Thread: Transhumanism

Originally Posted by khh

Actually, not all parts of the brain gets changed during a normal human life. Also, it's the structure and the connections between the neurons that make up our brain, it would be much easier, I think, to just scan this structure and create a computer simulation of it, that to do what you suggest.

Citation?

It's irrelevant if any part of the brain gets replaced or not. There's nothing special about the matter that makes up a person.

I was thinking about this the other day. If your mind gets transfered to another body, and your brain get destroyed in the process, then you would move to that other body and be safe. Since there is only one option for where you could go.

If however you just copy your brain to another body, there is a chance that you might remain stuck in the orginal body. Since there is two possible places to be, its a random chance where you end up.

At least philosophically. Since realistically it may not matter. It would kind of suck if you were dying through, so you copied your mind but you found you were still in your orginal body. So you copy your mind again, and your still in the orginal body. Then you keep copying until you end up in the machine. Though at the same time, the copies are going to think they succeeded, and the one in the body will keep thinking he failed.

For anyone into reading, the book Synaptic Self might be of interest. Written in 2002 by the neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, its basically a detailed description of everything we knew about the physiological 'self' up until that point.

Also for those who are more interested in science fiction, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan resonates a lot with this thread. It basically takes place in a future where all this technology becomes commonplace. It is fictional entertainment at heart, but he puts a TON of inspired thought into speculating what the world would be like with this technology in it. Some of the ideas he comes up with are mind-blowingly fascinating. Its far and wide my favorite sci-fi book I've read.

Lastly, the television show Dollhouse (RIP) was another good speculative foray into the transhumanist's wet dream. Written by the same dude who created Firefly, and I think this show even outdoes it.

Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

Citation?

Sorry, I can't give you that. I read it in a science magazine one or two years ago. I might even remember it wrong, though I don't think so :p

Originally Posted by Alric

If however you just copy your brain to another body, there is a chance that you might remain stuck in the orginal body. Since there is two possible places to be, its a random chance where you end up.

There's not a random chance of where you will end up. Since the original mind within the body and the artificial mind within the machine will be identical at the time of creation, you will be in both places at the same time. You will be both persons.

Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

Correct me if I'm wrong, but every material of our bodies is not the original material from birth. A person at age 60 is, material-wise, not the same person as he was at age 20. Despite this, our consciousness remains consistent over this time-span. Therefore, it may be possible to transfer consciousness into an android by either slowly replacing the components of the brain with machine counterparts, or by connecting the brain to a machine replica with components that would come online as portions of the brain were shut down. This android brain would have to be made to function exactly the same way as the human brain, but with greater processing power and memory storage space.

...Or we could just create sentient machines to run the place for us and figure out cures to all diseases--including aging.

There, sir, is where we differ.

Originally Posted by khh

Sorry, I can't give you that. I read it in a science magazine one or two years ago. I might even remember it wrong, though I don't think so :p

There's a lot of confusion in the realm of brain renewal. They used to say that new brain cells could never be grown, but we are finding that is not true at all. So for all we know, the info you read in that magazine may be outdated.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

There, sir, is where we differ.

As consistent as I care to be

You wouldn't be both people. Both people would be you. There is a difference, since even though both of them are you, you can only be one person at a time.

I hate comics that get too pretentious and preachy.

"it gives spiritual significance to technology developed primarily for entertainment or warfare"
Yea, because entertainment is bad, as bad as warfare.

Lulz were had.

That cartoon doesn't even make a very good case. Technology IS encroaching into our lives at an extremely fast pace. The last ten years are evidence of that. Although, the transhuman thing might take a little while.

Originally Posted by Bearsy

Who's down?

I was reading my Pop Sci magazine for the month of January and they were talking about Singularity University and in the article they mentioned that Raymond Kurzweil (one of the founders) is a proponent of the Transhumanist movement.
I looked it up and I didn't realize that there was a name for it.
I'm down with this 100% and have been a fan of the concept for quite a long time.
I may be a bit starry-eyed at the concept though, because I'm also pretty much 100% in agreement with the ideology of Techno-Utopianism.

Idk. Thoughts?

Me too. Down 1001% myself.
Let's leave all these Sceptics and Pessimists muttering to themselves, unite and do it.
Action speaks louder than words.

What many Techno-Utopians are preaching; let's put it to practice.
Let's start by uniting people. I've allready preached this to many people who were in agreement with me. I think we can unite quite a group of people.

Let's stop fantasizing and let's get off of our asses.

Speculating about the singularity does indeed mean that you

- have a shit life
- are deluded
- are racist

Thanks for the insight!

Originally Posted by Xei

Speculating about the singularity does indeed mean that you

- have a shit life
- are deluded
- are racist

Thanks for the insight!

:/

Mind telling us why?

Originally Posted by Sandform

Originally Posted by Xei

Speculating about the singularity does indeed mean that you

- have a shit life
- are deluded
- are racist

Thanks for the insight!

Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

:/

Mind telling us why?

I think he was referring to what the comic strip said. I just thought it was funny and provided a counter-balance to some of the things being said here.

Originally Posted by Black_Eagle

:/

Mind telling us why?

Yeah Sandform said it.

I spent some time replying to that physics question of yours btw.

Oi, you're right. I've come to know I have a bad habit of glancing at a person's post and not reading into what they really mean.

Originally Posted by SKA

Me too. Down 1001% myself.
Let's leave all these Sceptics and Pessimists muttering to themselves, unite and do it.
Action speaks louder than words.

What many Techno-Utopians are preaching; let's put it to practice.
Let's start by uniting people. I've allready preached this to many people who were in agreement with me. I think we can unite quite a group of people.

Let's stop fantasizing and let's get off of our asses.

Easy to say; what do you plan on doing, exactly?

Originally Posted by WakataDreamer

I for one am not down with it.

I want to live and die as an organic human being.

Call it a spiritual thing.

I agree BUT, if you could somehow keep the spiritual side AND have the technological advantages...well I am ALL for it.

I don't think it's gonna work.

People can store the personality and ego, the ego is highly adaptable given the conditions the person is put.

If this person knows that he doesn't have a biological body, it would be mentally traumatic, if the consciouness is copied , the person can feel highly upset with being in that body get restless , hate other humans, his/her ego would change radicly in less than a month, in that time span you could call the copy a totally diferent person to the original.

Plus people feel other peoples energy, heat, being with a robot won't please others.

-----

If this is a way of transfering a brain into another body, you'd have to kick out the soul of the other person, enter in his/her body and modify his/her ego, the ego can't tell well when another soul is in the body.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Easy to say; what do you plan on doing, exactly?

Well like I said. Gather enough people to start a small self-providing community and make money obsolete in it. I did explain it superficially in my previous post. I could explain it more in depth if you tell me what seems unlikely or impossible about it to you.

It isn't impossible, just very hard. But worth shooting for.
I find the system I live in now totally unacceptable, so I'm not affraid to fail trying to break free from it and create a new one.

Originally Posted by SKA

Well like I said. Gather enough people to start a small self-providing community and make money obsolete in it. I did explain it superficially in my previous post. I could explain it more in depth if you tell me what seems unlikely or impossible about it to you.

It isn't impossible, just very hard. But worth shooting for.
I find the system I live in now totally unacceptable, so I'm not affraid to fail trying to break free from it and create a new one.

I read your previous post. I just don't think that a group of average citizens removed from the pervading paradigm would be capable of creating a technological utopia. They would have a hard enough time just creating a sustainable bucolic/agricultural community. The technology required to do what is suggested here would need to be created by an existing power structure.

Actually I wasn't speaking of a technological utopia.
I was speaking of a rather primitve community.

Allthough I greatly support the venus Project( a technological Utopia) I find this amazingly far fetched.

A primitve community is not that far-fetched at all.
I don't think 15 houses & farms, a wind generator, a water filtering/cleasnsing system and a clinic with a small medicinal herb garden can be called a Technological Utopia.
Water filtration/cleansing systems, Wind generators & primitive housing can all be made with low-tech construction methods from cheap or even free, abundant resources.

Originally Posted by SKA

Actually I wasn't speaking of a technological utopia.
I was speaking of a rather primitve community.

Allthough I greatly support the venus Project( a technological Utopia) I find this amazingly far fetched.

A primitve community is not that far-fetched at all.
I don't think 15 houses & farms, a wind generator, a water filtering/cleasnsing system and a clinic with a small medicinal herb garden can be called a Technological Utopia.
Water filtration/cleansing systems, Wind generators & primitive housing can all be made with low-tech construction methods from cheap or even free, abundant resources.

Alright, but that is a completely different discussion. The post of yours that I quoted specifically said, "What many Techno-Utopians are preaching; let's put it to practice". If you want a small agricultural commune, then it is completely doable, and in existence already in different parts of the country/world. That does not, however, come close to satisfying the goals of transhumanism or Techno-Utopianism.