The Social Implications Of "The Singularity Moment"

Phat quotes Time: OK, can we put this concept to bed forever? The above is not physically possible because your mind, your personality, what makes you you is inherently part of your brain. The neurons in your head are what make you you.Oh, you might be able to make a copy of that and have it run inside a computer, but that won't be you: It'll be a copy of you. It might live forver (so long as the power runs out and there aren't any bugs in the system), but you'll cease to exist when your brain ceases to exist.Of course, that gives rise to the idea of replacing the neurons in your brain with artificial ones that can be sustained indefinitely. Interesting thought. Assuming that the physical replacement of neurons can be accomplished without interfering with the functionality of the brain, notice the scenario: You are replacing a physical object with an identical physical object. You aren't copying your brain, you are refitting it. There's a difference. Even if we were able to replace every neuron with a cybernetic version, it wouldn't be a copy. You'd still be in there.Do these people not understand what the word "copy" means?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

dwise1 responds to me:

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If the transporter scans you entirely and completely and disassemble you and reconstructs you at the target location, then it's not really you that had transported down, but rather a copy of you.

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Well, no. If you're disassembled and reassembled, then it isn't a copy of you. It's still you. Just because your molecules have moved doesn't make them different molecules.

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So how does a "copy of you" know differently than you yourself?

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It doesn't, at least not at first. A perfect copy of you would have all of your experiences and knowledge up to the moment of replication at which point it would start to have different experiences compared to the original.My favorite explanation for the transporter: It scans your body to determine the momentum of every particle in your body. Due to Uncertainty, this now means it has no idea of your position. It then searches the entire universe looking for you except for the place that you are, which you then appear in.Edited by Rrhain, : fixing the dBCodes

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

crashfrog responds to me:

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What if they are different molecules?

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I already dealt with that, but let's go deeper.Yes, the biological process is such that the molecules of your body are constantly being replaced. It is, after all, why you eat, drink, and breathe. You are taking molecules in to replace the ones you have. But that is a slow and small process and doesn't quite fit for all aspects of your body: The skin you have today is not the same skin as what you had a month ago: You have completely new cells. While there is a lot that is the same, there is a lot that is different, too.But again, your mind is inherently part of your brain. If your brain goes away or if another object that is very much like your brain but is not your brain comes into existence, it isn't "you." It may be a perfect facsimile of you with all of your knowledge and experience in there, but it isn't you.The problem is that the brain is inherently biological in function. We might be able to replace it with cybernetic processes, but it won't function in the same way because we are (and I'm stealing from Myers because he's talking about this at the same time) a bunch of neurotransmitters floating around in saline. That physical process affects how the brain functions.Basically, "you" are not merely information. You are a physical manifestation of a particular object.

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"This is my grandfather's axe. My father replaced the handle and I replaced the head." Is it still his grandfather's axe?

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No. And to answer your other question, it happened when the parts were replaced wholesale. Assuming "axe" means the entire thing, it stopped being "grandfather's axe" when the handle was replaced. And it lost any claim to be "what's left of my grandfather's axe" when the head got replaced.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

crashfrog responds to me:

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Why wouldn't a simulation of my brain inside an environment that simulated, to angstrom accuracy, the behavior of neurotransmitters in saline, be my brain?

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Because that isn't sufficient. It's why we still haven't managed to come up with a really good weather simulator. There are too many variables involved, especially when the very code you use to generate the object (your genes) gets to change as the process runs. Genes get turned on, they get turned off, physical changes happen to your brain that cannot be "simulated" as such.

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Isn't it only a copy if there's two?

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No. That is, both instances do not need to both be extant. If something is created and is then copied, the destruction of the original does not make the copy something other than a copy.Again, I am not denying the possibility of being able to copy your brain (be it into a cloned body or a cybernetic support system). But a copy is not the original. The copy may very well think it is the original, since it would have all the memory and experience of the original and thus from the moment it came into being, there would be no way to distinguish it from the original just based upon the information content.But there is more to it than just information. If I set myself into the duplicator (which is the transmogrifier box turned on its side and goes "Boink!")Then at the end of the process I will still be in my own body.

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It may be a perfect facsimile of you with all of your knowledge and experience in there, but it isn't you.

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Why not?

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Because it's the counterpart of "a difference that makes no difference is no difference." That is, similarity that isn't the same isn't a similarity. Let's take a look at this from a purely practical matter. I get into the cardboard box and am duplicated. Well, I'm still in the same physical location that I was in. My duplicate, however, is going to be in a different physical location (since two objects cannot occupy the same space). Thus, right from the get-go, I am going to know that I am still in my body and my duplicate is going to immediately know that he's the copy. Despite the fact that our memories are identical up to the moment of duplication, there is a physical shift that has taken place for the copy but not the original.This is different from the existential question regarding division: When a cell divides, which one is the "original" and which is the "offspring"? Well, neither. The physical process of duplication creates two distinct cells. All the molecules of the two daughter cells used to exist in the original, but neither of the daughters is the original.

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I'm the same person even if all my molecules changed into other equivalent molecules, we agreed on that.

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No, we didn't. Not the way you're playing with it.

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Why wouldn't I be the same person if all my molecules changed into equivalent virtual molecules inside a chemistry simulation program?

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Because "you" are a biological construct, not an electronic one.

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As long as the simulation accurately models the behavior of real-world molecules

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Which can't be done.

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there's no reason the chemical system being simulated couldn't be "Crashfrog."

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Except that it's a copy, not the original. Assuming we could trick it into not detecting the physical location shift when it comes online (and there's a huge hint as to why it is not you in that fact), then it would certainly think it was you. But since it is a copy of you and not the original you, it isn't you. A similarity that isn't the same isn't a similarity.

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So why didn't I stop being "Crashfrog" when all my molecules got replaced? I'm sure it's happened at least once since I started posting here.

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Because a copy isn't the original. Your molecules were replaced in such a way that there was never a duplicate but only an original. If I take out a brick out of your house and replace it with another brick, the brick I took out doesn't become a house in and of itself.

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Really, Rrhain, all you're doing is asserting that I'm not myself. But I'm pretty sure I am.

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Well, on an existential level, you're not. You are not the same person you were eight years ago. You may have experienced the continuity of those eight years, but they changed you. Physically. It's why you remember different things now than you did then and have forgotten things you used to know. Since your biological existence doesn't leave you the same from moment to moment, why on earth would a duplication of that not have the same effect?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.