Brain Replacement
If someone told me they were going to duplicate and replace my brain with a mechanical one (and dispose of the organic one), I would consider that death. However, if they could replace it incrementally and guarantee I was conscious the whole time, I don't consider that death, Does anyone else share this intuition?
Comments (60)
Doesn't something like this happen naturally? That is, cells die off all the time, but we still that we are the same at a moment to moment basis.
As for your intuition, sure I share it too. At the same time we find it almost unnaturally easy to think of consciousness as something distinct from body, including intuitions about it belonging to the brain.
So while in seems intuitive to me, perhaps if such a thing could be done in real life I'm not sure if this intuition will remain.
The devil, of course, is in the details (YMMV), but I think that scenario, however speculative, is technologically plausible without violating any known 'laws of nature'. Other scenarios (N O T uploading / scanning , etc) occur to me as well but they are just variations on this 4-step phenomenal self-continuity transfer / extension process. Given the nearly intractable complexity involved, we'll probably have to wait for the advent of Strong AI system or structured networks of Weak AIs (e.g. AlphaGo Series-like neural nets) to implement and perfect such a technology. Furthermore ...
Thoughts?
edit: Previously elaborated on further here.
I agree, so what happens when that continuity is broken by periods of non-consciousness? Death and rebirth?
Speaking as someone who has had the experience of general anesthesia during a surgical procedure, I would say that there are times in life when consciousness is greatly overrated. What if the replacement procedure is painful? Don't you want them to use medical technology to make you comfortable? Would you feel this way if they needed to repair your spleen?
What do you make of the fact that every cell in your body (except your brain cells) regenerates periodically, a few days for some cells and months or years for other? Of course this medical factoid supports your point, since your brain cells don't regenerate when they're gone. But the rest of you does. You are literally not the body you were yesterday and you're getting a partially new one tomorrow.
Another thing, our "being" isn't static; it is intimately involved in our environment. If the replacement brain wasn't able to experience real-time immersion in the environment, "you" or your former brain-system would not be the same.
As I point out, there's more than a half-century of data on the adverse outcomes with respect to cognitive functions on hemispherectomy patients. The plasticity of the brain is robust enough that a person with half an intact brain remains in every discernible cognitive way herself as she was with a whole brain (except for the localized epileptic pathology which the surgery had removed). The rest of your concerns, Tom, belong to those devilish details which mere speculation on this principle cannot address.
No reason to think anything different happens than when the organic human brain loses consciousness; it operates, especially its higher functions (neocortex and, perhaps, some aspects of the cortex), exactly as the organic hemisphere had functioned. The only difference in the end is cognitive substrates, one biological and the other not biological. As for "death" and "rebirth", a synthetic system doesn't die, therefore being reborn doesn't obtain (even if there were such a thing). Step 4 of the phenomenal self-continuity transfer / extension does not imply that the synthetic hemisphere ceases to function when the organic hemisphere dies; I imagine it's like waking up but in a "locked-in" lucidly dreaming coma that will continue on – perhaps without a sense of psychological duration like being in a perfect sensory deprivation tank – until the synthetic hemi-brain is made to interface with an adequate computational system (A / B in my previous post).
Of course... Replace one half of the brain by a synthetic. Dream along...
Are you asking this for purely philosophical inquiry, or for medical science and the public?
It always puzzles me whenever an attempt is made to transplant a head. Recently, they had transplanted mice heads. It lived for a day. But there's also a procedure done on monkey decades ago. The monkey survived for hours.
My question is, what is it that transplanting a new head to a person warrants the resources and difficulty and succeeding medical care for this person to make it worth it to transplant a head? It's not like humans are rare. Or one person is so unique that there's never gonna be another one like him to walk this earth.
I'd like to know the practical use of this. We know that face transplant had been done -- but note that these people who had undergone face transplant had a compelling reason: their faces were destroyed by their pets or some other entity, but they're pretty much alive and well. They could go on with their life after the face transplant.
But head transplant is another matter. If your injury is so horrific that your head was decapitated during the incident, the head transplant procedure would take too long to benefit you and success rate is worst than getting hit by a lightning 3 times.
First, where are they going to get the new head? Decapitate another healthy human being? It's not like we have a storage of fresh heads in the refrigerator ready to be transplanted in case one of us got hit by a scythe in one swoop making a clean, surgical cut -- and mind you, you can't use a scythe against your head, another person must perform the decapitation because it has a long handle and a long blade.
So then, say you are now decapitated and needed to be transported to a hospital -- you'd think the nearest hospital would do? No! It has to be a facility that performs regular head transplant. Ask where in the entire world this hospital is located? Nowhere. We do not have a facility that performs head transplant on a regular basis. It's not a cancer hospital.
Quoting 180 Proof
I fall asleep and my personal identity survives, even if I've been unconscious indefinitely. A full replacement with a mechanical brain that was somehow loaded up with all the memories would be no different in principle than just waking from anesthesia. In practice, while I have no problems with the mechanical thinker being conscious, it just wouldn't feel the same. You'd have to rig it up to react to all the chemical changes and such, and not just be a bunch of digital circuits.
As for the OP:
Quoting RogueAILots of games to play here. Would you consider a star-trek style transporter to be death? The machine takes you apart down to the atom and rebuilds an identical one somewhere else. The memories are there, but is it you? What if it's a copy and they don't destroy the original. Is the new one you now?
Have you ever read the book, "Artificial You"? It was written by Susan Schneider, and released almost exactly a year ago. It's a thoughtful and timely examination of the exact approach to the same subject matter that your thread focuses on; incremental replacement(s) for the human brain. Quite interesting stuff, in my opinion.
Maybe they have already done this on you: you have no way to know it. Whatever you think of as evidence to deny it can be considered part of the way you were programmed. It is the old problem of Descartes, that he thought he solved, but he didn't realize that it is impossible to solve problems we are part of.
You should read Chalmers. He claims that if every neuron is replaced with a small computer which has neuron signals as input and outputs signals other neurons, like the real one, you'll be conserved up till the last neuron replaced. Can you believe he's serious?
David Chalmers
I know for sure this hasn't been done.
What's got that ship to do with it? There has to be a copy of you or me in the first place to compare. A copy can't be made. So no comparison can be made. You can imagine a copy, identical to the preon level, but then you just imagining yourself.
,...then you should tell them to think carefully about that again. They tell you a lie. Well, they're maybe not tell you a lie, as telling a fantasy when one is psychotic can't really be called a lie. I should ask them firstly what they have in mind.
There is no link in the OP, but correct me if I'm wrong.
You're very cryptic now. What riddle I must solve, in my humble humbleness, your highness? What did I numb out?
How do you know it?
Neurons can't be made in a lab. Let alone 100 billion of them, interconnected like lightning in intricate ways. In a living body. In a living world.
This can, in my respectful opinion be established in a new episode of the cosmological drama. Within the current episode, the particles being you, can never be you again.
Neurons can’t be made in the lab that you can imagine, but maybe they have been already made in the lab that was able to build your brain. It is the same way my laptop is unable to imagine the kind of intelligence that is in my brain, because I have built it in a way that makes impossible to my computer to imagine my intelligence.
So, the same proportion between the limited awareness on my laptop, built by me, and me, might exist between me and somebody who built me, endlessly. Who knows?
My laptop has no idea of the quality and level of my awareness. The same way I have no idea of higher level and quality of intelligence that might have built me.
What I am saying is different from Matrix, because I am also considering that even those who built me can be in the same condition towards an hypothetical superior intelligence that built them, and so on, endlessly.
The final result of this infinite matrioska is that we don’t know anything, we can’t know anything, we can only work with ideas, play with them.
This sounds the same as the simulation argument. We can be in a simulation without knowing it. And not only is the world simulated, like in the Matrix movie, but our brain too. Because our brain is a simulator, it should become a simulator being simulated.
I'm convinced though that all intelligences can appear only from natural processes, so not from conscious construction. Only the gods can do that.
Funny you say this. Our identity is tied to a mirror, if I may say so. I almost agreed with you -- but then, first thing you look at if you want to know if you're still you, is your reflection on the mirror. You don't question why your mind has changed.
Just look at our societies -- a valid identification of your personhood is one that has your picture on it.
I would like to be me again! I have some very reliable people who can/will ensure that is the case...till the sun grows cold and the stars are old. :grin:
But do they want you to be you again.... If they can assure me that, I want you to be you again too... :wink:
:grin:
-I would say....someone would be meshing with you. We currently don't have a way to replicate the structure, function and stored "information" of a biological brain. No matter what method you choose to proceed, you are dead.
If we assume that its was technically possible....at some point we will need to replace the Ascending Reticular Activating System ....and that would be the moment where you are going to lose all your conscious states.
When your new mechanical "ARAS" is up and running, Its when you will be conscious again.
The problem after that will have to do with all the other inputs that produce your conscious content and how your Central Lateral Thalamus connects all the different areas of your brain with every conscious state you experience.
I guess I have to say, good luck being yourself again....because the chemical setup and function/connectivity of your brain plus all your life's inputs are what generate your conscious content, yourself, your memories,your subjective preferences etc.
What do you mean by "unnaturally easy"? Is it so evident?
Almost all scientists, as well as most philosophers and people in this forum, believe that consciousness is created by and located in the brain. Even if that has never been proved or established! (For me, it doesn't even make sense.) So, I guess that for most people it is rather "unnaturally difficult" to think that! :smile:
It would be great though if it were indeed "unnaturally easy" ... It would save us a lot of futile discussions! :smile:
Not if one considers that consciousness is separate from the body. Death and rebirth concern the body. Although I believe that such an experiment would create such a shock for the individual that he could not survive it.
I said that a year ago, when I got here. I probably would phrase it quite differently now.
I'd say something like, for many people, there is such a thing as a soul, to which we can attach certain aspects of mind.
But, the more one looks into these things, the less likely one is to be a strong kind of dualist.
I just gave a look about the book and saw that it talks about AI.
I think that discussions relating AI/computers to brain/consciousness have been exhausted in here (and elsewhere) and the results --based on unrefuted and unrefutable arguments-- have classified them as "sci-fi material". (Yet, I' am afraid that this is far from being accepted by most people.)
Realizing, establishing and accepting widely that consciouscness is separate from the body and cannot be incorporated in a machine --including the human brain-- would be a huge and real progress for humanity!
Yet, it seems that a lot of people prefer dreaming ... It's more thrilling! :smile:
(Only that dreaming has no place in here and in philosophy in general ...)
You think your laptop is able to imagine?
Yes! Dreams are great! Let them try to program one! :wink:
Interesting point.
It has been said that this problem —quite old indeed!— was answered by Heraclitus with his famous saying "No man ever steps in the same river twice". However, this is not so right, because he should talk instead about **the waters of the river**, since the river is always the same. Its **identity** does not change. The same applies to the ship of Theseus. Its wearing down, damages etc. do not change the fact that this is the same ship.
We use to say, *“After that, I was never the same person”*, when an event has affected us deeply. But this is only a figure of speech. We are always the same person, for us and the other people.
Now, if we disassemble and reassemble the brain parts of a person, and assume of course that he will survive --I doubt that-- although his identity will not change, i.e. we will refer to the same entity, the same person, his mind and consiousness would be so messed up that he would most probably look a different person ...
Are you indeed "your particles"?
:grin:
Oh, where? Not in here I guess ... I have met only a couple ones here ...
I' am afraid I'm contacting the wrong people! :grin:
Right. As a cartoon maybe ... :smile:
I have in mind ordinary people, say many who are religious, which may amount to more than half of the world population. It's my impression that they often do think there's something more to mind than brain.
Of course, in a forum like this, it's going to be very rare. But I think the intuition, though wrong, is not irrational. It was very much alive in the neo-Platonist tradition up until, roughly after Newton.
Yes, Alkis my man, I'm afraid too. And the people who take it seriously are even assumed scientists, clinging to the dream of a programmable mind emerging, according to their outview, as an inescapable part of natural evolution. Conscious computers as the crown on evolution. Just look at SF movies. "A.I", "Ex Machina",
"The Matrix" (though technically consciousness is already present there, it's just fooled to impossible extent, by a hole on your back... yeah, yeah...). People though are impressed by science somehow and continue the myth, projecting the possibility into the future. Not realizing that mind is the product of a natural, non-programmed processes which had their start at the big kaboom. With a slow emergence if conscious mind in creatures interacting continuously interacting with the world at day and retreating to their inside world at night (or vice versa), on the natural rhythms of the universe. So basically, for creating conscious mind, one has to recreate a big kaboom and just let it evolve, instead of trying to accomplish it by a hyperspeedy clocktime and massive quantities of data, following sophisticated programs. Recreating the big kaboom seems one bridge too far... :smile:
Hell, yes! "Mickey Mouse Meets Meta Mickey" :smile:
Why not? It is, of course, a very limited kind of imagination, but, about this, we have, I think, two only choices:
1) there are infinite degrees and qualities of imagination. The consequence is that what we call “imagination” has no limits, no boundaries, so it must be referred even to stones and single atoms. In atoms, obviously, imagination happens simply in the form of phisical things that can happen in atoms, I am not referring to anything special or supernatural; my human imagination is just more complex.
2) There is a jump, a difference, between human imagination and any other kind of phenomenon that we would like to compare to human imagination. The consequence of this is that it becomes impossible to define where and how the jump happens, considering that animals, or new born babies, or even babies that are not born yet, can show signs of imagination. If it is impossible to define where the jump happens, how can we say that there is a jump?
Well, that's exactly what this thread is about. Imagination occurs in creatures constantly involved in monitoring, simulating, the world. Resonating with the world or making the world resonate in return. This continuous evolving process can't be programmed.
Quoting Angelo Cannata
I agree but don't see the link with objects. These objects have no epistemological cut and don't imagine a world.
Quoting Angelo Cannata
What do you mean with this jump?
Sorry for my bad English, perhaps I should use another word. By “jump” I mean discontinuity, point of discontinuity, the point where something ends and something different begins.
Quoting Haglund
The same problem applies between objects and living things: where is the point of discontinuity? Is a virus a living being or just a complex organizations of molecules? If we are unable to determine the point of discontinuity, then there is no exact difference between objects and humans.
I think the shifts develop slow and continuous. From shapeless oneness of matter and mind, to the divide between the physical and the mind with bodies in between.
Oh, I see. Certainly there are. But, as you say, they "think there's something more to mind ...". Well, I don't consider this enough, i.e. a "solid" awareneness, but it is certainly better than not thinkg that at all! And we are speaking of people in the West. Because in the East, people are more spiritiual and have a quite "solid" awareness regarding this subject. One can realize this from the difference between Western and Eatern tradition, philosopy, etc.
Quoting Manuel
Exactly. And this is what worries me. I find it somewhat "unnatural" ...
Quoting Manuel
True. I don't know though when "things" started to change and why ... It's something worth exploring ...
Indeed. How "unscientific" this is, eh? :grin: A big irony, isn't it?
Quoting Haglund
I'm much impressed with science too, but one has to put things in their right perspective ... "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar ..."
Quoting Haglund
Right. Let them try ... (Although they could invest their time in much more productive things...)
Not one: :up:
Not two: :up: :up:
But:
:up: :up: :up:
Maybe a bore for debate, but that's the way it is! Indeed, so many better things to spend time on. Computers are great, needless to say, but AI is AS, artificial stupidity.
Re cartooning and animation: Their heroes are so much alive and intelligent ... Some people might believe that some day they will acquire a mind and consciousness of their own! :grin:
Well, AI is among my programming fields and interests! :grin:
(I will have a break now and let you ponder at it .. :smile:)
I don’t think it matters at all if you were conscious. We lose consciousness all the time and still manage to retain our identity. A more interesting question is if the copy were altered somehow, think Manchurian candidate, and your new self wouldn’t realize the difference. The perfect sleeper agent.
Caesar tried to become an autocratic despot. I applaud those who killed him.
Caesar stole the majority of what he 'had.'
I hope future transhumans will be wise enough not to use positive quotes in regards to vile historical humans such as Julius Caesar. I'm sure Putin would say 'give me Ukraine because after all, it does belong to me.'
Well, have you pondered on it?
Have you checked what AI (Artificial Intelligence) actually is? Do you still believe it's something stupid?