- go a couple universes deep, and you will be able to work for a really long time on the energy problem in your original universe- you just need to be able to communicate with the smaller universe, in order to tell the version of you that is in it that they are a sub-universe and need to work. Although they may try to do the same thing to extend their life, etc. So someone would have to make the sacrifice and keep working- or at least be able to transmit the information.

Of course, it is slightly immoral to force everyone to live through all the horrors of the past again, just to have lots of time to research energy. And you wouldn't want certain forces to get the tech, because they would recreate universes for fun, and abuse the beings within the sub-universes. You might even get total assholes who want revenge on certain groups who try to kill them in the new universes with greater tech, so...

 

[DBT]

So, by simple probability theory, we are probably inside a Matrix being run by some advanced civilization who wish to simulate the reality of their ancestors.

It need not be a wish to simulate the reality of their ancestors. There may be an endless number of reasons to run simulations, entertainment for bored immortals, explore the possibilities that chaotic/probabilistic/deterministic systems may produce in relation to evolution. The 'simulation' may be an expression of a quantum probability wave generator, etc...who could possibly guess the thoughts and motives of a SuperTech Civilization?

 

[ryan]

Why isn't gaining control over our lives a bigger deal to everyone???!!!

 

[PyramidHead]

Why isn't gaining control over our lives a bigger deal to everyone???!!!

Your choice of imagery is quite appropriate, and contains the answer to your question.

 

[ryan]

Why isn't gaining control over our lives a bigger deal to everyone???!!!

Your choice of imagery is quite appropriate, and contains the answer to your question.

The horse wasn't exactly what I wanted. I wanted the head hitting the wall, but it isn't there anymore.

 

[PyramidHead]

Put "banghead" between colons and it should work. Testing...

 

[Mageth]

Your choice of imagery is quite appropriate, and contains the answer to your question.

The horse wasn't exactly what I wanted. I wanted the head hitting the wall, but it isn't there anymore.

But in your "I don't wanna die!" case this one would be more appropriate:

 

[ryan]

Put "banghead" between colons and it should work. Testing...

Thank-you

 

[ryan]

The horse wasn't exactly what I wanted. I wanted the head hitting the wall, but it isn't there anymore.

But in your "I don't wanna die!" case this one would be more appropriate:

I gave up on people on Talk Freethought a long time ago. I failed; I admit it.

The verdict is in: nobody wants to die, and nobody is going to do anything about it. I just have to accept this bewildering fact.