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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/14869314

"I want to live forever in AI"

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[-] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 116 points 6 months ago

Even if it were possible to scan the contents of your brain and reproduce them in a digital form, there's no reason that scan would be anything more than bits of data on the digital system. You could have a database of your brain... but it wouldn't be conscious.

No one has any idea how to replicate the activity of the brain. As far as I know there aren't any practical proposals in this area. All we have are vague theories about what might be going on, and a limited grasp of neurochemistry. It will be a very long time before reproducing the functions of a conscious mind is anything more than fantasy.

[-] theoretiker@feddit.de 50 points 6 months ago

Counterpoint, from a complex systems perspective:

We don't fully know or are able toodel the details of neurochemistry, but we know some essential features which we can model, action potentials in spiking neuron models for example.

It's likely that the details don't actually matter much. Take traffic jams as an example. There is lots of details going on, driver psychology, the physical mechanics of the car etc. but you only need a handful of very rough parameters to reproduce traffic jams in a computer.

That's the thing with "emergent" phenomena, they are less complicated than the sum of their parts, which means you can achieve the same dynamics using other parts.

[-] tburkhol@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

Even if you ignore all the neuromodulatory chemistry, much of the interesting processing happens at sub-threshold depolarizations, depending on millisecond-scale coincidence detection from synapses distributed through an enormous, and slow-conducting dendritic network. The simple electrical signal transmission model, where an input neuron causes reliable spiking in an output neuron, comes from skeletal muscle, which served as the model for synaptic transmission for decades, just because it was a lot easier to study than actual inter-neural synapses.

But even that doesn't matter if we can't map the inter-neuronal connections, and so far that's only been done for the 300 neurons of the c elegans ganglia (i.e., not even a 'real' brain), after a decade of work. Nowhere close to mapping the neuroscientists' favorite model, aplysia, which only has 20,000 neurons. Maybe statistics will wash out some of those details by the time you get to humans 10^11 neuron systems, but considering how badly current network models are for predicting even simple behaviors, I'm going to say more details matter than we will discover any time soon.

[-] DrBob@lemmy.ca 14 points 6 months ago

Thanks fellow traveller for punching holes in computational stupidity. Everything you said is true but I also want to point out that the brain is an analog system so the information in a neuron is infinite relative to a digital system (cf: digitizing analog recordings). As I tell my students if you are looking for a binary event to start modeling, look to individual ions moving across the membrane.

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

As I tell my students if you are looking for a binary event to start modeling, look to individual ions moving across the membrane.

So it's not infinite and can be digitized. :)

But to be more serious, digitized analog recordings is a bad analogy because audio can be digitized and perfectly reproduced. Nyquist- Shannon theory means the output can be perfectly reproduced. It's not approximate. It's perfect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem

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[-] Yondoza@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 months ago

I heard a hypothesis that the first human made consciousness will be an AI algorithm designed to monitor and coordinate other AI algorithms which makes a lot of sense to me.

Our consciousness is just the monitoring system of all our bodies subsystems. It is most certainly an emergent phenomenon of the interaction and management of different functions competing or coordinating for resources within the body.

To me it seems very likely that the first human made consciousness will not be designed to be conscious. It also seems likely that we won't be aware of the first consciousnesses because we won't be looking for it. Consciousness won't be the goal of the development that makes it possible.

[-] Sombyr@lemmy.zip 22 points 6 months ago

We don't even know what consciousness is, let alone if it's technically "real" (as in physical in any way.) It's perfectly possible an uploaded brain would be just as conscious as a real brain because there was no physical thing making us conscious, and rather it was just a result of our ability to think at all.
Similarly, I've heard people argue a machine couldn't feel emotions because it doesn't have the physical parts of the brain that allow that, so it could only ever simulate them. That argument has the same hole in that we don't actually know that we need those to feel emotions, or if the final result is all that matters. If we replaced the whole "this happens, release this hormone to cause these changes in behavior and physical function" with a simple statement that said "this happened, change behavior and function," maybe there isn't really enough of a difference to call one simulated and the other real. Just different ways of achieving the same result.

My point is, we treat all these things, consciousness, emotions, etc, like they're special things that can't be replicated, but we have no evidence to suggest this. It's basically the scientific equivalent of mysticism, like the insistence that free will must exist even though all evidence points to the contrary.

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 months ago

Also, some of what happens in the brain is just storytelling. Like, when the doctor hits your patellar tendon, just under your knee, with a reflex hammer. Your knee jerks, but the signals telling it to do that don't even make it to the brain. Instead the signal gets to your spinal cord and it "instructs" your knee muscles.

But, they've studied similar things and have found out that in many cases where the brain isn't involved in making a decision, the brain does make up a story that explains why you did something, to make it seem like it was a decision, not merely a reaction to stimulus.

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[-] nnullzz@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

Consciousness might not even be “attached” to the brain. We think with our brains but being conscious could be a separate function or even non-local.

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

I read that and the summary is, "Here are current physical models that don't explain everything. Therefore, because science doesn't have an answer it could be magic."

We know consciousness is attached to the brain because physical changes in the brain cause changes in consciousness. Physical damage can cause complete personality changes. We also have a complete spectrum of observed consciousness from the flatworm with 300 neurons, to the chimpanzee with 28 billion. Chimps have emotions, self reflection and everything but full language. We can step backwards from chimps to simpler animals and it's a continuous spectrum of consciousness. There isn't a hard divide, it's only less. Humans aren't magical.

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[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

I think we're going to learn how to mimic a transfer of consciousness before we learn how to actually do one. Basically we'll figure out how to boot up a new brain with all of your memories intact. But that's not actually a transfer, that's a clone. How many millions of people will we murder before we find out the Zombie Zuckerberg Corp was lying about it being a transfer?

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[-] DivineDev@kbin.run 86 points 6 months ago

Consciousness and conscience are not the same thing, this naming is horrible

[-] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 51 points 6 months ago

This just makes it more realistic

[-] Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 months ago

Hey, just be glad I changed it from asdf_test_3, okay?

[-] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 56 points 6 months ago

If anyone's interested in a hard sci-fi show about uploading consciousness they should watch the animated series Pantheon. Not only does the technology feel realistic, but the way it's created and used by big tech companies is uncomfortably real.

The show got kinda screwed over on advertising and fell to obscurity because of streaming service fuck ups and region locking, and I can't help but wonder if it's at least partially because of its harsh criticisms of the tech industry.

[-] GnomeKat 11 points 6 months ago

Just FYI content warning for Pantheon there is a seriously disturbing gore/kill scene that is animated too well in the first season. Anyone who has seen the show knows what scene I am talking about, I found the scene pretty upsetting and I almost didn't finish the show. I am still a little upset that the scene is burned in my memory.

[-] khannie@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Sounds good. Did it come to a conclusion or get axed mid way?

[-] AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

The series has a very satisfying conclusion.

It's one of the coolest fucking things we watched this last year.

[-] khannie@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago
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[-] threedc@lemmy.ml 53 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

The game SOMA represents this case the best. Highly recommended!

[-] Wolfwood1@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

Yes, I immediately thought about SOMA after reading the post. recommendations++

[-] MintyAnt@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Soma is so fucking bleak and I love it

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[-] stage_owl@pawb.social 48 points 6 months ago

Soma is a wonderful game that covers this type of thing. It does make you wonder what consciousness really is... Maybe the ability to perceive and store information, along with retrieving that information, is enough to provide an illusion of consistent self?

Or maybe it's some competely strange system, unkown to science. Who knows?

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[-] pro_grammer@programming.dev 42 points 6 months ago

The comic sans makes this even deeper

[-] fidodo@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago

Who the fuck uses comic sans for programming? I use comic mono.

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[-] wallmenis@lemmy.one 36 points 6 months ago

What if you do it in a ship of theseus type of way. Like, swapping each part of the brain with an electronic one slowly until there is no brain left.

Wonder if that will work.

[-] MBM@lemmings.world 27 points 6 months ago

If I remember right, the game The Talos Principle calls that the Talos principle

[-] Schmoo@slrpnk.net 13 points 6 months ago

The tv show Pantheon figures it will work, but it will be very disturbing.

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[-] ChewTiger@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

Right? Like what if as cells die or degrade instead of being replaced by the body naturally they are replaced by nanites/cybernetics/tech magic. If the process of fully converting took place over the course of 10 years, then I don't see how the subject would even notice.

It's an interesting thing to ponder.

[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago
throws UserNotPaidException
[-] vox@sopuli.xyz 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

would've made more sense if it was rust

(or is the copy intential here?)

[-] SrTobi@feddit.de 15 points 6 months ago

Plottwist: consciousness is : Copy

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[-] RustyNova@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago
#[derive(Clone, Copy)]
struct Consciousness {...}

fn upload_brain(brain: Consciousness) -> Result<(), Error>
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[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

A copy is fine. I can still seek vengeance on my enemies from beyond the grave.

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[-] Malix@sopuli.xyz 13 points 6 months ago

the plot of

spoilerSOMA
in a nutshell?

[-] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago

There's a cool computer game that makes this point as part of the story line... I'd recommend it, but I can't recommend it in this context without it being a spoiler!

[-] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Guys probably talking about

Tap for spoilerSOMA

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[-] python@programming.dev 11 points 6 months ago

Related book recommendation!!

Kil'n People by David Brin - it's a futuristic Murder Mystery Novel about a society where people copy their consciousnesses to temporary clay clones to do mundane tasks for them. Got some really interesting discussions about what constitutes personhood!

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[-] YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago

I've had this thought and felt it was so profound I should write a short story about it. Now I see this meme and I feel dumb.

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[-] UFODivebomb@programming.dev 9 points 6 months ago

That's why I'm going for brain in a jar.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

void teleport(Person person);

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this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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