[…] that it will ever be possible to accurately digitize a human brain. I’m still hung up on that consciousness interruption thing. There is some interesting discussion on the topic in that thread, and I also had some really […]

[…] have touched upon this sort of issue years ago in the Consciousness Interruption thread. From time to time I like to revisit these rather poignant questions and shine some new light at […]

I’d suggest having a read of Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. He provides a means of consciousness transference without interruption, which I would also apply to the Cylon model (but not to Doctorow’s backups). The Cylon model has a continuous consciousness which is transferred to the mothership, kept there (either in stasis or in a large IF space a la Banks) and then resumed when the next body is ready. I would only really accept that model, not one where my current body / mind duality is extinguished only to be copied elsewhere.

I think I want to change the line of argument I took way back when in … 2007? Seriously? Holy bugfuck I have deeply lost track of how long I’ve been reading this blog for.

Anyway, the thing most people (old-me included) seem to get stuck on is the idea of a mind as a distinct object to be preserved, like a fluid sloshing around in amongst your neurons, and go to elaborate lengths to dream up ways to slowly pour that imaginary fluid into a computer architecture without an abrupt switch, ship-of-Theseus style. Taking a different view, a mind is a thing that an object ‘does’, not an object in itself. The arrangement of atoms in my brain gives rise to a consciousness that includes ideas like “Hey, I’m Matt” and if you created a computer emulation of my brain then the arrangement of atoms in the computer would give rise to a consciousness holding all the same ideas (and memories, and the rest).

You could see this equivalence and conclude “It’s all okay then, the emulation is as much me as my brain ever was, euthanise the meatsack and I’ll carry on in cyberspace”. Or there’s the alternative view of “The consciousness I call my own is a non-transferable thing this particular brain is doing”.

Hmm, I didn’t really get anywhere, my problem now is that I think they may both be right – there isn’t really anything special about these particular atoms in this particular brain, but they’re my atoms. But they don’t have little “part-of-Matt`” tags glued to them anywhere and could be traded for other atoms without effect. Man, our intuitions really aren’t set up to cope with “mind” not being an actual physical thing.

So, taking a view of everything that exists being a result of physics in discrete timesteps, and glossing over the hard problem of consciousness… brain-at-t1 produces mind-1, brain-at-t2 produces mind-2 with memories of being mind-1, we say that mind-1 and mind-2 are the same person. If we insert computer-at-t3 which produces mind-3 with memories of being mind-2, is that really any different from using brain-at-t3 to produce mind-3?

Personhood as continuity of memory/continuity of ‘pattern’, rather than of body or brain or specific physical substrate, anyone? Am I even making sense any more?

“Disagree? I would love to hear a counter argument!”

A good chunk of your memories are not actually stored in your brain – proven, but the science behind this is pretty new though. They are stored with your soul – unproven, but highly likely if the first sentence ends up being true. (Your soul is located in another dimension, but that is way beyond the scope of this counter-argument). The problem then isn’t “can you clone your memories?” But rather, “can you establish a viable link with the new body to the same soul?” You’ll lose some memories, sure, but it won’t be more than a few hours worth of data. Nothing you couldn’t re-learn from watching a (probably dull) video replay.

Luke Maciak wrote:

@ Liudvikas:
Thanks. That’s actually exactly the scenario I proposed here. Gradual process could work.
@ katoxidl:
Heh… I’m guessing you were trying to post it here, no?

Nice post, will have to subscribe to your blog :) But I’m already a century behind on my reading list, so immortality and increased brain capacity would help a lot :)

Liudvikas wrote:

Imagine other scenario.
Assuming you remove 1 brain cell and replace it with identical artificial brain cell. You would still be you, 1 brain cell does not warrant death. Then repeat that process until there’s only artificial brain cells left. Would that mean consciousness interruption?

Beat me to it :) I love this subject and the short story review you linked to was brilliant.

I don’t have a comprehensive knowledge on any of the following but they’re all things that float around in my head when trying to work out things such as: “what makes us human?”, “how to create AI from very fundamental building blocks that mimic evolution from single celled organisms” and “what is God?”. All these things are closely linked from my point of view and I like Bhudist philosophies that God is everywhere, in the same way that everything is (alegidly) made from energy.

I simply think that the thing that makes us human, that gives us that edge that makes us try the seemigly futile sollution rather than face defeat, is some really small entity that’s in everything (probably including non biological things such as computers or rock just it doesn’t have the interface to be conveyed to us in those things)

Anyway, The main thing I’d like to throw in, which has already been touched upon, is the fact that The body you or I had 5 years ago doesn’t exist today due to a dynamic turnover of molecules and atoms that make up your body. Not that the body you had has changed somewhat but it has infact gone. Every atom that was in your body 5 years ago has been replaced whether it made up flesh, bone, blood, hair, etc. What was my heart 5 years ago may now be part of someone else, or part of the land, or who knows, and visa versa my consciousness and soul remains firmly with me though. For a little more on that the first thing I found on google was this (which I pretty much copied verbatum from)

I have no conclusion here, I simply wanted to air some thoughts, but as a final note, what if we’re all part of a larger consciousness but don’t realise it, perhaps the planet is an organism in itself? Even with our apparent flaws such as killing each other and polluting the planet these may simply be neccesary for the planets evolution (OK I know, technically they are…)

My apologies for the disjointed and spurious post, I’ve written inbetween doing something else, was just to excited about the whole thing to leave untill I’m not busy! :)

@ Liudvikas:

Thanks. That’s actually exactly the scenario I proposed here. Gradual process could work. :)

@ katoxidl:

Heh… I’m guessing you were trying to post it here, no?

Imagine other scenario.
Assuming you remove 1 brain cell and replace it with identical artificial brain cell. You would still be you, 1 brain cell does not warrant death. Then repeat that process until there’s only artificial brain cells left. Would that mean consciousness interruption?

Of course such comments happen due to interrupted consciousness problem. I guess matrix will sort it under the proper blog post.