Thread: How are we not a computer?

Originally Posted by tkdyo

the question has always eluded me though...if we do assume some day we have computers powerful enough to emulate everything about us, we should be able to save everything about us to a computer right?

but...could we really transfer my conciousness? what Im saying is...would the me in my body falll to sleep and never wake up (die) even if we took all the brains info and put it on a computer meant to be a human? and if that computer turned on and could copy the way I think, feel and process information the same as I would....would the conciousness it gains be a clone, or could my original conciousness somehow be transfered?

See, you'd never know for sure. But, whatever came out of that machine would genuinely think it's you, and it'd do well to convince everyone else it was you, too.

Y'know what's a good movie? The Prestige.

haha, yes, that is a great movie. Loved it

and yeah, but it seems to me that if conciousness is wholly a result of our brains processes and such we should be able to transfer it as well.

I know I am not a computer because I have not been able thus far to upgrade my floppy disk.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

the question has always eluded me though...if we do assume some day we have computers powerful enough to emulate everything about us, we should be able to save everything about us to a computer right?

but...could we really transfer my conciousness? what Im saying is...would the me in my body falll to sleep and never wake up (die) even if we took all the brains info and put it on a computer meant to be a human? and if that computer turned on and could copy the way I think, feel and process information the same as I would....would the conciousness it gains be a clone, or could my original conciousness somehow be transfered?

That's a great question. Some people feel that any such derivates would be "mind-children" and not the same person merely transfered onto a different substrate.

But Ray Kurzweil said before, that the brain replaces itself completely over a certain period. Your brain isn't the same as it was 10 years ago, because it gradually replaces its components over time or whatever as he said.

To counter the Mind-Children, Copy argument, Ray says that any consciousness transfer process would replace individual neurons and what have you in the brain much like the brains own natural process of gradual replacement.

So, Kurzweil argues that one would be transferring consciousness and not simply just making a copy where the original mind dies.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

would the conciousness it gains be a clone, or could my original conciousness somehow be transfered?

Neither, the apparent uniqueness of your consciousness is most likely an illusion.

Originally Posted by Soros

To counter the Mind-Children, Copy argument, Ray says that any consciousness transfer process would replace individual neurons and what have you in the brain much like the brains own natural process of gradual replacement.

So, Kurzweil argues that one would be transferring consciousness and not simply just making a copy where the original mind dies.

That's a nice idea. In the end it doesn't solve the problem, just blurs the line. It's a moral bypass, so you (or should I say two "you's") wouldn't have to face the scary reality.

He's still making the copy and killing the original. But in the end he is just doing it the way nature does it, one chunk of your soul at a time, when you're not looking .

The whole process could be skipped if the people undergoing the procedure faced facts of reality.

Originally Posted by Bonsay

That's a nice idea. In the end it doesn't solve the problem, just blurs the line. It's a moral bypass, so you (or should I say two "you's") wouldn't have to face the scary reality.

He's still making the copy and killing the original. But in the end he is just doing it the way nature does it, one chunk of your soul at a time, when you're not looking .

The whole process could be skipped if the people undergoing the procedure faced facts of reality.

If the same process of nature is mimicked then the end product should be the same consciousness wise. If i am to take that the proposed process would be killing the original and making a copy, then i am to believe that the me from 10 years ago was gradually killed and replaced by the me of today due the natural processes of nature.

That depends on what you mean by "me". One way of looking at it is that you are never killed as long as there is a "you", somewhere. Whether it is a clone, consciousness downloaded on a computer, you after having a severe brain injury or you a few years from now; it's a "you" who obviously thinks it's alive. This is sort of an "objective" you, defined by the way it experiences itself in regards to it's memories. So it's an illusory entity, one we have to use to live our daily lives.

I guess I could say that I don't care too much of this kind of soul, because our consciousness always exists (as it's experienced) in the present moment. What I was as a child is not what I was as a baby and definitely not something I am now. If I realize this sort of reality then I can deduce it on every moment of my life to find out that I'm living it for somebody else who is a moment in the future ad infinitum or should I say that "I'm" living so others could experience me existing. It's like with an organism and its cells. Your cells die all the time and are replaced, nothing relatively unique about them. There is nothing really "in it" for the single cell, all by itself. It's just a tiny piece of a structure like your current thought is a moment in your life. There is nothing in it for you other than the objective "whole" which you help to create. It's nothing new or special really. It seems that in nature there is no concept of "individuality". It's always about patterns and information. It doesn't matter which water molecule is which, just that it has two hydrogens and an oxygen. That's why when our daily reality clashes with nature, as we see with these futuristic concepts, we don't know exactly how to react. It seems that nature "doesn't care" about our concepts of individuality and existence. If the last thing you see is your clone throwing the old you away then just the way it is .

Whether or not the above is true... the other way of thinking about the soul, is it being the subjective experience, the thing that right now thinks, percieves and is reading the post, then it's much more complicated. Perhaps also much more interesting to philosophize about.

Originally Posted by Bonsay

That depends on what you mean by "me". One way of looking at it is that you are never killed as long as there is a "you", somewhere. Whether it is a clone, consciousness downloaded on a computer, you after having a severe brain injury or you a few years from now; it's a "you" who obviously thinks it's alive. This is sort of an "objective" you, defined by the way it experiences itself in regards to it's memories. So it's an illusory entity, one we have to use to live our daily lives.

I guess I could say that I don't care too much of this kind of soul, because our consciousness always exists (as it's experienced) in the present moment. What I was as a child is not what I was as a baby and definitely not something I am now. If I realize this sort of reality then I can deduce it on every moment of my life to find out that I'm living it for somebody else who is a moment in the future ad infinitum or should I say that "I'm" living so others could experience me existing. It's like with an organism and its cells. Your cells die all the time and are replaced, nothing relatively unique about them. There is nothing really "in it" for the single cell, all by itself. It's just a tiny piece of a structure like your current thought is a moment in your life. There is nothing in it for you other than the objective "whole" which you help to create. It's nothing new or special really. It seems that in nature there is no concept of "individuality". It's always about patterns and information. It doesn't matter which water molecule is which, just that it has two hydrogens and an oxygen. That's why when our daily reality clashes with nature, as we see with these futuristic concepts, we don't know exactly how to react. It seems that nature "doesn't care" about our concepts of individuality and existence. If the last thing you see is your clone throwing the old you away then just the way it is .

Whether or not the above is true... the other way of thinking about the soul, is it being the subjective experience, the thing that right now thinks, percieves and is reading the post, then it's much more complicated. Perhaps also much more interesting to philosophize about.

Good post.

That's my take on futurism and immortality; even if the goals were attainable, you're struggling to preserve something that doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Good post.

That's my take on futurism and immortality; even if the goals were attainable, you're struggling to preserve something that doesn't exist.

Well, it exists as long as you see it that way. I mean people might strive for immortality in this regard as long as they feel they exist. Without realizing it, or better yet experiencing it yourself, it's kind of hard to concieve concepts so different from what we know and experience now. So if humanity makes it to this point - with all the futuristic technology - I'm sure problems like these will fade out as people adapt. After all, if it's commonplace, at this x point in the future, to get implants and become some trans-human, it's probably not too extreme to take that extra step to immortality (whatever is the thing that's immortal in this case).

Originally Posted by Bonsay

Well, it exists as long as you see it that way. I mean people might strive for immortality in this regard as long as they feel they exist. Without realizing it, or better yet experiencing it yourself, it's kind of hard to concieve concepts so different from what we know and experience now. So if humanity makes it to this point - with all the futuristic technology - I'm sure problems like these will fade out as people adapt. After all, if it's commonplace, at this x point in the future, to get implants and become some trans-human, it's probably not too extreme to take that extra step to immortality (whatever is the thing that's immortal in this case).

I'd be one of the first guys on the immortality bandwagon, for sure. Quietly protesting the 10-character limit)

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

Neither, the apparent uniqueness of your consciousness is most likely an illusion.

...Im not sure what you mean by this...how is it an illusion?

Edit: Soros, that is a very interesting concept. I wonder if that could truly work, or as Bonsay has said, it just blurrs the line.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

...Im not sure what you mean by this...how is it an illusion?

There's nothing inherently special about the matter that constitutes you: replacing you with an exact copy or not would makes difference physically, there's nothing to make us think the replacement would be different in any way at all. But it also makes no sense to think that some objective form of consciousness would be "preserved" because there's no connection between the original and the copy. The answer, I think, is that consciousness is a subjective attribute rather than an individual objective thing.

(A good analogy would be the Sun and it's gravitational field: if we replaced the Sun with an exact copy, we wouldn't say the Earth was now being kept in orbit by a "different" or "new" gravity, it's just gravity.)


I think Bonsay explained it better.

ok, I know what you mean now, and I agree of course that nothing is different physically...this is what I was trying to get at with the question though. Since conciousness is a subjective experience...it makes me wonder if actual transfer of the me I experience right now is possible...I feel rather the current me would stop experiencing anything and die and a new physically Identcal me would take its place. despite all the memories being transplanted, the original me still in the body would cease to experience anything so it would be the same as dieing.

There's nothing inherently special about the matter that constitutes you: replacing you with an exact copy or not would makes difference physically, there's nothing to make us think the replacement would be different in any way at all. But it also makes no sense to think that some objective form of consciousness would be "preserved" because there's no connection between the original and the copy. The answer, I think, is that consciousness is a subjective attribute rather than an individual objective thing.

I find this problem fascinating.

I'd disagree that the copy definitely wouldn't be 'your' consciousness. It's clear that the causality of neural activity is what causes consciousness, but this seems to jar very much with reductionism in which there isn't really any objective reality to 'causes' and 'events'. The point is that from 'scanning the brain' to 'building the brain' there is a clear causal pathway which you might think consciousness would travel down.

However when we consider what would happen when we made say, 10 different copies of you, it becomes clear that there is a problem.

However, I definitely don't think the solution to the hard problem is to deny the uniqueness of consciousness. I think it's an extremely patent fact, pretty much as patent as can possibly be, that our consciousness is a single thing with a single us associated with it.

Originally Posted by ClouD

Ghost in the shell idea possibly related.

Electrical signals to and fro, bodily processes, but where do WE come into it? Do we actually come into it?
Probably something we've all considered or maybe some of us even dtd, but what do you think, and what is known about ourselves?

Furthermore, what about at an atomic level? I'm wondering what thoughts really are, where the associations are made from WHO and to WHAT.

I love that anime.
Ontopic: Most people would say because we have a soul. Thats a very very vague answer, but thats an answer your going to get regardless.

Originally Posted by Xei

However, I definitely don't think the solution to the hard problem is to deny the uniqueness of consciousness. I think it's an extremely patent fact, pretty much as patent as can possibly be, that our consciousness is a single thing with a single us associated with it.

But if we look at us existing in time as existing in different copies, there are basically an infinite amount of copies in a certain time frame (If a moment in time is infinitely small). So how will you pinpoint something unique, which can be recognised as consciousness only when it's active, thus requiring time to function... so if we agree that different "brainstates" coencide with different "consciousness's" there is never a real "you" to associate with.

I don't really understand what you mean.

In the causality model there has only ever been one you. Your neurons don't interfere with the neurons in somebody else's head. You're a single closed system, and hence a single consciousness.

I'm refering to the changes that happen in the brain all the time. How many changes does a brain need to stop being "you"? A lobotomy? A simple new memory formation...? That's what I meant that "you" changes all the time.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

ok, I know what you mean now, and I agree of course that nothing is different physically...this is what I was trying to get at with the question though. Since conciousness is a subjective experience...it makes me wonder if actual transfer of the me I experience right now is possible...I feel rather the current me would stop experiencing anything and die and a new physically Identcal me would take its place. despite all the memories being transplanted, the original me still in the body would cease to experience anything so it would be the same as dieing.

That's not what I was trying to say. I meant there is no transferring of your 'consciousness' to the copy because there's nothing to be transferred.

Originally Posted by Xei

I find this problem fascinating.

I'd disagree that the copy definitely wouldn't be 'your' consciousness. It's clear that the causality of neural activity is what causes consciousness, but this seems to jar very much with reductionism in which there isn't really any objective reality to 'causes' and 'events'. The point is that from 'scanning the brain' to 'building the brain' there is a clear causal pathway which you might think consciousness would travel down.

However when we consider what would happen when we made say, 10 different copies of you, it becomes clear that there is a problem.

However, I definitely don't think the solution to the hard problem is to deny the uniqueness of consciousness. I think it's an extremely patent fact, pretty much as patent as can possibly be, that our consciousness is a single thing with a single us associated with it.

How do you think scenarios like making 10 copies could be explained with consciousness being objective and unique? It's physically contradictory. The only way I can see it working is if we discovered the existence of souls.

Also as Bonsay mentioned we're always constantly and gradually changing over time into completely different persons. Pretty much like species in an evolutionary line, you can't pinpoint a moment when a past 'you' disappeared and a new 'you' popped into existence.

I'm refering to the changes that happen in the brain all the time. How many changes does a brain need to stop being "you"? A lobotomy? A simple new memory formation...? That's what I meant that "you" changes all the time.

Well, taking 'you' to mean a single conscious system, clearly from experience the latter does not change who you are. Lobotomy patients... impossible to know I suppose.

How do you think scenarios like making 10 copies could be explained with consciousness being objective and unique? It's physically contradictory. The only way I can see it working is if we discovered the existence of souls.

Also as Bonsay mentioned we're always constantly and gradually changing over time into completely different persons. Pretty much like species in an evolutionary line, you can't pinpoint a moment when a past 'you' disappeared and a new 'you' popped into existence.

Like I said, under my definition there has only ever been one 'you'.

I recognise the contradiction, but I also recognise based on empirical evidence that I have only ever been me.

Denying your own existence gets rid of some of the paradoxes but is empirically untenable. I'm sure there is a solution, we just haven't found it, or possibly can't find it.

Eliminating the delusion that "you" are a discrete entity with fixed qualities, subject to birth, illness, old age and death, actually solves a lot of problems, and isn't nearly as distressing as it looks when one is under the influence of ego.

Bonsay has the crux of the matter in hand: if everything that constitutes and surrounds "me" is in constant flux, exchanging material and information among innumerable channels at widely varying rates, then am "I" in any sense a discrete entity, or simply a body of trends observable at the nexus of, again, innumerable dynamic systems?

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

That's not what I was trying to say. I meant there is no transferring of your 'consciousness' to the copy because there's nothing to be transferred.

oh ok, but why is that if consciousness just arises out of our physical processes?

The ego serves as a lubricant for the functioning of the brain.