Brain Upload

[Bearcules]

I saw an article in Time magazine about how one day we may have computers advanced enough that we could upload our brains and continue living within the computer indefinitely. I have always been of the opinion that if you upload your brain into a computer, you would be effectively making a *copy* of your consciousness. Even if during the process of uploading, your meat-brain was destroyed to create the computer consciousness, and even if the computer's thought processes were indistinguishable from your normal meat-brain thought processes, it still would not be the proper "you". Sort of like how a clone of you would not be you, but more like a twin in practice. This would be a computerized twin of your brain functions.

But this got me to thinking. The "me" that is now, is not the "me" from last year. The molecules that make up my brain are different, it's the pattern that self-identifies me as "me". And while I do not believe this lends credence to my computer "me" being the real "me" I do think it leads to an interesting situation. Consider the following:

One day I get a brain implant that would supplement my memory. This would essentially just be analogous to an external hard drive. It is a space to store my memories and recall them, effectively granting me an eidetic memory. Am I still me "me"? I would argue, yes. Now, say, over the course of years I increased the functionality of this implant. So now it can perform functions as well as store memories, but the functions it performs are a supplement to my main meat-brain thought processes. I can regulate processes such as mathematical calculations to the implant as it can perform them in a fraction of the time. Am I still me? But as I get older I start regulating more and more of my thought processes to the implant, and upgrading its abilities. At some point I would probably get too old for my physical brain to function anymore. But if my implant was robust enough it could continue processes long after my physical brain/body had passed away. Am I still "me"?

At every step my sense of self would have changed to include whatever added aspect the implant granted to me. It would effectively become part of me. So would that part of me continue to be me after my physical body dies?

I would think, yes. It would not be the same "me" as I am now... but in the same sense that I am not the same "me" as I was last year.

Edit: grammar

 

[Squawk]

Analogous to the frog in hot water. Put the frog into boiling water, it jumps out. Put the frog in cold water and heat it gently, it stays in and cooks.

The same goes for acceptance of various ideas. The way the idea is presented often has as much to do with acceptance of the idea as the content of the idea itself. On a possibly more understandable level, consider if we could replace neurons in the brain with a mechanical replacement one at a time, as a cure for some degenerative disease. Keep repeating until all original neurons have been replaced. At what point did you stop being you?

Now consider a complete removal of the brain and implantation of a new brain. Are you still you?

Great questions, fucked if I know the answer. It's about definition of self.

 

[WarK]

Which me are you talking to?

That's very interesting.

What would happen if you separated your artificial brain from your meat brain before the latter died? There are 2 of you now, but neither is just a copy. They did some research on people who got their brain hemisphere separated. They developed 2 separate personalities in one body. Interesting stuff.

 

[televator]

Which me are you talking to?

That's very interesting.

What would happen if you separated your artificial brain from your meat brain before the latter died? There are 2 of you now, but neither is just a copy. They did some research on people who got their brain hemisphere separated. They developed 2 separate personalities in one body. Interesting stuff.

WTF? Links? I gotta see that....

 

[WarK]

WTF? Links? I gotta see that....

there's more after you type into YT words: split brain

 

[Bearcules]

What would happen if you separated your artificial brain from your meat brain before the latter died? There are 2 of you now, but neither is just a copy. They did some research on people who got their brain hemisphere separated. They developed 2 separate personalities in one body. Interesting stuff.



there's more after you type into YT words: split brain

I would think it would be very similar to that. Although, I think it depends on when the separation took place. If it happened after I had migrated enough of my thought processes to the implant to contain my personality then it would probably continue to function as "me".

I suppose it could be considered an imperfect clone... Bizarro-me. "Me am not implant brain!"

Edit: smashed quotes

 

[WarK]

I would think it would be very similar to that. Although, I think it depends on when the separation took place. If it happened after I had migrated enough of my thought processes to the implant to contain my personality then it would probably continue to function as "me".

I suppose it could be considered an imperfect clone... Bizarro-me. "Me am not implant brain!"

but what if your personality isn't distributed evenly across the two brains? What if certain aspects of your personality are located only in one of the brains?

Let's go one step further and connect brains of two individuals Would they merge into a single person?
What would happen if we separated them after say 10 years? Hell, a normal person with one intact brain doesn't stay the same for 10 years.

What if we added more brains... all of them

I think I've finally understood what's the ultimate goal of a zombie... BRAINZZZZ

So far mind/conciousness was limited by biology. Perhaps some day with the help of technology we won't have those boundaries any more. Interesting

 

[Unwardil]

Well, if we connect all the brains, we get the Borg.

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

Well, if we connect all the brains, we get the Borg.

But can the overmind control the underlings through some sort of wave that can penetrate concrete?

 

[Bearcules]

but what if your personality isn't distributed evenly across the two brains? What if certain aspects of your personality are located only in one of the brains?

Let's go one step further and connect brains of two individuals Would they merge into a single person?
What would happen if we separated them after say 10 years? Hell, a normal person with one intact brain doesn't stay the same for 10 years.

What if we added more brains... all of them

I think I've finally understood what's the ultimate goal of a zombie... BRAINZZZZ

So far mind/consciousness was limited by biology. Perhaps some day with the help of technology we won't have those boundaries any more. Interesting

Interesting. I hadn't thought of adding more brains... Since our sense of a unified self appears to be a mere illusion, I guess I would be of the camp that two autonomous personalities if merged in such a way could, in fact merge into a single consciousness. But that is not to say that it would happen.

Split personality disorder shows us that even now, with biological constraints, you can have more than one "self". How much more complicated if two autonomous "selves" were to mingle on the same hardware?

Perhaps there will exist in the future a form of "super marriage" not unlike the episode "Love and Rocket" of Futurama. (where the Ships A.I. wanted to merge programming with Bender).

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Computers don't work the same way as neurons. So you are not able to upload your taughts to a computer and get it to work unless someform of hardware is developed that works more like a brain and less like a computer (and something similar can actually be developed, it is called neuronal networks).

But it raises an interesting prespective, if you are not the pieces of your brain but rather your ideas, and if your ideas changes all the time does it mean that I am not the same person I was a couple of years ago? Well that may be the case, your consciouse may have died several times in your life time and had others to replace them of course the new ones don't notice it because they work with the memory of what has come to pass being completly convinced that it existed all along. If you want to know how it is to be dead just waith a couple of years, you will never know it in fact because you no longer exits and the future version of you will be desapointed because he exists but sees the experience of expecting to see how it is to be dead will being alive. O course that raises the question of when it ceases to be you, and the answer maybe that conscious is not something that sundently transitions but it is sort of a continuum. And it also raises the question that if someone else has similar ideas, doesn't it mea that you become someonelese as well?

But I particularly don't find this view convincing anymore, because what exactly is conscious? Well from the way I see it, it is nothing more than an ilusion caused by the limited prespective of a particular neuronal network as it integrates information from it's limited sensory input. If for instance we could join the sensory imputs and signals from 2 brains of 2 individual people, they would experience to be one conscious, on the other hand if a brain were to be split in 2 and have their different sensory imput and diferent ideas they would experience that same brain as being 2 conscious (this second already proven, and we may be in rout of proving the first).

 

[televator]

If consciousness is predeterministic, then that would be something to take into account when transferring to synthetic systems, no?

WTF? Links? I gotta see that....

there's more after you type into YT words: split brain

Thank you for your cooperation. I shall assimilate this information when I get home. /borg

 

[WarK]

But it raises an interesting prespective, if you are not the pieces of your brain but rather your ideas, and if your ideas changes all the time does it mean that I am not the same person I was a couple of years ago? Well that may be the case, your consciouse may have died several times in your life time and had others to replace them of course the new ones don't notice it because they work with the memory of what has come to pass being completly convinced that it existed all along.

Well, the whole point of OP was to avoid such abrupt change by gradual transition from running fully on one's brain to running on artificial brain. And yes, I know such things don't exist yet

With consciousness being preserved through out your life, it seems the whole trick is it's a transition and not a sudden replacement of everything say monthly or yearly. Same thing happens with our bodies, some cells die new are born to replace them. There doesn't seem to be a clear line when one "you" changes into new "you". There can be some "life changing" events though.

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

But it raises an interesting prespective, if you are not the pieces of your brain but rather your ideas, and if your ideas changes all the time does it mean that I am not the same person I was a couple of years ago? Well that may be the case, your consciouse may have died several times in your life time and had others to replace them of course the new ones don't notice it because they work with the memory of what has come to pass being completly convinced that it existed all along.

Well, the whole point of OP was to avoid such abrupt change by gradual transition from running fully on one's brain to running on artificial brain. And yes, I know such things don't exist yet

With consciousness being preserved through out your life, it seems the whole trick is it's a transition and not a sudden replacement of everything say monthly or yearly. Same thing happens with our bodies, some cells die new are born to replace them. There doesn't seem to be a clear line when one "you" changes into new "you". There can be some "life changing" events though.

WarK,

It appears to me that you are starting to get into a discussion of the elasticity and or plasticity of the human brain. And how those concepts might relate and/or hold on an artificial brain? Is that what you are trying to drive home?

 

[Bearcules]

Computers don't work the same way as neurons. So you are not able to upload your taughts to a computer and get it to work unless someform of hardware is developed that works more like a brain and less like a computer (and something similar can actually be developed, it is called neuronal networks).

Yeah, I was operating under the assumption that technology had sufficiently advanced to allow this. Obviously this is a hypothetical.

But it raises an interesting prespective, if you are not the pieces of your brain but rather your ideas, and if your ideas changes all the time does it mean that I am not the same person I was a couple of years ago? Well that may be the case, your consciouse may have died several times in your life time and had others to replace them of course the new ones don't notice it because they work with the memory of what has come to pass being completly convinced that it existed all along. If you want to know how it is to be dead just waith a couple of years, you will never know it in fact because you no longer exits and the future version of you will be desapointed because he exists but sees the experience of expecting to see how it is to be dead will being alive. O course that raises the question of when it ceases to be you, and the answer maybe that conscious is not something that sundently transitions but it is sort of a continuum. And it also raises the question that if someone else has similar ideas, doesn't it mea that you become someonelese as well?

But I particularly don't find this view convincing anymore, because what exactly is conscious? Well from the way I see it, it is nothing more than an ilusion caused by the limited prespective of a particular neuronal network as it integrates information from it's limited sensory input. If for instance we could join the sensory imputs and signals from 2 brains of 2 individual people, they would experience to be one conscious, on the other hand if a brain were to be split in 2 and have their different sensory imput and diferent ideas they would experience that same brain as being 2 conscious (this second already proven, and we may be in rout of proving the first).

This is the crux of the whole idea. Is consciousness something that can transcend our biological constraints and migrate into a sufficiently advanced computer? Even though it may be an illusion, I still feel like a cohesive personality. That illusion could be expanded, in my opinion, to include an implant. And eventually migrated completely so the biological brain is unnecessary, thus transplanting my "self" into a computer.

With consciousness being preserved through out your life, it seems the whole trick is it's a transition and not a sudden replacement of everything say monthly or yearly. Same thing happens with our bodies, some cells die new are born to replace them. There doesn't seem to be a clear line when one "you" changes into new "you". There can be some "life changing" events though.

This. I think "you" and "I" are on the same wavelength.

 

[lrkun]

I saw an article in Time magazine about how one day we may have computers advanced enough that we could upload our brains and continue living within the computer indefinitely. I have always been of the opinion that if you upload your brain into a computer, you would be effectively making a *copy* of your consciousness. Even if during the process of uploading, your meat-brain was destroyed to create the computer consciousness, and even if the computer's thought processes were indistinguishable from your normal meat-brain thought processes, it still would not be the proper "you". Sort of like how a clone of you would not be you, but more like a twin in practice. This would be a computerized twin of your brain functions.

But this got me to thinking. The "me" that is now, is not the "me" from last year. The molecules that make up my brain are different, it's the pattern that self-identifies me as "me". And while I do not believe this lends credence to my computer "me" being the real "me" I do think it leads to an interesting situation. Consider the following:

One day I get a brain implant that would supplement my memory. This would essentially just be analogous to an external hard drive. It is a space to store my memories and recall them, effectively granting me an eidetic memory. Am I still me "me"? I would argue, yes. Now, say, over the course of years I increased the functionality of this implant. So now it can perform functions as well as store memories, but the functions it performs are a supplement to my main meat-brain thought processes. I can regulate processes such as mathematical calculations to the implant as it can perform them in a fraction of the time. Am I still me? But as I get older I start regulating more and more of my thought processes to the implant, and upgrading its abilities. At some point I would probably get too old for my physical brain to function anymore. But if my implant was robust enough it could continue processes long after my physical brain/body had passed away. Am I still "me"?

At every step my sense of self would have changed to include whatever added aspect the implant granted to me. It would effectively become part of me. So would that part of me continue to be me after my physical body dies?

I would think, yes. It would not be the same "me" as I am now... but in the same sense that I am not the same "me" as I was last year.

Edit: grammar

The above facts remind me of Ghost in the Shell.

 

[WarK]

WarK,

It appears to me that you are starting to get into a discussion of the elasticity and or plasticity of the human brain. And how those concepts might relate and/or hold on an artificial brain? Is that what you are trying to drive home?

Not really. I was talking about mind/consciousness. Brain, artificial or not, seems to be just a vessel for the mind. From what little I know about split brain patients, it seems that every hemisphere starts to act a little like a separate person.
So I was wondering if joining more brains would get an opposite effect i.e. merged mind "running" on two or more brains (or artificial brains).

Bearcules, I always thought that simply copying a mind to a computer or other brain would be just cloning and the resulting "you" would be just a copy. I've never thought about this gradual transition from organic to artificial as you proposed. I think it's a brilliant idea and am starting to gather spare electronics for the purpose of my new brain

 

[lrkun]

WarK,

It appears to me that you are starting to get into a discussion of the elasticity and or plasticity of the human brain. And how those concepts might relate and/or hold on an artificial brain? Is that what you are trying to drive home?

Not really. I was talking about mind/consciousness. Brain, artificial or not, seems to be just a vessel for the mind. From what little I know about split brain patients, it seems that every hemisphere starts to act a little like a separate person.
So I was wondering if joining more brains would get an opposite effect i.e. merged mind "running" on two or more brains (or artificial brains).

Bearcules, I always thought that simply copying a mind to a computer or other brain would be just cloning and the resulting "you" would be just a copy. I've never thought about this gradual transition from organic to artificial as you proposed. I think it's a brilliant idea and am starting to gather spare electronics for the purpose of my new brain

This was the dilemma of the puppet master in ghost in the shell.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I think it's a brilliant idea and am starting to gather spare electronics for the purpose of my new brain

Radio shack now has new brains.

 

[nasher168]

If you perhaps did it gradually, and replaced your brain with electronics over several years, perhaps you might be able to eventually just pop it out of your skull and place it in a robotic body or connect directly to some kind of internet-style entity.
After all, much of our brain is replaced during our lives, so it isn't that difficult to imagine replacing our individual neurones with components and then integrating those with a computer interface device that can be plugged in like a USB stick.