Artificial Intelligence and Life Beyond Death

[The Great Zaganza]

Hard to take your questions seriously if you don't offer the same courtesy.

 

[Roboramma]

I believe I have established that I don't consider the question of reality interesting in this case.
The question of mind-upload is about individuality.
Would a copy consider itself to be the original if it had no information about it being a replica?

Of course it would. I'm curious why you think that's a meaningful question though.

 

[theprestige]

Irrelevant. What something thinks of itself does not change reality. The mental patient who believe he is Napoleon is not Napoleon.

Is the mental patient, cloned from Napoleon, Napoleon?

Is the mental patient, whose memories were copied from Napoleon, Napoleon?

Is the mental patient, who was cloned from Napoleon, and whose memories were copied from Napoleon, Napoleon?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Of course it would. I'm curious why you think that's a meaningful question though.

Who will be willing to spend billions for the chance to make a copy of themselves?
Multi-billonaires.with ambitions of immortality.
If a copy wakes up and considers itself (and is considered by society) as the continuation of the original when the original is dead, is there any point in talking about two different people?

 

[Roboramma]

Is the mental patient, who was cloned from Napoleon, and whose memories were copied from Napoleon, Napoleon?

Are you asking Napoleon or a European head of state worried about an upcoming invasion? From the perspective of the former, he's still dead. From the perspective of the latter, it's time to increase military spending...

 

[Roboramma]

Who will be willing to spend billions for the chance to make a copy of themselves?
Multi-billonaires.with ambitions of immortality.
If a copy wakes up and considers itself (and is considered by society) as the continuation of the original when the original is dead, is there any point in talking about two different people?

After the original is dead I think it makes sense to let the copy take over his life.

But that doesn't mean it's a good idea step into your transporter.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

After the original is dead I think it makes sense to let the copy take over his life.

But that doesn't mean it's a good idea step into your transporter.

I call it a Suicide Booth.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Is the mental patient, cloned from Napoleon, Napoleon?

Is the mental patient, whose memories were copied from Napoleon, Napoleon?

Is the mental patient, who was cloned from Napoleon, and whose memories were copied from Napoleon, Napoleon?

The answer in all cases is "No". One particular lump of matter moving through spacetime on one particular worldline was Napoleon. No others are, regardless of what they/you/the gods/E! Red Carpet Fashion Review thinks of them.

 

[William Parcher]

Would a copy consider itself to be the original if it had no information about it being a replica?

Maybe our advanced technology would allow the copy to learn that it is a copy.

This topic is so close to science fiction that it's difficult not to think that way. Here goes...

When we invent the copy ability we also simultaneously invent the ability to detect copies. In Blade Runner it's a device and procedure called the Voight-Kampff test. But most of the copies (replicants) in that film had already learned that they were copies even before taking the test.

One clue to work towards in the copy detection test would be the fact that the original and the copy never did and never will occupy the same space at the same time.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Hard to take your questions seriously if you don't offer the same courtesy.

You announced you aren't interested in reality. Which suggests your theories belong in Religion and Philosophy rather than Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

You announced you aren't interested in reality. Which suggests your theories belong in Religion and Philosophy rather than Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology.

you can be interested in biology without being interested in Quantum Mechanics.
That doesn't make you unqualified to talk about biological processes on the macro scale.

I find your insistence on "reality" a red herring in this discussion, since it doesn't add where it matters - at least as far as I am concerned.

 

[Myriad]

I don't think a discussion of teletransporters and identity can be completely scientific. As I said in a thread a long time ago:

But it's not science, to assume [that the person who appears in the transporter destination believes they're the same person] without doing the experiment.

Maybe the person who comes out the other end of the transporter claims not to be the same person, in a different language they never spoke before. Maybe they arrive with the memories of one of their deceased ancestors, or with memories of spending years in the land of faerie since their departure. Maybe the transporter works fine with every kind of animal tested including gorillas and chimpanzees, but all humans transported arrive dead. Maybe an angry deity appears and smites the scientists, the test subject, and the equipment.

If any of those things happened, materialism would be challenged, but science would just be doing its job as usual.

You can go ahead and assume, for the sake of argument, that the person is successfully transported and appears to be the same person behaviorally. But keep in mind that that assumption makes this a philosophical argument, not a scientific one.

That said, I'm perfectly willing to discuss fictional scenarios and what they suggest about how we understand reality to work.

Is Star Trek about characters who think they're starship captains and chief engineers and security guards and so forth, but are actually tragically deluded because they were created by the transporter beam when their now-deceased antecedents used the transporter, resulting in identity-less copies who couldn't possibly really be who they believe they are?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I find the transporter/perfect mind copy idea utterly implausible, regardless of level of technology.

But that won't stop people from trying to get there, and in the process we will end up with something that will resemble the original ... and society will have to make a decision if that is enough to say that it is the same person or not.

 

[William Parcher]

Would a copy be liable for previous crimes committed by the original?

A dude that is wanted for murder (but hasn't been caught) goes and has a perfect copy made of himself. Now there are two of him running around. The goal of law enforcement is to then capture and imprison both of them?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Would a copy be liable for previous crimes committed by the original?

A dude that is wanted for murder (but hasn't been caught) goes and has a perfect copy made of himself. Now there are two of him running around. The goal of law enforcement is to then capture and imprison both of them?

things to figure out...


I suggest watching the most recent documentary on the subject, which is done with the utmost of scientific detail:

Altered Carbon

 

[Myriad]

Would a copy be liable for previous crimes committed by the original?

A dude that is wanted for murder (but hasn't been caught) goes and has a perfect copy made of himself. Now there are two of him running around. The goal of law enforcement is to then capture and imprison both of them?

Well, they'd certainly want to bring both of them in for questioning. So they could put them in separate identical rooms and tell them simultaneously, "Look, we both know your other copy is the one who really did it. So why don't you tell us what you saw, and maybe in exchange for your cooperation we can convince the DA to only charge you with impersonation after the fact?"

Just for effect, they should make an exact duplicate of the detective first.

 

[dann]

Is the mental patient, cloned from Napoleon, Napoleon?

Is the mental patient, whose memories were copied from Napoleon, Napoleon?

Is the mental patient, who was cloned from Napoleon, and whose memories were copied from Napoleon, Napoleon?

The imaginary mental patient cloned from Napoleon is an imaginary Napoleon clone.
The imaginary mental patient, whose memories were copied from Napoleon is an imaginary humanoid dreaming of being Napoleon - and maybe also of electric sheep.
The imaginary mental patient, who was cloned from Napoleon, and whose memories were copied from Napoleon, is also made up and doesn't exist beyond the realm of imagination.

 

[dann]

Since this is a thread about fiction and nothing but fiction and therefore belongs in either Religion and Philosophy or History, Literature, and the Arts, I'll recommend Blake Crouch's brand new (Sep. 17) novelette/novella Summer Frost (GoodReads). Crouch has written a very entertaining version of a spontaneously emerging AI.

 

[Roboramma]

Since this is a thread about fiction and nothing but fiction and therefore belongs in either Religion and Philosophy or History, Literature, and the Arts, I'll recommend Blake Crouch's brand new (Sep. 17) novelette/novella Summer Frost (GoodReads). Crouch has written a very entertaining version of a spontaneously emerging AI.

This isn't a thread about fiction, though. It's a thread about the implications of potential technologies which haven't yet been developed but which are physically possible.

I'm not talking about the transporter (which is simply a thought experiment to help discuss the issues of identity which apply to the uploading ideas that this thread is meant to be about). I'm talking about "mind-uploading", which while certainly not currently feasible, isn't a supernatural idea.

That said, I'm personally not a fan of the idea of uploading our minds (for some of the reasons related to identity that have been discussed in this thread, as well as some others).

 

[Dave Rogers]

This isn't a thread about fiction, though. It's a thread about the implications of potential technologies which haven't yet been developed but which are physically possible.

Substituting "may be" for "are", and that's precisely what science fiction is about. And we don't, in fact, know for certain that it's physically possible to transfer human consciousness to anything other than the specific body in which it arises.

Dave