Transferring consciousness

[Backdraft]

So, this is something that I've been thinking about ever since I first saw this transhumanism stuff popping up everywhere. Most people I've found are eager to "transfer" their consciousness to a computer—essentially turning themselves into androids under the assumption that doing so would increase their longevity indefinitely. I have an issue with this, and it's not some pseudo-ethical bull, it's a legitimate question:

First, allow me to draw a parallel to frame the question. If we created a human clone of a person—let's call her "Jane"—there would be two Janes, but Jane wouldn't have just one consciousness. Jane 2 would be her own person, not an expansion of Jane 1. If we then, hypothetically, shot Jane 1, she would no longer be alive, even if Jane 2 was still alive. There would just be one Jane. That Jane would be an exact copy of Jane 1, but wouldn't be her. Jane 1's consciousness will have ceased to exist.

Taking that logic and applying it to transhumanism, if we copied a person's consciousness (as I highly doubt there is a way to "transfer" consciousness; that seems rather abstract to me,) then we would again have two Janes. One Jane would be human, the other would be an exact digital copy of Janes thoughts and memories. It would, essentially, be its own being. If organic Jane dropped dead right there, the people around her wouldn't recognize it as Jane dying, they'd simply see digital Jane as her replacement. Jane would have effectively beaten death—at least, as far as the people around her are concerned. The issue is that digital Jane is not Jane, she's a copy of Jane. Jane is dead. She didn't beat death, she just got cloned, and the clone is still alive.

(This is all disregarding the inevitable hacking and viruses that would eventually become commonplace in a world where people are digitally stored in android bodies.)

So, all that said, would you do it? Would you "transfer your consciousness" by effectively killing yourself, so that an exact copy of you with all of your thoughts and memories would live on for an undetermined amount of time?

[Lustful Bride]

mm......I might. But only if I was already near death. At least that way it will be as accurate a version of me as possible with as much data as could be used and memories to help make sure it is like me and can carry on a legacy with my values and etc etc. :P

Also this is really reminding me of Soma.

Click here for the game in question, and an analysis of this very topic along with a heaping of existential horror

[midnightblack]

Soma was mindboggling for me. I was blank-eyed for days after finishing that game, just gazing outward and pondering.

As for the topic itself, it's often brought up for discussion at work, albeit in more of a jokingly, tongue-in-cheek manner. In ideas like medicine running out of business and being replaced by hardware and software maintenance.  In any case, I find that any and all ethical dilemmas that humankind has faced up to this point will simply whittle away in comparison to the problems  brought up precisely by the points suggested by Backdraft: having several copies of the same "self" floating about, each as an individual entity. I'm guessing that humanity's future may in some sense turn out in the spirit of Mark Twain's words at the end of "The Mysterious Stranger". The "individual" will be an electromagnetic wave propagating through the vacuum, and upon the discovery of a suitable world, machinery will just take a bucketload of dust, filter the atoms and weave into a suitable lifeform which will be loaded up with the aforementioned "self".

As far as I'm concerned, I probably wouldn't be able to say 'no' to the option of loading my awareness in the memory of some satellite and enjoying a blissful existence in virtual reality. Not so sure if perpetuating my existence in the "real" world indefinitely (unless this one too is a clever illusion that we haven't figured out yet  ::) ) would be as fun. I'd need something to keep me busy for a good long while.

[Backdraft]

mm......I might. But only if I was already near death. At least that way it will be as accurate a version of me as possible with as much data as could be used and memories to help make sure it is like me and can carry on a legacy with my values and etc etc. :P

Also this is really reminding me of Soma.

Click here for the game in question, and an analysis of this very topic along with a heaping of existential horror

I loved SOMA, but I never finished it. I got to the sunken submarine, got stuck in a room with the. . .thing hovering right outside the door just as I got a checkpoint. Spawn-killed every time I reloaded, so I haven't gotten around to replaying it yet. It was really good while it lasted, though.

[Missy]

I'm pretty sure there's something to do with quantum mechanics which means it's actually impossible to make an absolute duplicate of anything ever. A copied individual would be it's own being, you can only measure one aspect of any one thign at a time. Wish I remember where it was I saw that.

[Missy]

Although I would still download myself into a machine if it bore the complexity necessary to carry me. Likely there is not now a machine with the data stores and processing power to effectively simulate organic conciousness, whether or not that can or will happen remains to be seen.


Also on the topic of assuming we're nto already in a simulation you forget to ask if you are the simulations inhabitant or which of us are the inhabitants and which of the 'people' we interact with are actually a part of the simulation. Also the depth of the simulation: if a tree falls in the forest when no one is around, does it make a sound; in a simulation the answer would be 'no'. Although that assumes our simulation exists within the framework of the confines of the most advanced computer we could theoretically construct (contained within a Dyson Sphere) with technology of a similar design and limitations as our own, it is of course entirely possible our simulation utilizes technology vastly superior to our conception of the possible: meaning yes, your heart continues to beat even when the doctor isn't using a stephascope.

[midnightblack]

I'm pretty sure there's something to do with quantum mechanics which means it's actually impossible to make an absolute duplicate of anything ever. A copied individual would be it's own being, you can only measure one aspect of any one thign at a time. Wish I remember where it was I saw that.

What you mean by that is probably the 'no-cloning theorem', which states that it is impossible to make an identical copy of an unknown quantum state. Still, the brain is a macroscopic object, at least some of the stuff it does can be understood in a classical (i.e. not quantum sense) and consciousness/awareness clearly have some classical significance, even if they are ultimately generated by quantum phenomena. So, maybe there is a way around things, in the sense that probably you don't need a mapping of the evolution of every single quantum state in your head in order to understand (or duplicate) its behavior.

[Trieste]

The idea of being transferred into a machine creeps me the fuck out. I'm like, we don't even necessarily know where the consciousness is in the body - western thought has it centered in the head, other civs have had it in places like the chest and the stomach - plus there's the whole gut-brain theory. (It may be junk science; I haven't read enough about it to know.) Like, are we sure we would get it all?

... probably going to check out that SOMA game now, though. I hadn't heard of it.

[Remiel]

This subject also reminds me vaguely of the game the Talos Principle, although that had to do more with Artificial Intelligences taking on the role of humanity's successors and intellectual progeny.

But it also brings to mind the teleporters on Star Trek.  I've often thought, "wait--isn't Captain Kirk essentially being destroyed and an exact clone created every time he uses the teleporter?"

[Valerian]

This subject also reminds me vaguely of the game the Talos Principle, although that had to do more with Artificial Intelligences taking on the role of humanity's successors and intellectual progeny.

But it also brings to mind the teleporters on Star Trek.  I've often thought, "wait--isn't Captain Kirk essentially being destroyed and an exact clone created every time he uses the teleporter?"

I've often wondered that myself, and it's always struck me as seriously creepy and mind-bending.  As much as I joke about wanting transporters to be real, I don't think I'd ever have the nerve to use one.

I may need to watch The Prestige again now.  :P

[Wheeler97]

The complexity of either "transferring" or "copying" a person's consciousness depends very significantly on exactly how memories are stored and whether or not it's anything more than our memories/experiences that make up our personalities and identities. I believe that the primary theory is that memory is a product of physical storage created by the synapses (connections) between neurons in the brain. There is a relatively recent proposal that postulates the neurons themselves as holding the memories. I would appreciate if anyone can provide additional insight, but if memory and thus consciousness is determined by the physical structure of the brain, then it would be easier, relatively speaking, to then copy a person's consciousness by creating a duplicate of the brain. I say relatively easy because there are almost as many synapses (roughly 100 billion) that make up each of our brains as there are stars in the whole Milky Way Galaxy (100-400 billion). Imagine precisely mapping an exact copy of the Milky Way as far as the relative position of stars in addition to copying precise pathways between each star to many of the stars around them. That's your brain.

I also want to reemphasize that if our memories are made up by the physical pathways of the brain, it creates an additional question of whether it's even possible to create a "digital" copy of our "consciousness" that is determined by a physical structure.

Back to the dilemma, this whole discussion also greatly depends on how you choose to define an individual. There is a commonly quoted myth that by the end of seven years, all cells in your body have died and been replaced by copies. That's not quite true since every type of cell has a differing lifespan. Some cells only live for a few months while some, neurons of your cerebral cortex, are never replaced when they die. So if all the physical cells of your body have been copied and replaced, except the brain that specifically holds your consciousness, are you still the same person? Does it make a difference if this process of copy/replace is "natural" or "manufactured"?

I really liked the use of this concept for long-distance space travel in SyFy's Dark Matter. Since travel across the galaxy took weeks or months, at least one company offered a service where a body copy was created at another pod/terminal, and your consciousness was allowed control it. Anything a character did in the "copy" was temporarily stored in the brain of the copy. To gain those experiences, you needed to return to a terminal and end you "session" to have those synapses mapped to your brain. If you died, the body shut off and collapsed into a pile of cellular material, the connection was broken and they'd wake up in their original body having remembered nothing beyond getting into the first pod.

[Aiden]

If I do that, well I be good at video games? If not, fuck that.

[Lustful Bride]

If I do that, well I be good at video games? If not, fuck that.

Ya gotta git gud.   8-)

[Backdraft]

Speaking of which, SOMA is 65% off on Humble right now.

[Remiel]

Speaking of which, SOMA is 65% off on Humble right now.

ARGH!  Where were you yesterday?  >:(

...kidding.  It was only $30 on Steam.  Not too bad.

[Malediction]

I read this a while back, thought it was interesting. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329762-700-consciousness-on-off-switch-discovered-deep-in-brain/

I wonder if there is any follow up on it?

[Trieste]

Speaking of which, SOMA is 65% off on Humble right now.

... puts it in my budget. Thank you so much! For anyone else, their counter says there's like 17 hours left on the sale.

[Sethala]

I think one of the most important things on this topic is to figure out just what is "you".  There's a handful of videos that go over the idea in... way more detail than I could say without just repeating them, so I'll toss out a few links to ponder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQVmkDUkZT4

[Atarn]

A clone is an imperfect copy in the way of the mind. It is a blank slate, a physical but not mental copy. A transhman copy of sentience is you before a point.
So if you copied yourself yesterday, that copy is you before today. It is way more valid a copy than a clone which might look like you but which will most likely be basically an infant.
I feel that the notion of "self" is given way too much spiritual value in debates. If I copy a key, the copy might not be the original but it works jsut as well doesn't it? Also, Transhumanism as a concept vs Transhumanism the literature genre is quite different. In the latter copying your conscience provides a simple way for immortality. In the former...We have a muddled field of philosophy, wishful thinking, creepy fringe stuff etc.

Transhuman sci fi is awesome. Go read Richard Morgans Altered Carbon.

[RedRose]

There's an X-Files episod about this!

[Callie Del Noire]

Watching Altered Carbon...Very interesting implications

[TheGlyphstone]

Watching Altered Carbon...Very interesting implications

Is it good? I might re-up my Netflix account just to watch it, if it is. I loved that book.

[Callie Del Noire]

Is it good? I might re-up my Netflix account just to watch it, if it is. I loved that book.

I like it so far and I’m all but one episode done and I won’t say more because well spoilers

[TheGlyphstone]

I like it so far and I’m all but one episode done and I won’t say more because well spoilers

Have you read the book? Avoiding spoilers is nice, but knowing if they did a good job of adapting it would be nice.

[Callie Del Noire]

Have you read the book? Avoiding spoilers is nice, but knowing if they did a good job of adapting it would be nice.

It’s been several years so I’m going to reread it after I finish the series