A Question of Identities

A question of identities.

Assuming everyone has been uploaded and no biological humans exist, how do we assign identities? I’m assuming each upload has its own mobile shell (robot body for example) containing the electronic brain.

Near immortality is assured by making frequent backups that would be stored in secure locations.

But of course a backup is a copy and that means a copy could be uploaded into another shell, at which point there would be two of you.

So what mechanism could be used to ensure unique identities?

Another scenario is the opportunity of long distance travel and perhaps interplanetary travel, electronically. One simply has their brain image transmitted to a receiver where it is uploaded into an appropriate shell. There are now two of you, one at the transmitter and one at the receiver.

How would we control unwanted copies and/or how would we identify each other to ensure uniqueness?

Cris

 

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This hamster feels there will be a transition period during which the concept of “identity” undergoes a significant cultural change. The advent of personality altering medications such a Prozac is already changing views as to what a person is. Mind/brain research is having an impact. Split-brain research casts doubt on a singular, stable “I”. As with other mind phenomena, “I” may turn out to be an illusion.

As brain technology improves one might choose to tailor one’s self. Or in criminal cases society may choose to impose tailoring. Once the biological underpinnings of the mind are understood, tinkering is inevitable.

Once augmenting brain function with a chip becomes common the brain will be far more plastic. People will grow accustomed to having new “memories” and thinking differently as desired. Sending an agent out to perform a task and re-integrating the agent’s “memories” when the task is complete should seem normal. People may choose to share such “memories”. Possibly biological memories could be transferred to a chip and back again. That would lead to sharing biological memories.

By the time technology allowed people to be “scanned” into a computer and have copies made the idea of a single, stable identity might seem quaint. Easy duplicating, merging, and morphing might make “life” cheap. The end of a copy might be viewed as no more important than the clipping of a fingernail. There might be diverse views with some people carefully protecting each copy while others willfully duplicated and erased without concern. The surviving copies wouldn’t remember being erased.

(Identities might be merged to form a new kind of offspring.)

Likely there would still be need for legal resource allocation. A contract might split resources between the original and the copy. Society might impose limits on how many copies were entitled to free use of societal resources. Once the copies diverged more copies might be allowed. (Would the new legal system evolve from today’s law or from today’s OS resource allocation routines?) Given how different the society would be this is far out speculation.

Society will evolve to accommodate the new reality.

 

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Ah! so this is the first time i assume.glad to reply.

Private Key to each shell do you think?.part of authentication protocols.also the big question is that is the human brain matured enough to the idea of imortality?



bye!

 

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Cris the following content is what I posted in KM's thread consists of various points of concern regarding upload.i think you might wanna take a look at them.
it is a compiled form from a popular website.
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Most uploading proposals assume that the detailed morpholgy of neural tissue will need to be determined as an integral part of the procedure. No current technology(Mind it NO CURRENT)can achieve both the resolution and sample size needed for the task. it is necessary to have good depth resolution as well. A scanner with a very narrow depth of field can effectively "section" a sample into slices optically rather than physically.
Electron microscopy (EM) offers adequate resolution, though the samples must be both small and very thin. Work is underway to increase these bounds, using high-voltage EM to increase sample penetration, tomography or optical sectioning to make effective use of greater thickness, and mosaics to increase the imaged area. These developments are well justified.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI, also called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) can achieve roughly 1 mm resolution in an intact human brain -- a valuable achievement for neuroscience and medicine, but orders of magnitude lower than the resolution that uploading requires. The resolution of MRI is determined mostly by the steepness of a magnetic field gradient which is generated in the sample; when extended across the breadth of the head, sufficiently steep gradients appear impossible. However, much steeper gradients can be achieved over short distances; researchers routinely obtain 0.05 mm resolution in live rats. It may be that a properly built scanner could achive the desired resolution in brain slices which would be thin compared to normal MRI fare, but still large compared to EM slices. For example, the ability to image 1 mm slices with 10 nm resolution would surpass EM by several orders of magnitude. If this thickness could be increased to several millimeters, and the area extended to 0.01 m^2, then processing the brain tissue would become relatively straightforward.

Other techniques have various drawbacks. Light microscopy is limited by the wavelength of light to a resolution which is probably insufficient for uploading. Acoustic imaging suffers worse resolution still.

so we can see that technology is still not advanced enough for Non-destructive Mind Uploads...work is still underway...

Enviornments for Uploaded people:societies,Issues.
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The society inside the Computers will be an important aspect.questions as to wether duplication should be permitted or not also holds ground for some discussion.As we see in case of an accident like a technician shutting a PC down while for repairs,etc.then we would require extra copies of us,but if this duplication is used without any accidents etc then it"ll lead to virii like chaos and activity.Artificial realities present a host of policy issues. First, will citizenship (or even the rights of humans) be granted to those living in a computer simulation, with no physical bodies? It seems obvious that it should, but it will be a big step for governments to take.
Another possibility is that the government may actually require some patients to enter an artificial reality under some circumstances. For example, patients who cannot afford the uploading procedure may be uploaded by the government into artificial realities, which will no doubt be cheaper on the large scale than manufactured bodies. Another possibility would be to upload convicted criminals into a "prison box" -- an artificial reality safely insulated from the rest of society.

Finally, artificial reality pose a real threat of abuse. A programmer of such a system would have nearly godlike power over its inhabitants, and "god syndromes" would be a chilling possibility. To prevent the abuse of uploaded people, careful safeguards will have to be put into place.

Artificial realities would probably come in varying degrees of realism -- to duplicate the patient's familiar world, you'd have to calculate wind currents, light reflections, gravity,Thrusts, friction, and so on, as well as the effect all of these have on the senses. Then you'd have to interpret activity in the motor neurons of the simulated nervous system, to update the patient's simulated body position. These will be difficult, and will never perfectly match the real world, but it is reasonable to suppose that algorithmic shortcuts will be found which generate results that are "good enough". Artificial reality would have the advantage of being able to shape the laws of physics to the programmer's whim, allowing, for example, magic spells or anti-gravity devices. However, there would be a risk of people getting addicted to direct brain stimulation, or simply getting lost in some virtual game and losing touch with reality.

Or may be another solution could be to build a mechanical body which carries the brain simulator around, just as our bodies carry around our brains now. The body would need to duplicate the senses and motor functions of a real human body if we want to minimize the patient's adjustment. Artificial bodies would no doubt be crude at first, with numbed senses and clumsy muscles, but if demand is high, technology is sure to improve. a properly designed body may still allow for the act of eating, for the pleasure of it. The same goes for other bodily functions (e.g., sex) -- if there is demand for it, then artificial (or simulated) bodies will no doubt be capable of it.

But there is a problem with uploads.and that goes like this:
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will the brain scanned inside be ready for a perfect world?will the upload not become unstable insuch a world? will No-death scenarios induce some evolution inside the Matrix so as to adjust accordingly?

Brain Enhancing:Another ethical part
==============================================once
Inside this Matrix,there will be certainly a kind of ethical issue raised on brain enhancements,like deleting or altering a data for the stability of the system and the whole programs.

the issue will certainly hold a lot of debate,as it"ll be like changing a man's percpective(!change almost the soul,if there's one).

God-syndrome:
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The programmers of such a syndrome will feel like God!!.they have acces to virtually everything.once equipped with great knowledge of brain they"ll able to make or emulate a God like brain to produce significant results inside their own systems.such a thing will be dangerous as they"ll be using their own names to emulate such brains inside the computer to carry on and finish the task assigned to them.these special programmes created will be known as Gods inside those systems(!!Amazing!!).
Such a thing is dangerous as We dont and are not emotionally stable to handle such responsibility.our emotional levels are just not configured to be so neuutral and stop being or responding emotionally in case of a crisis inside the system.

And in such a case it"ll lead to a complete loss of million of "lives" inside.

although i have little knowledge or practically none to describe exact part of uploading proceedures and consequences of it,but for an amateur yes i know a lot,still rectifications,clarifying may and is most warmly welcomed...

bye!

 

One of the most interesting aspect is destroying uniqueness of an identity.I think a little pre-programming is to be considered handy here.for example,for uniquely identifying a personality,the computer which carries such a world will be programmed to store a backup copy of upload.now if again a similiar upload happens it"ll simply reject it on the grounds of duplication.(By identifying the neural pattern that was uploaded,i am assuming advancement in technology here...)

For a real emergency off course we"ll have to define an emergency criteria for the program itself.like a real loss of an upload and so forth.we"ll have to classify the emergency cases for that purpose.

for the transportation purposes like for interplanetory,an antigravity interstellar space program flight simulator will come in handy.

The Big question however of mine is,that are Human Minds bold enough to accept a perfect world where no one dies?

I think no provisons should be made for travelling <b>Faster</b>
than the velocity of light,thats because,everything will go wrong then.effect preceding its cause,which is a contradiction.



bye!

 

You can ask the same question about clones in the future. Or event today about identical twins. What distinguishes the unique characteristics of the individual?

In my opinion it will be the memories and the experiences that happen or are recorded by each 'copy'. They will be unique and will eventually drive the copies to become their own individuals.

So how do you distinguish between copies? Good question. Possibly through a bit by bit comparison of the memories.

I remember reading a science fiction book a very long time ago that had as its premise this exact question, although it was with clones, not electronic beings. Unfortunately I can't remember the author, but the gist of the book was about how a person was cloned at a particular instant in time and how that person went on with their life and the clones chose different paths. They had all of the same genetic material and the same memories from the instant of cloning, but they went on to lead dissimilar lives. As I recall, one became a musician, one a doctor, and one a farmer. What distinguished them were their memories of their lives beyond the instance of cloning.

 

Zion,

Thanks for giving me an update. I should not have stayed away so long.

When I first started this forum it was difficult to find anyone who would even accept the concept of uploading, now I see I have been surpassed by you guys.

I have some reading and some catching up to do.

Cheers
Cris