Downloading Consciousness .. Immortality?

Michael 345 said:

The problem with what you propose is that consciousness does not have any physicality to download

It is a Process...
With no physicality I contend copying concessness is not possible

Click to expand...

The brain is apparently completely physical. If you could simulate the physical structure and processes, you could copy the consciousness. Anyway, that's the premise of this thread, it does no good to say it's impossible, we are assuming it is, and looking at the implications.

spidergoat said:

we are assuming it is, and looking at the implications.

Click to expand...

OK play make believe the implications are you produce a clone of yourself which as Gawdzilla Sama correctly says goes off to leads a separate life

What else did you wish to make believe about

If your rich I guess you could keep making clones

Split your fortune up amongst them

When the original dies clones of clones can be made

All in all pointless

The clones are not you although I guess if the clone does have the memories of the original it would be close enough

I think timing would be in play. You would want any clone to have some extra insights before it reckoned itself

Instead of standing on the shoulders of giants you might be pulling yourself up by your bootlaces to stand on your own shoulders

And as per Forest Gump that's all I have to say about that

Clones are only copies of a body, not the brain. But if you could copy your brain into a clone, say with an implant of some sort, it would be just as much you as you are.

Anyway, it's not implausible to suggest copying a brain and it's processes. Can you show that there is a necessary aspect of the brain that is not physical?

Michael 345 said:

The clones are not you although I guess if the clone does have the memories of the original it would be close enough

Click to expand...

For another observer, maybe. My wife may not be able to tell us apart, but "I" am still inside my body, looking at a clone that believes itself to be me.

If "I" die before the clone is activated, it is not "I" who wakes up from the dead when the clone is turned on. It is the copy which believes itself to be me. "I" am dead.

gmilam said:

For another observer, maybe. My wife may not be able to tell us apart, but "I" am still inside my body, looking at a clone that believes itself to be me.

If "I" die before the clone is activated, it is not "I" who wakes up from the dead when the clone is turned on. It is the copy which believes itself to be me. "I" am dead.

Click to expand...

If you can copy a consciousness, then the question of which is the real you becomes unclear. All we have is knowledge of the difference between self and other. But both the copy and the original would think the same thing, that they are the real one. It's a sicky stituation indeed.

Michael 345 said:

The problem with what you propose is that consciousness does not have any physicality to download

It is a PROCESS

Click to expand...

Presumably, whatever system you download it into can also "run" the processes.

In principle, there's no reason why this wouldn't work. The brain is a computer. It has storage, input, output and executable processes.

gmilam said:

"I" am still inside my body, looking at a clone that believes itself to be me.

Click to expand...

But "You" have also been transported into a body, and it is still "you".

Unless you believe that "you" is somehow at least partially defined by your physical body.

If that is so, does that mean that, if we ever do create technology to transfer our consciousness into a mechanical host, you believe you will die in the process, and that your consciousness living on in the body is just a simulation?

spidergoat said:

Clones are only copies of a body, not the brain. But if you could copy your brain into a clone, say with an implant of some sort, it would be just as much you as you are.

Anyway, it's not implausible to suggest copying a brain and it's processes. Can you show that there is a necessary aspect of the brain that is not physical?

Click to expand...

Dolly the Sheep evidently didn't know she didn't have a brain.

Well, for a sheep, that's normal, but you know what I mean.

DaveC426913 said:

But "You" have also been transported into a body, and it is still "you".

Unless you believe that "you" is somehow at least partially defined by your physical body.

If that is so, does that mean that, if we ever do create technology to transfer our consciousness into a mechanical host, you believe you will die in the process, and that your consciousness living on in the body is just a simulation?

Click to expand...

IF while "I" am still alive, the "clone" is "activated" and somehow "I" start receiving signals from both sets of inputs. THEN "I" will concede that it is possible that "I" am not intrinsically tied to my container.

gmilam said:

IF while "I" am still alive, the "clone" is "activated" and somehow "I" start receiving signals from both sets of inputs. THEN "I" will concede that it is possible that "I" am not intrinsically tied to my container.

Click to expand...

Let me put it another way.

Never mind copies. If, some day we have the technology, and you are able to transfer your consciousness into a synthetic body (destroying your biological one in the process), when you sat up from the table, would you consider this to be "you"? Or would you live the rest of your life considering yourself as merely a simulation that thinks it's gmilam?

goose said:

Say we get to the point where we download our consciousness onto a computer. While we live, we are constantly uploading our new experiences into this machine with our 'consciousness' right up until the moment we die. Once we die, the consciousness gets downloaded into a robot/other person/machine/whatever. Would you consider yourself to still be alive once 'you' wake back up?

Click to expand...

Sure. Thanks to the memories, there would be an internal sense of continuance. As a long a purely technological substrate successfully produced experiences or sensory and introspective manifestations same as the old body. (IOW, if I was not a philosophical zombie.)

However, just by being realized via an artificial substrate (if that was my new housing), my technological ectype is not going to follow exactly the same life trajectory that my biological archetype would have in its place. Even if the machine version tries to mimic the chemical interactions and arbitrary events of the brain / body (brain simulation), there will still be growing deviation. But OTOH, if I was an old woman when I died, I was hardly deciding things the way I would have when being younger anyway. (I.e., the technological ectype might be considered just an abrupt transition to a radical new phase of my life.)

Ironically, if I believed in the commonsense presentism view of time -- in which only some specious or usually subjective "this moment" is real -- then I'm being eradicated by the replacement of a slightly different copy every few milliseconds, anyway. (Or every yoctosecond, if a non-subjective version of presentism is trying to the accommodate the speed of subatomic changes throughout the universe, as its standard for a "global now".) What persists as my identity is only whatever body "plan" or set of general principles for regulating my organization (or the cosmos) is being adhered to from one interval of extinction to the next. However, at least it is the same substrate which is substantiating me throughout the magical process. Biological CC does as biological CC is expected to do across such a winking in and out manner of existence.

- - -

DaveC426913 said:

Let me put it another way.

Never mind copies. If, some day we have the technology, and you are able to transfer your consciousness into a synthetic body (destroying your biological one in the process), when you sat up from the table, would you consider this to be "you"? Or would you live the rest of your life considering yourself as merely a simulation that thinks it's gmilam?

Click to expand...

That's a matter of semantics. If "I" woke up on the table, then of course it's me.

But the OP has my consciousness in two places at once - me and stored in a computer simultaneously. That's a copy - not a transference.

Michael 345 said:

The problem with what you propose is that consciousness does not have any physicality to download

None of the PROCESSES the original USB went through are reproduced

With no physicality I contend copying concessness is not possible

Click to expand...

Correct. A reproduction is not happening... but do new copies understand they are not the original? or would they consider themselves the same?
I'm not interested in the original, I'm interested in the copy. If I was the copy, would I consider myself the same, regardless if it isn't technically right?

C C said:

However, just by being realized via an artificial substrate (if that was my new housing), my technological ectype is not going to follow exactly the same life trajectory that my biological archetype would have in its place. Even if the machine version tries to mimic the chemical interactions and arbitrary events of the brain / body (brain simulation), there will still be growing deviation. But OTOH, if I was an old woman when I died, I was hardly deciding things the way I would have when being younger anyway. (I.e., the technological ectype might be considered just an abrupt transition to a radical new phase of my life.)

Click to expand...

Completly agree with this. I wouldn't expect the new copy to make the same choices or even see the world in the same way. The moment the copy is birthed into existence it is experiencing itself and its surroundings, immediately undermining any initial thoughts brought from the original host. New connections are made, new experiences, new thought patterns.

Just have 2 questions for you.
1. Would you do this?
2. If you did this/were forced to do it, would you ever feel jealous of any possible future versions of yourself, knowing that you will feel death before you feel birth, accepting the possibility that you will never be the same again?

goose said:

Correct. A reproduction is not happening... but do new copies understand they are not the original? or would they consider themselves the same?
I'm not interested in the original, I'm interested in the copy. If I was the copy, would I consider myself the same, regardless if it isn't technically right?

Click to expand...

For you to consider yourself a copy I think you would need to be aware there is a original

So how would you know unless you are told?

:

Michael 345 said:

For you to consider yourself a copy I think you would need to be aware there is a original

So how would you know unless you are told?

:

Click to expand...

Well you would have the knowledge from the original that it was happening (unless it was done to you without you knowing).
Say you choose to do it. Would you consider yourself immortal, or at least consider yourself to be some form of immortality?

goose said:

Well you would have the knowledge from the original that it was happening (unless it was done to you without you knowing).
Say you choose to do it. Would you consider yourself immortal, or at least consider yourself to be some form of immortality?

Click to expand...

True

However since you and the copy are now leading separate lives unless there is some sort of sync arrangement were your copy feeds its experience back to you

And copes of copies do likewise it is going to be a very fragmented immortality

Michael 345 said:

True

However since you and the copy are now leading separate lives unless there is some sort of sync arrangement were your copy feeds its experience back to you

And copes of copies do likewise it is going to be a very fragmented immortality

Click to expand...

oh yeah for sure, I was more interested in the copy of you that comes out once your original dies... the lineage, 1 dies, the second comes in with memories right up until the moment of death... of course, things would go wrong, someone may steal your copy, download them, and torture them to death over and over and over again... because you know... people

Still think it is an interesting form of immortality though... maybe create a self-imposed upload rule that is only activated when you original dies, then the next in line, etc.... keeping all copies outside of the lineage.

gmilam said:

That's a matter of semantics. If "I" woke up on the table, then of course it's me.

But the OP has my consciousness in two places at once - me and stored in a computer simultaneously. That's a copy - not a transference.

Click to expand...

Right.
So, you wake up in a mechanical body, and they tell you you've been transferred. You are now free to live out your immortal life.

And then they open the door and you see a body looking a lot like yours on a slab in the next room (can't tell if it's alive or dead).

Were you "you" for a short time, but then you became merely a copy?

Is there any real meaning to that status change you experienced when the door opened?

goose said:

Completly agree with this. I wouldn't expect the new copy to make the same choices or even see the world in the same way. The moment the copy is birthed into existence it is experiencing itself and its surroundings, immediately undermining any initial thoughts brought from the original host. New connections are made, new experiences, new thought patterns.

Just have 2 questions for you.
1. Would you do this?
2. If you did this/were forced to do it, would you ever feel jealous of any possible future versions of yourself, knowing that you will feel death before you feel birth, accepting the possibility that you will never be the same again?

Click to expand...

I'd do it as long as there weren't any negative or detrimental consequences to my current life, those of the copies, my surviving relatives and descendants, and the future world at large (that includes personal costs, annoyance at time consumed by lengthy lab sessions, etc). Jealously wouldn't seem to enter the picture, since the whole affair might be construed as roughly amounting to either having children or having delayed (chronologically displaced) identical sisters without the parenting responsibilities or developing sibling rivalries from growing-up together. Which also provides another potential "Why not?" to the first question, since ordinary procreation and twin chances are already part of the traditional human situation. A bridge for mutable psychological adaptation to a new scenario possibly already in place.

- - -