Not necessarily less you. Why even replace? What about augment?
Add an extra “blank” artificial brain. Keep refining the design until the biological brain reports feeling an expanded memory capacity, or enhanced clarity of newly formed memories, or enhanced cognition. Let the old brain assimilate this new space in whatever as-yet poorly understood pattern and whatever rate comes naturally to it.
With the patient’s consent, reversibly switch off various functional units in the biological region of the brain and see if the function is reconstituted elsewhere in the synthetic region. If it is, this is evidence that the technique is working. If not, the technique may need to be refined. At some point the majority of the patient’s brain activity is happening in the synthetic regions. Temporarily induce unconsciousness in the biological part; during and after the biological part’s unconsciousness, interview the patient about what subjective changes they felt, if any.
An agreement of external measurements and the patient’s subjective assessment that continuity was preserved would be strong evidence to me that such a technique is a reliable means to migrate a consciousness from one substrate to another.
Migration should only be speeded up as a standard practice to the extent that it is justified by ample data from many different volunteers (or patients whose condition requires it) undergoing incrementally faster migrations measured as above.
As far as cryonics goes, the above necessarily requires actual revival before migration. The above approach rules out plastination and similar destructive techniques.
I agree with all this, except maybe the last bit. Once the process of migration is well understood and if it is possible to calculate the structure of the synthetic part from the structure of the biological part, this knowledge can be used to skip the training steps and build a synthetic brain from a frozen/plastinated one, provided the latter still contains enough structure.
Anyway, my original question was to scientism, who rejected anything like that because
Any account that involves a step where somebody has to create a description of the structure of your brain and then create a new brain (or simulation or device) from that, is death. The specifics of your biology do not enter into it.
It’s not clear to me whether scientism believes that the mind is a process that cannot take place on any substrate other than a brain, or whether he’s shares my and (I think) Mitchell Porter’s more cautious point of view that our consciousness can in principle exist somewhere other than a brain, but we don’t yet know enough about neuroscience to be confident about what properties such a system must have.
I, for one, would be sceptical of there being no substrate possible at all except the brain, because it’s a strong unsupported assertion on the same order as the (perhaps straw-man) patternist assertion that binary computers are an adequate substrate (or the stronger-still assertion that any computational substrate is adequate).
If I have understood scientism’s comments, they believe neither of the possibilities you list in your first paragraph.
I think they believe that whether or not a mind can take place on a non-brain substrate, our consciousness(es) cannot exist somewhere other than a brain, because they are currently instantiated in brains, and cannot be transferred (whether to another brain, or anything else).
This does not preclude some other mind coming to exist on a non-brain substrate.
Here is a thought experiment that might not be a thought experiment in the foreseeable future:
Grow some neurons in vitro and implant them in a patient. Over time, will that patient’s brain recruit those neurons?
If so, the more far-out experiment I earlier proposed becomes a matter of scaling up this experiment. I’d rather be on a more resilient substrate than neurons, but I’ll take what I can get.
I’m betting that the answer to this will be “yes”, following a similar line of reasoning that Drexler used to defend the plausibility of nanotech: the existence of birds implied the feasibility of aircraft; the existence of ribosomes implies the feasibility of nanotech… neurogenesis occurring during development and over the last few decades found to be possible in adulthood implies the feasibility of replacing damaged brains or augmenting healthy ones.
build a synthetic brain from a frozen/plastinated one
I’m unconvinced that cryostasis wll preserve the experience of continuity. Because of the thought experiment with the non-destructive copying of a terminal patient, I am convinced that plastination will fail to preserve it (I remain the unlucky copy, and in addition to that, dead).
My ideal scenario is one where I can undergo a gradual migration before I actually need to be preserved by either method.
You’ve been non-destructively scanned, and the scan was used to construct a brand new healthy you who does everything you would do, loves the people you love, etc. Well, that’s great for him, but you are still suffering from a fatal illness.
So your issue is that a copy of you is not you? And you would treat star trek-like transporter beams as murder? But you are OK with a gradual replacement of your brain, just not with a complete one? How fast would the parts need to be replaced to preserve this “experience of continuity”? Do drugs which knock you unconscious break continuity enough to be counted as making you into not-you?
Basically, what I am unclear on is whether your issue is continuity of experience or cloning.
So your issue is that a copy of you is not you? And you would treat star trek-like transporter beams as murder?
Nothing so melodramatic, but I wouldn’t use them. UNLESS they were in fact manipulating my wave function directly somehow causing my amplitude to increase in one place and decrease in another. Probably not what the screenplay writers had in mind, though.
But you are OK with a gradual replacement of your brain, just not with a complete one?
Maybe even a complete one eventually. If the vast majority of my cognition has migrated to the synthetic regions, it may not seem as much of a loss when parts of the biological brain break down and have to be replaced. Hard to speak on behalf of my future self with only what I know now. This is speculation.
How fast would the parts need to be replaced to preserve this “experience of continuity”?
This is an empirical question that could be answered if/when it becomes possible perform for real the thought experiment I described (the second one, with the blank brain being attached to the existing brain).
Basically, what I am unclear on is whether your issue is continuity of experience or cloning.
Continuity. I’m not opposed to non-destructive copies of me, but I don’t see them as inherently beneficial to me either.
Not necessarily less you. Why even replace? What about augment?
Add an extra “blank” artificial brain. Keep refining the design until the biological brain reports feeling an expanded memory capacity, or enhanced clarity of newly formed memories, or enhanced cognition. Let the old brain assimilate this new space in whatever as-yet poorly understood pattern and whatever rate comes naturally to it.
With the patient’s consent, reversibly switch off various functional units in the biological region of the brain and see if the function is reconstituted elsewhere in the synthetic region. If it is, this is evidence that the technique is working. If not, the technique may need to be refined. At some point the majority of the patient’s brain activity is happening in the synthetic regions. Temporarily induce unconsciousness in the biological part; during and after the biological part’s unconsciousness, interview the patient about what subjective changes they felt, if any.
An agreement of external measurements and the patient’s subjective assessment that continuity was preserved would be strong evidence to me that such a technique is a reliable means to migrate a consciousness from one substrate to another.
Migration should only be speeded up as a standard practice to the extent that it is justified by ample data from many different volunteers (or patients whose condition requires it) undergoing incrementally faster migrations measured as above.
As far as cryonics goes, the above necessarily requires actual revival before migration. The above approach rules out plastination and similar destructive techniques.
I agree with all this, except maybe the last bit. Once the process of migration is well understood and if it is possible to calculate the structure of the synthetic part from the structure of the biological part, this knowledge can be used to skip the training steps and build a synthetic brain from a frozen/plastinated one, provided the latter still contains enough structure.
Anyway, my original question was to scientism, who rejected anything like that because
It’s not clear to me whether scientism believes that the mind is a process that cannot take place on any substrate other than a brain, or whether he’s shares my and (I think) Mitchell Porter’s more cautious point of view that our consciousness can in principle exist somewhere other than a brain, but we don’t yet know enough about neuroscience to be confident about what properties such a system must have.
I, for one, would be sceptical of there being no substrate possible at all except the brain, because it’s a strong unsupported assertion on the same order as the (perhaps straw-man) patternist assertion that binary computers are an adequate substrate (or the stronger-still assertion that any computational substrate is adequate).
If I have understood scientism’s comments, they believe neither of the possibilities you list in your first paragraph.
I think they believe that whether or not a mind can take place on a non-brain substrate, our consciousness(es) cannot exist somewhere other than a brain, because they are currently instantiated in brains, and cannot be transferred (whether to another brain, or anything else).
This does not preclude some other mind coming to exist on a non-brain substrate.
Here is a thought experiment that might not be a thought experiment in the foreseeable future:
Grow some neurons in vitro and implant them in a patient. Over time, will that patient’s brain recruit those neurons?
If so, the more far-out experiment I earlier proposed becomes a matter of scaling up this experiment. I’d rather be on a more resilient substrate than neurons, but I’ll take what I can get.
I’m betting that the answer to this will be “yes”, following a similar line of reasoning that Drexler used to defend the plausibility of nanotech: the existence of birds implied the feasibility of aircraft; the existence of ribosomes implies the feasibility of nanotech… neurogenesis occurring during development and over the last few decades found to be possible in adulthood implies the feasibility of replacing damaged brains or augmenting healthy ones.
Yes, I agree with all of this.
I’m unconvinced that cryostasis wll preserve the experience of continuity. Because of the thought experiment with the non-destructive copying of a terminal patient, I am convinced that plastination will fail to preserve it (I remain the unlucky copy, and in addition to that, dead).
My ideal scenario is one where I can undergo a gradual migration before I actually need to be preserved by either method.
link?
http://lesswrong.com/lw/iul/looking_for_opinions_of_people_like_nick_bostrom/9x47
Ah, ok:
So your issue is that a copy of you is not you? And you would treat star trek-like transporter beams as murder? But you are OK with a gradual replacement of your brain, just not with a complete one? How fast would the parts need to be replaced to preserve this “experience of continuity”? Do drugs which knock you unconscious break continuity enough to be counted as making you into not-you?
Basically, what I am unclear on is whether your issue is continuity of experience or cloning.
Nothing so melodramatic, but I wouldn’t use them. UNLESS they were in fact manipulating my wave function directly somehow causing my amplitude to increase in one place and decrease in another. Probably not what the screenplay writers had in mind, though.
Maybe even a complete one eventually. If the vast majority of my cognition has migrated to the synthetic regions, it may not seem as much of a loss when parts of the biological brain break down and have to be replaced. Hard to speak on behalf of my future self with only what I know now. This is speculation.
This is an empirical question that could be answered if/when it becomes possible perform for real the thought experiment I described (the second one, with the blank brain being attached to the existing brain).
Continuity. I’m not opposed to non-destructive copies of me, but I don’t see them as inherently beneficial to me either.