Life, Thought, Consciousness and Mind Uploading

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Life, Thought, Consciousness and Mind Uploading
Doug Kearney ETEC 531 June 2005
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What might some implications be if we could
upload our personal memories from our brains to
computers in some distant future?
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Life?
Not where we came from!
but rather.
How would you describe it?
Then..
How would you duplicate it?
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Life has been described in terms of
Growth
Metabolism
Reproduction
Motion
Response to Stimuli
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Is Fire a living entity?
Fire Grows
Fire Moves
Fire responds to stimuli
Fire Metabolizes
Fire Reproduces
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There is more to life and living than this.
Living involves Thought.
Living involves Consciousness.
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Thought
The act of thinking
Exercise of the mind in any of its higher forms
Reflection
Cogitation
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What is Consciousness?
What would you need to duplicate in order to
reproduce it?
Emotion
Rationality
Creativity
Cognition
Empathy
Perception
Memory
Sense of Self
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If we could duplicate our thoughts, our
consciousness..
Would we duplicate ourselves?
Our Hopes?
Our Desires?
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Mind Uploading
What does it offer?
Immortality?
Peace?
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How is information stored in our brain?
Our thoughts?
Our consciousness?
Are there patterns of chemicals, molecules, atoms
or impulses to copy?
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Presently our consciousness is stored
biologically.
If we were able to scan the synaptic matrix of
the brain.
It is reproduced biologically!
Then.
Digitize it!
DNA
Into.
Binary Code?
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Would we have duplicated ourselves?
Our Consciousness?
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Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the ability to manufacture
objects atom by atom. It is similar to what a
living organism does with living cells. However
with nanotechnology we are the designer rather
than evolution and natural selection.
http//www.foresight.org/
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Imagine the possibilities if our raw materials
were atoms themselves.
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Nanotechnology would enable you to create
diamonds from a lump of coal by rearranging the
atoms.
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Think of the raw materials at your disposal!
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Given soil, water and air we could rearrange
atoms and create food.
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We could use this technology to copy our
thoughts, our memories
Our Consciousness!
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Once we have a copy of ourselves..
Digitized!
How should we package it?
Will we be content to exist in a virtual world?
Floating through cyberspace.
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Or should we become a Cyborg?
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Should we manufacture bodies to house these
thoughts, this consciousness?
Should we limit ourselves to a terrestrial life?
Should we be able to fly?
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Travel through space!
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Ethics
Given the possibility of Mind Uploading.
What problems might it pose?
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What about your Personal Identity?
Will you still be you?
Locke proposed the following criterion If you
remember thinking something in the past, then you
are the same person as he or she who did the
thinking.
What happens now that there are two, or three, or
four of you instead of one.
Which one is the Real person?
They are both the real person, identical to the
original.
Or.Neither..both start out the same but as time
goes by they become their own selfan individual.
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Population
Uploading will cause an acceleration in
population growth. However, as we would be able
to live in hostile environments not conducive to
our biological form, we would be able to colonize
places such as the Moon and Mars.
Or orbit the earth!
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Brain Modification
The brain would become very easy to modify once
digitized.
Enhancement might include increased memory,
calculator, spreadsheets, databases or language
modules that would allow one to speak many
languages.
Deletion could include the removal of instincts
no longer required such as hunger, sex, anger,
violence and fear.
Memory could be altered to remove unhappy ones or
add pleasurable experiences even to the point
that they are not your own personal ones. Who
would you be then? Mostly you, but a little of
someone else.
Mind Probing might be used to establish guilt or
innocence of a crime. However if you could alter
memory this would no longer be a valid technique.
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Travel
Once you are digitized. it would be a simple
matter to send you across distances at the speed
of light.
Once collected at your destination you could be
installed into a new body or housed in a new
virtual reality.
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Should Duplication be Permitted?
Would citizenship be granted to those living in
a virtual reality? Or. even the rights of humans
for that matter.
Should criminals be uploaded into a prison box?
But most important!
Who is the system programmer?
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Would that system programmer become a.
GOD
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References
Goertzel, Ben. The Cyborgization of Humanity
(2002) http//goertzel.org/benzine/BrainCompInt.ht
m Potter, Steven M., THE MEANING OF "LIFE
(1986) http//www.ibiblio.org/jstrout/uploading/po
tter_life.html Consciousness Research
Laboratory http//www.psiresearch.org/ Mind
Uploading Home Page http//www.ibiblio.org/jstrou
t/uploading/MUHomePage.html What is
Transhumaanism? http//www.transhumanism.org/resou
rces/transhumanism.htm Images http//encyclopedia
.laborlawtalk.com/Thought http//xlcus.com/povray/
fire/fire-1280x1024.jpg www.seismo.unr.edu/.../
class/plate/coal.gif http//www.geocities.com/tran
scedo/eindex.htm www.gfxzone.org/personal/
benj/01/benj-cyborg.pnghttp//www.photoshopdesign
.net/students/Bruce-cyborg.jpg http//xlcus.com/po
vray/fire/fire-1280x1024.jpg www.dianefenster.com/
brain_implant3.jpg www.seismo.unr.edu/.../
class/plate/coal.gif http//reversemonster.com/pos
tnuke2/html/modules/gallery/albums/album69/diamond
.jpg http//www.syd.dem.csiro.au/research/mantle/D
I_mantle.html http//www.brainydictionary.com/word
s/th/thought229965.html www.rpgamer.com/.../
so2/screen/so2-099.jpg