Life inside a Computer

Discussion in 'Intelligence & Machines' started by kmguru, Sep 8, 2001.

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  1. kmguru Staff Member

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    In various threads, we are discussing mind upload to a computer. There are some confusions and I would like to state my understanding of such a task. Comments are welcome.

    Once we have a technology to transfer the program and memory of a person (not anytime soon, but may be in the next 150 years), we are exploring the best use of such technology. Assuming that we can create a virtual world of cities, robots, transporters, food etc., we can upload minds to that environment to populate the virtual world. Then my proposal is simple.

    As people retire, they can decide to move in to the virtual city, at first temporarily using a plugin device and then permanently when their biological body is at an end. Children of those who move to the virtual retirement can visit by pluging in to a mind interface port. When the children grow old and retire, they too can move in the same way.

    In the beginning, the computers will be very large to house such a virtual community all networked to other communities around the world. As technology progresses over time, Each family can maintain their virtual family all networked to other virtual habitat. Since computer density doubles every 12 to 18 months, it should not be difficult to house several generations in the system.

    Oh!, one benefit in the virtual world will be no real body and therefore you can eat anything without gaining weight and no sickness (except if somebody pulls the plug - you need SRAM memory to revive

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    ) - unless it is programmed differently.

    So what do you think?
     
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  3. tony1 Jesus is Lord Registered Senior Member

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    *Originally posted by kmguru
    (except if somebody pulls the plug - you need SRAM memory to revive

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    ) - unless it is programmed differently.

    So what do you think?
    *

    Sooner or later, someone WILL pull the plug, especially if the computers are located in California.
    Next brownout, someone will say, "What are these computers doing here, sucking up power?"

    It might even be the cleaning lady, accidentally unplugging the mess just so she can get the vacuum cleaner closer to the wall.

    Grandiose plans usually collapse due to minor oversights.
     
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  5. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Kmguru,

    No worry about power. Every significant system in the world is protected by double or triple redundant power supplies. All such systems in the world, e.g. stock exchanges, 911 services all have fault tolerant systems that prevent system loss even when individual components or power fail.

    If a network is built that will hold millions of VR entities then it is certain that it would be well protected.

    But such a system need not be limited to a virtual world, why not add real external sensors so that the inhabitants could freely communicate with the external world?

    Cris
     
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  7. kmguru Staff Member

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    Somewhere in this Forum I discussed about connecting to the external world. As NASA is trying to design an interstellar network, I am hoping that we will have nodes in space that are powered by sunlight with redundancy such that any meteor strike will not damage the virtual inhabitants. The inhabitants can control their physical world by interface to the node motors and other repair systems.

    When a child wants to visit Gradma or Grandpa, he /she can use an interface to go to the virtual world for a limited time. As long as Virtual world is time synced to the real world, everything should be OK.
     
  8. Deadwood Registered Senior Member

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    Wouod these virtual entities of deceased persons actually think and talk or would just be a 3D graphical representation with animations etc or maybe you guys are thinking something else?
     
  9. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    To have a virtual world that was static, meaning that they are not capable of orignal thought, would mean no need for external hookups of any kind to the real world. If that was so then there would only be one way hookups going to the virtual and none leaving. That doesn't seem so attractive does it? Especially if you are one of the residents of the virtual world.
     
  10. kmguru Staff Member

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    Here is how it will work: (I think)

    First several scientists brain will be scanned by MRI or some such machine and the neural image will be transfered to a computer in 2050. The team will include computer scientists, mathematicians, doctors, artists, special effect people etc. Once they are (their duplicate mind) inside the computer, they will figure out how to build a virtual world similar to ours. They will interface with outside world via normal audio, video and work with outside scientists to develop a mind interface. In the beginning, the virtual world time can be speeded up to make the creation faster and then the time cycle can be synced to outside world.

    After some trial and error, we will have a system in virtual world that is identical but better than real world since the physical laws in virtual world can be broken and adjusted. That is you can pass through a solid door...or create dinosaurs etc.

    You can travel to that world by brain interface. The world will be dynamic since the computer is time based. They are predicting by 2006, we will have 100GHz machines with 5 Terabytes of RAM. So imagine what we will have by 2050?
     
  11. Rick Valued Senior Member

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  12. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    you were very wrong to say that one would not gain weight.....
    did you know that under hypnosis,if tell a person that he is in north pole and kool breeze is blowing he "ll probably start to shiver.and secondly we dont..until now know where the conventional memory or ram is located..it is said to be scattered over various parts of brain.......
    well the idea might be useful... for example in case of famine or shortage of food...or may be in case of sun dying out we could upload ourselves in and still manage to survive and flourish like we are right now.
    and by the way if someone pulls the plug ....our brain
    which is still loaded would remain there and we "ll eventually die..
    did you know that if you were killed inside your dreams you die in the real world..that is because of our subconcious mind which shall produce changes in the real body so as to destroy it eventually
     
  13. kmguru Staff Member

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    In real life, the brain disconnects the motor functions from the dream state.

    In my design we wont... ...
     
  14. Riddler Institutionalized Registered Senior Member

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    RIDDLE ME THIS:

    When your dead....YOUR DEAD!



    Who gives a crap if your entire neural patterns are precisely duplicated on some wonderfully large computer matrix, that spans the galaxy and has the interacting mind patterns of the long dead people who conceived this thing???????

    WHEN YOUR DEAD, FANCY COMPUTERS THAT INTERACT AND BEHAVE AS THEIR HUMAN NAMESAKES WILL STILL MEAN NOTHING TO THE DEAD.

    Maybe I have missed something about the possibility of "ME" being magically placed into this proposed matrix????? Personally, I could care less that my thought processes might interact with my other dead relatives' thought patterns, as well as other dead people.

    Maybe this future computer system might appreciate having all the various neural patterns, for it's own pleasure, but I still don't see how it could ever possibly benefit me.....

    Do you people think that you will live forever in such a computer matrix???? Wrong. So sorry! First you should try to determine what is the "ME" part of the human equation. It cannot be entirely the neural patterns that make our physical bodies interact with this physical world. For if it is, then our very living existence is futile and without any "real" purpose!

    In other words, who gives a damn if soul-less bio-machines manage to capture, and then impress their primitive thought patterns onto a huge thinking machine that may develop into a conscious entity one day?

    Computers make excellent servants, but I don't wish to become one of them. They are relevant only while I live.

    Great post kmguru !@
     
  15. kmguru Staff Member

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    Hi Riddler:

    If you find out tomorrow that all these years you have been living inside a super computer, what are you going to do?

    riddle away...crap is always cheap....

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  16. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    I once turned this idea over, mapping the human mind into a machine so that you coud exist even after death.

    I came to a few conclusions though, The first being that for a person to be mapped a system would have to follow them all their lives.
    The problem here is if your mapping this person because you know they are going die from a genetic mutation, the very system that monitors them could be behind causing that very mutation.

    Another point is that if you are to be mapped by such a system, everything you have ever known will be known to that system (at least what you can remember), including how people interact with you, what food tastes like, and your understanding of how things work.

    (this compiled by the number of entities placed into such a system would give you the basic rules of how they exist, what they see and what physical laws are created.)

    I did notice some uses of people being placed in such systems so as to get information from them if they have been murdered, but I noted that it would be particularly difficult as the brain would have to continue functioning or caught soon enough so their hasn't been any cellular damage (or deconstruction).

    Of course there are mentions of visiting dead relatives of course that could be particularly upsetting to the living, and the dead since you can only meet them half way and not share the same plane of existance (well until you end up in there)

    Of course people are right to question about how you would accumilate the infrastructure and processing power to create a whole world for people to be implanted into. (This is most noticable when you realise that you would need about 10,000x1Ghz Processing power just to simulate the number of synapses within the brain [I boosted the Hertz, since your running to different rules than the brain])

    That many Processors is going to:
    Take alot of Constant power to run (apart from sleep patterns)
    Create an extreme amount of heat
    Need maintainence.

    This pretty much means such a feat would be impractical and costly, although their might be a few exceptions made. Of course if this is to happen to only the chosen few, How would they interact with the normal world?, and How many people would be upset at being left out?

    Not to forget to mention from Gibson and his Cyberpunk genre, Who will be the first artificial intelligence/Life to ask for citizenship from Switzerland?
     
  17. kmguru Staff Member

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    The best way to explain it is to watch the voyger episodes and also some of the pre-voyger StarTrek-next generation episodes where they interact with the holodeck people.

    Once you get an understanding of that, it will be very clear, what I am talking about.

    Thanks.
     
  18. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    From that I suppose you could look at the understanding of how the doctor of "Voyager" was created, just a bunch of memories. Of course they possibly are suppose to be a matrix of information drawn form transporter patterns and notes that they had placed into their journals.

    This would mean that for you to be placed into a system you would have to allow yourself to be mapped not just from scans but everything you write to get some form of understanding of the capacity of the individual.

    Of course in "Voyager" they might of had all this information compiled together with a generically programmed holographic doctor (Which I would guess to be programmed rather than just mapped upon an individuals thought patterns), that would formulate the information database, but not necessarily his character, which was apart of the plot since he was to learn more about being a character within the starship than just a prop (Or light being turned on)

    Perhaps the idea of a room where you could be surrounded by a light matrix would seem appealing, but again their would be certain laws of physics that would have to be understood and worked around to make things materialise so solid.

    As well as I did mention that you would need an infinitely growing system that could sustain the increase in Data. Take for instance if you were to run a simulation that builds and runs something like a city (i.e. sim city) at first in its infancy it might not need too many resources, but as it grows and more information has to be handled, so too should it's resources or it will reach a point where it can't grow or develop any further.

    Perhaps you could be downloaded to some goo or Fungus like Sid Meyers "Alpha Centuri", at least if it's another living organism it could replicate and continue to grow far easier. Of course this would mean that we could all be an illusion within a tub of goo

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  19. kmguru Staff Member

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    May be we are in a system on Earth that is finite and human kind can not grow any further....the sum total of all atoms on earth is finite...

    Is that what you are worried about...the sun going super nova...our world dying....may be in a billion years....
     
  20. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Although the sum mass on earth is finite, we still collect matter from the stars like meteor's scratching the sky.

    I have to admit I'm not too worried about humankind being wiped from existance in some senses if you look from a perspective that would seem self serving.
    Of course to see from their you would have to adopt a narrow minded view of your own existance and nobody elses, In reality though my thoughts and dreams are that I don't just make a mark on the planet but to make sure that their is a future for my descendants as well as anybody elses.

    At present of course Humankind sits on this planet like the preverbial saying "All your eggs in one basket", If you drop that basket (something happens to this planet) then our existance could be wiped out without a trace from the universe.
    So for such a system as you were considering perhaps you would have to embody it outside our solar system, or better just move onto the population of planets. Then perhaps marks could survive.
     
  21. kmguru Staff Member

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    Slowly...but surely....

    Like pulling teeth....
     
  22. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    wow! i was also going to ask him the same!!
     
  23. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    this line sparked off an idea,what if the black holes are the real connection of our virtual world to the real world(IF we consider that we are inside a computer indeed)??
     
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