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[Anvilfolk]

Well, if you remove air from a human, even just a moment, they die.  Why is electricity so different?

Because of humans know that air exists and that its absence implies death. It is conceivable that a sentient being within a computer is unaware of the passage of time... or is it? Does sentience imply that we know about time? Is the way the brain is built enough to be aware of time? And if a digital brain framework is faster than an actual brain, does it mean time passes faster for them?

I love these questions

And that book sounds pretty interesting. I'd totally say that if the brain was destroyed but used as a base for the "new brain" it probably implies sentience. I'm pretty sure we can get many kinds of lower sentience (so to speak) from less developed brains, so if ours is a starting point..... There are probably ways to achieve sentience without brains (digital or like ours)... we just haven't seen them or thought of them.

[Girlinhat]

The series, starting with Revelation Space and forming a Trilogy +1 side-book (maybe more, dunno) also mentions other interesting things, like organic ships and time travel.  Namely, sending messages through time.  But it only works one way...  You can receive messages sent from the future, but attempting to see 'further in the future' always destroyed the machine.  The result is that you get instant communication from anyone else, but nothing more.

One of my favorite, brief mentions was a colony of worms that inhabited a whole planet.  They mostly burrowed their way through a particular glacier, bumping into one another as they continued along, slow and steady, following routes already dug and occasionally branching new ways when one would collapse.  As the worms touched, they shared chemical information about their previous touchings and themselves, in this way, forming a huge network of worms.  It worked very similar to a human's brain, if nerve firing took 5 years at a time to travel to the next nerve, taking hundreds of years to express what may be considered a single 'thought'.

Book also featured 'quantum computers' that were ordinarily very fast computers, but when kicked into overdrive they would quantum mesh with themselves, sharing information with the same computer fractions of a second away in time, in this way able to multiply is processing speed hundreds of time by 'cloning itself through time'.  Granted, this was also in the same book where human brains were converted into computers, and it was attempted to quantum-mesh a human's brain with its fractional-second-apart self.  But that's a big part of the plot, so I'll leave that alone.

[Anvilfolk]

I might have to read that, but the last time I tried reading a novel I felt embarrassed, though it was more adventury. I've been reading books with tons of history books of huge human and social significance. When I get back to novels I instinctively feel I should be reading more "meaningful" stuff, if that makes sense.

Getting back on topic though, I think I'll have to read the news report a little more attentively to try to figure out the significance to sentience of what he is doing

[Drakale]

One of my favorite, brief mentions was a colony of worms that inhabited a whole planet.  They mostly burrowed their way through a particular glacier, bumping into one another as they continued along, slow and steady, following routes already dug and occasionally branching new ways when one would collapse.  As the worms touched, they shared chemical information about their previous touchings and themselves, in this way, forming a huge network of worms.  It worked very similar to a human's brain, if nerve firing took 5 years at a time to travel to the next nerve, taking hundreds of years to express what may be considered a single 'thought'.

Reminds me of the SM: Alpha Centauri sentient planet.

[Canisaur]

You guys should really read Permutation City by Greg Egan, if you haven't already.  In the book, they've perfected the technology of scanning a brain and running it on a computer.  The first 2/3 of the book deal with the subjectiveness of a consciousness in a computer (what happens with the power is turned off?  What happens when you run the different parts of the simulation out of order?)  Eventually they prove that the subjectiveness of reality means that a parallel universe is split off when the program is terminated, where the inhabitants continue living, completely separated from the 'host' universe that first started the simulation.  The other 1/3 of the book is about the people in said split-off universe, who start running an atomic-scale simulation of a small universe.

If any of my above disjointed and probably confusing description interests you, you should check it out.  You UK people will probably have more luck getting his older books, I've been trying to get copies of some of his other older books here in the US, but he apparently doesn't even have an electronic publisher here for them

[SalmonGod]

One of my favorite, brief mentions was a colony of worms that inhabited a whole planet.  They mostly burrowed their way through a particular glacier, bumping into one another as they continued along, slow and steady, following routes already dug and occasionally branching new ways when one would collapse.  As the worms touched, they shared chemical information about their previous touchings and themselves, in this way, forming a huge network of worms.  It worked very similar to a human's brain, if nerve firing took 5 years at a time to travel to the next nerve, taking hundreds of years to express what may be considered a single 'thought'.

Ants basically do this.  Their communication isn't actually all that sophisticated, and their organization isn't intentional.  Rather, it's all based on a weird sort of algorithmic system, where ants share a very small amount of information every time they come in contact, but most ant behavior is based solely on frequency of contact with other ants.  The individual ant experience isn't really so "hive mind" as popular belief would have it.

I've often wondered if we do similar things.  Think of every single person on the internet as a neuron, processing information between one another and storing those processes in a vast collective memory bank.

Honestly, more and more as I get older, I see the entire universe as just exchanges of information on an infinite gradient of scales, creating infinite gradients of organic processes, but we're only capable of recognizing them within a certain range of scales outside our own.  I believe our interactions create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, like the neurons in our brain, but we're just incapable of recognizing that whole.

[Girlinhat]

Sounds like God...

[SalmonGod]

Well, I'm not an atheist... I just don't believe in any heavily personified conception of god.  I think if anything exists that could be considered "god", that it's an extremely abstract entity, i.e. the sum of all the interactions of all things across space/time.  It would relate to us something like the same way we relate to a single electron in ourselves.  I have a deeper conception that I mostly keep to myself, because it's ill-defined.

[10ebbor10]

And then the Earth got demolished 5 minutes before finding the Ultimate Question, and the mice were really, really upset.

[Anvilfolk]

...snip...

Ants basically do this.  Their communication isn't actually all that sophisticated, and their organization isn't intentional.  Rather, it's all based on a weird sort of algorithmic system, where ants share a very small amount of information every time they come in contact, but most ant behavior is based solely on frequency of contact with other ants.  The individual ant experience isn't really so "hive mind" as popular belief would have it.

Might be interested in this TED talk about ants. It's super cool!

[Neonivek]

Why is electricity so different?

There is a difference between death and suspended animation.

When you turn off a robot, even a sentient robot, it isn't dead (ignoring that by all technical definitions it isn't alive either) it is just suspended.

[rausm]

Well, to think of it, they could only realize something changed if the simulation outright TOLD them the system time, and even if they were given it, it wouldn't mean anything to them unless they used it for timing purposes, in which case pausing and resuming would result in temporary disorientation/minor hallucinations. I don't see any reason to expose the system time to the creatures anyway, as it would probably just confuse them.

Well, you could give them an in-game clock with real world time, and by their interactions with you they could grow aware that there's more to existence than the bits and bytes of the computer. I guess this isn't necessarily about Norns and Creatures as it is about current projects that try to recreate brains...

Jesus F. Christ, some folks would be glad if they got a creature that would - on its own (ie. nothing pre-programed) - learn that if it got burnt that it should not touch that again, but here we have real maximalists:  They want a digital philosopher so they can obsess over whether they are hurting him when they save him to a disk ;-))

For something capable of such high a degree of abstract thought, no, you wouldn't hurt it, you would probably stimulate it ;-)))

Lesser developed minds would blame it on a god/spirit - if they had such a concept, or just remembered it as a weird thing and went about its business.

Even lesser developed mind wouldn't know what to do with the fact for a while - think stunned/confused - then promptly forgot about it (Go take care of retarded/demented people for a while).

But no, "grandroids" (the current proposition) won't be able to reach such a level of intelligence/complexity, nor would your computer be powerful enough to run such a complex simulation. Everything about their "reality" will be simpler, but it is great achievement none-the-less already.

Because of humans know that air exists and that its absence implies death. It is conceivable that a sentient being within a computer is unaware of the passage of time... or is it? Does sentience imply that we know about time? Is the way the brain is built enough to be aware of time? And if a digital brain framework is faster than an actual brain, does it mean time passes faster for them?

I love these questions

Sentience IMO is about awareness of oneself and environment. But how would you know (being a simulated entity) that someone just hibernated your universe - if you cannot observe it ? You simply wouldn't.

And that book sounds pretty interesting. I'd totally say that if the brain was destroyed but used as a base for the "new brain" it probably implies sentience. I'm pretty sure we can get many kinds of lower sentience (so to speak) from less developed brains, so if ours is a starting point..... There are probably ways to achieve sentience without brains (digital or like ours)... we just haven't seen them or thought of them.

IMO sentience is not about the brain/computer/whatever itself as about information the brain stores. So if after the conversion the entity still remembered everything and still had the same thought processes ... Yes.

btw., it's the old form vs substance again; and as always, I'll say go fuck yourself form, the substance is what's really important.

For sentience to develop you need an entity that can:
1) perceive itself, its needs and its environment
2) choose - based on past experiences - how to interact with the environment (babies have initialy 0 experience, but at least some instincts/genetic memory as starting point AND parents that keep prodding them to interact with environment some more, along with pleasure-pain programming tools)
3) interact with environment
4) remember said interactions
5) goto 1


Also, everybody, please realize that any [excessive] emotional reactions this thread is awakening are just projections of our own fears, insecurity, etc. (Am i alive ? Conscious ? Am I in a simulation ? What will happen when i die ... If I were a simulated entity, I would/wouldn't want ___ done to me ...)

[rausm]

Well, I'm not an atheist... I just don't believe in any heavily personified conception of god.  I think if anything exists that could be considered "god", that it's an extremely abstract entity, i.e. the sum of all the interactions of all things across space/time.  It would relate to us something like the same way we relate to a single electron in ourselves.  I have a deeper conception that I mostly keep to myself, because it's ill-defined.

That's my "religion", too.

Also, ever read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversations_with_God (the books, not the WP article) ?

Basically says the same, although the author still mixes a bit of the bible/Christianity into it, it's got more of an Eastern touch to it. A good way for any christian (not really for pretenders who just go through the motions to feel superior/fit in) to help him shed the obsolete parts of his beliefs while keep the "important" bits.

And a good way for a "non-believer" to find his connection to the whole without the need for Fire&Brimstone (Old Testament), or the "We all can be saved, we just need to be subservient slaves, first to the god-person, of course, then to your mortal masters" (New Testament).

[Girlinhat]

Why is electricity so different?

There is a difference between death and suspended animation.

When you turn off a robot, even a sentient robot, it isn't dead (ignoring that by all technical definitions it isn't alive either) it is just suspended.

That somewhat depends on how much RAM is being used.  RAM loses its memory when it loses power, so a reboot would wipe it.

[Neonivek]

Why is electricity so different?

There is a difference between death and suspended animation.

When you turn off a robot, even a sentient robot, it isn't dead (ignoring that by all technical definitions it isn't alive either) it is just suspended.

That somewhat depends on how much RAM is being used.  RAM loses its memory when it loses power, so a reboot would wipe it.

Unless it backs it up or it has a saving function.