Yeah, I'm being mean to all the morons who just a couple years ago were talking about uploading your consciousness to a machine because "the brain's...".
And yet the brain is material and it works. It's just a question of time until we can encode equivalent complexity into matter of one kind or another. Nature is pumping out brains by the trillions.
Encoding equivalent complexity is one thing - operating a conscious mind may be another altogether.
Every mind we know of operates on a continuous, analog, asynchronous substrate, right at the boundary where quantum uncertainty influences every aspect without dominating more orderly behaviors, and that may be necessary for consciousness.
Simulating a conscious mind as software running within a clocked digital environment may be inherently impossible. You might need dedicated hardware for such a thing - nothi
I don't think that the tech is the actual problem. We can simulate quantum effects well enough for every purpose, it "just" tends to cost an exponential amount of time and memory. But if consciousness is, at its base, some kind of quantum effect, then it's just a matter of building a computer that's big enough.
But what if there's am ingredient that's not the sum of the brain's physics? A "soul"?
Imagine a cell phone: you could build one from scratch, but you wouldn't be able to surf the web or make any calls
The problem with this approach is that borders on attributing the limits of scientific understanding into the metaphysical, divine, etc.
Everything was outside of scientific understanding at one time. Science is just the process of us documenting our reality.
If your hypothesis that our brains are hot-wired into some other-dimensional entity can be tested and "proven" than it can become part of our scientific understanding.
If your hypothesis that our brains are hot-wired into some other-dimensional entity can be tested and "proven" than it can become part of our scientific understanding.
In principle yes, but practically I'm afraid it's not that simple.
To test something like this, you'd have to identify a mechanism first. How could the brain communicate?
Our understanding of physics is that there are four - and only four - fundamental interactions: strong, weak, electromagnetic amd gravitational. Strong and weak are intranuclear only. Electromagnetic we can pretty much rule out (our brain doesn't broascast radio waves, we cam measure that). And for gravity, it's too small to make amy signifi
>To test something like this, you'd have to identify a mechanism first. How could the brain communicate?
Eventually - but you're jumping *way* down the road of scientific discovery. Barring brilliant inspiration or a lucky find, what you'd probably really do is:
First: monitor things *very* closely, looking for *any* behavior that's not what you'd expect from a strictly physical brain - anything that would turn out differently depending on whether there was a "soul" involved or not. You don't need to kno
You don't need to know how it works, just to prove whether or not that something is at work that causes things to behave in a manner differently than predicted strictly by the known forces.
The problem is that we're not able to replicate what a "strictly physical" brain is supposed to do. We don't (even) know how that works.
If you can prove that some such thing exists [...] then you can start trying to interfere with it - e.g. cause the brain to resort to operating in a strictly physically predictable manner.
I think the problem here is too complex. And "physical manner" tends to be a real bitch. For example electrons and superconductivity: from the properties of a single electron it's essentially impossible to derive something like superconductivity, but when a whole bunch of electrons come together in a crystal, under specific conditions, "quasi-particle" behavior emerges. Ele
> our brain doesn't purposefully send out EM waves You sure of that? I've never of any experiment even claiming to prove such a thing. Heck, I haven't even heard of any equipment sensitive enough to measure the intricate patterns of EM radiation radiated by our brains, much less the subtle interactions they unavoidably have on the environment, including other such massively complex transmitters nearby.
Now, I wouldn't bet on there being any intentional interactions... but I would bet quite a bit that we're nowhere close to being able to conclusively rule it out.
>how are you supposed to know if it's just "boring old emergence", or a "soul"? So long as everything obeys the probabilities established by QM you couldn't. But the point is to rule out a "soul" that works by violating the normal laws of physics. I don't see any way to theoretically disprove the existence of a "soul" that operates by somehow manipulating individual quantum outcomes in a manner that remains consistent with QM probabilities (e.g. nudging this outcome one way requires an "equal and opposite reaction" of nudging another outcome in the opposite way so the statistical distribution remains unchanged).
However, while you couldn't disprove such a soul, you might be able to prove it: simply build an exact simulated copy influenced by random noise rather than quantum chaos. If the result stubbornly refuses to demonstrate consciousness despite all attempts... well, you at least have some compelling evidence that something fishy may be going on at the quantum level.
Alternately, successfully building a simulated mind that *does* appear to demonstrate consciousness would be compelling evidence against such a soul - or at least that such a thing is not strictly necessary for (apparent) consciousness. Though just as among humans, questions would always remain as to whether the other was *actually* conscious, and without the convenience of assuming that because they're running the same basic hardware as you, they likely have a similar subjective experience of existing.
But, but the brain's just complex binary circuitry (Score:2)
I mocked you then and I'm mocking you now.
Re: (Score:1)
And yet the brain is material and it works. It's just a question of time until we can encode equivalent complexity into matter of one kind or another.
Nature is pumping out brains by the trillions.
Re: (Score:2)
Encoding equivalent complexity is one thing - operating a conscious mind may be another altogether.
Every mind we know of operates on a continuous, analog, asynchronous substrate, right at the boundary where quantum uncertainty influences every aspect without dominating more orderly behaviors, and that may be necessary for consciousness.
Simulating a conscious mind as software running within a clocked digital environment may be inherently impossible. You might need dedicated hardware for such a thing - nothi
Re: But, but the brain's just complex binary circu (Score:2)
I don't think that the tech is the actual problem. We can simulate quantum effects well enough for every purpose, it "just" tends to cost an exponential amount of time and memory. But if consciousness is, at its base, some kind of quantum effect, then it's just a matter of building a computer that's big enough.
But what if there's am ingredient that's not the sum of the brain's physics? A "soul"?
Imagine a cell phone: you could build one from scratch, but you wouldn't be able to surf the web or make any calls
Re: (Score:1)
The problem with this approach is that borders on attributing the limits of scientific understanding into the metaphysical, divine, etc.
Everything was outside of scientific understanding at one time. Science is just the process of us documenting our reality.
If your hypothesis that our brains are hot-wired into some other-dimensional entity can be tested and "proven" than it can become part of our scientific understanding.
Re: But, but the brain's just complex binary circ (Score:2)
If your hypothesis that our brains are hot-wired into some other-dimensional entity can be tested and "proven" than it can become part of our scientific understanding.
In principle yes, but practically I'm afraid it's not that simple.
To test something like this, you'd have to identify a mechanism first. How could the brain communicate?
Our understanding of physics is that there are four - and only four - fundamental interactions: strong, weak, electromagnetic amd gravitational. Strong and weak are intranuclear only. Electromagnetic we can pretty much rule out (our brain doesn't broascast radio waves, we cam measure that). And for gravity, it's too small to make amy signifi
Re: (Score:2)
>To test something like this, you'd have to identify a mechanism first. How could the brain communicate?
Eventually - but you're jumping *way* down the road of scientific discovery. Barring brilliant inspiration or a lucky find, what you'd probably really do is:
First: monitor things *very* closely, looking for *any* behavior that's not what you'd expect from a strictly physical brain - anything that would turn out differently depending on whether there was a "soul" involved or not. You don't need to kno
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need to know how it works, just to prove whether or not that something is at work that causes things to behave in a manner differently than predicted strictly by the known forces.
The problem is that we're not able to replicate what a "strictly physical" brain is supposed to do. We don't (even) know how that works.
If you can prove that some such thing exists [...] then you can start trying to interfere with it - e.g. cause the brain to resort to operating in a strictly physically predictable manner.
I think the problem here is too complex. And "physical manner" tends to be a real bitch. For example electrons and superconductivity: from the properties of a single electron it's essentially impossible to derive something like superconductivity, but when a whole bunch of electrons come together in a crystal, under specific conditions, "quasi-particle" behavior emerges. Ele
Re: But, but the brain's just complex binary circ (Score:2)
> our brain doesn't purposefully send out EM waves
You sure of that? I've never of any experiment even claiming to prove such a thing. Heck, I haven't even heard of any equipment sensitive enough to measure the intricate patterns of EM radiation radiated by our brains, much less the subtle interactions they unavoidably have on the environment, including other such massively complex transmitters nearby.
Now, I wouldn't bet on there being any intentional interactions... but I would bet quite a bit that we're nowhere close to being able to conclusively rule it out.
>how are you supposed to know if it's just "boring old emergence", or a "soul"?
So long as everything obeys the probabilities established by QM you couldn't. But the point is to rule out a "soul" that works by violating the normal laws of physics. I don't see any way to theoretically disprove the existence of a "soul" that operates by somehow manipulating individual quantum outcomes in a manner that remains consistent with QM probabilities (e.g. nudging this outcome one way requires an "equal and opposite reaction" of nudging another outcome in the opposite way so the statistical distribution remains unchanged).
However, while you couldn't disprove such a soul, you might be able to prove it: simply build an exact simulated copy influenced by random noise rather than quantum chaos. If the result stubbornly refuses to demonstrate consciousness despite all attempts... well, you at least have some compelling evidence that something fishy may be going on at the quantum level.
Alternately, successfully building a simulated mind that *does* appear to demonstrate consciousness would be compelling evidence against such a soul - or at least that such a thing is not strictly necessary for (apparent) consciousness. Though just as among humans, questions would always remain as to whether the other was *actually* conscious, and without the convenience of assuming that because they're running the same basic hardware as you, they likely have a similar subjective experience of existing.