> The limitation of biological life-form and the evolution of computing technology may lead to the transformation of the civilization through Mind uploading during the transition from Type I to Type II, leading to digitalized civilization).
Neal Stephenson's recent novel "Fall; Or Dodge in Hell" deals with humanity taking its first steps down this path in the near future.
What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind, or "you". And that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long, so it's not even a good idea for conservation.
> What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind, or "you".
Why? What makes you you? Maybe you are already being emulated, how would you know?
> And that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long
That can also be said of the passage of time. Every moment there are forks in the road, and whatever you are is constantly diverging from what you were -- otherwise nothing would be happening to you.
> What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind
>> Why? What makes you you?
> My history until now.
?
> that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long, so it's not even a good idea for conservation.
>> Maybe you are already being emulated, how would you know?
No, you don't understand that the "you" that is the sum of your experience and history, and the "you" of a clone are different you's. If you die and clone lives on, you won't wake up the next day in the body of the clone, your history has come to an end. Your copy is only like you, but not you.
It doesn't matter if you're emulated, because the same would happen to the emulation, a fork of a emulation won't mean that the emulation would wake up in the body of the fork.
> No, you don't understand that the "you" that is the sum of your experience and history, and the "you" of a clone are different you's.
In what sense are they different? Consider that the molecules that make up a person's body are completely replaced over the course of n years. One decade ago you were a different chunk of matter, but the same person.
> Your copy is only like you, but not you.
Ok, let's assume you are right. The copy will still be 100% convinced that it is me. How do I know this is not happening to me already, that I am not a "fake" already?
> It doesn't matter if you're emulated, because the same would happen to the emulation, a fork of a emulation won't mean that the emulation would wake up in the body of the fork.
Organisms wake up and feel whatever they feel. An organism with an exact copy of my memories and processes will be 100% convinced that it is "me". This could already be happening to me, how could I tell? I am just repeating trivial arguments from an ongoing philosophical discussion that has been going on for millennia.
You propose to solve this discussion with authoritative proclamations, but I would rather read your arguments.
I've been thinking about this, and I believe with what we know today about neuroplasticity, if you take a multiple-year approach to "uploading" at the end of your biological life, assuming one is able to couple digital and biological neurons transparently enough, there is no reason to believe that the brain wouldn't shift all parts over to the digital as the biological went down.
This would definitely be "you". I think the main question is whether we will achieve a sufficiently transparent digital neuron anytime in the next few centuries, and whether your personality would change during the "upload".
A more scary thought is, what if we develop human-to-human transfer capabilities long before we develop digital neurons? Then I think it os inevitable that people in power will purchase young humans and transfer to those at the end of their life. Maybe this will be some dystopian nightmare. Or maybe it will turn out to be the ultimate version of marriage, if the two "selves" remain distinct in the merged brain.
“Then I think it os inevitable that people in power will purchase young humans and transfer to those at the end of their life. Maybe this will be some dystopian nightmare”
Depending on how you see it, that already happens by having “a son who will continue my deed”. People give a birth to people, pass down genes, knowledge, viewpoints, behavioral patterns.
What you mean is probably that ‘self-aware thing’ that could teleport to a new body. But in fact there is no teleportation, since there is no evidence of such ‘thing’. You could make a fresh copy of your body (or a machine) and maybe copy your brain contents to it, but you will not see from these new eyes. Someone completely un-different will do. Because no soul; sensory gaps define borders between us, your original eyes are still in place and your sad brain is still there. Your copy will be happy that they are alive for yet another century, but it is no different than when someone very similar is already young and happy while you’re slowly decaying. Why not just tell them all your stories and fade out then?
That brings us into the situation where dystopian nightmare already exists (it ain’t me, it ain’t meee) and you’re doomed to live in your body no matter what till the death.
No, what I am proposing is that if done carefully, gradually, strengthening the link over a timespan of several years, it would be possible to actually see from these new eyes. The mind would gradually expand into the other brain.
maybe a closer reality is doing this temporarily via TCMS. scan one brain, and impose the neural pattern on a target brain. the beauty is that its temporary. you could plug into someone else, and for a moment experience what they are experiencing, even through their eyes
Everyone here seems to be missing his point. He is talking about transferring over the thing that is "you" in a continuous fashion, over time, into another host. "continuous" is the key here, as in the "self-aware thing" that is you will not have a disruption in his aware conscious experience. No disruption in history.
>if you take a multiple-year approach to "uploading" at the end of your biological life, assuming one is able to couple digital and biological neurons transparently enough, there is no reason to believe that the brain wouldn't shift all parts over to the digital as the biological went down.
I think this is still making a copy, just gradually. The original died and the copy replaced it. How about we just make a full copy and euthanize the original? The copy for all intents and purposes is now the original. You won't live forever, but your copy will, and it'll enjoy it as much as if it was you.
Our biological you also forks now, I wonder how far down you go before you are not the old you anymore here either. Depending on your viewpoint it could be seconds or minutes or decades.
Quite honestly, this is as good as any. I'd read the earlier version (Energy and History) previously. His materials book, Making the Modern World, is also an eye-opener.
He covers energy transitions, fertilisers, China, and much else.
All else equal, a species would rather have a smaller global population when starting to use fossil fuels. There's only so much capacity for use of fossil fuels, and more people means less per-capita.
Before we used fossil fuels, 100% of economic growth was funneled into population growth. That trend was only bucked with the industrial revolution with its associated fossil fuel use.
You may be on to something, but what would "ready for it" have looked like? Are we talking technical, or social progress? Because social progress would appear to depend at least in part on technical progress (for example, automation making slavery obsolete), and technical progress depends on... abundant energy.
Would we have had the energy for WW1/2 without fossil fuels? I don’t think so. They were at least in part due to pressures for countries to grow into other countries territories. Without oil, population growth wouldn’t have brought the world to that point so quickly. We also wouldn’t have had airplanes nor jets. That probably would mean the atomic bomb would be developed after nuclear power plants-avoiding a century of associating nuclear power with nuclear bombs.
The difference between each point on the Kardashev scale is about 10 orders of magnitude. The observed variation of well-being per unit of energy is so vanishingly small in comparison that I don’t even need to work it out, because it’s like comparing one subsistence farmer with only their own labour — no tractors or horses — to the entire primary energy consumption of the industrialised United States of America today.
> The limitation of biological life-form and the evolution of computing technology may lead to the transformation of the civilization through Mind uploading during the transition from Type I to Type II, leading to digitalized civilization).
Neal Stephenson's recent novel "Fall; Or Dodge in Hell" deals with humanity taking its first steps down this path in the near future.
What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind, or "you". And that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long, so it's not even a good idea for conservation.
> What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind, or "you".
Why? What makes you you? Maybe you are already being emulated, how would you know?
> And that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long
That can also be said of the passage of time. Every moment there are forks in the road, and whatever you are is constantly diverging from what you were -- otherwise nothing would be happening to you.
>Why? What makes you you?
My history until now.
>Maybe you are already being emulated, how would you know?
It doesn't matter.
> What's uploaded can maximally be a fork of your mind, not your actual mind
>> Why? What makes you you?
> My history until now.
?
> that fork starts to diverge within that new environment as it adapts to it, and won't recognizable for long, so it's not even a good idea for conservation.
>> Maybe you are already being emulated, how would you know?
> It doesn't matter.
?
You seem to be arguing against yourself.
>You seem to be arguing against yourself.
No, you don't understand that the "you" that is the sum of your experience and history, and the "you" of a clone are different you's. If you die and clone lives on, you won't wake up the next day in the body of the clone, your history has come to an end. Your copy is only like you, but not you.
It doesn't matter if you're emulated, because the same would happen to the emulation, a fork of a emulation won't mean that the emulation would wake up in the body of the fork.
> No, you don't understand that the "you" that is the sum of your experience and history, and the "you" of a clone are different you's.
In what sense are they different? Consider that the molecules that make up a person's body are completely replaced over the course of n years. One decade ago you were a different chunk of matter, but the same person.
> Your copy is only like you, but not you.
Ok, let's assume you are right. The copy will still be 100% convinced that it is me. How do I know this is not happening to me already, that I am not a "fake" already?
> It doesn't matter if you're emulated, because the same would happen to the emulation, a fork of a emulation won't mean that the emulation would wake up in the body of the fork.
Organisms wake up and feel whatever they feel. An organism with an exact copy of my memories and processes will be 100% convinced that it is "me". This could already be happening to me, how could I tell? I am just repeating trivial arguments from an ongoing philosophical discussion that has been going on for millennia.
You propose to solve this discussion with authoritative proclamations, but I would rather read your arguments.
> not your actual mind, or "you"
Without spoilers, this is pretty much how his story explains it.
Yet, many people choose to be simulated toward the end of their natural life span (scanning is destructive) despite this knowledge.
Most consider it as a better option than simply being completely dead.
I've been thinking about this, and I believe with what we know today about neuroplasticity, if you take a multiple-year approach to "uploading" at the end of your biological life, assuming one is able to couple digital and biological neurons transparently enough, there is no reason to believe that the brain wouldn't shift all parts over to the digital as the biological went down.
This would definitely be "you". I think the main question is whether we will achieve a sufficiently transparent digital neuron anytime in the next few centuries, and whether your personality would change during the "upload".
A more scary thought is, what if we develop human-to-human transfer capabilities long before we develop digital neurons? Then I think it os inevitable that people in power will purchase young humans and transfer to those at the end of their life. Maybe this will be some dystopian nightmare. Or maybe it will turn out to be the ultimate version of marriage, if the two "selves" remain distinct in the merged brain.
Hm, the ultimate marriage is not that IMHO. It's some kind of horror movie version of marriage.
“Then I think it os inevitable that people in power will purchase young humans and transfer to those at the end of their life. Maybe this will be some dystopian nightmare”
Depending on how you see it, that already happens by having “a son who will continue my deed”. People give a birth to people, pass down genes, knowledge, viewpoints, behavioral patterns.
What you mean is probably that ‘self-aware thing’ that could teleport to a new body. But in fact there is no teleportation, since there is no evidence of such ‘thing’. You could make a fresh copy of your body (or a machine) and maybe copy your brain contents to it, but you will not see from these new eyes. Someone completely un-different will do. Because no soul; sensory gaps define borders between us, your original eyes are still in place and your sad brain is still there. Your copy will be happy that they are alive for yet another century, but it is no different than when someone very similar is already young and happy while you’re slowly decaying. Why not just tell them all your stories and fade out then?
That brings us into the situation where dystopian nightmare already exists (it ain’t me, it ain’t meee) and you’re doomed to live in your body no matter what till the death.
> but you will not see from these new eyes
No, what I am proposing is that if done carefully, gradually, strengthening the link over a timespan of several years, it would be possible to actually see from these new eyes. The mind would gradually expand into the other brain.
maybe a closer reality is doing this temporarily via TCMS. scan one brain, and impose the neural pattern on a target brain. the beauty is that its temporary. you could plug into someone else, and for a moment experience what they are experiencing, even through their eyes
Everyone here seems to be missing his point. He is talking about transferring over the thing that is "you" in a continuous fashion, over time, into another host. "continuous" is the key here, as in the "self-aware thing" that is you will not have a disruption in his aware conscious experience. No disruption in history.
The hybrid brain approach sounds interesting.
>if you take a multiple-year approach to "uploading" at the end of your biological life, assuming one is able to couple digital and biological neurons transparently enough, there is no reason to believe that the brain wouldn't shift all parts over to the digital as the biological went down.
I think this is still making a copy, just gradually. The original died and the copy replaced it. How about we just make a full copy and euthanize the original? The copy for all intents and purposes is now the original. You won't live forever, but your copy will, and it'll enjoy it as much as if it was you.
Our biological you also forks now, I wonder how far down you go before you are not the old you anymore here either. Depending on your viewpoint it could be seconds or minutes or decades.
That's development and evolution (mutation), not a fork. A fork implies a 1:1 copy, an instance.
That is way too strong a claim to make given that we’re still utterly confused about the hard problem of consciousness.
https://wondermark.com/c1485/
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=AC470ED016B9B9214C6...
Smil's Energy and Civilization is indeed excellent.
I've been meaning to look at his work, but I'm not sure where to start? Any books to avoid/prioritize?
Quite honestly, this is as good as any. I'd read the earlier version (Energy and History) previously. His materials book, Making the Modern World, is also an eye-opener.
He covers energy transitions, fertilisers, China, and much else.
Oh, and apparently just published:
https://www.worldcat.org/title/growth-from-microorganisms-to...
I think fossil fuels moved us too far up on the energy usage scale before we were ready for it.
Perhaps virtue is the biggest problem in the world today.
All else equal, a species would rather have a smaller global population when starting to use fossil fuels. There's only so much capacity for use of fossil fuels, and more people means less per-capita.
Before we used fossil fuels, 100% of economic growth was funneled into population growth. That trend was only bucked with the industrial revolution with its associated fossil fuel use.
You may be on to something, but what would "ready for it" have looked like? Are we talking technical, or social progress? Because social progress would appear to depend at least in part on technical progress (for example, automation making slavery obsolete), and technical progress depends on... abundant energy.
Would we have had the energy for WW1/2 without fossil fuels? I don’t think so. They were at least in part due to pressures for countries to grow into other countries territories. Without oil, population growth wouldn’t have brought the world to that point so quickly. We also wouldn’t have had airplanes nor jets. That probably would mean the atomic bomb would be developed after nuclear power plants-avoiding a century of associating nuclear power with nuclear bombs.
Kind of a neat thought experiment.
A more accurate measure would be the average amount of wellbeing a civilization extracts from its consumed units of energy.
The difference between each point on the Kardashev scale is about 10 orders of magnitude. The observed variation of well-being per unit of energy is so vanishingly small in comparison that I don’t even need to work it out, because it’s like comparing one subsistence farmer with only their own labour — no tractors or horses — to the entire primary energy consumption of the industrialised United States of America today.
2500 kcal/day vs. 3.18 TW