Consciousness in a machine

[kamui]

I have been thinking about this for a long time when I first heard about Dr. Warwick. I know it sounds to much sci-fi but can it be possible that we will be able to transfere our consciousness into a machine? That we become reborn as a machine with the same thoughts and mind in another body? I know that Dr. Warwick and other transhumans are working on techlepathy and that Dr. Warwick claims that thanks to this technology we will be able to send our thoughts directly into someone else mind. I would like to know what you think and if this can be possible in the decades to come. What are your thoughts about this?

 

[kauboi]

The mechanistic theories of the mind (the notion that the mind works as a machine) have been greatly criticized. That's because computers today are completely deterministic and work as a consistent system (that everything can be proven by deductive reasoning on the basis of certain axioms) while we are pretty sure that we are not consistent beings and that our mind doesn't necessarily follows deterministic relationships. There are several theories on whether we could simulate consciousness by simulating an inconsistent system and a different kind of non-consistent logic (as well as other ways to generate conclusions like using analogies for example) but there have been not much efforts to apply that yet.<br /><br />So maybe we could someday achieve a satisfying model for consciousness but I doubt it is possible with the current technology and the current notion of machine that we have. Also very reliable theories suggest that consciousness is something that functions holistically, meaning that the whole is not only the sum of its parts, so a mechanistic notion would fall short of achieving favorable results since a machine works using the parts it possess and nothing else and functions the way it is programmed.

 

[spacefire]

I think it will happen. Here's how:<br /><br />using more and more devices that connect directly to the brain will eventually make those devices essential parts of the brain.<br />Once your mind is connected to a supercomputer that has equivalent storage (for memories and such), the line will blur up to the point where you flesh and blood body with its tiny brain becomes irrelevant.<br />It's sort of akin to you consciousness (software), moving over time into the new machine hardware, from the old 'hardware', the body.<br />But I think the transfer can only happen over time, as you use the electronic 'crutches' more and more until they become you. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[kauboi]

<font color="yellow">Once your mind is connected to a supercomputer that has equivalent storage (for memories and such)..</font><br /><br />See, right there there's a huge gap in our understanding. The way we storage memory on a computer has little or nothing to do with how we storage our own memories, most scientists agree. That's a essential thing to understand our consciousness yet we are not sure how exactly our brain creates and storages memories. The efforts to model memory systems are just starting to take place and the results haven't been very satisfactory.

 

[kamui]

So you mean when we discover were and how memories are stored then we could upload ourselves into a machine? Telepathy with technology would be able but there is a problem what we wound need to transfere - what is consciousness. My question was that to transfere the "person" into a new body not to create a consciousness clone of the person. Do you think that this can be done?

 

[kauboi]

The thing is that to transfer the consciousness to a machine that machine should be able to do everything that our mind is capable of IMO. In other words, the machine would have to be a consciousness on its own specially due to its holistic nature and what I told you about it not being a mechanistic system.

 

[lampblack]

Sounds interesting... but the SQL errors could be hell to deal with. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[kamui]

But the it would be a clone not the transfered person - if I get it right but I this is about the transfere of someones mind into a machine that way you would exchange bodies.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

Well, before any such thing would be attempted, I think someone is going to have to transplant a human brain into an artificial device first. Of course, the result could just be permanent insanity. How many tests would have to be done before they finally got it right? Who's going to be the first to volunteer?<br /><br />Personally, I don't think we'll ever have the need to transfer consciousness into an artificial body. At least not until the point where our technology is so developed that we are seeking to transcend our natural bodies. Before that time, physical immortality would probably be obtainable. If we had the technology to transfer consciousness, we surely could prolong physical life indefinitely. I'd much rather be "me" with all the accompanying itches, gaseous emissions and physical needs than placed inside a metal box. No matter how gilded, a cage is still a cage. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

IMO there is no meaningful difference between the 'real me' and an identical copy.<br /><br />If I did start worrying about such things, I should equally start worrying about falling asleep. There is nothing I can possibly observe that proves I am the same real me I was yesterday, and not an entirely new conciousness that just happens to access the same physical memories.<br /><br />Likewise, I have no particular reason to conclude there are not multiple conciousness's looking out of my head right now, that simply end up making pretty much the same decisions. This might be why my hand might stiffen or twitch when I am indecisive about pushing one key or another.<br /><br />Likewise, have you ever made a close decision that turns out to be wrong, and cursed under your breath 'I knew it!'? Maybe your are not fooling yourself. Wouldnt it be reasonable for the brain to run multiple future-guessers at once, and then promote the guesser that was most successful to the drivers seat? The 'real you' that curses was not the 'real you' that was in the drivers seat when the bad decision was made. <br /><br />Our strong conviction that we are one unique conciousness might come down to as simple a principle as 'history is written by the winner'

 

[docm]

The key is neurochips;<br /><br />SciAm link....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>A Step Toward a Living, Learning Memory Chip<br /><br />Israeli scientists imprint multiple, persistent memories on a culture of neurons, paving the way to cyborg-type machines </b><br /><br />Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel have demonstrated that neurons cultured outside the brain can be imprinted with multiple rudimentary memories that persist for days without interfering with or wiping out others.<br /> /><br />Ben-Jacob points out that previous attempts to develop memories on brain cell cultures (neurons along with their supporting and insulating glial cells) have often involved stimulating the synapses (nerve cell connections). So-called excitatory neurons, which amplify brain activity, account for nearly 80 percent of the neurons in the brain; inhibitory neurons, which dampen activity, make up the remaining 20 percent. Stimulating excitatory cells with chemicals or electric pulses causes them to fire, or send electrical signals of their own to neighboring neurons.<br /> /><br />This time, Ben-Jacob and graduate student Itay Baruchi, who led the study, targeted inhibitory neurons to try to bring some order to their neural network. They mounted the cell culture on a polymer panel studded with electrodes, which enabled Ben-Jacob and Baruchi to monitor the patterns created by firing neurons. All of the cells on the electrode array came from the cortex, the outermost layer of the brain known for its role in memory formation.<br /><br />Initially, when a group of neurons is clustered in a network, merely linking them will cause a spontaneous pattern of activity. Ben-Jacob and Baruchi sought to imprint a memory by injecting a chemical suppressor into a synapse between inhibitory neurons. Their goal: to dis</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[datalor]

Kelvin, <br />Your post freaked me out a little, as I nose around here in the forums and getting ready to go to sleep. Hopefully I will still be "me" upon awaking <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[a_lost_packet_]

Ya know, that concept has a story lurking in it somewhere.<br /><br />Imagine, everytime you loose consciousness, your mind is set adrift. With nothing to anchor it in this reality, it creates its own. Upon waking, you consciousness anchors itself in this reality since it is intrinsically tied to your physical being.. while you live. But, when you die, all of those unconscious moments, those sub-realities vie for your consciousness, effectively placing you on a journey through the realities your mind created as you slept all of those years... there's a reason we sleep a quarter of our life away.. just so we have someplace to go when we die...<br /><br />Sweet dreams... <br /><br /><evil grin /><br /><br />MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[kamui]

Yes there is because when you die the only thing that will live is your "clone" not you. <br /><br />As I get it from your post you are refering that there could be a multiple universe were are many of "us" made and all conected with some psychic link?I hope I got it right what you thought.

 

[kamui]

You are right that would be the first step but I think the transfer can be possible if Dr.Warwicks techlepathy would be a reality in the 2nd stage that we would be able to project images and full thoughts onto a person then maybe it would be just a matter of some years when the 2nd stage would be over. As for the 1st volunteer I would happily go. I would like to know how it would "feel" to be in a improved body without the need of physical needs and desires. If this would be possible I would like to know how my changed consciousness would felt - maybe I would be crazy or mad or maybe not but I think that would change my life to the limit xD.

 

[docm]

<font color="yellow">Yes there is because when you die the only thing that will live is your "clone" not you. </font><br /><br />This differs from current reality how? <br /><br />Every cell in the body is replaced within a few years, most even faster than that, so in a way we already clone ourselves on a regular basis. <br /><br />All that really survives this process are the neural pathways that form our personalities, memories etc. so how exactly would copying them into a mixed bio/mechanical neurochip before death be different other than form? <br /><br />My answer would be if there were a multidimensional aspect to neural patterns that is in some manner retained in those extra dimensions....not too unlike aspects of some known particles & forces...it <i>might </i> matter. <br /><br /><b>PLEASE</b> don't anyone blather about no QM processes in the brain; <b><i>ALL</i></b> matter and its interactions are quantum mechanical by their very nature making the "no QM in the brain" assertion a residue of classical thinking. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kamui]

I know that every cell is replaced and so on. I am not talking about coping here but uploading and moving. Techlepathy is not coping thoughts it sending them and uploding them into another mind of a person. As for the brain we dont know what consciousness is to the limit - if we would know that we would have a big mystery solved. So my question is not about a copy/clone but a upload transfere ala Ghost in the Shell or any other Sci-Fi movie were aliens transfered their mind into another body.

 

[kelvinzero]

I really like Ghost in the Shell. I think it is genuine SF, unlike say Startrek.<br /><br />It is probably very hard to transfer a personality from an organic brain to another medium, because personality is a product of both the software and hardware. I think if my memories were transfered into a different human mind, the other person would still have a different temprament to me. For example there is some evidence that psycopathic traits have a genetic component. This implies that to copy someones personality you would need a very accurate scan of their brain. It might not even be enough to track every neuron and its connections. (easier in GITS though, since they had cybernetic brains)<br /><br />A counter argument however is that perhaps you could accurately copy a personality simply by observing them closely. Suppose you videotape a person's entire life and then use this information to program a neural network to perfectly imitate them? Or to put it another way, if an AI can accurately imitate a specific person, right down to passing detailed psycological comparisons, that person must exist in some form of virtual reality inside the AI.<br /><br />

 

[kamui]

I think Ghost in the Shell have shown a way - I know its fiction but to the latest research it shows that the Bio-electric signals are thoughts or have the requeid data of the thought. So it could be possible but we would need more knowledge how the human brain works but even on the Wikipedia its one of the conclusions how it could been done:<br /><br />"Cyborging"<br />Another theoretically possible method of mind uploading from organic to inorganic medium, related to the idea described above of replacing neurons one at a time while consciousness remained intact, would be a much less precise but much more feasible (in terms of technology currently known to be physically possible) process of "cyborging". Once a given person's brain is mapped, it is replaced piece-by-piece with computer devices which perform the exact same function as the regions preceding them, after which the patient is allowed to regain consciousness and validate that there has not been some radical upheaval within his own subjective experience of reality. At this point, the patient's brain is immediately "re-mapped" and another piece is replaced, and so on in this fashion until, the patient exists on a purely hardware medium and can be safely extricated from the remaining organic body. <br /><br />What do you think is this possible or its just science fiction and therefore a dream?

 

[kelvinzero]

I think artificial minds will eventually out perform and replace natural ones.<br /><br />Copying natural minds into artificial brains is definitely plausible, but might be made irrelevant by other technology developed first.

 

[kauboi]

You should read J.R. Lucas' famous article Machines, Minds and Goedel. Here he addresses the problems with mechanism based on Goedel's theorems and, although I find some of the arguments kind of weak by today's standards, he gives a pretty good notion of the difficulties of developing a cybernetic brain and mind. (he has a revisited version which is much more current but I haven't read it).<br /><br />Here's an excerpt from near the end which I find interesting.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">So far, we have constructed only fairly simple and predictable artefacts. When we increase the complexity of our machines there may, perhaps, be surprises in store for us. He draws a parallel with a fission pile. Below a certain "critical" size, nothing much happens: but above the critical size, the sparks begin to fly. So too, perhaps, with brains and machines. Most brains and all machines are, at present, "subcritical"---they react to incoming stimuli in a stodgy and uninteresting way, have no ideas of their own, can produce only stock responses ---but a few brains at present, and possibly some machines in the future, are super-critical, and scintillate on their own account. (126) Turing is suggesting that it is only a matter of complexity, and that above a certain level of complexity a qualitative difference appears, so that 44 super-critical" machines will be quite unlike the simple ones hitherto envisaged.<br /><br />This may be so. Complexity often does introduce qualitative differences. Although it sounds implausible, it might turn out that above a certain level of complexity, a machine ceased to be predictable, even in principle, and started doing things on its own account, or, to use a very revealing phrase, it might begin to have a mind of its own. It might begin to have a mind of its own. It would begin to have a mind of its own when it was no longer entirely predictable and entirely docile, but was capable</font>

 

[specfiction]

My book, Proteus Rising, deals with machine consciousness in both a technical and philosophic way. I think that the eventual creation of a mind in a "box" with a "soul" is one of those milestones that will both illuminate a corner of reality that we have almost no understanding of right now, and change the way we see ourselves.

 

[vagueship]

So if you like your girl friend you marry her. When she is old and wrinkled you download her to a flash drive and then stick it into a hottie.