Immortality ?

A couple people have mentioned problems that would arise from "downloading" your brain to some kind of computer and therefore losing your body.

river-wind mentioned the chemical euphoria produced by exercise and possible side effects of losing the body's chemical system as it relates to a person's sense of well-being.

There is also the fact that our mental orientation to the world is only held in place by our senses. Our brain is constantly producing a model of reality based on the information received by our senses. When sensory input is lost, the brain continues to generate a model, but the model is no longer generated based on "reality". This is what happens when we dream (or experience sensory deprivation).

In the case of dreams, we wake up again and reestablish the connection with the physical world, and regain sensory based mental orientation. With out that orientation, a human mind would likely go crazy.

So some sort of hugely complex simulation of reality, or high resolution sensory input (vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste) would be necessary to preserve sanity(although I guess you could probably do ok with just vision, hearing and touch).


This also relates to AI research. Can we expect to engineer human-level intelligence without providing sufficient sensory connection to the physical world? Imagine a human infant mind, in isolation from sensory input -- it would never be able to develop and learn

 

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Re: Yay!

It's an interesting subject.

I don't think "we" will truly all become one. If there is a linking of minds, or some kind of planet-wide intelligence system, it will need a maintenance crew -- probably intelligent robots of some kind. There will always be a need to form separate entities for specific tasks-- maintenance, defense, information gathering, etc... So while, the bulk of humanity could end up linked into a kind of super organism, some of "us" will need to be given autonomy and hence be separated from the one mind.

And on a related topic:
The reason I believe consciousness is somehow separate from any particular biological entity, is because it manifests itself in so many strange ways -- like in social insects for example. With ant/termite/bee colonies there is some kind of extra-individual consciousness -- the hive mind. It appears that whenever you have nodes of information processing working together, they end up stabilizing into some kind of consciousness (note: I'm not talking about self awareness, just some basic kind of consciousness).

I believe there is a universal consciousness, but for it to become extant into the physical universe, it must be packaged as individual, separate entities like us.

In some sense the separation is an illusion created by our minds. Our minds evolved in such a way that we organize information according to perceived boundaries (such as "me", "dangerous predator", "food source"). These illusionary boundaries are necessary for processing information (if you weren’t able to see the world this way, and instead had direct access to the underlying information of reality, you wouldn't be able to deal with it, because it is too complex a system -- like trying to digest all the info in the universe at once).

If indivduality is an illusion, then what is "me"?
"Me" and "other" are concepts that allow us to deal with the world and survive, but on spiritual or philosophical levels they are limiting. Where do "you" begin and end?
Is the food in your digestive system "you"? What if you vomit, is that food no longer "you"? When exactly does a molecule of food become a molecule of you? The boundry of "you" is not as cut and dry as it seems(this is true with most apparent boundries). So, it is perfectly reasonable to extend your defenition of "me" to include the entire universe. Then you end up with a system of consciousness which is "one", but that is manefest as individual nodes.

I'm straying from the topic and sounding like a crazy person, so I'll leave it at that.

 

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very good explination MFrobot;
I call what you are talking about the 'scope' of any given problem- the illusionary boundries that we have put in place in order to conseptualise the universe is a very usefull tool which allows us to assume definition of objects. Once a person realises that an object is only an object as they define it, then can open their own perseption to many more possibilities.

The table I'm sitting at is made of wood. Nice and simple. But if you keep going...a person made this table, or made the machines which made this table...wood comes from trees, which were harvested by people, grown by poeple or naturally...trees give shade, which people can use to protect themselves form the shade...trees also give off fruit/nuts, which people can eat.... If you keep going, you can see that this table has had the same amount of effect on the world as I have- an infinate amount.

I can easily connect my "individual" self to the entire planet through this table by following connection chains. I can follow those chains to every other bit of plant, animal, rock, air, water, photon, superstring, EVERYTHING in the universe. Depending on how much time and energy I have to follow these chains of connections, I think I'll find that they all connect in a million places over a million years, and more.

My daily actions are dependant on how deep into those connection I want to look. The scope of my vision will determine the solutions to a given problem I can see, and which one looks like it's the "best" solution.
If I can learn to vary that scope at will, I can envision every possible solution to the problem, and then can pick one based on the most natural balance of short-term and long-term effects. Truely able to put myself into someone else's position- I'll have put myself into everything and everyone's positions, within reason.

 

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Ok think about it, if we were to put our minds into computers we would have to set up a scientifical ratio. There are viruses all over computer, so if we put our minds into the computer we would just be vulnerable to some "Mind Hacker," which could just send us a virus.

Also computer's identification number, or IP adress is a way to tell which computer is which. However, if we put our minds into a computer... will we have IP address, and if so couldn't it just be manipulated. And How could relationships go on.

Even if it is somehow possible, then I highly doubt that anyone would want too.

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I would!!!

 

what if some drunk janitor accidently knocked out the connection from the outlet causing thousands to die due to lack of electricity.....immortality really seems like a joke then doesn't it.

But i am thinking we won't really be plugged into a wall like that, rather in a more secure place.

 

aah Non-Volatile memory??? They would not die, just sleep tell the power is put back on.

Asteroids would be a safe place.

 

How would they sleep without any power source protection.....Does your brain stop using oxygen when you sleep.. i am sure they would have a backup generator in such a case but i never mentioned that...if the power did go out in totally they wouldn't sleep..they would just die.

 

It not a brain in a jar its a Ultracomputer server that peoples souls are running in… very different.

 

Not all memory loses its information without an attached power source.

Some sort of high speed EEPROM would do the trick.
Even if you are in the middle of a "thought" and the power goes out, your half-thought will preserved intact until the power comes back on regardless of how long it takes.

 

search "magnetic ram" on google

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Pretty Cool!!

 

Magnetic ram is the first step in the next great leap in computer technology called Spintronics. CPUs built by 2020-2030 will probably be made out of asynchronies molecular spintronics. Chips assembly by then might consist of mass produces nodes or “neurons”, basically tiny molecular spintronic chips under a micron in size but with all the computing power of an 8080. Each one of these node is then collected together in a fluid medium and then crystallized, forming a network matrix of nodes. Computing power will be based off how many nodes your CPU has and the speed of the nodes at conducting a task. CPUs of the future will have all there ram built in at terabyte levels and will make standard ram and HDs obsolete. Spintronics has also been show to be very good at holding quantum bits and a specially designed spintronic CPU (cryogenically cooled of course) could be capable of quantum computing.