Mind Transfer, The Soul And A.i.

[Guest roger]

"Is it philosophicaly possible, given a high enough level of technology to transfer(and or copy) a persons mind to some external device and still have it to all intents and purposes be the same individual? how does this relate to AI?"

I wanted to pose this and was prompted by Dr Benways Assistant's thread "Scientists Create Machine That Knows What You Think" http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?s=&a...t&p=1189044

Edited January 4, 2008 by roger

[Boojum]

I'd say it's philosphically extremely unlikely. I think it's philosophically (if not at present technologically) possible to create an artificial 'mind' (as opposed to an intelligence, I think there's a definite difference), indistinguishable from a 'real' mind, with it's own distinct personality. But I'm not sure if it would be then possible to 'download' an existing mind onto it whole, intact and indistinguishable from the original. Can't really say why I think this (well at least not at ten past 4 in the morning after a few beers), it's just one of those things one thinks is true but can't quite say why, just seems true to my philosophical view. Probably summat to do with my ideas of individuality, of what makes me me & you you.

[Guest roger]

Am I the same person I was yesterday? in 10 years every atom in my body has been exchanged..

I belive that an understanding of this topic brings us closer to appreciating what it is to be alive.

eta: does anyone who belives in the soul think that it can ever be understood in non-metaphysical terms? if not, why not?

Edited January 4, 2008 by roger

[Boojum]

Am I the same person I was yesterday? in 10 years every atom in my body has been exchanged..

Not just the atoms. Am I the same person today as I was yesterday ? No, I've learned new things, I may have changed my mind about some things I thought I was certain of yesterday. I am the person I find myself to be when I wake up each morning. I'm certainly not the same person I was 5 years ago (I guess being a manic depressive gives me a different perspective on that kinda thing) But however different I will be tomorrow, next week or next year I'll still be me.

[Guest roger]

I may not be articulating this very well, but are you the same you, or the mechanical remembering of what it is to be you?

What aspects of you make up the soul and whitch are aspects of your biological brain are they one and the same or seperate and distinct?

[Boojum]

Dunno. That's at the centre of my own philosophical thinking. Am I my body (of which my brain is a part), am I my brain being carried around by my body, am I an intangible thing, my 'mind' that resides somehow within either my brain alone or my body and brain ? These are questions I've been wrestling with for as long as I can remember, and that I will be wrestling with until I die. And I'll never know the answer, so it's pointless to speculate, but I can't help it, it's part of me, whatever 'me' is.

[Guest roger]

alright on the AI front the turing test seems like a good one for the appearance of inteligence, but could a test ever be posed to see if a device is alive and/or actualy thinking?

[Boojum]

I think the only way to determine 'mind' as opposed to just intelligence would be when a machine produces an original piece of art. Not a picture, because the whole question of what is art is very blurred when it comes to visual art, but a poem, or a play, or a book, but one that has genuine emotional impact, one that is not just a cut & paste of existing literature. Once a computer can write a genuinely emotionally affecting original poem, one capable of moving people emotionally, then I would say that that computer had ascended from the realm of intelligence to the realm of mind.

Edited January 4, 2008 by Boojum

[Guest roger]

I think the only way to determine 'mind' as opposed to just intelligence would be when a machine produces an original piece of art. Not a picture, because the whole question of what is art is very blurred when it comes to visual art, but a poem, or a play, or a book, but one that has genuine emotional impact, one that is not just a cut & paste of existing literature. Once a computer can write a genuinely emotionally affecting original poem, one capable of moving people emotionally, then I would say that that computer had ascended from the realm of intelligence to the realm of mind.

I could argue that certain aspects of poetry are cultural, and that their rules could be distilled and therefore and aglorithm created that was not in essence free thinking; would the device not have to be able to experience the world before it could write poetry to forfill your test?

I wonder if a device could still be 'alive' without being modeled on our human conceptions?

Edited January 4, 2008 by roger

[Boojum]

To be alive isn't the same as to be conscious, self aware and posessing a 'mind' though. Cockroaches are alive, but I seriously doubt they are conscious (in any higher sense), self aware or in posession of what we would consider 'minds'. They are organic machines, really. Even fire fulfills all the biological criteria to be considered alive.

As for poetry - yep, I concede the point, to write poetry one must bring to bear one's experience (the rules of poetry are slightly different - yes, poetry has certain forms that are cultural, but even crude poetry written by someone who has not studied it and does not know the forms can be emotionally affecting, I guess what I mean by poetry is any piece of writing, or speaking, that affects you on a deep emotional level, doesn't have to strictly be 'poetry' in a conventional sense, just the ability to move with words. We're not all poets, but every single one of us has the ability to move someone else by our words, even the least literate of us has the capacity to express ourselves in such a way as to touch someone else on a deep emotional level).

[Guest roger]

These are questions I've been wrestling with for as long as I can remember, and that I will be wrestling with until I die. And I'll never know the answer, so it's pointless to speculate, but I can't help it, it's part of me, whatever 'me' is.

I wonder even if a machine were to write a book questioning its own existence could it be accepted as thought?

Turing's other great concept was that of the 'turning machine', that if an aglorithim could be logicaly expressed and was ultimately solvable that the hardware used to run the prgram should have no bearing on the result.

Could the brain be an example of a 'quantum turing machine' ?

[soto]

To be alive isn't the same as to be conscious, self aware and posessing a 'mind' though. Cockroaches are alive, but I seriously doubt they are conscious (in any higher sense), self aware or in posession of what we would consider 'minds'. They are organic machines, really. Even fire fulfills all the biological criteria to be considered alive.

To throw a bone, the most interesting thing about that comparison is simply that if we were to imagine that the cockroach was us. Makes you wonder what a higher state of 'living' might be. I.e. is there another level of consciousness above ours?

We'll never know, because our brains don't have the capacity to achieve that level of consciousness, perhaps there's something we can't see because our minds are incapable of being concious of it just like the cockroach is happy to move around his surroundings without being really concious of them like we are.

hmmm, makes you think doesn't it.

Edited January 4, 2008 by soto

[Guest roger]

To be alive isn't the same as to be conscious, self aware and posessing a 'mind' though. Cockroaches are alive, but I seriously doubt they are conscious (in any higher sense), self aware or in posession of what we would consider 'minds'. They are organic machines, really. Even fire fulfills all the biological criteria to be considered alive.

I have often wondered about the distinciton between man and animal; are, say, the great apes just possesed of a similar yet less capable version of our own minds? do they have souls in the religious sence?

I understand the religious tendancy to create a barrier between humans and other animals, but science it tending towards the idea that we are simply an improved version of what came before.

Back to the turning machine... Should it matter how a program is ran if indeed that is what the mind & soul are, if we had evolved from a silicone base would we be any less; or is this simply not possible?

[Boojum]

I wonder even if a machine were to write a book questioning its own existence could it be accepted as thought?

I think I'd accept that as thought. Unless the only purpose of the machine, the only reason it was built, was to question its own existence. But if it did it spontaneously then I'd accept that as thought.

Not sure about the Turing Machine, I confess my knowledge of mathematics is barely GCSE level so I get lost. Shames me really, cos complex higher maths and philosophy are very similar, I kinda look at it that when maths gets so complex that the numbers run out, then it enters the realm of philosophy, and that's the most interesting kind of maths there is, it's just to understand it you've got to do all the rest of the maths, and I'm shit with numbers

[Guest roger]

To throw a bone, the most interesting thing about that comparison is simply that if we were to imagine that the cockroach was us. Makes you wonder what a higher state of 'living' might be. I.e. is there another level of consciousness above ours?

are there differing levels of condciousness between humans, it this a thing a person is born with or is it a learned thing?