Hans Moravec, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote a book called * Mind Children * where he envisioned a processes in the not-too-distant future where the contents and personality of the human mind could be transferred to a supercomputer. A human’s life would continue as a mind but not be limited by body’s flesh. Humanity would cast aside fleshy beginnings a begin what he called the Post-Biological Age. Moravec views it as inevitable for numerous reasons, one of them being the ease of space travel for intelligent machines: no need for daily intakes of oxygen, food, water, sleep, or voiding of wastes, etc. Even time may not be an obstacle for the Post-Biological since if the machine wears down a new copy of the mind could be transferred to a different machine.
A lot of the book sounds like pure science fiction, but the guy isn’t your common place pseudo-science crank no matter how far fetched he may seem at times. He may not be right, but he sure gives you something to think about. Personally, I could think of enormous potential in living as a mind without a body, but from the people I’ve talked to there seems to be a psychology apprehensive about casting aside the physical body and replacing it with a machine.
Assuming such a procedure were available, would anyone else consent to live as mind alone?
Just so long as they don’t let Bill Gates make the supercomputer I reckon we’ll be ok. I for one reckon it would be a lot safer, instead of war and murder to worry about all we’d have to be afraid of is that weird little blue screen.
Also what would happen to criminals in the super computer? Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase Thought Crime don’t it?
i think assimov had a series of stories about MT, mind transfer robots. but are you sure it wouldn’t be a COPY and not really YOU? you can copy the software from 1 computer to another. you can erase the original software. in the case of a human being that would just be death. it’s an interesting/amusing speculation.
Would you be willing to give up the touch of a child, the sweet caress of a lover, the smell of rain, the warmth of the sun on your face, the sound of a friends voice and the feeling of exhilaration and the adrenaline rush of a first kiss?
Not me. No way.
I could see getting an implant, tho’.
I personally think that any robot we could possibly make will be inferior to the human body. Also the mind is not alone and probably would not work even if it was in a jar. Definately not if it was just information. Emotions are what drive people to do things not logic. Anyone who did that would lose any ability to act on its own.
hmm i hope i didnt post that:)
Also a machine would face the same problems of space travel that a human would. Except for radiation. A human could slow its body down the same way a machine could. And everything done humanly would be a billion times cheaper
Was this the topic for “The Matrix”, or would you consider that the opposite, a real body with artificial memories.
Works out about the same, though. As real as a dream.
Well, when the day comes when we start uploading everyone into computers, I’m going to have my Ptahlis Virus ready, so I can infect and inhabit every machine. All will be me! I will be everywhere. Think of the possibilities! No more fighting, no more disagreeing… just peaceful harmony. Naah! Too dull.
Han Moravec’s premise is that you would not be dead, in fact, there could be multiple “yous.” The easiest way to explain it is that the seat of humanity is in the mind, not in the body. Many people disagree with this theory.
If you read the book the theory gets much stranger as he discusses how pure minds would procreate
Yeah, but your mind is disintergrating in the grave. The fact that a carbon copy of it exists which has a memory of having lived your life does not make your mind any less dead.
Suppose I copy my mind into a computer. Then I can carry on a conversation with myself. Later, I step outside and get run over by a bus. Is that computer program now “me”?
What if I live a healthy life and don’t die for several years after recording my “mind”? By that time, has my actual mind so diverged from my recorded mind that the recorded mind is no longer “me,” but an altogether separate personality? If so, how long after recording does this divergence occur? A year? A month? 20 seconds?
This idea was explored many years ago by Dalton Trumbo in his classic anti-war novel “JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN”. As I recall, the book had a rather horrible ending (it is about a WWI soldier who loses arms, legs, eyes, ears).
I think the human mind (whether in the brain or stored in DRAM) would go mad without external stimulation!
Ditto all who have posted similar ideas. Until we get a better understanding of the concept of “mind” (or, if you prefer, “soul”) this stuff is not science-fiction, it’s just fantasy.
BTW, these ideas have already been explored on the original Star Trek, when McCoy repeatedly wondered whether after transporting, is it really him who got transported, or whether he might just be a reasonable facsimile created after destroying the original. This “philosophical” question became a “practical” one to the characters of Star Trek Next Generation, when a transporter malfunction resulted in two equally genuine Rikers.
If anyone’s interested in reading a bunch of stories devoted to the topic of mind in machines, mind as program, then I’d suggest “The Mind’s I”, edited by Douglas Hofstadter (author of Godel, Escher, Bach).
Some of the stories deal with topics and situations presented here, and there are opinions on both sides given. One of the more interesting ones deals with a mind being temporarily transferred to a robot (to do a dangerous deep-earth or ocean exploration where communication was implausible).
And is now a good time to tell you that panama jack is not an actual human being but a roomful of monkeys randomly jumping non-stop on specially modified keyboards? Each key corresponds to an English word or phrase to make meaningful statements appear sooner than they would with simple key combinations.
NOTE: This is a message from the research team performing the “Panama Jack” experiment. While we have previously only occasionally edited the posts to add .sigs, edit URL’s and add typographical errors, we are as amazed as you are that the rhesus monkeys have produced the above sentences describing their very condition. Since they could have no idea what the symbols on the keypad could mean, we have ruled out the possibility that this is a learned behaviour and only marvel at what chaos can produce. It is, in fact, only a matter of time before one of them produces a message that is apparently from us. We must continue the experiment with no outside influence, and thusly cannot provide the name or location of our facility.
Another good literary source, both specifically on this topic and on the metaphysics of consciousness and identity in general, are the science fiction works of Greg Egan.
First, a mind embodied in a computer need not be cut off from external stimulation, just as our mind, embodied in our brains without senses of its own, interacts with the outside world (or so we suppose). The touch of a child, etc. are no less real because the sensation was transmitted through a copper wire than through a neuron.
Emotion is not magical, it is the result of specific and objective hormonal, chemical and neurological activity. It is no more difficult to envision a computer implementing emotions than intellect.
The question of identity becomes considerably more metaphsysically complicated when we cannot rely on the impossibility of duplication. However, this point really has little to do with the substrate that implements a particular consciousness than on more abstract considerations of the nature of consciousness itself.
To continue in the spirit of panamajack’s post, I wish to inform you that one quarter of you were secretly replaced last night by exact physical duplicates and your originals destroyed. I invite you to explore the question of whether you can form an objective method by which you can determine whether you are originals or copies. As a control, the readers have been divided in half alphabetically: Of one group, half were replaced, half were not. Of the other, none were replaced. Naturally, as a double-blind test neither the experimenters nor the subjects know a priori which is the control or experimental group, and in the experimental group, which have or have not been replaced. Please keep careful records.
