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[Descan]

That "we lose continuity when we sleep!" is bloody moronic. Seriously. Neurons still talk to each other, brains still function, Hell, people dream! The only way you can say something like that is by confusing consciousness with, well, being conscious. An easy mistake I'm sure, but they're not the same, not in my book at least :v

Yeah, so much so that you really notice when there are interruptions like with passing out

I can never tell with you, but since I would likely agree with that statement, I'm gonna guess that you're being cheeki and sarcastic.

[LordBucket]

TL;DR, we're chemical reactions wearing clothing.

Let's suppose you're right. If so, do you see how removing the chemicals might be a problem?

I gave the analogy a couple pages ago: drawing a picture of the relationships involved in an explosion does not result in an explosion. Draw a picture of the molecules that compose gunpowder and draw a picture of a blowtorch...that picture will fail to create an explosion.

Even if you assume that consciousness is a result of physical processes, it's still quite a leap of faith to assume that "uploading" in the sense of creating a software copy of your brain's neural network would also result in consciousness.

someone has to take the first plunge and just try it

Yes, I suspect that is what will probably happen. My concern, is that it might appear to work, but not actually work. Look at Siri. She can engage in simple conversation. I don't see anyone seriously claiming she's a self aware entity. It seems pretty reasonable to suggest that you could probably have a better piece of software that's better able to engage in conversation, but still not be an intelligent self aware entity.

If you duplicate a brain, you may well end up with a completely unintelligent, lifeless and mechanical piece of software that's able to converse sufficiently well to convince other people that it works...resulting in those other people choosing to do it themselves...resulting in the human race committing genocide upon itself.

[Spehss _]

Didn't see this thread before. I'd be up for it if it means I could get a kickass robot body to replace my meat body when my expiration date approaches.

someone has to take the first plunge and just try it

Yes, I suspect that is what will probably happen. My concern, is that it might appear to work, but not actually work. Look at Siri. She can engage in simple conversation. I don't see anyone seriously claiming she's a self aware entity. It seems pretty reasonable to suggest that you could probably have a better piece of software that's better able to engage in conversation, but still not be an intelligent self aware entity.

If you duplicate a brain, you may well end up with a completely unintelligent, lifeless and mechanical piece of software that's able to converse sufficiently well to convince other people that it works...resulting in those other people choosing to do it themselves...resulting in the human race committing genocide upon itself.

Conversation is only a single facet of intelligence. If the only thing these uploaded brains could do is pass a Turing test then it's not advanced enough to warrant uploading brains en masse.

[Bohandas]

TL;DR, we're chemical reactions wearing clothing.

Let's suppose you're right. If so, do you see how removing the chemicals might be a problem?

I gave the analogy a couple pages ago: drawing a picture of the relationships involved in an explosion does not result in an explosion. Draw a picture of the molecules that compose gunpowder and draw a picture of a blowtorch...that picture will fail to create an explosion.

Even if you assume that consciousness is a result of physical processes, it's still quite a leap of faith to assume that "uploading" in the sense of creating a software copy of your brain's neural network would also result in consciousness.

The point is that processes are largely substrate independent. Tearing a wool shiry for example is largely the same as tearing a cotton shirt. Assembling a puzzle made out of steel or glass is largely the same as assembling a normal puzzle made out of cardboard.

[Bumber]

That "we lose continuity when we sleep!" is bloody moronic. Seriously. Neurons still talk to each other, brains still function, Hell, people dream! The only way you can say something like that is by confusing consciousness with, well, being conscious. An easy mistake I'm sure, but they're not the same, not in my book at least :v

Yeah, so much so that you really notice when there are interruptions like with passing out

I can never tell with you, but since I would likely agree with that statement, I'm gonna guess that you're being cheeki and sarcastic.

I think he's alluding to the fact that you can't remember the moment you fall asleep (which is due to the failure to convert the short term memory to long term.) This causes a loss of continuity of memory, at least.

This brings up the interesting question of if we are actually capable of pondering thoughts in non-REM sleep, but just can't remember. Sleep essentially being just a state of sensory deprivation, which itself is known to affect our perception of time. Kind of a fridge horror of its own. An eternity of boredom you'll never remember. (Although I guess it would be more like ADD, since your short term is resetting constantly.)

My thoughts on the topic:
I think your consciousness could survive replacing neuron by neuron, but that doesn't mean you can simply transfer your consciousness from one architecture to another afterwards. The important parts of your brain aren't compatible with CPU and RAM. You can't transfer your consciousness from one synth brain to another. You could attach a second synth brain to the first, but it will very likely only adapt as a peripheral to the first. Essentially, you've just swapped your body for one that can fail for a different set of reasons than the first by using silicon and metal (or whatever.) I think I'll hold out for biological immortality.

[Eagleon]

Yes, I suspect that is what will probably happen. My concern, is that it might appear to work, but not actually work. Look at Siri. She can engage in simple conversation. I don't see anyone seriously claiming she's a self aware entity. It seems pretty reasonable to suggest that you could probably have a better piece of software that's better able to engage in conversation, but still not be an intelligent self aware entity.

If you duplicate a brain, you may well end up with a completely unintelligent, lifeless and mechanical piece of software that's able to converse sufficiently well to convince other people that it works...resulting in those other people choosing to do it themselves...resulting in the human race committing genocide upon itself.

You can argue that for children as well I don't know, picking oblivion over software simulacra doesn't seem reasonable, regardless of how fine I could potentially split hairs about p-zombies. I'd do it if I knew I was close to the end of my life, so I don't think we'll have a shortage of adopters. On the other hand if there is an afterlife, it would probably adapt just fine with nanomachines tearing my brain to shreds, so I'm not worried there either - the Norse gods will just pull me out of simulation in the 27th century and I can join the endless slaughter right alongside everyone else. I'm not one of those people that are convinced that machine intelligence is innately superior and all of humanity will be absorbed into digital style, we have things going for our qualities of intuition that are at least alien from whatever we end up making.

[XXXXYYYY]

TL;DR, we're chemical reactions wearing clothing.

Let's suppose you're right. If so, do you see how removing the chemicals might be a problem?

I gave the analogy a couple pages ago: drawing a picture of the relationships involved in an explosion does not result in an explosion. Draw a picture of the molecules that compose gunpowder and draw a picture of a blowtorch...that picture will fail to create an explosion.

Even if you assume that consciousness is a result of physical processes, it's still quite a leap of faith to assume that "uploading" in the sense of creating a software copy of your brain's neural network would also result in consciousness.

Your metaphor would be apt if we were saying that an uploaded consciousness was a fleshy brain doing what it does, but we're arguing that having a simulation would give rise to the same emergent phenomena as our wetware stuff, which is an important distinction. I doubt anyone would argue that a program on a computer was literally a brain made of water and protein.

I think a better metaphor would be writing an algorithm on paper line-for-line then transferring it to code. To make it more closely bound to the current debate, let us say that transcribing it to code requires us to erase the algorithm on the paper.
We can execute the code on our wetware (well, we could before we transcribed it)- just walk through, again step-by-step, and keep a tally of each variable at each step. We can also run the code on the computer. I would argue that the two algorithms are functionally identical. That is, if they were given the same inputs, that they'd give the same conclusion, including whatever phenomena arise out of the code we've written, such as bugs leading to variables going out of bounds, or a bug causing the whole thing to enter into an infinite loop.
Yes, the code on the computer isn't the same as it was on paper- it's just hard ones and zeroes, after all, compared to the elegance of letter and number - but it acts the same in practice.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Just thought of something related to this that could be considered.  If an artificial intelligence was transferred into a 'blank' human brain, just what would that AI be considered?

[Spehss _]

Just thought of something related to this that could be considered.  If an artificial intelligence was transferred into a 'blank' human brain, just what would that AI be considered?

The borg.

How would we have a blank human brain for transferring? Sounds like it'd be the start of synthetic people.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

How would we have a blank human brain for transferring? Sounds like it'd be the start of synthetic people.

We can grow parts of the brain.  Simply implant the AI when the higher functions would develop, if we can't just flat out have a basic brain grown without developing the higher functions.

[i2amroy]

The difficulty with the idea lies in the fact that unlike computers where the software is separate from the hardware (and thus can be loaded or unloaded), in wetware the hardware and software are directly linked. Thus you can't have a "blank" brain, you'd need to grow an AI a brain from scratch, no "downloading" like you could do with a computer.

[wierd]

Here's the problem I have with LB's argument:

He is basically saying "Hey, I am observing something, so observation is happening!" Even though he may not even have any eyes with which to engage in such observation with. His observations can be wholly the result of an internal process.

That latter kind of observation contributes NOTHING to the debate about consciousness. That kind of observation is already being conducted by non-living, non-conscious devices even as we sit here arguing about it (see these lovely images that result from feedback in neural-net based image recognition software, for instance. Note how features emerge even when fed random noise, or a featureless flat image.) and is as such, little more than intellectual sophistry. Unless LB is arguing that his "consciousness" is no more advanced than a neural net algorithm, anyway. His brand of "Empiricism" would require that this "observation" be considered valid.

[Descan]

No, his argument is basically a modified form of Descartes, "I think, therefore I am," more specifically that that is the only thing he can be SURE of. That he is thinking, that he is observing, that is he experiencing. He can't be sure what he is experiencing is true, he can't be sure that anyone or everyone around him is ALSO experiencing, or even what form that experience is to them, but he can be sure he is experiencing.

[wierd]

Nope, he simply BELIEVES he is experiencing.  Again, see the generated imagery of the neural net based recognition routine.

It is "observing" something that is not there. It is "quite sure" it sees.  Does it? If we accept his answer, we have to accept that the routine generating that imagery is likewise capable of being alive.

[Descan]

I'm not here to put words in LW's mouth. It's up to him if what I said is at all what he is saying.

That said, what is the difference? Why the emphasis on "believe"?