Android: Would you mind being one?

[AlP]

I can sympathize with this view. When this issue bothers me I try to think, on the other hand, we have an entirely new body ever 6-7 years. There's not an atom in my body that was in my body 7 years ago. So is that old self gone, replaced piecemeal by someone who inherited the memories and personality of the old self? This is sometimes called the Washington's Ax problem (after the old joke about the museum that had washington's ax on display, except that due to its age they had to replace the handle and the bit).

This issue of self doesn't bother me =). I find it rather liberating to let it go.

But that still doesn't make me comfortable with being teleported or uploaded. I only have one consciousness at any given moment, even though we don't understand why or how. I don't have any way of knowing if it will be the last thing I ever see -- and that no one will know I died because a new me replaces the dead me. Even if it killed me, the teleportation would look successful.

Well this technology doesn't exist of course and we can only speculate about how it might work. My assumption is that it would involve making a copy of one's mind into an artificial body. I don't see why this would result in the death of the biological person. The issues seem that they would be more related to there being two people with (initially) the same mind. Lets say the person performed a crime before being cloned. After cloning, which should be held accountable? Say prior to cloning, the person owns some property. Afterwards, who is the owner?

[Ultima22689]

I can sympathize with this view. When this issue bothers me I try to think, on the other hand, we have an entirely new body ever 6-7 years. There's not an atom in my body that was in my body 7 years ago. So is that old self gone, replaced piecemeal by someone who inherited the memories and personality of the old self? This is sometimes called the Washington's Ax problem (after the old joke about the museum that had washington's ax on display, except that due to its age they had to replace the handle and the bit).

This issue of self doesn't bother me =). I find it rather liberating to let it go.

But that still doesn't make me comfortable with being teleported or uploaded. I only have one consciousness at any given moment, even though we don't understand why or how. I don't have any way of knowing if it will be the last thing I ever see -- and that no one will know I died because a new me replaces the dead me. Even if it killed me, the teleportation would look successful.

Well this technology doesn't exist of course and we can only speculate about how it might work. My assumption is that it would involve making a copy of one's mind into an artificial body. I don't see why this would result in the death of the biological person. The issues seem that they would be more related to there being two people with (initially) the same mind. Lets say the person performed a crime before being cloned. After cloning, which should be held accountable? Say prior to cloning, the person owns some property. Afterwards, who is the owner?

I think he was just using that as analogy, his point seemed to be that how do you know if by obtaining a new body that you aren't doing so and just uploading a copy of your mind into an artificial body and that there is no way to be sure which I think there would be. When you move a file on windows it doesn't delete that file and make a new one in the place you moved it to unless you manually do that yourself.

[AlP]

I think he was just using that as analogy, his point seemed to be that how do you know if by obtaining a new body that you aren't doing so and just uploading a copy of your mind into an artificial body and that there is no way to be sure which I think there would be. When you move a file on windows it doesn't delete that file and make a new one in the place you moved it to unless you manually do that yourself.

I'm not sure if this file moving analogy is quite right. You are correct that if you move a file in Windows within a single volume (hard drive or partition) it does not make a copy of the file and delete the original. But if you move a file from one volume to another, like from a hard drive to a USB stick, that's exactly what it does. It makes a copy and then deletes the original. I think the latter is closer to what transferring a mind into an android would entail. The android "brain" is like a second hard drive.

[Ultima22689]

I think he was just using that as analogy, his point seemed to be that how do you know if by obtaining a new body that you aren't doing so and just uploading a copy of your mind into an artificial body and that there is no way to be sure which I think there would be. When you move a file on windows it doesn't delete that file and make a new one in the place you moved it to unless you manually do that yourself.

I'm not sure if this file moving analogy is quite right. You are correct that if you move a file in Windows within a single volume (hard drive or partition) it does not make a copy of the file and delete the original. But if you move a file from one volume to another, like from a hard drive to a USB stick, that's exactly what it does. It makes a copy and then deletes the original. I think the latter is closer to what transferring a mind into an android would entail. The android "brain" is like a second hard drive.

Indeed, on older HDD you are right but from what I understand that is not the case with a solid state.

[AlP]

Indeed, on older HDD you are right but from what I understand that is not the case with a solid state.

It's exactly the same with solid state. I'm afraid I'm an expert on this. I'm a professional programmer. Sorry =).

[Loffler]

You guys still don't see what I'm asking.

If you don't "believe in the self," the why not just kill yourself now, content in the knowledge that there are other people and animals alive, and that's just the same as you being alive?

Whether I believe the self is an illusion or not, I've never successfully experienced the world from the point of view of another person or animal. This is the only consciousness I've got, illusory or not. I'm not passing it through a teleporter or transmitting it to a hard drive because there is no way of differentiating between the real me and a copy of me.

[AlP]

If you don't "believe in the self," the why not just kill yourself now, content in the knowledge that there are other people and animals alive, and that's just the same as you being alive?

Or why not not kill myself? Or indeed why do anything in particular? As an ex-nihilist, these questions defeated me. One morning on the bus to work I realized that this concept of self that I had was a denial of reality. I got off the bus and sat on the ground and just couldn't bring myself to do anything for about 20 minutes. What should I do if nothing has meaning or value and indeed even the concepts of meaning and value are paradoxically meaningless? It was at this point I accepted that I was human and humans have evolved to value certain things and find meaning in certain things. We're wrong of course but we have these illusions that permit us to survive. Self is another of these illusions. By understanding that, one does not necessarily cease to be human. I think most people would choose humanity over suicide, because they are human.

Whether I believe the self is an illusion or not, I've never successfully experienced the world from the point of view of another person or animal. This is the only consciousness I've got, illusory or not. I'm not passing it through a teleporter or transmitting it to a hard drive because there is no way of differentiating between the real me and a copy of me.

I'm not denying consciousness. That's real. It's part of how our minds work. But the experience of an entity beyond our physical bodies is illusory IMHO. It's just a useful concept. I understand your uneasiness. It's potentially dangerous to copy your mind into an android. But if I was very confident that at least one replica of my mind would persist, I don't see it as any different from the little death I die in every moment. The person writing this post will become something different. It's true being is one instant in a continuous process of change. And it will not survive the post =). But the future entity I become will look back through its memory and see a single unified entity. That's the illusion of self.

[Renegnicat]

Right you are, A|P. I have a firm grasp on Buddhist theology, if it could be called that, and so I understand very well what loffler is going through.

Loffler, you asked why we shouldn't kill ourselves if we don't really exist. Luckily, there's an answer: There's nothing to kill.

In other words, there is perception, but there is nothing that percieves. The best part about it is that perception doesn't die. Because everything that can be percieved doesn't die either. It's a very strange way of looking at the universe, but if you can wrap your mind around it, you'll find that the universe can be looked at as completely static and eternal as a whole, and phenomena within the universe as simply perceiving a portion of that static and eternal universe through constantly changing boundaries.

In fact, it's perfectly possible to achieve stasis. You can do this by expanding your consciousness to include everything that you observe at any one moment. To the outside observer, this might seem like being completely fluid and constantly changing, but I can personally attest that from the inside, you experience immortality.

Weird shit, huh?  

[AlP]

Did I accidentally become Buddhist? Honestly I know little about it. I think I'm some kind of existentialist. But what do I know? =)

[Renegnicat]

Well, you could say I embrace the existential side of buddhism. I don't go in for enlightenment or all that jazz.

But I will say that it would make a lot of sense, to me at least, if death were a kind of immortality. Life--is the placing of boundaries on the all of existence. What is death but the removal of the same?

[AlP]

I think I'm going to die. Whether or not we build android replacement bodies, this biological one is a going to be worm food =). Actually it'll be burned but I like the worm food metaphor.

[Loffler]

I think I'm going to die. Whether or not we build android replacement bodies, this biological one is a going to be worm food =). Actually it'll be burned but I like the worm food metaphor.

Then as was suggested by others earlier, the best policy might just be to upload several copies of yourself as soon as possible without disposing of the original (you). Just to cover the bases.

[AlP]

Then as was suggested by others earlier, the best policy might just be to upload several copies of yourself as soon as possible without disposing of the original (you). Just to cover the bases.

Agreed. However, even if the technology is invented, I don't think it will happen in my lifetime.

[Whitney]

how exactly would you transfer from an organic brain to an artificial brain?

Will posted a link to a story a while back called "Learning to be Me" (full text here:  http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.a ... order.html ).  I think it relates to this question/topic.

While I think it would be cool to be able to live until I was ready to die; not sure that forever sounds that great though eventually you'd see everything there is to see and done everything there is to do to the point that everything is boring.

I also don't think it would be very practical to have immortal humans who can also reproduce...where would they all live?  It wouldn't be very practical to make immortal humans who could not reproduce because then if something did kill a lot of them; there would be no way to repopulate.  So, I really don't see how this could work.

Assuming any of this is possible...and it probably is since we already do put artificial parts in humans...we'll just be faced with another situation where the super rich get to be the ones that get the cool technology while the rest of us are ignored.  At least now we can know the overly powerful dictators will eventually die; leaving the possibility for their replacement by someone more kind.

[Renegnicat]

Development in access to technology may be uneven, but there's never been a situation where something that only the rich had didn't eventually be able to be accessed by the poor. Sure the division's still there, but the poor people will get a higher standard of living too. Just not as high as the rich. But eventually, the poor will get that standard of living and the rich will get even higher. So I don't think it's all that bad.