Mind Transfer, The Soul And A.i.

[Lizard]

basically speaking no matter how complex we design a computer it'll never be able to replicate the functions of the human brain.

I will watch that video in due course mate, but it strikes me as defeatist to just say that we as humans in in the fullness of time could never achive that goal; I admit that with classical computing that the task seems impossible but the quantum computing machines of the very near future may very well change that.

Also, I'm not trying to consider the technology of today or the next 50 years, rather the the though experiment.

the way the video explains it, it's not so much a matter of complexity even a very basic single celled organism is more likely to experience a conscious moment than the most complex super computer, the way machines operate is fundamentally different to the way in which biological organisms operate so it's pretty much physically impossible for one to replicate the functions of the other.

I think the only only way you could have a machine with a consciousness is if the machine had some kind of biological component but if that were so would it still be a machine ?

[Guest roger]

If a program is running inside a quantum computer, it is essentialy a 'black box'; it would not be possible to view the operation of the program without destroying its data [you could only observe input/output], in this sense could a sufficiently complex program be considered an 'entity'?

Edited January 15, 2008 by roger

[Guest roger]

"Turing test for the Soul."

Imagine a Man placed inside a box built to sustain his health; he can only communicate with the outside world via a link to the Internet.

There is an advanced computer system built into the box. The purpose of this computer system is to monitor and model every action of the man. In the event of the man’s death, the computer will attempt to act as if it were the man, via the link to the Internet.

Assuming that the box is never opened, what can we know about the man in the box & in turn what can he know about us?

Edited November 8, 2008 by roger

[Rastajedi]

what can we know about the man in the box

Well i suppose he must really stink and he must be some what bored, your house doesn't have a cellar by any chance rodger ?

Rj

[showgirl]

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 think you are on to something, I have the same feeling but I feel there is an answer to why we have wonders....I'm getting close,i think bj PeaceSg

[Guest grandad]

i'm a very simple person with only a primary school education, i'm not religious or spiritual because i believe in neither, only educated people think there inteligence and spirituality is above the masses, in simple terms its just a load of educated bollocks.

[showgirl]

i'm a very simple person with only a primary school education, i'm not religious or spiritual because i believe in neither, only educated people think there inteligence and spirituality is above the masses, in simple terms its just a load of educated bollocks.

Hi grandad ,if I may then give you a definition I was given for spirituality: My relationship with myself my creator and my fellowman. So actually to be a spiritual person doesn't have anything to do with religion.:]Sg

[Guest grandad]

our mind and the way we think is what we are, our brain controls all movement the body makes, everything we say is generated through the brain, the body is only a transporter. i consider myself a realist and i dont like all that i see,we are only grown up children and i like the childs way of thought, escapism into the land of fantacy and make believe, after all, can we really seperate reality from fantacy. spirituality is and educated persons way of escapism obviously not liking the idea of what they do with grand ideas of there thought patterns, how we see ourselves is not always the way others may see us.

[showgirl]

our mind and the way we think is what we are, our brain controls all movement the body makes, everything we say is generated through the brain, the body is only a transporter. i consider myself a realist and i dont like all that i see,we are only grown up children and i like the childs way of thought, escapism into the land of fantacy and make believe, after all, can we really seperate reality from fantacy. spirituality is and educated persons way of escapism obviously not liking the idea of what they do with grand ideas of there thought patterns, how we see ourselves is not always the way others may see us.

Not meaning to seem like I'm picking your statements apart but I would like to say grandad you may have some resentment towards smart people. they are only smart in what they do. Ask a doctor to install a woodstove. Wouldn't have the first clue. But ask him about your cyatic nerve and I bet he knows that.It's all relative,i know you know stuff I don't know but I'm not thinking yoor smarter than me or vice versa. If I find myself critical towards others then my spirituality at these moments is poor. When I am loving myself and my fellowmen and my life I would say I'm living a very spiritual life. For me I would like to be more spiritual because I don't feel the way I want to right now It i'll come.Remember when we were kids today was all ya had and you wanted it to last forever. No worries of tomorrow or yesterday aaaah the innocents of a child .Peace Grandad

[strawberry]

our mind and the way we think is what we are, our brain controls all movement the body makes, everything we say is generated through the brain, the body is only a transporter. i consider myself a realist and i dont like all that i see,we are only grown up children and i like the childs way of thought, escapism into the land of fantacy and make believe, after all, can we really seperate reality from fantacy. spirituality is and educated persons way of escapism obviously not liking the idea of what they do with grand ideas of there thought patterns, how we see ourselves is not always the way others may see us.

I don't think spirituality has anything to do with education, well, not with schooling at least.

I know people with the highest degrees and people with no schooling who share the same irrational, anti-analytical and fantastical views on other-worldly things.

I am the only atheist I know apart from my god children (I don’t call them atheist because I’m going to tell them that god doesn’t exist, it’s because they’re young and we’re only on dinosaurs so it’ll be a few millions of years before I get to man and his philosophies).

I keep dipping into spirituality because I want to understand the people around me whom I love -- I don’t have an intellectual hole in my life because I don’t “believe”.

[ReverendRFB]

Frivilous I know, but I wonder if the robots will ever fight each other over what version of the digital bible is correct, would they turn themselves in to viruses in order to go to a martyrs silicone heaven?

- well assuming that robots would function primarily on 'logic' I doubt that we would ever need to worry about it.

As far as the whole mind transfer thing is concerned.. I think its probable. -Although I dunno how. It crosses somewhere between the Matrix and General Greivous on star wars- and I have some thoughts about it being possible. Hell its probably where we're all headed... get a mechanical body - download your past memories and thoughts into it.. and turn 'on' and live forever right? - or as long as your battery lasts??

I dunno.. but I do have a few thoughts on this..

[kilgore trout]

if you observe the way ur own brain works there are a few things that may make it hard to replicate, the brain not only stores experience, but sorts that experience for relivance, this seems to be done by the replaying of "important" experiences, which then "fixes" them in the mind, the more you replay an experience, the more fixed it becomes. the thing is this replaying of important experiences, whilst generally done out of habit, can be done completely "freely", by sheer act of will or direction of awareness, amounting to the same thing, but with definitions so wooly when explaining such ideas

so anyhows, there is this mechanism which i control which reinforces memories, and makes their memory more perminent, that, i recon, would be hard to replicate in a machine, except by accident, as we have no understanding of such a mechanism, and really, its completely unexplanable, and more an observation of metaphysics, rather than fitting within our materialisic scientific consensus

[Guest daviie]

I think that if you were remotely serious about the questions raised in the thread, surely one of the last areas that you are likely to find a useful answer, or component of fruitful line of enquiry, is online, on a stoners site, which in turn strongly suggests a wish to discuss the questions, (possibly any questions) as opposed to finding a meaningful answer to them. That is a very common pastime, for some. Very strange.

Are you quite certain that you have the time to indulge this pastime?

[Guest roger]

Are you quite certain that you have the time to indulge this pastime?

What other worthwhile pass-times are there?

[Guest daviie]

Just one that I can think of, the serious pursuit of answers to the various questions raised.