How would you know that a mind has been uploaded to a computer?

davidelkins

davidelkins

Registered Senior Member
How would you know that a mind has been uploaded to a computer? For a test, if you leave out certain information about the person's life in the upload, but the person still is able to recite that information after the upload, then this is proof that they were uploaded. DE
 
Wouldn't it be easier to tell by the fact that they're living inside a computer and have no body?
 
It's not just a matter of uploading data to the machine but that the machine is capable of understanding and utilising that data.

What is the mind of a person? To me it is both the memories (the data) but also the pathways of decision-making and activity - both conscious and subconscious.
The data element could be uploaded to a machine with little issue, but then all you'd have is a library of information. But this is no more a person than a biography is the person it is about.

To upload a mind is to copy all the ways in which the person responds, acts, as well as those memories.
davidelkins said:
How would you know that a mind has been uploaded to a computer? For a test, if you leave out certain information about the person's life in the upload, but the person still is able to recite that information after the upload, then this is proof that they were uploaded. DE
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If the information left out could only be known from direct experience and not inferred from other data then if you leave out that information the machine has zero chance of recalling it. To the uploaded mind it will simply not be part of its memories.
This is true of humans as well. If we physically remove part of our memory then, yes, our biological brain may try to fill in some gaps (but can get it very wrong in doing so) or more likely we just end up with a gap.
It would be impossible for data enters into a computer to ever give you more information out than you put in.
At best it can infer new information that did logically exist implicitly within the data uploaded.

So the way I see it your test would not work. Other than in science fiction, of course. ;)
 
Do you upload your mind to the computer or do you upload the computer to your mind by surgically inserting a computer chip into your brain? DE
 
davidelkins said:
Do you upload your mind to the computer or do you upload the computer to your mind by surgically inserting a computer chip into your brain? DE
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The former.

Because if you did the latter - stick a chip into your brain - the chip would sit there alongside your still-existing mind.
 
A stranger, I wouldn't know. A friend, I would know by their habits of thought, their sense of humour, their style of conversation.
 
davidelkins said:
How would you know that a mind has been uploaded to a computer? For a test, if you leave out certain information about the person's life in the upload, but the person still is able to recite that information after the upload, then this is proof that they were uploaded. DE
Click to expand...
You wouldn't. A more interesting question is, if your mind was uploaded to a computer, would you know it?
 
A program could simulate activating muscles, just like any virtual reality game simulates a body.
If it were convincing - or so much better than your real body that you don't probe too deeply - you wouldn't need to know.
If that virtual body were immersed in a congenial virtual environment, you might not want to know.
"Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved."
 
river said:
Yes .

Activate a muscle group . You couldn't .
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You only know you're activated a muscle group because you get signals back from the muscles telling you what they're done. These signals can be provided artificially, directly to the nerve endings that terminate in the brain. Your brain has no way of knowing the difference.
 
DaveC426913 said:
You only know you're activated a muscle group because you get signals back from the muscles telling you what they're done. These signals can be provided artificially, directly to the nerve endings that terminate in the brain. Your brain has no way of knowing the difference.
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But you do .
 
river said:
But you do .
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I'm assuming a sufficiently sophisticated computer could simulate reality. This is the problem of hard solipsism, you can only be sure that your mind exists. Everything else could be a simulation.
 
A computer sophisticated enough to contain the programming of a whole mind wouldn't have any trouble simulating muscle response.
Or, for that matter, hunger, sexual arousal, a full bladder, a sneeze, or whatever physical signal you want to convince you of reality.
 
If it started screwing up and making dumb mistakes, occasionally, the possibility would become serious. If it forgot what it was saying when a beautiful naked woman walked into the room. If it talked about itself when answering any question or dealing with any subject.
 
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