abott1776 Posted January 26, 2014 Report Share Posted January 26, 2014 I was watching Caprica, the prequel series to Battlestar Gallactica, and I got to thinking about consciousness after it is transferred or copied to another entity like a computer, as is the basis for the show along with artificial intelligence. One of the main characters dies in an explosion, her body obviously completely finished, but her consciousness is basically copied into a computer world, a result of a side project she as a computer genius was working on. The main thing I am puzzled, and for which I don't think will ever be actually tested at least in my life, is the nature of that transference of consciousness. Is that copy the same person in the sense of the Objectivist "self", or is consciousness, what I am using as I am typing this, only the same from one moment to the next if it is within the same entity? The only way I can see it as being the same is if that consciousness remembers the last moments within its previous "body" previous to transfer. I just find it weird to think about. It is like the Christopher Nolan movie, the Prestige. Hugh Jackman's character makes a copy of himself, presumably even a copy of the exact conscious state, then kills the original body through drowning immediately after. How can he put himself through that, psychologically, the guy entering the machine knows he will experience death, that copy after him is not him, it is somebody else with the same memories, etc. He is not living on. Just some food for thought, more like some food for thought that will never get resolved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadmjones Posted January 26, 2014 Report Share Posted January 26, 2014 Fiction is great. This is an interesting question to play with, my first reaction was "no way, mind/body integrated single entity, no dichotomy ' coupled with the idea that an attribute can't be separate from or other than the entity of which it is an attribute. But then I started thinking perhaps it cold be possible if all memories were held intact, on the idea that our operating consciousness must have access to all prior integrations that are our individual knowledge/experiences. Though it does seem that if there is no strict mind body dichotomy ( aside from organ transplants, even multiple transplants) there can't be a mind/brain dichotomy, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abott1776 Posted January 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2014 Fiction is great. This is an interesting question to play with, my first reaction was "no way, mind/body integrated single entity, no dichotomy ' coupled with the idea that an attribute can't be separate from or other than the entity of which it is an attribute. But then I started thinking perhaps it cold be possible if all memories were held intact, on the idea that our operating consciousness must have access to all prior integrations that are our individual knowledge/experiences. Though it does seem that if there is no strict mind body dichotomy ( aside from organ transplants, even multiple transplants) there can't be a mind/brain dichotomy, right? Mind/Body dichotomy is a good point. But what I think might make that moot is we're not talking about a mind divorced from matter, we're talking about mind being transferred from one body of matter to another. I think you would retain self identity if the process was seamless, if you can remember starting the process, not necessarily the process itself. It would be like waking up from a coma, and remembering the car accident that put you in the choma, as well as all your life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Buddha Posted January 26, 2014 Report Share Posted January 26, 2014 What we identify as the "mind" relies heavily on the extension of the neurological network throughout the body and the feedback that it brings. The mind and body are one and the same. I don't see that transference will ever be anything more than science fiction. I'd go so far as to say that this is true of artificial intelligence as well. We'll never create artificial intelligence either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abott1776 Posted January 26, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2014 What we identify as the "mind" relies heavily on the extension of the neurological network throughout the body and the feedback that it brings. The mind and body are one and the same. I don't see that transference will ever be anything more than science fiction. I'd go so far as to say that this is true of artificial intelligence as well. We'll never create artificial intelligence either. You don't think medical science someday will be able to recreate the functions of the human body including the neurological network? Would that be sufficient, I don't know. You are right, mind is not just information, it is feedback from our senses to our rational faculty. And our rational faculty is the brain, to take your mind and strip it from the brain, does sound fantastical. But then again, what says one couldn't copy the neurological structures of the brain (the precise makeup that is your rational faculty, as well as the store of memories, and information) into some inorganic computing version. If that is possible I think I'm back to my original question, would transferring awareness (i.e. syncing the synthetic with the organic, at an exact timing), mean that you are the same person in the synthetic body/neurological network as the organic one previous to it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grames Posted January 27, 2014 Report Share Posted January 27, 2014 Define "same". For certain values of the variable "same" the answer is yes, for others no. I am not the same person when I get off an airplane as when I got on. You can't step into the same river twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freestyle Posted January 28, 2014 Report Share Posted January 28, 2014 (edited) Consciousness is an entity's singular, unique awareness of itself and its surroundings. A singular perspective. YOU are your mind and your body in a specific point in space and time. If you transfer the contents of your mind into a computer "you" are certainly something different. And you will surely be aware that you are different. You become "computer you". The original "biological you" no longer exists. An easier way to think about it is instead of transferring your mind, imagine DUPLICATING it. Even if you duplicate your mind and body identically, you will have Original You and Copy You. Even at the moment of copy, there are now two DIFFERENT consciousness' because they each exist in different space and will have different perspectives and therefore different perceptions. As time progresses, these two distinct perspectives will continue to diverge. Objectivism identifies consciousness as "the faculty of perceiving that which exists." This is the faculty of an individual entity. No two distinct entities can share the same perceptions. This is not to say that you could never transfer a consciousness into a computer. I think Ray Kurzweil predicts this technological "singularity" to occur somewhere around 2030. Make 50 clones of "you" and they might all argue that they are still "you". But they're all different. And each one of them is a singular individual. This brings up another God contradiction. If HE is omnipotent then HE could know what it is like to be YOU, knowing and perceiving ONLY what you know. Edited January 28, 2014 by freestyle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrictlyLogical Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 Yes The whole idea of immortality or teleportation a la Star Trek, is flawed. Entities have identity, you are what you are, if we make a copy of you and destroy you, the copy will think it is you but it simply is not you. After all it was a copy. The only way to kind of achieve an immortality without this risk of being killed off, (but which really is kind of cheating and not really a way to cheat death), would be to have nanomachines watching your body and brain 24/7 and immediately whenever a cell dies or something fails, they replace it with an structure which is a functionally identical isomorph, in this way you are being replaced bit by bit, but you are not being destroyed. As such you would be slowly dying cell by cell and being replaced with something which would eventually think it was you, but at least you wouldnt have to be afraid of being killed off instantaneously. The transition would also be painless and you would not feel the degeneration of natural aging. Think of it as slipping off into Oblivion slowly but with style as something which may live forever takes your place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadmjones Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 A sci fi based thread may be a good venue for this question. Would other intelligent races(aliens?) necessarily have the 'same' type of consciousness as humans? Is there or could there be a type of consciousness other than conceptual? Is reason the epitome of awareness? In fiction we are presented with aliens that have "advanced" knowledge/technologies, given our understanding of sensory perception , reason and conceptualization is the human type the epitome? It seems 'others' could a have larger knowledge base, but could the 'mechanics' of awareness be anything other than ? I could see beings having perhaps different sensory/perception but volition and conceptualization seems universal? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JASKN Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 In a sense we are all being slowly replaced every day as old cells die and new ones replace them. Or further, atoms are moving around and other atoms are taking their place in this general entity we call our "selves." It seems like we're the same because our consciousness is more-or-less continuous, we retain memories, and we perceive ourselves as similar from one day to the next. But we're never really the same from moment to moment. Who knows how human ability will be able to morph the universe to our purposes and desires in the future/distant future. It seems like a Prestige-type prediction, or a mechanical (like our computers today) or a piece-by-piece replacement prediction is not imaginative enough given how much new stuff about the universe we learn all the time, and how much we know we don't know fully. But, if we take the "transfer" hypothetical, we would be different entities more abruptly and by bigger "pieces" of the universe at a time than we currently experience with our bodies every day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harrison Danneskjold Posted February 13, 2014 Report Share Posted February 13, 2014 Consciousness is an action. The identity of my own consciousness lies in the continuity of its activity. All trains of thought ultimately lead into and out of each other; my thoughts today are not new actions, but a continuation of yesterday's thoughts (and the day before and the day before, et cetera, up until my birth). Note the occurrence of people whose brains undergo clinical death and reanimation, and upon awakening, suddenly decide to radically alter the course of their own lives. It isn't anything supernatural; their train of thought was truly reborn again. And so, in order to actually transfer my own consciousness, I believe I would have to be able to "hold my thought" in transit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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