Life inside a Computer

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

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Rick Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,336
    Km,
    Seems like i am getting you good Rating around here...

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!




    BYE!
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Hegemon Registered Member

    Messages:
    4
    It is quite conceivable that with enough computing power, and an accurate artificial representation of the brain (specifically the biological functions of neurons and its interconnections) we could transfer the contents of someone’s brain to its artificial host. In fact if we posses this technology then we would have to have an much better understanding of how the brain works, and if we have this knowledge then perhaps we can remove some unnecessary information the brain currently holds.

    Step 1
    Scan current neural pathways and log individual neuron information
    Step 2
    Transfer neural map to electronic domain
    Step 3
    Remove all unnecessary information (processes and pathways used for walking, eating, breathing, I.E. just about everything except a person’s consciousness, reasoning and accumulated experiences)

    Now comes the philosophical question, do we immediately destroy the organic host now we have a perfect digital copy of someone’s consciousness?
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. kmguru Staff Member

    Messages:
    11,757
    Thank you zion...without your help, this cerebral topic would have died in the vine....

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,946
    To me this process is more like cloning/childbirth then anything else. I'd love to have a digital me to help do my work, explore the universe, and eventually be my legacy... but at the most it is just a copy.
     
  8. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    408
    Problem is that your approach is based upon a deterministic belief in how the brain works. That is, if you can completely model all the physical pieces of the brain, you can completely understand how the brain (and, therefore, the mind) work. There may be some quantum level chaos that will mess up this approach.

    Therefore, if this turns out to be true, what do you think the answer to your question should be?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

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

    Messages:
    13,105
    I've considered more about how it's possible to matrix the brain (Namely create doppler frequencies that allow it to be mapped).

    I've noticed through what I've experienced a "Black orb" effect with my visuals, like little blackdots that sometimes arise in my sight, they aren't constant so are neither mental disorder or damage.

    What they appear to be is something that works along the lines of Ricochet's. A frequency input from a transmitter hits me and then bounces off at an angle in relation to itself.

    [I mention this because I believe the Study or what ever it becomes to be known as should be Publicised about it's findings, to limit too many occurances of recreating it.]

    I concluded a hypothesis, The effect of dopplers must occur inside the neural pathways too. Namely information doesn't just follow an Axom for a path but also creates a Doppler mergence that doesn't follow the pathways but radiates across the neural clusters when they are fired.

    As for Uploading/Downloading [in a Scifi style]. Well it seems that information from the brain is contained within the neurons (you all know) but to move the information requires an understanding of Spacetime, since the information has to be fitted together to deliver a whole equation.

    This means that an Upload/Download would be based on a timespace transaction.

    As for trying to work around the problems of a theoretical system based on "the 13th Floor", let's say the human and there brain remains the exact same (pathways and all), the computer would then have to scan the individual(s) [This means the person and their virtual character] and "remap" the content of their neural pathways in relationship to the persons transition.

    (Although in certain respects the characters might have been created from a scan of the person before hand, basically allowing the same neurological makeup. Of course there would have to be re-scans from time to time, but this would give a method of presenting memory degredation since a characters pattern would have to follow that of the person. The only difference being the information that each house.)
     
  10. BatM Member At Large Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    408
    Sounds like a slight loss of blood pressure to the eyes such that not all of the optic nerves are functioning at the time. Do the black dots remain stationary (with respect to the eye) or do they move around?
     
  11. DJ Erock Resident Skeptic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    458
    While you are arguing about whether not its possible, doesn't it seem like you should question why you are doing it.

    I has been the dream of men to live forever, dating back to the earliest myths and parable, but why is this? "To the well prepared mind, death is just the next great adventure." What happens to the person that is in your system for years and years, then decides they want out? Can they interact with an administrator and get out. What if they can't, then it is no longer a happy environment for them. And if it drives them to the point of madness, and they are running around like madmen, it is no longer a happy environment for anyone.

    I also don't know your religious prefrences, but it also seems as thought you are trying to recreate heaven. I know that you are all just postulating, but what would cause someone to want to do this? it seems like it would just be someone who is afraid of death and isn't sure of whether or not there is an afterlife.

    Just my 2 cents i guess
     
  12. kmguru Staff Member

    Messages:
    11,757
    Good two cents, I might add. Your thought assumes that there is something beyond death to look forward to it. There has been no such proof. Self- preservation is as fundamental to our genes as it is to the planet and the stars. Hence the speculation...

    Those who are stuck in a life term sentence in our prison perhaps feel the same way...it is against the law and perhaps immoral to commit suicide or assist in the process....why?

    Something to noodle....
     
  13. DJ Erock Resident Skeptic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    458
    Your right in that it isn't proven that there is something to look forward to, such as heaven, but that is why humans have religion. It gives us a reason to live long enough to be willing to die. If there wasn't religion, people would either figure life pointless, and have no fear of death, or want to spend as much time as they could in this world, worrying about dying the whole time. obviously a system like this is the worry of someone without faith.

    also, people in prisons for life might go crazy and make it an unhappy environment, but most people in that situation have commited a crime to deserve it. what have people in the system done to be locked there for ever besides live out their time in the real world?
     
  14. kmguru Staff Member

    Messages:
    11,757
    ...but most people in that situation have commited a crime to deserve it.....


    Who judges the judge? Who is right what is right and what is wrong? Religions differ to opposite view point...people kill each other in the name of religion...
     
  15. DJ Erock Resident Skeptic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    458
    most people in prison for life seem to have commited a crime worthy of life in prison i.e. 1st degree murder. also, anyone who says that they kill in the name of a religion is a hypocrite. there is no religion to my knowledge that gives justification to the murder of people simply because of their characteristics or opposing religious alignments. all terrorists who say they kill for islam aren't doing that because the religion told them to, they are doing it because someone else told them to. neither religion nor judging of the judges can prove that it is ok to kill a person who doesn't deserve it.
     
  16. kmguru Staff Member

    Messages:
    11,757
    ...they are doing it because someone else told them to. neither religion nor judging of the judges can prove that it is ok to kill a person who doesn't deserve it.

    That is where the problem lies...

    ...someone else told them to....

    and

    someone deserves to die...

    Some human always tells people that someone else deserves to die...
     
  17. DJ Erock Resident Skeptic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    458
    but if there is no way out, then you're a human telling a human they're not allowed to die.
     
  18. Grothaal Registered Member

    Messages:
    1
    Very interesting thread.

    Lets think abount a scenario like this:

    This virtual world, as put, is a kind of 'sorage' of human patterns of thought, like a big sim-city for leissure purpose.

    1) Why dont make it usefull?

    I mean, we could hard-connect the brains itself to a machine. It would be a 'trade': you keep living some more years till the brain tissue collapses, and
    in exchange the 'world-net' would use all the computational power of the brain in solving-managing the worlds future.

    Imagine what a supercomputer made on many brains thinking toghether wouldnt be acomplishing?

    2) In the future, such brain patterns, if capable of being uploaded into a computer, would be fed into a drone as well.

    So, why no up-load this patterns into Droids, put them into spacecrafts and send them into centuries of space travel? They would be virtually perfect astronauts.

    About copies, if the coppy is perfect, the only issue will be prescedence, who came first. I wouldnt be bothered to continue living as a copy, given the original is gone. That way we could continue evolving indefinatelly our thought, perhaps having time to occupi 20, 30, 40 % of the brain capacity.

    But for such happenings, i think a hard time of ethical issues ans legal issues will surface.
     
  19. kmguru Staff Member

    Messages:
    11,757

    Assume for a moment we can copy your exact brain pattern to a replica. Would you being you, go on a space journey knowing you may not come back to see your family or friends?

    More importantly, before we can send you on a space journey, we replicate you in the lab. Knowing you is a copy, how you would behave and your thoughts on your destruction if your body malfunctions?

    In otherwords, the life and death scenarios and their implications....
     
  20. planaria Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    48
    it wont be death if it is a gradual process.

    ive always thought one way of doing this we be to have some sortof brain implant .. nanobots .. something that is attatched to your brain and ever so slowly takes over parts of your brain so that your brain is slowly being destroyed and being made to use this implant or whatever more and more until all that is left is the implant or maybe nanobots that create robotneurons or something else very sci fi sounding ..

    the key though is gradual change .. and only having one copy at a time .. i think speed is also a confusing thing too .. i think the initial transfer would be slow because at first your brain would have to somhow adapt to this new thing attached to it .. anyways




     
  21. Kunax Sciforums:Reality not required Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,385
    ouch page 4-5 are long kind skipped those and when rigth to 7

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



     
  22. zonabi free thinker Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    420
    relating to the comment saying
    grothaal has a good point.
    think about 'the matrix' people, it is a sign of what is to come.
    it is not too far fetched when u relate it to the discussion here on this thread.
    in the movie there are countless fields of 'towers' of human-cells, each one containing humans, where the machines are intertwined with the human anatomy, thus created an endless supply of energy.
    u guys are talking about the brain but thats not all there is to mimic. we have a very complex system inside of us.

    learning how the brain can be duplicated can in fact be tricky, if so we could very well create virtual worlds and scenarios just like in the matrix movies.

    you also have to take into consideration the fluxes that will occur.
    kind of related to that.

    messing around with God-like abilities like this needs to be carefully watched, or else we could end up slaves to the advancing Droids and Super Computers.
    also, the comment on parity errors is very true. what happens if there is a corrupted bit of information in the middle of downloading back into the person, or even in the downloading of a new person? u can expect some bizarre after effects like Philidelphia experiment. (hands missing, or even worse, memories missing or worse yet deformations, who knows!)

    we first need error-free computers. and we ARE FAR FAR FAR FAR FROM THAT. perhaps a completely new take on electronics/electricity could enable more Accurate and Sure-Fire results. One thing to consider: Tesla's ZPE technologies. If we could understand the energy described in these outrageous space-like devices, perhaps we could create a much better computer that is more in tune with the natural world, not just electric voltage and current signals with 1's and 0's.

    catch my drift?

    (going to rent 13th floor today and see what its all about)
     
  23. kmguru Staff Member

    Messages:
    11,757
    Surprised, the thread is still going strong. Thanks to all the participants. All of you are smart and really imaginative. I think we should keep this thread open for the new comers who are in the search of....
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page