Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Ahhh' date=' yeah. The narrator/character most probably meant to insinuate that, but I didn't take that from the cartoon as a whole.[/quote']

Then both duplicates embraced the idea. So were they lying then or was he lying before?

 

Doesn't matter. The scientist has been caught lying about his work, his integrity is impeached, and everything he's ever done suspect.

 

Straw

 

Man

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

People who are anesthetized lose continuity of consciousness. Yet we do not regard that as death - I've been anesthetized, and both I and society as large regard me as the same person, before and after. The same is true for millions of people. Arguably we lose continuity of consciousness when asleep, and everyone does that. A person who was anesthetized and woke to find their brain had been replaced by silicon would doubtless have the same reaction: that they were the same person - as long as their memory was intact. I think what you really mean is "continuity of memory" ... and if we postulate that cybernetic brains are possible, then continuity of memory would also be possible.

 

So that issue turns out to be a non-issue, unless, as noted there's something special about a meat brain ... in which case you are saying that continuity of consciousness or continuity of memory aren't important, and that it's the meat that counts.*

 

The issue of duplicates is an interesting one, but it's legal rather than philosophical. Two identical copies of the same person would be (absent drastic alterations in the current law and in our current understanding) two individuals. Two identical individuals, yes, but still two individuals. Each would meet the current guidelines for humane treatment, legal standing as a person etc. Currently, monozygotic twins, when born, are clones. Yet legally and philosophically we regard them as individuals. Siamese twins are born sharing the same body (and occasionally the same brain tissue) but they also are regarded as seperate persons. The origin of the person doesn't change that. None of those real life cases challenges our current legal or philosophical status quo.

 

In a case where a person was cloned off another, then you could still identify an original and a copy, but so what? That doesn't make the copy - in our current understanding - any less sentient, any less of a person, etc. Once that copy is made, they will immediately start to diverge and be two different - but still very closely related - persons.

 

The interesting questions are legal. If you make a copy, who gets your stuff? Should there be new laws, so that you can't make a copy without a legal requirement to provide for them? Can we - should we - legally redefine personhood, so that a copy actually isn't a person? I doubt that would fly, but it's a possibility.

 

Cheers, Mark

 

*There are precedents for this: a brain-dead human is no longer legally a person, but many friends and family continue to regard them as the same person. A person who suffers traumatic brain injury may have neither continuity of consciousness or continuity of memory, and they may even have greatly altered personality, but legally and socially, they are considered the "same person". The truth is, there is no current clear definition of what constitutes a person or "the same person".

 

I don't view sleep as "death", in much the same way one's hard drive is not altered when you put it's computer into sleep/hibernate mode.

 

The bit about twins doesn't take into account their differing experiences/memories and, likely, personalities.

 

You typed a great deal of intriguing ideas that i'll have to get around to reading (and possibly reply to) later. Thanks for taking the time to inject life into this topic!

 

Then both duplicates embraced the idea. So were they lying then or was he lying before?

 

But was it really lying, or desperation (survival instinct) coupled with breaking of one's self-delusion? It looks like we both interpreted fairly different things from the same source.

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

What does "mere" mean in this context if it does not mean imperfect?

The entire "delayed clone destruction" experiment was based on the theory that the copy is inferior/the copy process is not flawless.

In fact the narator even argued that the Scientist was not the developer of the machine, because he used it multiple times and thus was meerly the "copy, of a copy, of a copy of the scientist who build it" (the part around where the car's engine compartment is used as copier).

 

I don't view sleep as "death"' date=' in much the same way one's hard drive is not altered when you put it's computer into sleep/hibernate mode.[/quote']

Sleep is most likely just a side effect of how the brain stores Information. Something akin to a memory defragmentation or similar maintenance task on this medium.

The same way anestisation does no cut's out the personality. The brain does not stops to process anything (it's as far from that as during sleep), it's output meerly is lowered so far it can't run the process "self" for a while. Other processes still run as far as possible (Brain Dead means there is NO Brain activity, not to be mistaken for Persistent vegetative state)

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

But was it really lying' date=' or desperation (survival instinct) coupled with breaking of one's self-delusion? It looks like we both interpreted fairly different things from the same source.[/quote']

Kindest interpretation I can give it is the duplicates were lying out of desperation.

 

Your "breaking self-delusion" would mean that the duplicated scientist was delusional in not realizing all along he had a Bizarro machine making imperfect duplicates.

 

The entire "delayed clone destruction" experiment was based on the theory that the copy is inferior/the copy process is not flawless.

In fact the narator even argued that the Scientist was not the developer of the machine, because he used it multiple times and thus was meerly the "copy, of a copy, of a copy of the scientist who build it" (the part around where the car's engine compartment is used as copier).

Exactly. Which contradicts everything we were told before about the process creating perfect duplicates. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Exactly. Which contradicts everything we were told before about the process creating perfect duplicates. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Can we even make perfect copies? Would we even try to make a perfect copy? Or would something like 85% precision on average with 99% in the brain be the "best feasible effort" for us?

Sure would could theorethically aim for the 100% but this might be unfeasible - both from the machines complexeness, the energy demand and the time needed.

 

So I think we have to asume that any copy process will create a somewhat flawed/different copy.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Can we even make perfect copies? Would we even try to make a perfect copy? Or would something like 85% precision on average with 99% in the brain be the "best feasible effort" for us?

Sure would could theorethically aim for the 100% but this might be unfeasible - both from the machines complexeness, the energy demand and the time needed.

 

So I think we have to asume that any copy process will create a somewhat flawed/different copy.

Can digital files be copied with 100% accuracy? I believe they can, so I would reject the argument "we live in an imperfect world, there will always be some copying errors." If I am wrong, would someone please provide a cite?

 

Next question is what resolution do we have to scan to make a copy? Molecular scale? Probably can get pretty good accuracy. Atomic? Going to get into some uncertainly* problems. Practical? I'm going to invoke Moore's law; if it can be done, it can be done a lot cheaper a decade later.

 

 

 

*Professor Heisenberg was every bit the stereotype of the absent minded professor. One day while driving, he began thinking about the principle that bears his name, and not paying attention to the traffic laws. His contemplation was interrupted by lights and a siren behind him, and he pulled over to the shoulder of the road.

 

"Do you know" asked the policeman, "How fast you were going?"

 

The professor looked around and replied

 

 

"No, but I know exactly where I am!"

 

:D

 

One of my favorites on the rare occasion I have an audience that will get it!

 

 

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Can digital files be copied with 100% accuracy? I believe they can' date='[/quote']

This is not a matter of believe. We can't be copy a file with 100% accuracy, 100% of the time. Maybe 99,999999999% of the times. A simple file transfer has in fact a dozen points where it could go wrong. Luckily there is a lot of redundancy and integrity check done, but no process in the IT can ever be flawless. The rules of entrophy and quantum physics do not allow it.

 

Also a digital file is digital by nature. The universe is not, it is a mass of analog signals (light, energy). The only thing with absolute precision is a analogous signal (you just need a conductor with physically impropable characteristics to transmit it without error).

Even if you manage to transmit the analogous singal without any error, every process to transform a analogous signal into a digital sequence is flawed by definition. Analog Signals can be sampeled (this is it what we do with color and sound). It can be very precisely sampeled. But it is still only a sample.

For telephones, music and image information the differences can be held in an margin "that the unaided brain cannot discern any difference". But you can never digitize a anlog signal and restore it 100% ever again.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Can a soul be copied?

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Can a soul be copied?

Thought you wanted to stick with what we can prove?

 

Unknown. Does the soul exist? I have an opinion, but can't prove it. A Buddhist tradition that I do not have an opinion on is that a soul is not bound by time, and can incarnate in two (or presumably more) bodies at the same time.

 

So my answer would have to be mu.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I don't know how similar/different Buddhist beliefs are concerning the soul are compared to, say, Shintoism or Catholicism.

 

Thought you wanted to stick with what we can prove?

 

When dealing strictly with that we can observe (biological versus electronic), yes. However, I believe it's alright to wildly speculate on something not quite so strongly observable.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I don't know how similar/different Buddhist beliefs are concerning the soul are compared to' date=' say, Shintoism or Catholicism.[/quote']

Don't know that much about Shinto. Having been raised Catholic and converted to Buddhist, I would say the major differences are reincarnation and that Buddhism neither has nor sees the need for Grace. (With the exception of some minor sects.)

 

Oh, and sin is not a Buddhist concept, so no Original Sin.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This is a bit off-topic, but I figure it's okay to ask here: if you don't mind sharing, what spurred the conversion to Buddhism?

[Zeropoint]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but when a system of belief has "shit happens" as its first noble truth, and "question everything and only believe the stuff that makes sense" as one of its tenets, it gets some respect from me.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This is a bit off-topic' date=' but I figure it's okay to ask here: if you don't mind sharing, what spurred the conversion to Buddhism?[/quote']

Don't mind sharing. It's really two questions, why I left Christianity and what led me to Buddhism. Long story, seven year pilgrimage in fact. Believe is on these boards somewhere, I'll find the link when I'm more awake.

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Can a soul be copied?

What is the difinition of a Soul? Will it be altered when you replace parts of your body with artificial things?

When transporting via copy process: Will the death of the original send his soul to the afterlife? Will the copy get a new soul directly, or time or will it become soulless thing?

 

I can't speak for anyone else' date=' but when a system of belief has "shit happens" as its first noble truth, and "question everything and only believe the stuff that makes sense" as one of its tenets, it gets some respect from me.[/quote']

Budhism has one advantage: There is no fear of going to hell. All other say: Follow us, or go to hell. Afaik budhism says: When you want you can follow us, if not you get reincarnated.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This is not a matter of believe. We can't be copy a file with 100% accuracy, 100% of the time. Maybe 99,999999999% of the times. A simple file transfer has in fact a dozen points where it could go wrong. Luckily there is a lot of redundancy and integrity check done, but no process in the IT can ever be flawless. The rules of entrophy and quantum physics do not allow it.

 

Also a digital file is digital by nature. The universe is not, it is a mass of analog signals (light, energy). The only thing with absolute precision is a analogous signal (you just need a conductor with physically impropable characteristics to transmit it without error).

Even if you manage to transmit the analogous singal without any error, every process to transform a analogous signal into a digital sequence is flawed by definition. Analog Signals can be sampeled (this is it what we do with color and sound). It can be very precisely sampeled. But it is still only a sample.

For telephones, music and image information the differences can be held in an margin "that the unaided brain cannot discern any difference". But you can never digitize a anlog signal and restore it 100% ever again.

 

On the other hand, there is actually far less errors in a file transfer (even one done thousands of times, like most P2P) than accumulates in the human brain over the course of a day. Between cosmic radiation, cells dieing, various infections, things being shaken around by moving, temperature change, etc. the brain is not the static system we'd like to believe. And the chemical markers used to store information in the brain are discrete, not analog. One could argue that the transfer signals are discrete too, as all energy levels are (it just takes so much computing power to be precise with it that for the moment it is considered impractical to model it that way).

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Just so youn understand how weak the human perception is:

Even our eye, our main targetting and navigation sense, can be fooled by sampling a moving picture a mere 25 time/second.

For Audio the sample rate is defined by the highest Frequency that should still be understandable: the sample rate needs to be twice the Frequency. A mere 8,000 Hz is enough to capture enough parts of speech speech (0-4,000 hz) that we can understand it without effort (these Values are the ones for ISDN).

 

That is how unbeliveably lousy human perception is. It is now where near the precision we need on Storage Media, or Transfer. And Storage/Transfer precision is nowhere near what we need to disasemble and reasseble atoms.

To transport something living you also have to capture the energy of the bilogical processes. That is why Star Trek Personteleporters work on quantum level (and have "Heisenberg Compensators" to be able to obeserve both speed and postion of a quantum precisely enough).

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Budhism has one advantage: There is no fear of going to hell. All other say: Follow us' date=' or go to hell. Afaik budhism says: When you want you can follow us, if not you get reincarnated.[/quote']

I would put it more "When you are ready, you will remember the way."

 

Came across an interesting metaphor a while back, on the threshhold of Nirvana, the bodishivas are the ones who smile, hold the door, and gesture others through ahead of themselves. I like to think less in terms of leaders than pathfinders and guides.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Meh. If teleportation existed, i'd likely only use portal / space-folding type ones.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This is not a matter of believe. We can't be copy a file with 100% accuracy' date=' 100% of the time. [/quote']

So what I am hearing you say is that one perfect copy can exist, but an infinite number cannot. Not concerned here with "100% of the time," just with it happening once (even if a number of 99.999999999% accurate copies have to be discarded in the process). The existence of a single perfect copy establishes that a perfect copy is possible. "If it has been done, it can be done."

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This has been addressed previously, but: I don't want a copy of "me" to live forever, I want "me" to live forever. I want my present consciousness to continue as long as possible. A clone or copy of my consciousness is great, but essentially that's not "me", that's only "me" as far as others are concerned, but as far as "I" am concerned, it's not. If my present consciousness ends, then I'm dead, period. And assuming my family and friends were aware of that state of affairs, I think most of them would still think of me as dead. My wife and I lost our dog, Hazel, recently, to canine lymphoma. If biotech had been able to create an exact duplicate of her, including her memories and personality, that still wouldn't be Hazel as far as we were concerned. If you could transplant present consciousness from one form to another, then you'd have serial immortality. Otherwise you're just making copies, and the original is dead.

To put a non-spiritual definition on it, my "soul" is my present consciousness, and is unique to me. Even if you make an identical copy of my brain, including memories and personality, and fire that sucker up, that's still not me and doesn't contain my soul--it's a new soul.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This has been addressed previously, but: I don't want a copy of "me" to live forever, I want "me" to live forever. I want my present consciousness to continue as long as possible. A clone or copy of my consciousness is great, but essentially that's not "me", that's only "me" as far as others are concerned, but as far as "I" am concerned, it's not. If my present consciousness ends, then I'm dead, period. And assuming my family and friends were aware of that state of affairs, I think most of them would still think of me as dead. My wife and I lost our dog, Hazel, recently, to canine lymphoma. If biotech had been able to create an exact duplicate of her, including her memories and personality, that still wouldn't be Hazel as far as we were concerned. If you could transplant present consciousness from one form to another, then you'd have serial immortality. Otherwise you're just making copies, and the original is dead.

To put a non-spiritual definition on it, my "soul" is my present consciousness, and is unique to me. Even if you make an identical copy of my brain, including memories and personality, and fire that sucker up, that's still not me and doesn't contain my soul--it's a new soul.

In you opinion. And I understand it.

 

Do you understand I do not share it?

 

Condolences on the passing of Hazel.

 

Number Two Son feeds every feral cat in the neighborhood. One, Bushi, has been around for almost 30 years. Average life expectancy of an American shorthair is fifteen to eighteen years, considerably shorter if feral.

 

I've cremated her twice. Within a few months Number Two Son has informed me "Bushi's back."

 

The first time I walked out and saw the cat, in Bushi's customary place. I said "Morning, Bushi, would you like an ear rub?" She stood up, stretched, walked toward me, stood on her back legs with front paws (claws retracted) on my right thigh while I rubbed her ears. The cat my son had held as she died, and whose pyre I had lit.

 

Before that I believed in reincarnation. From that day i BELIEVED in reincarnation.

 

Don't understand what's so special about that spot (or more likely my son) that she has spent at least three lifetimes watching. Don't understand why she's a calico every time.

 

But do you understand I have no trouble accepting her as the same cat?

 

Can I prove it? Not by a long shot. Do I accept it with the same certainty despite lack of proof as I do that my mother loves me? I do.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This has been addressed previously, but: I don't want a copy of "me" to live forever, I want "me" to live forever. I want my present consciousness to continue as long as possible. A clone or copy of my consciousness is great, but essentially that's not "me", that's only "me" as far as others are concerned, but as far as "I" am concerned, it's not. If my present consciousness ends, then I'm dead, period. And assuming my family and friends were aware of that state of affairs, I think most of them would still think of me as dead. My wife and I lost our dog, Hazel, recently, to canine lymphoma. If biotech had been able to create an exact duplicate of her, including her memories and personality, that still wouldn't be Hazel as far as we were concerned. If you could transplant present consciousness from one form to another, then you'd have serial immortality. Otherwise you're just making copies, and the original is dead.

To put a non-spiritual definition on it, my "soul" is my present consciousness, and is unique to me. Even if you make an identical copy of my brain, including memories and personality, and fire that sucker up, that's still not me and doesn't contain my soul--it's a new soul.

 

I pretty much agree with you.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

In you opinion. And I understand it.

 

Do you understand I do not share it?

 

Condolences on the passing of Hazel.

 

Number Two Son feeds every feral cat in the neighborhood. One, Bushi, has been around for almost 30 years. Average life expectancy of an American shorthair is fifteen to eighteen years, considerably shorter if feral.

 

I've cremated her twice. Within a few months Number Two Son has informed me "Bushi's back."

 

The first time I walked out and saw the cat, in Bushi's customary place. I said "Morning, Bushi, would you like an ear rub?" She stood up, stretched, walked toward me, stood on her back legs with front paws (claws retracted) on my right thigh while I rubbed her ears. The cat my son had held as she died, and whose pyre I had lit.

 

Before that I believed in reincarnation. From that day i BELIEVED in reincarnation.

 

Don't understand what's so special about that spot (or more likely my son) that she has spent at least three lifetimes watching. Don't understand why she's a calico every time.

 

But do you understand I have no trouble accepting her as the same cat?

 

Can I prove it? Not by a long shot. Do I accept it with the same certainty despite lack of proof as I do that my mother loves me? I do.

 

Well, even if one accepts reincarnation, that does not necessarily mean one can direct the outcome--that copy of "me" may well still be a copy, with the present consciousness of the original "me" manifesting itself elsewhere. And one's friends and loved ones would still likely react to the copy as though it were someone new, if they had knowledge that the original "me" had passed beyond the veil, so to speak. There's a reason why we consider friends and family irreplaceable and precious--because we understand intuitively what uniqueness means. You can copy my dead brother's consciousness synapse for synapse and memory for memory--but if it's not his original continuing consciousness in there, it isn't him, not to me, or to any of my family.

[Markdoc]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I don't view sleep as "death"' date=' in much the same way one's hard drive is not altered when you put it's computer into sleep/hibernate mode.[/quote']

 

Oh, I'd agree - it was just to make the point that "continuity of consciousness" probably isn't the phrase we want. And the actual dividing line between life and death gets fuzzy once you start to think about it in detail: someone who goes into total cardiac arrest and has their brain shut down ... and that happened to me 6 weeks ago .... is technically speaking, dead. I got revived, luckily, so technically I'm not dead any more. What we define as "death" is that exact same process ... just not reversed. So really the only thing that really defines death is a shutdown that last long enough that it becomes irreversible.

 

cheers, Mark