Would You Transfer Your Consciousness into a Robot?

[intpz]

It's not robotic if it's not making various... actions, ya know.

 

[Architect]

An interesting thought, can you explain?

I'm saying that, to all the people who don't think a copy of their mind is the same as them, then how do they explain going to sleep and waking up? The brain has a NN pattern which goes quiescent when we sleep. Consciousness is gone. In the morning, the NN starts running again. That is no different a process from making a copy of your mind and putting it in a different body. How would your consciousness know the difference?

Curious, are you implying that we are a different person every day? ...

Perhaps you are speaking on a philosophical level? If we think of the human consciousness like a computer operating system, then every time we sleep we "reboot". However, when you reboot a computer, it still has the same operating system, and the same quirks and applications. Just because it has ceased to run certain programs doesn't mean the framework of the operating system has changed. Just because I close my browser doesn't mean it no longer exists, it is just temporarily inactive.

Perhaps you can elaborate on your meaning?

See above. I'm saying that people have to explain we have continuity, with our circadian rhythm when there is no continuous thread of consciousness. In other words, sleeping and waking is no different from copy and reboot.

 

[intpz]

When you dream, your unconsciousness is active, isn't consciousness somewhat influenced by it? I think this is relevant on this topic.

 

[Architect]

When you dream, your unconsciousness is active, isn't consciousness somewhat influenced by it? I think this is relevant on this topic.

Yes exactly. I first thought about this idea when I was knocked out to get my wisdom teeth pulled. When I came to I remember being completely disoriented, my mom was stroking my hand, which I'm really glad she did as I had no clue who or where I was. It took some time for my memories to come back to me and tell me who I was, and therein is the key.

At that moment, before the memories were available, I was like a newborn I think. If you could have replaced my memories with another persons I probably wouldn't have known the difference. This seemed to demonstrate that consciousness is some kind of running program, that uses memories to provide the illusion (?) of continuity. Getting knocked out truly seemed like a reboot, no different from making a brain copy and re-running it elsewhere.

Philosophically this seems to imply that we all have basically the same consciousness, and the difference come from memories and habit.

 

[PhoenixRising]

Yes exactly. I first thought about this idea when I was knocked out to get my wisdom teeth pulled. When I came to I remember being completely disoriented, my mom was stroking my hand, which I'm really glad she did as I had no clue who or where I was. It took some time for my memories to come back to me and tell me who I was, and therein is the key.

At that moment, before the memories were available, I was like a newborn I think. If you could have replaced my memories with another persons I probably wouldn't have known the difference. This seemed to demonstrate that consciousness is some kind of running program, that uses memories to provide the illusion (?) of continuity. Getting knocked out truly seemed like a reboot, no different from making a brain copy and re-running it elsewhere.

Philosophically this seems to imply that we all have basically the same consciousness, and the difference come from memories and habit.

Really, what you are saying here is that the ego, the personal identity, is what is discontinuous. That is true, self identity is an illusion.

Consciousness itself is always a blank slate, it is the state of simply being aware, being able to perceive without interpretation. We do each have our own distinct consciousness, however. This is kind of the analogy I was making with the computer rebooting. Consciousness is consistent, just as an operating system is always consistent. The ego is like all the programs and personalizations you add to the computer. They are not necessary for the computer to run, but they are what add interactivity to the system. At the most basic level, all conscious life is exactly the same, it is genetic tendency and individual experience that differentiates us.

 

[Architect]

Really, what you are saying here is that the ego, the personal identity, is what is discontinuous. That is true, self identity is an illusion.

Consciousness itself is always a blank slate, it is the state of simply being aware, being able to perceive without interpretation. We do each have our own distinct consciousness, however.

This sounds like some Eastern bullshit. I can say that because I wasted years of my life in an Eastern Philosophy bullshit group, studying from the bullshit master. In the absence of a religious or philosophical system, the natural state of consciousness is self awareness/ego, and awareness of what our senses our telling us. I'd like to take this as our definition of consciousness, as the Eastern idea is not the natural state, as it is very difficult to achieve.

This is kind of the analogy I was making with the computer rebooting. Consciousness is consistent, just as an operating system is always consistent. The ego is like all the programs and personalizations you add to the computer. They are not necessary for the computer to run, but they are what add interactivity to the system. At the most basic level, all conscious life is exactly the same, it is genetic tendency and individual experience is that differentiates us.

I don't get the analogy. An OS abstracts the computer hardware, sandboxes applications, and provides for interprocess communication. Applications then 'do stuff' - and frankly the OS is nothing more than a process running with a special privilege level.

The brain is a massive NN, and we don't yet know if anything like an OS or programs run on it.

 

[intpz]

That is immensely interesting. Here's a thought though: how to get knocked out to get "rebooted?" The cases when it feels like you've described seem extremely rare.

 

[Cognisant]

The brain is a massive NN, and we don't yet know if anything like an OS or programs run on it.

There is no OS, because there's no operator, no central hub, mass parallel processing is totally different to the linear processing methodologies we're accustomed to.

 

[Fukyo]

What if your cell phone dies with all of your contacts, calendar and pictures?

Phone contacts and pictures aren't comparable to decades of memory.

Back in the 1500's people had to remember all this themselves, it was probably considered uniquely human to have the ability to remember these details. Certainly no machine could take the place of human memory?

I'm going to assume the average and probably illiterate person living in 1500's was not exposed to the amount of information we are exposed to today, not even by a long stretch, and the literate ones probably wrote down things much in the same fashion we do today.

 

[Architect]

That is immensely interesting. Here's a thought though: how to get knocked out to get "rebooted?" The cases when it feels like you've described seem extremely rare.

I suspect any anesthetic has this effect. Waking from sleep is not much different either, the only difference is that I remember dreams. Or I think I remember dreams, really since I'm not conscious I don't know. It could be that we're not dreaming at all but what we think are dreams is simply the mind finding some memory mish mash. I'm not saying this is the case, but rather highlighting our ignorance.

There is no OS, because there's no operator, no central hub, mass parallel processing is totally different to the linear processing methodologies we're accustomed to.

A NN and a CPU state machine are Turing equivalent. In other words, you can run Linux on a NN if you wanted (think of a net with a single node, for example).

Phone contacts and pictures aren't comparable to decades of memory.

That was merely an example. I'm presently running an experiment in life recording, I have a recorder on me 24 hours a day, and I have various solutions to take pictures and videos automatically. It all gets archived to a 10TB 4X redundant disk array. I'm also on the Glass Explorer program to get Google Glass prototypes next year.

While that is a different topic, I'll tell you that preliminary results (I've been doing it for two years) are that personal memory is a fucked up source of what really happens in your life.

 

[intpz]

in the same fashion we do today.

iPads and iPhones?

 

[Cognisant]

I'm going to assume the average and probably illiterate person living in 1500's was not exposed to the amount of information we are exposed to today, not even by a long stretch, and the literate ones probably wrote down things much in the same fashion we do today.

I think I read somewhere that the average 20+ person today has been exposed to more new information (science, news, entertainment, etc) than has even existed in the entirety of mankind prior to their birth.

No wonder we're increasingly relying on external memory.

 

[PhoenixRising]

This sounds like some Eastern bullshit. I can say that because I wasted years of my life in an Eastern Philosophy bullshit group, studying from the bullshit master. In the absence of a religious or philosophical system, the natural state of consciousness is self awareness/ego, and awareness of what our senses our telling us. I'd like to take this as our definition of consciousness, as the Eastern idea is not the natural state, as it is very difficult to achieve.



I don't get the analogy. An OS abstracts the computer hardware, sandboxes applications, and provides for interprocess communication. Applications then 'do stuff' - and frankly the OS is nothing more than a process running with a special privilege level.

The brain is a massive NN, and we don't yet know if anything like an OS or programs run on it.

The idea that consciousness is separate from self identity isn't unique to Eastern religion. It's something that is debated and researched in psychology and neuroscience. Personally, I don't find it difficult at all to "wipe the slate clean" and temporarily suspend my personal identity. I've gone for a few days without recalling anything about my personal identity, my beliefs, thoughts, preconceptions, it's a very relaxing experience. Your experience when you woke up from having your teeth pulled sounds very similar to what I've experienced. Would this not suggest that your consciousness is separate from your self identity? You were awake, you could perceive, but you didn't recall anything about "who" you were.

I am not saying that consciousness is absolutely parallel to an OS. It's just a loosely-fitting metaphor. The OS on a computer is the background on which applications run. Each application has a specific use.

 

[Architect]

The idea that consciousness is separate from self identity isn't unique to Eastern religion. It's something that is debated and researched in psychology and neuroscience. Personally, I don't find it difficult at all to "wipe the slate clean" and temporarily suspend my personal identity. I've gone for a few days without recalling anything about my personal identity, my beliefs, thoughts, preconceptions, it's a very relaxing experience. Your experience when you woke up from having your teeth pulled sounds very similar to what I've experienced. Would this not suggest that your consciousness is separate from your self identity? You were awake, you could perceive, but you didn't recall anything about "who" you were.

Fair enough. Perhaps we are in violent agreement, I'm not sure.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

It's not like your blood stops flowing when you fall asleep, your subconscious mind is still active isn't it? Plus for those of us who lucid dream we are quite conscious while we are sleeping. I've heard some people don't believe in it but I think it's silly since I do it practically every night. I'm trying to make my dreams seamless with reality.

 

[Hawkeye]

I imagine death is like passing out. I mean, the sensation of fainting is:

*Eyes open* - usually stood up

*Blink* <--- what you think you are doing

*Eyes open* - either horizontal or in a completely different room with absolutely no understanding of how you got there.

You don't even dream because the length of time it too short to trigger them.


[I don't believe in an afterlife, just how from the moment you faint until you "come around", there is an absence of you. ]

 

[PhoenixRising]

I imagine death is like passing out. I mean, the sensation of fainting is:

*Eyes open* - usually stood up

*Blink* <--- what you think you are doing

*Eyes open* - either horizontal or in a completely different room with absolutely no understanding of how you got there.

You don't even dream because the length of time it too short to trigger them.


[I don't believe in an afterlife, just how from the moment you faint until you "come around", there is an absence of you. ]

Interesting thought. Are you suggesting that death is like passing out and staying unconscious, or that you pass out and wake to find yourself in another dimension of some sort?

 

[addictedartist]

I had a dream where I was immortal, I lived through all time (or what felt like an eternity) saw many things until everything became darkness, I arrived to a place where I met a hooded figure who looked like the led zepellin hermit or else the angel of death with brown cloak, who spoke without speaking directly to my soul in a dark cave with torch light surrounding two wooden doors which were barred, who I conversed with about my thoughts on the universe, I was at a really melancholy point of my life in regards to my career path and the direction I was going to moving towards and I was also experimenting with lucid dreaming and have since stopped because of the stress it put on my brain feeling like I was living two lives, remembering these vivid dreams whilst trying to listen to the teacher explain the latest math equation, To me death sanctions new life and my concern would be if my memory would be entirely intact or at least cognitive functions be suffecient to deal with the ever changing enviroments of reality. my point being is that if the robot was human like or even created in succession of humans which is to say better in every way then regardless wheather you 'exist' you will eventually cease to exist or else what were once useful functions of your body or mind become obsolete and you will hafto renew your experience to the new standard of living or survival. If you were to transfer your consciousness into a robot would you lose any or would it be amplified? I would, however; technology is not advanced enough to were I feel my body would be inadequate by any means and I trust my nervous system given by mother nature which is flexable to something manufactured which would sooner be rigid than the former. I awoke from the dream in a cold sweat when this hooded figure told me I had to leave because the place where I was did not exist (all time had passed and I was merely sustained to a new plane of existence from my not being able to die or be killed) I only remembered one word when I awoke which was 'sheol'(which I had never heard in my life besides this dream) , I remember not being tired but spiritually exausted however my body felt like brand new and since have taken up my career pursuits. Id like to think that it would be no benefit to consciousness to have prolonged existance if it is not nessecary or improves the quality of an individuals life.
the inverse of this question is would you want to depend on life support to continue being alive?
the reason I have stopped forcing myself into lucid dreams or at least inducing them because I feel it more important for my soul to connect with other souls in a mutual exchange of values in everyday life because now when I do remember my dreams they leave me with a feeling of elation and renewed faith in the mysteries of life rather than fear of comprimising the integrity of my character.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[Hawkeye]

Interesting thought. Are you suggesting that death is like passing out and staying unconscious, or that you pass out and wake to find yourself in another dimension of some sort?

Passing out and not so much staying unconscious, but rather turning off completely. You don't come back.

Otherwise we would have zombies walking around everywhere. ^^

 

[intpz]

Shit, we need proof of what is true and what is not. Many possibilities here, I'm leaning towards what @Architect proposed, but it still isn't proven, it's just a theory.

 

[Architect]

@intpz, I suspect we won't know for sure until we try. Personally I'm working on the problem in my work doing software modeling and architecture.

 

[intpz]

I'm more attracted to cybernetics. The video below illustrates my point, it isn't an inspiration or something like that, I haven't even played the game...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/EcEix-iNots
http://www.youtube.com/embed/EcEix-iNots

 

[Hawkeye]

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0KTUysrwgQ

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

I had a dream where I was immortal, I lived through all time (or what felt like an eternity) saw many things until everything became darkness, I arrived to a place where I met a hooded figure who looked like the led zepellin hermit or else the angel of death with brown cloak, who spoke without speaking directly to my soul in a dark cave with torch light surrounding two wooden doors which were barred, who I conversed with about my thoughts on the universe, I was at a really melancholy point of my life in regards to my career path and the direction I was going to moving towards and I was also experimenting with lucid dreaming and have since stopped because of the stress it put on my brain feeling like I was living two lives...

Holy shit, eternity? You're serious? No, you can't be... Dafuk?!

Well don't leave me hanging, tell me what you did during all of that time!

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0KTUysrwgQ

Mind blown.

 

[PhoenixRising]

Holy shit, eternity? You're serious? No, you can't be... Dafuk?!

Well don't leave me hanging, tell me what you did during all of that time!





Mind blown.

Eternity is really the absence of time. What Addicetedartist seems to be talking about is infinity, the forever forward passing of time. This experience only exists in universes like ours, outside of that time does not exist.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

Oh well. When it's too good to be true it is.


Edit:

e·ter·ni·ty (-tûrn-t)
n. pl. e·ter·ni·ties
1. Time without beginning or end; infinite time.
2. The state or quality of being eternal.
3.
a. The timeless state following death.
b. The afterlife; immortality.
4. A very long or seemingly endless time: waited in the dentist's office for an eternity.

in·fin·i·ty (n-fn-t)
n. pl. in·fin·i·ties
1. The quality or condition of being infinite.
2. Unbounded space, time, or quantity.
3. An indefinitely large number or amount.
4. Mathematics The limit that a function is said to approach at x = a when (x) is larger than any preassigned number for all x sufficiently near a.
5.
a. A range in relation to an optical system, such as a camera lens, representing distances great enough that light rays reflected from objects within the range may be regarded as parallel.
b. A distance setting, as on a camera, beyond which the entire field is in focus.


Absence of time? Explain please.

 

[addictedartist]

what I saw was the end of this world, It was everything I thought was wrong and right with the world, and how it affected itself, the sensation was similar to be being unborn, everything started slow and then rapture happened quicker than I could realize, I wondered what life would be like if I were the only one who could escape its clutchs and before I knew it I was in the womb of forgotten consciousness'. what I experienced was romance adventure and a collision of harmonic dissonance which ruptured time and space as those who experienced it had ceased to exist. what I took from this dream was that no matter what I do in my life, if I have nobody to share it with then it is meaningless and futile, I never learned the secret to my vitality in the dream because it was absent, I would merely outlive others which served no purpose besides alienating me from those I am close to. The idea of humans turning into robots is inevitable to me, either that or zombies with no consciousness whatsoever, however I still think that the only way it will be possible to get there is together, and that our role in the universe is important; whatever it may be.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

Wait but did you literally live for "eternity" inside the dream before waking up? As in you experienced all of time in one night of sleep? So at this point you would feel billions of years old?

 

[Hawkeye]

Wait but did you literally live for "eternity" inside the dream before waking up? As in you experienced all of time in one night of sleep? So at this point you would feel billions of years old?

Only Dwellers live for billions of years

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

Cool, They should make a movie.

 

[PhoenixRising]

Oh well. When it's too good to be true it is.


Edit:

e·ter·ni·ty (-tûrn-t)
n. pl. e·ter·ni·ties
1. Time without beginning or end; infinite time.
2. The state or quality of being eternal.
3.
a. The timeless state following death.
b. The afterlife; immortality.
4. A very long or seemingly endless time: waited in the dentist's office for an eternity.

in·fin·i·ty (n-fn-t)
n. pl. in·fin·i·ties
1. The quality or condition of being infinite.
2. Unbounded space, time, or quantity.
3. An indefinitely large number or amount.
4. Mathematics The limit that a function is said to approach at x = a when (x) is larger than any preassigned number for all x sufficiently near a.
5.
a. A range in relation to an optical system, such as a camera lens, representing distances great enough that light rays reflected from objects within the range may be regarded as parallel.
b. A distance setting, as on a camera, beyond which the entire field is in focus.


Absence of time? Explain please.

I was speaking more of a literal experience than a textbook definition. Eternity, as I have experienced it, is timelessness. Infinity, as I've contemplated it, is endless time.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

How does one experience eternity?

 

[Hawkeye]

How does one experience eternity?

They say time flies when you are having fun. However, when you are bored out of your brains, time appears to move slowly or "stop".

"It felt like I was in that queue for an eternity."

Eternity is pseudo-forever.




We don't know of anything to be infinite.

 

[addictedartist]

how does one experience infinity?

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

@Hawkeye

That's just exaggeration, just a thing people say to emphasize their feelings.

@addictedartist

Apparently in a dream, Lol. It might be possible if you fall asleep within your dream and then fall asleep within that dream and so on, like in the movie Inception. Eventually you will be so deep in your dreams that one second in the "real world" will be hours, days, or years in the dream world, not to mention that you get to be god in that world. For now this is all theoretical as the closest I've done to this consciously is waking up in another dream from a dream about five times in a row. It freaked me out a lot to keep waking up in another dream but still, I've never actually consciously fallen asleep within a dream and decided to stay there.

 

[Hawkeye]

@Hawkeye

That's just exaggeration, just a thing people say to emphasize their feelings.

Yes, they feel like that have experienced timelessness... Eternity isn't something that is quantifiable. I basically paraphrased an example used in the definition of eternity posted by yourself

how does one experience infinity?

Nobody can experience infinity. Nothing is infinite. It is not even possible to imagine infinity.

 

[addictedartist]

Cool, They should make a movie.

And this is why I became an animator, the idea of my movie has been under wraps because of these twisted origins however it is about a point in time in the future where the end of the known universe is approaching and a machine is built to be sent back to the beginning of the known universe, in order to safe guard its existence only to find that, the end of time is unpreventable as the anscestors of the creator of the machine must recreate the machine because they cannot depend on their own mortality to survive and subsequently cause their own destruction despite any efforts of the machine to preserve them because it is their natural coarse of fate to perpetuate their personalities into the creation of the creator who is the ultimate perpetrator of 'evil' and must be killed in order to prevent the creation of the machine or activation which would cause the 'known' universe to enter into a loop where the creation is trapped within the parameters of its creator and its freewill happens to be following its primary directives of freeing the universe of tyranny, and when it completes its mission then it dissolves from existence by a quantum time signature unique to the creation installed by the creator which erases it from being by the very powers which had created it however the question that arises is the space within time that we inhabit justified or is there any justification in self preservation, as injustice is natural does it make justice unnatural and a mystery of selflessness in the effort to be more effecient in accordance to universal law.

what goes up must come down, in turn
what goes down must come up.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

Yes, they feel like that have experienced timelessness... Eternity isn't something that is quantifiable. I basically paraphrased an example used in the definition of eternity posted by yourself

Well it isn't quantifiable as long as eternity is an infinite amount of time. If time can be represented by a line that goes left and right indefinitely then no, you can't count how many years there are in eternity because there are always more appearing(?)

I want you to read a section from an article that explains what the ancient Indians believed about the concept of time. I know it's religious but I think it proposed a very interesting idea. I'm not going to say I have faith in or believe this but I will say that I "like" the idea

Spoiler

Ancient Indian Cyclic Time System
In the Indian system, Years are named and there are 60 names. Once the 60 names are finished, the next year starts with the first name again. This goes on in a cyclic manner. Beyond this level there are 4 epochs or Yugas, namely, Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali yuga. They are not equal in the length of time. Duration of each epoch is as follows:

1. Krita-yuga: 1,728,000 years
2. Treta-yuga: 1,296,000 years
3. Dvapara-yuga: 864,000 years
4. Kali-yuga: 432,000 years

All these four Yugas together is called a Chatur Yuga, which means "four epochs". 71 cycles of Chatur Yuga is called a manvantara. At the end of each manvantara period, there comes a partial devastation period, which is equivalant to the duration of krita yuga. This means after every manvantara period, the world is partially destroyed and recreated.

According to Hindu scriptures, in this cyclic process of time, 1000 chatur yuga period is called a Kalpa, and period of time is equal to a daytime for the Lord Brahma, the creator of the universe. These scriptures put Brahma's age at 100 years in his unique time scale. Therefore Brahma's life span is equal to 311,040,000,000,000 human years. This period in named as maha kalpa. A universe lasts only for one maha kalpa period. At the end of it the universe is completely destroyed together with the creator Brahma and a new universe would be created with a new Brahma. This cycle goes on endlessly. The Vedic universe passes through repetitive cycles of creation and destruction. During the annihilation of the universe, energy is conserved, to manifest again in the next creation.

I just noticed how incredibly off topic we were

@addictedartist

It'll make a good movie I'm sure but that was hard to follow.

 

[Hawkeye]

Well it isn't quantifiable as long as eternity is an infinite amount of time. If time can be represented by a line that goes left and right indefinitely then no, you can't count how many years there are in eternity because there are always more appearing(?)

I want you to read a section from an article that explains what the ancient Indians believed about the concept of time. I know it's religious but I think it proposed a very interesting idea. I'm not going to say I have faith in or believe this but I will say that I "like" the idea

Eternity doesn't have a value but differs from infinity. It is a concept of timelessness. By this, a period of 5 minutes can be perceived to be "eternal" under the right circumstances.

Smoking weed for example drastically alters how one perceives time, as does dreaming. Dreams last minutes yet feel as though they last hours.

Elves in the Lord of the Rings live effectively eternal lives from the perspective of man.

Eternity is a long period of time relative to the norm.

Each of those epochs is an eternity within itself.
What that Indian system implies is that the universe is infinite as it is based on the "Big Crunch" idea (something that no longer seems the likely end to our Universe) that will lead to another "Big Bang".

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

Yes, I've also heard of this "Big Crunch" idea before. When I read about it, it actually made me think about what I previously read about the Indian's beliefs about how the universe is destroyed and then starts over again...

The Big Crunch doesn't seem so unlikely to me but I don't know... Like always, that's where I end up.

Here's a similar theory:

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaImVFRpOR8&feature=related

 

[Tempestas]

I'd be afraid that the robotic consciousness was actually a copy instead of an actual transfer, so the current me would just die. But no one would ever know because the copy is exactly like the original, and believes it is.

 

[addictedartist]

nothing is absolute.nothing is eternal.nothing is infinite.
thats my concern, that even though the robot can think like I can, Do what I would want, I would not be able to survive the process people can believe anything they want about anything the robot thinks or says or does but I would experience nothing.

 

[addictedartist]

Elves dont fuck around

 

[Hawkeye]

Elves dont fuck around

Nice double entendre.

 

[Heat-Shock]

If I Could I'd Go With Computer/Console,So I May Play game's At A New Level,Like Skyrim...

 

[Jennywocky]

I'd be afraid that the robotic consciousness was actually a copy instead of an actual transfer, so the current me would just die. But no one would ever know because the copy is exactly like the original, and believes it is.

I always wondered if that was what actually was happening on Star Trek when they beamed someone around. The actual molecules that make up that person would be irrelevant; they are just recreating a person. Couldn't the transporter double as a clone machine, if the safeguards were removed?

Also thought of it in connection with the machine in The Prestige.

But what does that say about the nature of consciousness?

 

[just george]

What if the next place your consciousness decides to inhabit is better than the experience offered in a robotic body?

So I say no. I'm cool.

 

[Cognisant]

But what does that say about the nature of consciousness?

The abstract self is illusionary, it's like wondering what the colour blue really looks like when the colour blue is a wavelength of light interpreted by photosensitive cells in the retina which transmit a bioelectric signal to the brain. The question is absurd because being able too see something is predicated on having eyes to see with and a brain to interpret the input, it's a recursive chicken & the egg kind of thing, the sensation of blue and the stimulus you identity as blue are equally contrived.

The wavelength is mere physical fact.

Consciousness is the same because it's likewise mechanism dependant, y'know rocks don't think and we know this because even if they inexplicably could what would they think about?

Your belief in your identity is inherent to your mechanisms, if I replicate you perfectly then the perfect replication of you will of course believe it is you, or rather itself and in that sense it's not wrong, which dosen't mean you're not you anymore just that there's now two, independant, individual version of you. Basically identity is something we give to objects to differentiate them from other objects, it's not inherent to the object itself even if the observations we make of that object are consistent with the properties that define the identity because those properties are also contrived.

Blah nihilism blah blah more nihilism blah blah blah nihilism.

 

[Jennywocky]

I don't think I answered the original question, ever.

I'd consider it if my body still felt organic (rather than like a tin can), and especially if I got some cool powers out of the deal.

There's still a concern, though, about control devices being built into the mechanoid. No one enjoys being possessed or self-destructed.

The abstract self is illusionary, it's like wondering what the colour blue really looks like when the colour blue is a wavelength of light interpreted by photosensitive cells in the retina which transmit a bioelectric signal to the brain. The question is absurd because being able too see something is predicated on having eyes to see with and a brain to interpret the input, it's a recursive chicken & the egg kind of thing, the sensation of blue and the stimulus you identity as blue are equally contrived.

The wavelength is mere physical fact.

Consciousness is the same because it's likewise mechanism dependant, y'know rocks don't think and we know this because even if they inexplicably could what would they think about?

Your belief in your identity is inherent to your mechanisms, if I replicate you perfectly then the perfect replication of you will of course believe it is you, or rather itself and in that sense it's not wrong, which dosen't mean you're not you anymore just that there's now two, independant, individual version of you. Basically identity is something we give to objects to differentiate them from other objects, it's not inherent to the object itself even if the observations we make of that object are consistent with the properties that define the identity because those properties are also contrived.

Blah nihilism blah blah more nihilism blah blah blah nihilism.

Well, that's all from the outside, from observing. We assign identities from the outside to label a person as "Not Someone Else" so we can tell them apart.

What about this bizarre artifact of "self-awareness" that is experienced internally? This self-labeling, self-distinguishing, self-monitoring mechanism? It seems confined to the brain, as you can have other body parts destroyed/damaged removed without really changing sense of self much, but as soon as you muck with someone's CPU, well, that's the kicker?

I do of course think a great experiment would be the "insta-clone" device, as we would immediately recognize whether consciousness is apart from the physical or whether it is manifest as the product of a complete body. If you can Xerox someone and they're immediately conscious and view themselves as the same as the target -- the same people -- then boom, you'd know it was purely a byproduct of the physical state.

BTW, I didn't mean to repeat something I said earlier in the thread. That's the problem with necro'ing threads -- I think my last posts were over a year ago and I didn't remember I made them.