elwoodblues

An infant has little or no creative-thinking capability. It learns, over time, through experience, new patterns and new SORTS of patterns, and how to generalize these. There is NO reason a computer cannot do the same thing, given the chance; there is nothing magical about the human brain.

Kip

Here, here!

This reminds me of that Woody Allen quote:

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve through not dying."

I am not familiar with all of the details (I have not read Drexler, etc) but my immediate impression is that nanotechnology as a panacea is a myth. My problem is not that scientists will not create machines this small or work on that scale, because they surely will, I am simply skeptical about what is going to be accomplished at the scale once we are there. People theorize about nanobots wirelessly talking to each and medically repairing our bodies, but we cannot even make MACRO scale robots that even begin to approach that level of sophistication. So, these ideas are fueled by a longing for immortality than unbiased reason I think. A more realistic idea is the creation of nanobots that function autonomously by, say, keeping oxygen in the blood or killing a certain pathogen without any wireless communication or artificial intelligence. Simply dump them in the blood and watch them work. The real potential for nanotech is in making new, super-materials. I can easily picture companies developing new, super cheap bullet-proof vests, space shuttle armor, or super-nutritious, inexpensive food.

Any other infidels a fan of Ray Kurzweil (kurzweilai.net)? To avoid mere speculation Ray has mapped out a definitive way to strong AI within about thirty or forty years. His model is based upon the idea of reverse engineering the brain and he cites some work where audio portions of the brain, which are highly parallel, have been reverse engineered, and then UTILIZED. I tend to agree with him. He also cites that the human genome has about the same amount of information (after removing redundancies) as Microsoft Word. Considering that fact, and also the wide range of physical differences between people, I think the growing human brain must quite resilient and tolerant to different environments. The brain does not seem to be a delicate, chaotic, difficult to understand system. The primary barrier, I think, is not our understanding of intelligence, but our ability to replicate the speed of thought and Moore's Law. I could also see something like Google or Cyc developing into an AI (at least, the level of intelligence but without any motivation). So I am optimistic about AI.

I am absolutely sure that this will happen.

The Lone Ranger says:

Why not? Is there some relevant distinction between the brain and say, my arm, that prevents the brain from being replaced? Suppose I were to replace only a very small piece, such as the optic nerve? Why couldn't you go ALL THE WAY IN?

I am not at all familiar with these ideas. Carl Sagan always thought of the cosmos but I have been more interested in AI and life on earth. The scientific revolution has been so sudden and powerful, I can imagine "cheating" the speed of light. Of course, I also suspect that the majority of the universe is a barren desert not worth the effort.

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: Kip ]</p>

The Lone Ranger

Why can't we replace the human brain? In principle, I certainly don't see why it wouldn't be possible.

The problem comes with trying to completely replicate all the memories and sensations that make a person unique. When you start getting down to this level (individual molecules), you start running into the problem that a detailed mapping of all the various molecular configurations may not be possible without seriously disrupting them in the process.

I think it'll most likely be quite some time before we know enough about the brain that we'll be able to "download" a human personality into a computer network -- if ever. Do I think it's impossible? Certainly not.

I sometimes imagine what would happen if someone came up to me and provided me with convincing proof that they had invented an android that was virtually indistinguishable from a human being. This android, the inventor assures me, will last essentially forever, with proper maintenance (which the android could perform itself). The android is equipped with an electronic brain, into which a human consciousness can be "downloaded" -- to the person in question, it would be like going to sleep and waking up in a new (and better) body.

"Would you like to volunteer to be the first person to undergo this procedure?" he asks me. "Let me get this straight," I reply. "I will get to live essentially forever, without ever having to worry about getting old, nor will I ever be ill. If I'm injured, I'll simply repair myself."

"That's about it," replies the inventor.

My reply? "Where do I sign?"

Cheers,

Michael

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: The Lone Ranger ]</p>

elwoodblues

In short? Functionality.

The most important aspects of the brain reside on the sub-cellular level. That's where the functionality is. However, the functionality of an arm can be described on a very macro level. The arm is pretty well understood, what it does, how it does it. The brain is not, not by a long shot.

In order to 'translate' your brain to an artificial replacement, you'd have to track down each cell, even each macro-molecule, down to a very specific location. The devil's in the details; we know enough to know that.

We just don't know enough, not by many orders of magnitude. The human arm is more complex than, say, an internal combustion engine. The human brain is that much more complex than the human arm.

elwoodblues

HOW DO YOU KNOW?

This is a very tough philosophical question. Maybe it seems, to the consciousness in the android, that they just 'woke up' in this new body. But how do you know that's the 'same' consciousness that was in the other body?

Questions of consciousness and identity are not easily brushed aside. They are very real, and they are very hairy.

The Lone Ranger

Bingo. That's why the hypothetical inventor would first have to convince me of this before I'd be willing to undergo the procedure.

Cheers,

Michael

Feather

I agree completely with every bit of this post. I'm confused at what your point is, though. Mine was that creating a machine capable of this sort of thing is non-trivial, whereas it seems to me many think it is, in fact, very trivial (e.g. just toss a faster CPU with a larger pattern database at it).

Feather

Why? All a human brain is is a collection of particles in some state S. Unless it can be demonstrated that "consciousness" and "identity" exist independently of the brain, then merely replecating a geometrically identical system in the same state S should return the "same" brain.

Your objection is, of course, the usual "intelligence is bound in some mystical consciousness of the human being" argument. There's nothing mystical about a bunch of quantum particles interacting with each other. There's nothing trivial about it, though, either.

Marduk

"Why? All a human brain is is a collection of particles in some state S. Unless it can be demonstrated that
"consciousness" and "identity" exist independently of the brain, then merely replecating a geometrically
identical system in the same state S should return the "same" brain."


Interesting idea, what if we replecate you, or State S, into 2 androids, one red and one blue. After the procedure do you awake in the red or blue android? will you care if they scrap the one not of your color? do you awake at all? How will anyone ever know? or is it just two copies holding your memories?
I'll sit this one out. you guys can go first.
<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: marduck ]</p>

elwoodblues

Sorry I didn't spell it out; seems I was agreeing with you; jumping from modern computers to actual thinking entities is possible, but certainly non-trivial (as you said, it will involve far, far more than booting up a 500 GHz PXI hooked up to the Encyclopedia Britannica).

I'm not saying anything of the sort. Consciousness is not mystical in any way. It's just not at ALL understood right now, not on a scientific level, not on a philosophical level.

If the only thing special about 'consciousness' of a being is a certain arrangement S of atoms and molecules, then marduck's question above is entirely valid and VERY worrisome. Even if you only port your brain to one android, there is a configuration of your brain being destroyed in the process (your original, biological brain), so marduck's question really has to be answered.

Postulating some way to replicate your brain-pattern brings up a plethora of interesting, puzzling, in some ways scary questions. Some are 'mere' questions of ethics. How would property be handled? Or criminal behavior? Would you be allowed to go off and replicate yourself for the hell of it? Why not? Others, like the one marduck brough up, are much more fundamental questions of philosophy. If we replicate you two ways, which one is 'you'? If the original brain is destroyed, are 'you' preserved or killed?

Perception and consciousness are incredibly prickly things, because we don't have a decent language to describe them, we don't have a science to analyze them. Not yet, anyway. We're making progress. But the problems here are three-fold: scientific, ethical, and philosophical.

To be sure, the ethical problems will probably be answered by the philosophy. However, waiting for philosopher's to come to a consensus may take awhile.

And the scientific problems are vast, as well. The process you're talking about would require not just breakthroughs in technology, but breakthroughs in theoretical understanding, which are much slower and tougher to come by.

Possible? Yes, almost certainly; given enough time these curious monkeys are capable of just about anything. In our lifetime? I hope so, but I'm not putting money on the table. Speaking as someone who has at least a rough understanding of the state of this are of science and the direction it's headed in, we'll have to live long lives to see it in our lifetime.