ghostcomp

[Fist and Faith]

(By "ghostcomp" I mean the ability to copy our consciousness--our set of neural patterns--into an AI.)

I know this is a favorite idea of yours. I'd like to discuss it, and learn what is known/has been done in this area.

Here's a couple of thoughts on the subject.

1) I don't think it's possible to take the mind out of the brain, and put it into something else. Very fun for sci-fi, but I don't think it can happen. I believe my mind, my consciousness, is an outgrowth of, is the sum total of the processes of, the brain. I don't think the mind can exist outside of the brain. And I don't think it can be transferred from the brain into something else.

2) I think the medium is of extreme importance. I don't believe it's simply a matter of getting all the equations right. I don't believe creating a computer or electronic brain that copies/imitates every process and contains every bit of information that my brain has, if it's possible, would produce a copy of my mind. I think there's a difference between my biological/electro-chemical human brain doing X and a silicon/chip/wire computer doing X. Minds, being made up of billions of Xs, would be different if all those billions of Xs were accomplished with different materials.

This means:

A) If I'm wrong about 1, a mind moved from a human brain into a manufactured brain/brain substitute would begin to change immediately.

B) A mind that was the result of a manufactured brain that precisely copied the information and processes of my mind would not be a duplicate of my mind.


Now don't get me wrong. This is just my gut reaction to this stuff. I'm not claiming any knowledge/education anywhere along these lines. Is it known that I'm wrong about any of this?

Also, Hashi, what, exactly, do you have in mind, if it's not what I'm thinking it is? (Obviously, anybody else's thoughts are encouraged.)

[Avatar]

They're working on it...I'll see if I can find some of the stuff I've seen about it.

--A

[wayfriend]

I believe that it might be possible to copy someone's mind into a computer of some kind. But I think all that you will have is a model of a mind, not a mind. It might believe it is me, but I will never believe that it is.

Similarly, if I ever die, a computer copy of my mind might believe that I am continuing to exist. But I won't be here to disagree with it. There will not be continuity of existence as far as I am concerned.

A model of a human mind may even be sentient. But that sentience would be entirely dependent on the modeling software/hardware continuing to run. It can be played, paused, copied, and deleted. It can be edited in an infinite number of ways. Probably commercials will be inserted so that my mind model will buy something.

I cannot imagine what Terms of Service a mind would agree to so that it can continue to exist. How much it would pay a service provider.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

1) I don't think it's possible to take the mind out of the brain, and put it into something else. Very fun for sci-fi, but I don't think it can happen. I believe my mind, my consciousness, is an outgrowth of, is the sum total of the processes of, the brain. I don't think the mind can exist outside of the brain. And I don't think it can be transferred from the brain into something else.

Also, Hashi, what, exactly, do you have in mind, if it's not what I'm thinking it is? (Obviously, anybody else's thoughts are encouraged.)

No, that is exactly what I am meaning with that term--copying or uploading someone's mind into some sort of computer.

I agree--there is definitely a "more than the sum of its parts" going on inside the brain which gives rise to not only consciousness (which may only be a side-effect of how our brains are wired but there is no proof of that yet) but also personality. The billions of neural cells allow for an essentially uncountable number of ways in which a human brain can be wired. Sure, there are some connections which won't happen because they interfere with other critical systems like cardiopulmonary rhythms, but since the physical differences between your brain and my brain are small enough to be discounted the only remaining differences will be in the interconnections inside.

The problem here is going to be that we will be able to upload brains long before we have brains fully figured out. It may be that the ability to upload answers questions we cannot answer now such as "will someone suffering a psychological trauma still suffer the trauma if their brain gets uploaded?" or "will a sociopath still be a sociopath if they get digitized?". We can't even answer simpler questions yet like "will you feel like you are suffocating since you aren't receiving neural input from your lungs?".

I agree with wayfriend--a digital copy of Hahsi won't be Hashi. The problem there is because I have already thought of these things the digital copy of Hahsi will know that it is a digital copy of Hashi. Fortunately, it will remember me thinking about this and will remember to question itself...at least until it learns that it no longer needs to question itself, but even then it should recognize that as a red flag since I have already thought of it.

The good news is that if we can get the questions answered and the technical details worked out then we can upload people who are scientifically-oriented and keep their research going past their natural death. Of course, this forces us to ask a whole host of questions:
whose minds are worthy of being uploaded? only those who are scientifically or artistically gifted? wouldn't any person's mind become gifted if freed from the limitations of fear, pain, illness, physical trauma, or substance abuse?
is it possible to inflict psychological trauma on a ghostcomp mind? if so, couldn't you just reload last week's backup and prevent the damage from happening in the first place?
how do we know that future generations won't treat ghostcomp minds like some form of digital slave? "solve the problem or we'll cut off your access to various features and apps" or "we'll just copy your information into someone else and delete you if you don't do what we say".
will a ghostcomp person still count as a person with legal and human rights?
how maddening or frustrating will it be to remember things like the warmth of sunlight on skin, the sound of laughter, or sex but not be able to experience those things once digitized?

[iQuestor]

I recommend you guys check out Ray Kurzweil's idea of the Singularity and his research on the Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind (PRTM) in his book
How to create a Mind

Kurzweils idea of the singularity is that by 2045 we will begin to merge with machine technology significantly and that we will have, among other things, the ability to merge or upload our consciousness into a machine.

In "how to Create a Mind" Ray give a great thought experiment regarding whether an uploaded consciousness is a new person, or not.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

That is the guy from whom I first heard about Singularity but I didn't know he had a book about it. Half Price here I come...

I think he is a little early with his 2045 timeline, though. Yes, that is still 30 years out and 30 years is a long time (for our brief human lifespans, that is). Don't forget: it was 1985 when the first Internet domain was registered (symbolics.com), Windows 1.0 was released, if you were really rich you could buy the first generation of mobile phones (that's what we called them back them), your home computer (if you had one) was probably an Apple IIe or a Commodore 64 (presuming you didn't have some Tandy model like my dad's TRS80 Model III--that's right, we had *two* home computers in 1985) and so on and so forth. Compare that to what we have available today and it can be a little staggering. That being said, 2015 compared to 1985 is still less of a radical change than 1985 compared to 1955 but that serves to highlight what kind of change 30 years can bring.

Incidentally, Ghostbusters is closer to The Matrix than The Matrix is to Age of Ultron.

[wayfriend]

how do we know that future generations won't treat ghostcomp minds like some form of digital slave?

That would be the worst kind of slavery imaginable. The kind where you can edit out the slave's objection to being one.

[Fist and Faith]

Thanks, iQ. And nice to see you! Actually, I've had that book on my wish list, without knowing or hearing anything about it. So now I just bought the Kindle. We'll see how long it takes me to get through it. Heh

Hashi, I can understand making a copy of a mind. Probably various methods, but copying the brain is the first thing that comes to, uh, mind. But moving a mind from the brain to any other brain, natural or man-made? It seems to me the mind is the brain's activity, recognizing itself. Taking the activity of the brain out of the brain seems impossible. Not only because of the whole being more than the sum of its parts, but because, if the brain is functioning, there is bio/chemical electrical activity all over the place. That electricity *is* the mind. No? If so, how could it be removed?

And as I'm typing, I'm imagining doing it this way:

You could run billions of tiny wires from the site of each of the brain's reactions that causes electricity, and send the electricity into billions of sites in an artificial brain, each performing the corresponding function to the site on the original brain. At which point the artificial brain performs the functions, and the template of the initial input continues. That's the original mind in a new brain.

If the original brain does not survive the loss of all its electricity for that instant, it could be said that the mind was moved from one brain to another. If the original brain survives the loss of all its electricity, it will continue to produce its mind, the new will be another original, and we can watch them grow apart.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

That would be the worst kind of slavery imaginable. The kind where you can edit out the slave's objection to being one.

Exactly. If you cut off the trapped mind's access to any sort of external communication--no text panel, no speech module, etc--then not only will it remain trapped until the power is shut off but it cannot complain about it.

[Fist and Faith]

I've posted this before. This reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Changelings were worshiped by another race, the Vorta. The Changelings had genetically engineered the Vorta in various ways, including programming them to think the Changelings are their gods. Odo, one of the show's main characters, was a good Changeling. (He lived most of his life away from the others, not knowing anything about them, or his own nature.)

Odo: Has it ever occurred to you that the reason you believe the Founders are gods is because that's what they want you to believe? That they built it into your genetic code?

Weyoun 6: Of course they did. That's what gods do. After all, why be a god if there's no one to worship you?