Substrate-independent minds

[tyder001]

Science can show we are indeed meat bots

B.S. and ya know it. As for my view. I plainly state that I don't know. That it's possible. I simply don't believe it. Why do you find that so insulting? I honestly don't understand. I have not cursed you out or called you names or said everything you think is bull. If that's what you consider a dialog then we can't have one. That's sad. No, I don't think we are chemical reactions in the brain. I think that's silly and short sighted. But, that's your worldview and you are welcome to it. Yes, Richard Dawkins is a smart man. Roger Penrose and Brian Josephson are giants in their fields. Everybody can play the my scientist can beat up your scientist game. It's silly.

 

[tyder001]

My wife, who I respect as much as anybody thinks transfer of consciuness is a real possibility. She's not an athiest or a religious person. I understand there are possibilties. I simply don't see it. That doesn't mean we can't have a civil discussion or that we can't agree to disagree. Does it? I'm honestly perplexed at the tone of anger that this stuff gets into. It's a forum and it's for different points of view.

 

[Kim323]

Well, Angelo, I'm going to only sidle up to "that subject" obliquely and facetiously, but the point in this post is, "that subject" put aside, that some of the major researchers into the nature of consciousness are perplexed indeed how consciousness can be ONLY a byproduct of the neurochemical processes of the brain. And to take it a step further into the love and excitement you mention, well, of course they are emotional contents of consciousness as much as seeing that that object on the table is an apple and that it's green and wow, it tastes tart! I've recommended a book of interviews Susan Blackmore had with twenty researchers, one of them roger penrose, who worked with Stephen hawking. It's called conversations on consciousness, by Oxford university press, 2006. Not trying to start a debate, just that there does seem to be more to us than the physical processes of our brains. Kim

 

[mike]

Science can show we are indeed meat bots

B.S. and ya know it. As for my view. I plainly state that I don't know. That it's possible. I simply don't believe it. Why do you find that so insulting? I honestly don't understand. I have not cursed you out or called you names or said everything you think is bull. If that's what you consider a dialog then we can't have one. That's sad. No, I don't think we are chemical reactions in the brain. I think that's silly and short sighted. But, that's your worldview and you are welcome to it. Yes, Richard Dawkins is a smart man. Roger Penrose and Brian Josephson are giants in their fields. Everybody can play the my scientist can beat up your scientist game. It's silly.

Yet again you offer no facts to counter the medical evidence that when no electrical activity is present the brain is dead, you are gone.

Thats not a dialog i agree, thats a todlers reaction to a reality they dont like, fingers in the ears eyes clamped shut chanting Nga Nga Nga over and over again to drown out the unpleasant facts.

You havent linked to a single scientific paper that posits some part of who we are resides outside the golf ball sized chunk of tissue that scientists say it does.

By making these claims without a shred of proof to back them, you insult yourself and everyone else, by daring to suggest such methodology is valid in a discourse like this.

Its not.

But please do enlighten us as to how this supernatural mechanism works, where the information is stored, how its stored, what transport mediums are involved. and how does it remain active when the body is dead and cold........

Neuroscience can and does give proper answers to these questions in the scientifically accepted model

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I'm not angry, far from it. I just find it sort of ridiculous that you try to pin everything down to a "world view" and try to mention James Randi or Richard Dawkins all the time insinuating that they are some sort of force against all that is good. Who cares if they don't agree with the way you see things. No big deal. But you seem really interested in them for some reason. Maybe it's because you think there's something to their logic?
Here's my philosophy. Enjoy what you have right now, because our current reality is all we can be sure about. We can argue about what happens after this until we're blue in the face but no one knows for certain. Chances are it'll be just like it was before you were born. Remember that? I don't, because my brain didn't exist. And when I'm gone, it'll probably go back to that.

 

[tyder001]

before you were born. Remember that?

If I told you I did you wouldn't believe me.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

By the way, as heated as this is seemingly getting, this is an absolutely fascinating discussion. Chances are, no one will change anyone's mind here, but I am enjoying the exercise. Let's keep it as civil as it has been please.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

I wold believe you think you remember, but it doesn't mean it's a true memory.

 

[tyder001]

By the way, as heated as this is seemingly getting, this is an absolutely fascinating discussion. Chances are, no one will change anyone's mind here, but I am enjoying the exercise. Let's keep it as civil as it has been please.

It's not you and I that I'm concerned about being civil. Sorry, but it is true. We seem to have the "nice" gene or at least the "peace" gene.

 

[mike]

In recent years, researchers tracked our memory to the structural and molecular levels. They found that memories are stored throughout the brain structures in many of the connections between neurons.


This storage can occur in two ways. Short-term memories are processed in the forebrain in a highly developed region, called pre-frontal lobe. So, the short-term memory is converted into long-term memory in the hippocampus, an area deep in the brain. The hippocampus helps to solidify the pattern of connections that form a memory, but memory itself depends on the strength of connections between individual brain cells.

In turn, brain cells depend on proteins and other chemicals to maintain their links with each other and communicate. This may be one of the reasons why eating some foods help improve our memory.

The hippocampus also records simultaneous memories of different sensory regions of the brain and connects them into a “single episode” of memory. For example, you can have only a memory of a dinner instead of several distinct memories (appearance, smell and sound of the party).



The connections between neurons a memory can become a fixed combination. For instance, when you hear a song you can associate it with an episode that happened to you while you listen.

In brain scans, scientists can see the different regions of the brain “light up” when someone is recalling an episode in his memory. This shows how they represent an index of these written different feelings and thoughts.

No mention of a supernatural offsite storage for some part of us...........

And when the voltages cease, the system stops functioning

But as Bergers albiet early stage research shows, that biomechanical function can be duplicated in an artificial manner, as the research proves beyond a shadow of a doubt cerebral data can be stored on a chip.
Yes its just a learned sequence from a rats brain, but its proof of concept. it works, you can take information from the brain and load it up to the chip, and...... you can turn off the biological memory and access that data from the chip. write and read functions using a chippocampus and artificial memory.

Its no longer science fiction its science fact.

Just as powered flight was no longer science fiction when the wright bros did their thing at kitty hawk.
Bergers chipocampus is a wright flyer in comparrison to modern aircraft.
The Wright flyer used wires to control the rudder and flaps, today we use fiber optics and digital controls, with computers that can fly the plane from take off to landing.

Reminds me of a joke a qantas pilot once told me.

The planes of the future will have a pilot and a bulldog in the cockpit
The pilots job is to feed the bulldog, the bulldogs job is to bite the pilot if he touches the controls.

This stuff is no longer science fiction any more than powered flight was science fiction after the wright bros flew

 

[mike]

before you were born. Remember that?

If I told you I did you wouldn't believe me.

Do you remember being born, what colour were the clothes the doctor was wearing, what colour hair did he have ? was it day or night ? raining or sunny ?

Do you have memorys prior to your conception ?

 

[mike]

'Mind-reading device' recreates what we see in our heads

Mind reading could become a reality after scientists unveiled a device which translates what we are seeing in our heads onto a screen.



"This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery. We are opening a window into the movies in our minds."

The study, published in the Current Biology journal, is believed to be the first experiment to successfully interpret brain signals as they respond to moving images.
The current technology can only process film clips that people have already viewed, but the breakthrough could lead to programmes which can reproduce dreams and memories because our natural visual experience is similar to watching a film.
We are still decades from a machine which can read people's thoughts and intentions, but the technology could eventually be used to read the minds of stroke and coma patients

Theres that word successfully again................................

Note they say decades, not hundreds of years

 

[mike]

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act.
The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.
The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way.
"Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall," said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College London and Oxford University.

The latest work reveals the dramatic pace at which neuroscience is progressing, prompting the researchers to call for an urgent debate into the ethical issues surrounding future uses for the technology. If brain-reading can be refined, it could quickly be adopted to assist interrogations of criminals and terrorists, and even usher in a "Minority Report" era (as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg science fiction film of that name), where judgments are handed down before the law is broken on the strength of an incriminating brain scan.
"These techniques are emerging and we need an ethical debate about the implications, so that one day we're not surprised and overwhelmed and caught on the wrong foot by what they can do. These things are going to come to us in the next few years and we should really be prepared," Professor Haynes told the Guardian.

Next few years ?

according the prof the answer is yes

Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuro-psychology at Cambridge University, said the rapid advances in neuroscience had forced scientists in the field to set up their own neuroethics society late last year to consider the ramifications of their research.

Rapid advances says yet another professor..................

The technology could also drive advances in brain-controlled computers and machinery to boost the quality of life for disabled people. Being able to read thoughts as they arise in a person's mind could lead to computers that allow people to operate email and the internet using thought alone

Essentially we are talking about technology that can read your brains data in the exact same way a computer can read the contents of a hard disk drive. Not surprising since thats all the brain is afterall.... its a data storage device.
Being biological and complex in its construct doesnt mean it cant be reverse engineered and read...... Its already happening

 

[mike]

You gotta ask do we need to look at the ethical implications of a technology thats not likely to happen ?

This essay has attempted to identify the ethical implications of the development of a technological procedure which may be able to interpret brain signals, thus ‘reading’ peoples minds and intentions

Jane James Profile and Sample - Ethical Dilemmas: The Implications of Technological Development

Neuroethics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[mike]

Tonights evening news, mudslide in Nepal kills villagers,
Imagine if they had had cloud memory systems installed......
We could have made them comfortable in a virtual simulation, while replacement bioforms were prepared................

What a different world it would be will be when what we called death is conqured, gone the way of polio and smallpox.............

 

[tyder001]

Do you remember being born, what colour were the clothes the doctor was wearing, what colour hair did he have ? was it day or night ? raining or sunny ?

Do you have memorys prior to your conception ?



Blue shirt and white smock. He had a scar over his left eye and his hair was a brown sprinkled with grey. It was a bright sunny day. Yes, yes I do.


From the ask a silly question department. Thanks for playing. Pick up your prize on the way out.

 

[Kim323]

Berger's experiment is a shaky thing, a mere ten pages of flimsy edifice, on which to hang one's faith, and that's all it is, a form of faith itself, albeit a thin form. This is true on the face of it, but even if the debate on this thread was judged on debate points alone, the conclusions reached are flights of fancy.

His experiment in my reading of it was a cruel and crude surgical undertaking that chemically and then surgically altered the rats' brains to such an extent that controls were thereby tenuous at best. There are scientists who don't attribute to this work the significance given to it on this thread. In fact, from what I've read, even Berger doesn't.

This has lead me into my own research, and the result can be quantified in what will become no doubt a landmark equation. I have modestly named it Kim's Equation:

Cave+Berger+Koene+Kurzweil+Misguided Flights of Faith and Fancy for Whatever Mysterious Reasons+Scissors&Gluepot+Cloud Memory+Replacement Bioforms+Not Reading the Authors Cited=

A Collapsed House of Cards

I have been assured my paper will be published in major journals, and this forum is its formal launch.

 

[trainedobserver]

Oh, Ok, A'h guess I didn't unnerstand all yer points.

While it is true that I think that consciousness is an emergent attribute of the physical configuration of the human body, and I do not think it can be recorded, stored, played back, or transferred to any other device, the problem I've been going on about in the past few posts is quite different.

To begin with we have to imagine some future technology that somehow makes the continuation of an individual's conciousness after physical death possible because nothing like it actually exists. The details don't matter. Consciousness could be an ethereal soul, a program running in a machine, an emerging quality of a biological process, or anything else for the sake of the argument. The science or magic behind it doesn't matter.

The question boils down to, "Are immortal humans or some version of them a good idea?" On a personal level it gets down to, "Would I want a copy of myself with all my foibles and accumulating scars running around forever?" I really don't. While I'm all for prolonging life as long as a reasonable quality of life can be maintained, quite frankly I look forward to getting some damn rest myself.

Would I want something altered in my copy to make it perpetually happy? It sounds tempting but then that raises a great many other moral questions.

The cycle of life and death is one of a constant renewal of the species as a whole. The individuals that make it up are renewed and new ideas and behaviors emerge as a result and the species grows. It might not be a good idea to keep all the old codgers who would be able to take advantage of this around forever. Who was it who said, "Science advances one death at a time?" or something to that effect?

There is also the real question of legal rights of these imaginary future products of human engineering that I see as something that could be a major source of contention.

All that said, I don't think decisions about transferring my consciousness to an artificial brain or becoming virtually immortal through medical advancements, magic, or supernatural means is in my or anyone else's future, but I could be wrong.

 

[tyder001]

I understand Trained. I don't agree with the idea that matter creates thought but that's what makes the world go round. We certainly both seem skeptical of transhumanism. Doesn't mean there's nothing to it. I just don't think the "evidence" holds up. But, then again I think consciousness pervades the entire spectrum of being. I hope you are feeling well today. I will more than likely bow out of this one. There is a certain (nothing to do with you I assure you)...uhh.. attitude of anger that tends to show up when ya disagree with this stiff. I guess it's real important for some folks to be right about their pet projects. I don't feel like dealing with that particular adolescent mindset right now. So, I'm gonna "shove off" with my little arse from this one.

 

[trainedobserver]

I don't agree with the idea that matter creates thought but that's what makes the world go round.

What practical difference does thinking that matter creates thought or thinking whatever it is you are thinking actually make any difference in this discussion or in the living out of your life? It doesn't make a hill of beans of difference Steve. Our beliefs about the origins of mankind, the true nature of matter, or the origins of consciousness make absolutely no difference to reality or what makes the world go around. Reality operates the same way no matter what belief you or I may hold in our minds about it.

There is a certain (nothing to do with you I assure you)...uhh.. attitude of anger that tends to show up when ya disagree with this stiff. I guess it's real important for some folks to be right about their pet projects. I don't feel like dealing with that particular adolescent mindset right now. So, I'm gonna "shove off" with my little arse from this one.

It has become pretty apparent to me that some folks post on certain subjects, not because of their personal interest in the subject matter, but to keep emotions stirred up to serve some need that they seem to have.