Mindfiles, Mindware and Mindclones
A friend on Facebook posted a link to this site. This is a must-see for Singulatarians. Martine Rothblatt posts one answer to one interesting question on issues familiar to Singulatarians every few weeks. These are in-depth answers. There is real meat here.
Here are some of the questions: How can consciousness be created in software? What is cyberconsciousness. Why worry about this sci-fi stuff now?
The sub-title of the site expresses her goal for the site: "One hundred questions answered about the coming age of our own cyberconsciousness and techno-immortality." She is now up to number 8: What is techno-immortality? Here is part of her answer:
Therefore, by techno-immortal, we do not literally mean living until the sun explodes and the stars disappear. Such eschatological timeframes are beyond our consideration. Techno-immortality means living so long that death (other than by suicide) is not thought of as a factor in one’s life. This uber-revolutionary development in human affairs is the inevitable consequence of mindfiles, mindware and mindclones. Our souls will now be able to outlast our bodies -- not only in religion, but also on earth.Techno-immortality need not imply an eternity of life in a box. Broadband connectivity to audio and video, and to tactile, taste and scent enabled future websites, will make life much more enjoyable than the ‘in a box’ phrase suggests. The outputs of our fingertips, taste buds and olfactory nerves are electronic signals that can be interpreted by software in the same manner as are sound waves and light signals. Nevertheless, it is hard to beat a real flesh body for mind-blowing experiences. Within a few score years for an optimist, and not more than a few centuries for a pessimist, current rates of technology development will result in replacement bodies grown outside of a womb. Such spare bodies, or “sleeves” as novelist Richard Morgan calls them , will be compatibly matched with mindclones. To make the sleeve be the same person as the mindclone either:
(a) the sleeve’s neural patterns will need to be grown ectogenetically to reflect those of the mindclone’s software patterns; or
(b) the sleeve’s naturally grown neural patterns will need to be interfaced and subordinated to a very small computer implanted in the cranium that contains a copy of the mindclone’s software.Once these feats of neuro-technology are accomplished, techno-immortality will then also extend into the walkabout world of swimming in real water and skiing on real snow. In addition, mechanical bodies, including ones with flesh-like skin, are rapidly being developed to enable robotic help with elder care in countries like Japan (where the ratio of young to old people is getting too small). Such robot bodies will also be outfitted with mindclone minds to provide for escapes from virtual reality.
Check out the site for more of that answer and the other answers she provides. Then check to see when she answers another question.
This site rates two thumbs up from me.
Comments
So, Sally, it sounds like you buy the arguments? That's a new position, I believe...
Posted by: Phil Bowermaster | October 26, 2009 10:22 AM
Sorry about the odd symbols. These did NOT show up when I posted this on Mozilla.
I'm not sure what you were referring to, perhaps her estimates of when such things may happen.
I do think those estimates are too conservative.
It was her interesting questions and detailed answers to them that grabbed me. Plus the fact that her questions are right down the Singulatarian alley.
Posted by: Sally Morem | October 26, 2009 04:57 PM
For some reason I thought you were skeptical of extreme life extension via uploading -- but then maybe what's described here is not that?
Posted by: Phil Bowermaster | October 27, 2009 08:54 AM
Actually, I'm much more skeptical of reviving anyone who undergoes cryogenics. Uploading seems to me to be doable...after a number of successive computer hardware and software generations and a lot more neuroscience research.
Posted by: Sally Morem | October 27, 2009 12:49 PM
Check out this article on Paul Saffo. Agree or disagree, his comments are worth reading:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6888875.ece
Posted by: Sally Morem | October 27, 2009 01:15 PM
Yes, Martine Rothblatt's site has much of interest and. as Michael Faraday remarked, "Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it is consistent with the laws of nature"
To try to get a handle on where the future is likely to take us rather than where it might take us (quite a lot of possibilities), though, it is necessary to scan carefully across a whole range of scientific observations to see if we can pick up any signs of overall directionality.
This is what I have attempted in my book "Unusual Perspectives".
Surprisingly, a quite compelling directional pattern emerges from evidence which seems to have been previously overlooked, especially from the field of chemistry.
The electronic version of "Unusual Perspectives" can downloaded for free from the web-page:
www.unusual-perspectives.net
PK
Posted by: Peter Kinnon | October 28, 2009 07:17 PM
Evolution came up with a messy number of hardware kludges to produce a wet brain. The genome of the entire body is less than 100Mb. So if we were to record everything and reduce it to bare essentials how much data would be needed to reproduce all relevance of a mind? I don't think it would or should be a lot. Sure compressed - but dinding out how that works in practice (decompile?) might take a long time for a 20th century civilization, but not longer than decades if society would throw a lot of manpower behind it.
The problem is spin-off. I'd like to represent the human mind as a series of channels cut out in clay, something like you would still see in parts of Egypt. This in not very sophisticated and the capacity of a simple irrigation system is very low. But now switch to hydraulics, closed tubes, pumps. Apply such a leap forward, in a single generation, on what a human brain can do. Point - as soon as you can upload a mind into a synthetic medium you elevate the substrate from a simplistic biologic network and there should be absolutely no restriction to upgrade, de-bug, apply new algorithms. That means - once we can upload we don't just break the mold of what it means to be human, we will instantaneously have the technology and capability to hurl "debugged" human minds into the far superhuman. All bold claims about these being fundamentally alien and unpredictable apply.
Many see this as a reason for enthusiasm and hope, but I have this urge to invoke Lovecraftian metaphors - these minds might unhinge those who are left behind with every actio
Posted by: grossesse | October 30, 2009 03:31 AM