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Sonatavarius
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Sonatavarius
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Farmer

inspiration for this was taken from another thread... the immortality one


Just say that if the world was like the one from "The Ghost in the Shell" anime and you could transfer everything from your brain to an electronic medium and have no organic mind at all whatsoever... do you think that you would still be "alive"???

what i'm getting at... is do you think that at that point your mind would just be a computer program or do you think that "YOU" would still be "YOU"... maybe if I, Sonatavarius, were to undergo such an operation then maybe what would be left would only be a perfect duplicate of my personality and life experiences... or maybe "I" would still exist... in a potentially "immortal" state.

bear with me... its a hard subject to write out in a fully comprehendable way. even to myself.

What i'm thinking is that there might possibly be a way someday to copy your brain... but i find it hard that there could be a "download" of sorts so that your essence left the brain tissue and entered a cyber medium...

i mean we would call it a download... but in reality... do you die with your brain or would you live on

i'm treating the body as i would a coma patient or a brain dead patient... once the brain goes its no longer that person laying there.. its just the body or shell (that's an arguable point, but that's my stance)

a more easily comprehensible version of the topic is this... as you get old... similar to electronic organs (pacemakers or fully electronic hearts)... you have the technology to replace diminishing parts of your brain with hardware (electronics)... eventually there is not any part of your brain that is organic. Its only metal and plastic parts. would that person be "alive" or would they truly be dead with a cyber duplicate taking its place?

:-/... i know this was very convoluted. I hope that my point got across somewhere in there.

of course this would all be speculation so any and all opinions relevant to the topic are acceptable answers...

i think this topic falls under this forum b/c it may have religious arguments... it would be a very huge world event if this were to happen... and i'm sure it would be very political... etc

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MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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One of the major objections to physicalism is the notion of multiple realizability.


I don't see how this is a problem. Just because the media isn't the same doesn't necessitate that the outcome also has to be different. It's like saying just because the guy driving in his car down the street at 5mph and a kid walking down the street at 5mph won't reach the same end just because their methods of getting there were different.

These two brains (my brain and the exact copy), no matter how similar, are not identical. That's just simple logic. So if two physical structures are not identical, there's a worry that the mental states they produce would also not be identical.


Yes but you can get to the point where the differences are in consequential. So long as they are producing the same functions the media used shouldn't matter.

I think you may be able to still think but you might end up having to relearn everything from the beginning.


Why would you have to relearn everything?

No modern computer can think abstractly, how would that be uploaded to a computer?


Currently computers don't function the same way as a human brain does. Though if you have a synthetic neuron that functions the same as an organic neuron then it should be able to also replicate this ability.
Sonatavarius
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Sonatavarius
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Am I the only one who immediately thought of highdeas.com when I saw this post?
I will now leave this thread and not post in this one unless I have something productive.


you don't know me, so I am not taking offense... I have never been high in my life... and nor do i plan on ever being high. I was merely up all night writing that A&P paper on Gender Selection that I turned in about 8 hours later... after my classes I went to sleep... yes... i was asleep for over 12 glorious hours. :-D....


does that mean you are actually dead now with just an organic duplicate taking your place?

No because many things stay the same like bones and....oh wait. that's it.


i was referencing the inorganic brain that was taking the organic brains place. i think its the brain stem at the base of the brain that does all of the subconcious commanding of your vitals.... so if the bulk of you're brain dead and ur brain stem still works then your bones... and other members of your body will still be alive and functioning. If someone's brain dead then i believe that they are dead... whether their body is still alive or not. that last sentence has alot to do with my thought process of if the brain is slowly replaced by electronic parts then at the end of it... is the person still alive? A part of me is telling me that maybe even if it still functions and acts like the same person that its just a computer program and that person died with the last electronic installment. me thinks that the sole difference in my thinking and the thinking of the others is the inclusion or not of the "soul" into the equation. yes yes... can't prove it, so it shouldn't be discussed.... buuuuuut.... when added in it somewhat flips my argument the other direction.

...i mean you might have thought about it if you do in fact believe they exist... its just i don't remember one being referenced
Moegreche
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Moegreche
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I don't see how this is a problem. Just because the media isn't the same doesn't necessitate that the outcome also has to be different. It's like saying just because the guy driving in his car down the street at 5mph and a kid walking down the street at 5mph won't reach the same end just because their methods of getting there were different.


I'm not following your analogy here, but I think I see what you're getting at. I think your argument is that just because there are two different physical states, that doesn't mean they can't realize the same mental state.
So, even though you and I are not identical physically (you're in physical state A and I'm in physical state B), we can still have an identical mental state M.
Recall, though, the definition of physicalism: brain states are identical to mental states. Logical notion is easy enough: BS = MS.
And your argument, if I'm understanding it correctly, is that two different brain states can produce identical mental states.
So let me see if I can do a little reductio on this.

MS : Mental State
BS : Brain State
P1 : my brain state before the brain transplant
P2 : my brain state after the brain transplant
M : a mental state realized by a given physical (brain) state
=: the logical operator for the identity relation
^: the logical operator 'and'
~: the logical operator 'not'
/: 'therefore'

1) MS = BS (this is physicalism)
2) P1 = M (an instantiation of 1)
3) P1 = M ^ P2 = M (this is your premise, that two nonidentical physical states can realize the same mental state)
4) P1 =/= P2 (just the claim that P1 and P2 are nonidentical)
5) P1 = P2 (follows from 3 and the transitivity of identity claims).
6) / ~(MS = BS) (follows from 4 and 5 - reductio)

Now I guess you could argue that the identity relation isn't transitive in this case for some reason or another. But that just seems ad hoc.
At the very least, physicalism certainly doesn't get us the claim that two physical states can realize an identical mental state. Thus, physicalism loses a lot of its motivation.
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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I'm not following your analogy here, but I think I see what you're getting at. I think your argument is that just because there are two different physical states, that doesn't mean they can't realize the same mental state.


My analogy might not have been very good. But basically yes.

At the very least, physicalism certainly doesn't get us the claim that two physical states can realize an identical mental state. Thus, physicalism loses a lot of its motivation.


The mental state is just an emergent property, the end result of the function. We have plenty of examples in the physical world of different media serving the same functions, thus being able to produce the same end results.
So if you have a synthetic neuron producing the same functions as an organic neuron, there shouldn't be any reason it can't produce the same end results.
Perhaps in a philosophical sense this doesn't work, but it seems to functions just fine in a practical sense.
Moegreche
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Moegreche
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Duke

Perhaps in a philosophical sense this doesn't work, but it seems to functions just fine in a practical sense.


Okay I see where you're going now. I don't want to put words into your mouth, but it looks like your stumping for a functionalist account of mental states rather than a physicalist one. I think you would reject the idea that all there is to a mental state is a relevant brain state (physicalism). Instead, mental states are identical to functional states (functionalism).
This view is compatible with the notion that a brain state can be constituted by, although not exhausted by, certain physical states (but even this claim could be rejected by the functionalist).
There's a pretty famous objection to functionalism that I think gets at the heart of the discussion. It's called the Chinese Nation Objection. It goes kind of like this:
If functionalism is true, then we can emulate the function of certain parts of the brain in a variety of different ways. Let's take some brain state B and call upon the Chinese nation (it would require a lot of people, so we should use a country with a high population) to emulate the appropriate functions for a mental state. Each person would have a job, like flipping a switch on a gigantic computer - basically the equivalent of a complex binary code that has as an appropriate output/input. So, some people are in charge of sending, say, pain signals to other people who carry the signal to the output mechanism which in turn actualized some appropriate behavioral response.

All this is fine. The contentious part is not whether this is possible - the anti-functionalist could grant this. But even if it is possible, there is no intrinsic nature of the subsequent mental state. There's nothing that it's like to be in this state. Even though all the inputs and outputs are correct, we're still missing out on the experience of the mental state. Without that phenomenal experience, it's hard to see how the output is, in fact, an appropriate mental state.
MRWalker82
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I think that simply transferring the data into a new medium is not really the issue, as that would be akin to backing up the data on your hard drive. The real issue is transplanting the information from a human brain into an artificial medium which would have near identical capabilities to the human brain in the first place. Without the ability to process and store information as the human brain does there is no comparison.

Obviously current technology is not capable of such a thing, however I don't see it as too far of a stretch of the imagination that one day we may have technology sufficient enough to create a truly cognizant and sentient artificial intelligence. Should this happen would we consider this AI alive? After all, whether the data is imparted to this AI from a human brain, or from purely artificial methods would make little difference as it is the capabilities of this intelligence, and not the data it stores, which would be the real question.

Were I to have the memories, thought processes, and all other information in my brain transferred into an inanimate medium which were still capable of cognizant and independent thought I would still not consider that 'alive'. Even if I retained my consciousness I would still be reduced to an extremely complex artificial simulation.

And if we were to consider such a state as alive, we would then be forced to grant the same status to an AI which had memories and processes acquired through solely inanimate means as alive as well. After all, it is not the data contained that would make one alive, but the processes which allow such an intelligence to be conscious and capable of independent sentience.

Furthermore, if the only stipulation we place on whether one is alive is cognizant brain function then we must declare that those animals who are brain damaged in such a manner as to not be capable of such cognizance are in fact dead, regardless of the other functions which their bodies are still capable of performing. And if they are not dead, then there is more to being alive than sentience, and as such simply being a conscious artificial intelligence is not sufficient to declare oneself as a living being.

MageGrayWolf
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So life would have to be organic in nature?

Let's take it in the other direction. What if we were to stop all functions of the body but the brain, would this still be regarded as being alive?

"If you prick me do I not...leak?" -Data (Star Trek: TNG)

MRWalker82
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That is what makes such conversations regarding life, especially on the philosophical level, so difficult. There are many different ways to define life, and many different qualities that we ascribe to life which can or could be recreated artificially.

To use your query, if we stop all functions beside the brain then the organism would die. The brain requires a constant supply of oxygenated blood in order to function, just as your computer requires a constant influx of electrical current. And to reverse the role, the rest of the body requires a constant input on behalf of the brain in order to continue to function. Even the most basic functions like breathing and the beating of the heart are controlled by the brain.

MageGrayWolf
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That is what makes such conversations regarding life, especially on the philosophical level, so difficult. There are many different ways to define life, and many different qualities that we ascribe to life which can or could be recreated artificially.


If we can artificially recreate all the things we ascribe to life then shouldn't we regard that artificial creation as being alive?


To use your query, if we stop all functions beside the brain then the organism would die. The brain requires a constant supply of oxygenated blood in order to function, just as your computer requires a constant influx of electrical current. And to reverse the role, the rest of the body requires a constant input on behalf of the brain in order to continue to function. Even the most basic functions like breathing and the beating of the heart are controlled by the brain.


I was thinking along the lines of artificial support for the brain alone. If you were to say cut the brain stem this would essentially disconnect the brain from the rest of the body. So long as a machine could pump blood and oxygen to the brain it should be able to still stay functioning though.
MRWalker82
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If we can artificially recreate all the things we ascribe to life then shouldn't we regard that artificial creation as being alive?


We definitely could consider that alive, and there may come a day when we have such technology that we do create a sentient and self reliant artificial intelligence. I suppose I have an aversion to calling such a thing life though. Part of being alive is replication and evolution, and I doubt that we would ever create such an advanced AI that it would be completely independent, self reliant, cognizant, and capable of reproduction. If we do, however, I think that would be a very scary situation.

I was thinking along the lines of artificial support for the brain alone. If you were to say cut the brain stem this would essentially disconnect the brain from the rest of the body. So long as a machine could pump blood and oxygen to the brain it should be able to still stay functioning though.


I figured as much, however I chose to point out that in living organisms the major functions of the body which we attribute to giving life are interdependent. Simply plugging a brain into a machine which provides the nutrients and oxygen it needs does not, to me, mean that the brain being kept in a functional state is the equivalent of the person whose brain it is being alive.
MageGrayWolf
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I believe that you wouldn't be "alive" due to you in the inanimate object not being able to think.


It wouldn't necessarily have to be inanimate and if it's replicating the functions of the brain then this synthetic brain should be able to think just like the organic version.
Sonatavarius
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as for the brain by itself being "alive" or not....

the "organism" isn't necessarily the smallest "living" unit of life. the cells of the brain, call them individual organisms if you wish, are in fact alive. the cells themselves reproduce, go through the process of metabolism, and perform homeostasis on their limited environment... there are other criteria for life that i don't remember...but single celled organisms are considered alive, so i have a hard time justifying that the individual cells that make up the tissues of complex multicellular organisms are not alive...

i also find it hard to justify that if the brain is made up of cells and those cells are all alive then the tissue and organ they construct are not considered "alive"...

if its not considered "alive" then it is because of the definition of life that it cannot fully accommodate b/c it is only one organ out of an entire organism.

there are exceptions to just about any rule we as humans have come up with...these rules being the explanations of natural phenomena. In my opinion, this would be one of those moments where an exception to the rule would be justified. Every fiber of that object is "alive" as an individual... but its dead... just doesn't sit well with me

MageGrayWolf
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So in example stick all of your experiences into an animal? Well possibly, you might have the same personality such as if you were an aggressive person you might attack a lot of things you see that were in your path and got in your way.


Not sure if I'm following where your going with this. The structure of another animals brain is different then ours, so it's method of processing information will be different.
Zophia
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Ya'll should go play The Infinite Ocean. Deals with the story of a very advanced AI. You might find it interesting.

I can't answer the question this thread asks. It's a hypothetical situation I just don't really wonder about. Although, if just answering the title - yeah, I'd still be alive, and I'd have all the junk from my brain stuck in a thingy besides me. Would it be an alive copy? Depends on the tech, imo.
The topic is rather interesting, though.

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