• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

Substrate-independent minds

Free episodes:

Lets look at how this very real technology could evolve over time.
Rather than store the data on the chip itself, why not give it a WiFi function, this way you could store your memorys in the cloud as we refer to it today.
But even better give each chip its own IP addy
A network card for the mind.......................

Imagine being able to send memory packets to each other.

The I-store could sell you the ability to play piano or any other instrument.

If someone saw a UFO, they could send you the direct experience...........

Human nodes could swap memorys and experiences and skills
 
And when you are done drop a line to

Proffesor Deadwyler telling him the article he co-authored is BS

Samuel A. Deadwyler, Ph.D., Professor Physiology and Pharmacology - Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Heres the article

A cortical neural prosthesis for restoring and enhancing memory - Abstract - Journal of Neural Engineering - IOPscience
Replacing neural circuitry is not what this title implies: "Scientists Successfully Implant Chip That Controls The Brain; Allowing Thoughts, Memory And Behavior To Be Transferred From One Brain To Another."

I wasn't making fun of what you experienced, or making any judgement about it, just added a couple images for fun. I can see placing chips into a diseased brain to restore function, but they can keep their scalpels away from me. Isn't it fun to spread the joy, Gene!
 
I'm a bit skeptical of the magnitude of claims made on the Mindcomputers website. But my mind is, so to speak, open to evidence.
 
I'm a bit skeptical of the magnitude of claims made on the Mindcomputers website. But my mind is, so to speak, open to evidence.

They are only reporting on the paper published at the Journal of neural engineering

A cortical neural prosthesis for restoring and enhancing memory - Abstract - Journal of Neural Engineering - IOPscience

full paper here


http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/8/4/046017/pdf/1741-2552_8_4_046017.pdf

This is very real research, very real technology, and very real results.

What you are seeing in this paper, are the successful results of many years research

Artificial Hippocampus

More here

Neuroscience Issues

The researchers have spent 10 years developing the artificial hippocampus.
Scientists do not know exactly how the hippocampus works.
So the Californian team simply copied its behaviour.
Slices of rat hippocampus were stimulated with electrical signals millions of times, until scientists could be sure which input produced a corresponding output.
Putting the information from each slide together, the researchers were able to devise a mathematical model of a whole hippocampus.

That was 2003........ the research has come a long way since then

And they have been successful, make no mistake. And while its proof of concept using rats brains, so too was the Wright Flyer proof of concept, that today gives us the Boeing 747

More on the institute of physics

Institute of Physics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its current director

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Knight_(scientist)

Sir Peter Knight, FRS is a British physicist, Professor of Quantum Optics and Senior Research Investigator Imperial College London, and Principal of the Kavli Royal Society International Centre.[1] He was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2005. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 2003, the recipient of the Frederic Ives Medal in 2008,[2] and the Royal Medal in 2010. His is current president of the Institute of Physics.
His work is concerned principally with theoretical quantum optics, strong field physics and especially quantum information science. According to Thomson-ISI he is the most frequently cited AMO (Atomic Molecular and Optical) theorist in the world.
He received his first degree and D.Phil. from Sussex University and became Research Associate at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Rochester and at the Physics Department and SLAC, Stanford University, USA. He was then SRC Research Fellow at Sussex University, and later Visiting Scientist at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
In 1976 he became Jubilee Research Fellow from 1976-1978 at Royal Holloway, University of London, followed by an SERC Advanced Fellowship from 1978-1983, first at RHC from 1978 to 1979, transferring in 1979 to Imperial College. He has remained ever since at Imperial College (apart from very frequent visits to the USA), first as a Lecturer 1983-1987, then Reader 1987-1988 and Professor since 1988.
Since 1st October 2010, Sir Peter has been the Principal of the Kavli Royal Society International Centre at Chicheley Hall. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, a Humboldt Research Award holder at the University of Konstanz and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin and at the University of Rochester. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Optical Society of America and of the Royal Society. He is a newly elected member of Council of the Royal Society. He sits on the European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press.[3]

This is NOT SciFi folks, this is really happening
 
They are only reporting on the paper published at the Journal of neural engineering

A cortical neural prosthesis for restoring and enhancing memory - Abstract - Journal of Neural Engineering - IOPscience

full paper here


http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/8/4/046017/pdf/1741-2552_8_4_046017.pdf

This is very real research, very real technology, and very real results.

What you are seeing in this paper, are the successful results of many years research

Artificial Hippocampus

More here

Neuroscience Issues



That was 2003........ the research has come a long way since then

And they have been successful, make no mistake. And while its proof of concept using rats brains, so too was the Wright Flyer proof of concept, that today gives us the Boeing 747

More on the institute of physics

Institute of Physics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its current director

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Knight_(scientist)



This is NOT SciFi folks, this is really happening
And they have been successful, make no mistake. And while its proof of concept using rats brains, so too was the Wright Flyer proof of concept, that today gives us the Boeing 747

Rat brains? I'm impressed! I can't wait to get my chip implanted.
cyborg-monday-the-borg.jpg
DSC08373 copy.png
 
I seriously do believe that the flight from death into a synthetic existence might be a serious mistake. The species would be creating a super-competitor for the dominance of resources on this planet. The complex economic, social, and philosophical friction generated is going to leave someone with the short end of a burning stick.

The very idea that machines (even ones programmed to simulate a once living person) might be afforded the rights and privileges that living breathing human beings do is so incendiary it is difficult to imagine a world where it could seriously occur.
 
Again, my gratitude for the link to this experiment at USC. It led me to do further research on it and its possible implications. My thoughts are on my last post in this interesting thread.

I had already found and read the actual article Ted Berger, et al had published in The journal of neural engineering. That gets you way, way beyond the histrionic tone of the article originally linked to about his experiment.

Now, I really do with great humility bow to the superior scientific credentials of Berger and his fellows, this from someone who used a slide rule in high school! The actual article describes in about ten pages of narrative and diagrams, with the obligatory appearance of the requisite math here and there, the excruciating details of the experiments/experiments. I found it genuinely impressive, yet had a lingering feeling of much ado about essentially little, and I'll tell you why: it was the overall impression that this is all you have after a decade and more of research at a major university and with, quite evidently, government funding? Now, I admitted I'm not a scientist by training at all, but I read a lot about it and even of it.

What struck me most about the actual article in the journal was the overriding CRUDITY of the experiment. I mean that in two ways actually, and will leave one of them unsaid. The other meaning of crudity in the experiment was more of a scientific connotation: the experiment was on such a MACRO and surgical level, despite the references in the article to the neuronal, the molecular, the micro transmission of "data" and so on.

In my last post I mentioned that there has been disputation of the significance of this experiment. But I also said I hope it may result in advances in helping people with horrible illnesses and conditions.

To extrapolate this experiment to what is hoped for on this thread, to the extent described, is not warranted in my opinion. If it happens as is speculated here, it wii be far, far in the future. Ted Berger, as I have read, has mentioned much more mundane applications of his work, which I have found rather chilling. Kim
 
I seriously do believe that the flight from death into a synthetic existence might be a serious mistake. The species would be creating a super-competitor for the dominance of resources on this planet. The complex economic, social, and philosophical friction generated is going to leave someone with the short end of a burning stick.

The very idea that machines (even ones programmed to simulate a once living person) might be afforded the rights and privileges that living breathing human beings do is so incendiary it is difficult to imagine a world where it could seriously occur.

The question of simulation (copy) vs Transfer is an interesting one.
In the star trek plot device i mentioned we have no questions its a transfer, since the source is destroyed just before the target is built.
Since the target feels a very real sense of continuity of self , its considered by the audience and the character a transfer, not a copy.

The Chippocampus as its sometimes refered to raises another possibility, If implanted with one, and used as the primary storage device, could "you" be transfered to a new body, via simple chip transplant.

I dont think there is any doubt a full head transplant would consitute transfer, so a chippocampus transfer is just the same.

Now the ethics of sanctioning a post biological conciousness extension is already being discussed

LONDON — A British ethics group has launched a debate on the ethical dilemmas posed by new technologies that tap into the brain and could bring super-human strength, highly enhanced concentration or thought-controlled weaponry

Brain technology that could enable ‘super-human’ « mindcomputers

Neurotechnology | Nuffield Council on Bioethics

Report due in 2013, should be interesting reading

I cant see why a post biological intellect or second phase individual should be any more or less a danger or drain on resources, indeed its the biologs with their ability to breed having ten or more offspring that are the drain on resources, a P2 unless transfered to a fully functioning replacement bioform cant replicate, and indeed unless the replacement bioform carrys their own genes, why would they want to.

Issues regarding resources could be addressed by optimising the replacement bioforms for far greater biological efficiency than the current models have.
Remove the ability to procreate, make the unit smaller, but stronger. replace the digestive system with a better fuel source solar perhaps, give it the photosynthesis ability of plant bioforms. Give it durability so it lasts a couple of hundred years before breaking down.
Give it large light sensitive , broad spectrum sensitive eyes so it doesnt need to use artificial lighting when its dark.........

Done properly a P2 replacement bioform, can be a more efficient , far less resource hungry person than a native biolog
P2's should have the same voting rights as a native biolog, a physical body is not what consitutes a person, thats why a brain dead patient has life support switched off.
The bioform may be warm, but the "person" is gone.
P2's are people too........

I cant help wondering what sort of a world we would live in where the Einstein's and Tesla's can continue to think learn and invent for hundreds and even thousands of years.

And the advantage of having cloud memory systems will be very useful in space exploration and other dangerous endeavours.
If your body gets destroyed, just decant a new one and load the last good backup from the cloud.
To me the ethics are no different to a heart transplant, its the same thing, the extension of a persons conciousness past the point of biological breakdown, the only difference is the length of that extension

We may want to draw the line at allowing dyslexics access to this technology though

They will just wander around saying "your ass will be laminated" :D
 
Science fiction dealing with these themes might be:
Zardoz - A fantastic film and book dealing with the societal complications of artificial eternal life.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Bladerunner - classic P.K.D.
Spock Must Die! - James Blish
Caprica - Superior Cyber-punk.
Mind Transfer - Janet Asimov, I've read this one and Zardoz numerous times over the years. (Mikey , have you read this one?)
... what are some others?

I personally find Jack Williamsons' The Humanoids the most terrifying variation on this theme imaginable.
 
I havent seen zardoz though ive read the synopsis.

Blade runner and total recall deal with two aspects of this technology, experience/memory transfer and optimised bioforms, so i enjoyed both movies.

I particulary enjoyed the twist at the end of TR, that hints it was ALL a recall memory, that the abort sequence was just part of the upload designed to make it seem authentic.

Stargate universe plays with the idea of conciousness transfer and upload as well.

But there are many scientists who no longer think in terms of Sci Fi

Dr Randal A. Koene, though, is determined to take digital immortality from the pages of books like Cave's and turn it into reality. Koene is founder of the non-profit Carbon Copies Project in California, which is tasked with creating a networking community of scientists to advance digital immortality – "although I prefer to talk about substrate-independent minds, as digital immortality is too much about how long you live, not what you can do with it".​
And for Koene it is very much "you", there being a "continuity of self" in the same way that "the person you are today is still the same person you were when you were age five".​
"This isn't science fiction, either, this is closer to science fact," he argues. Carbon Copies "is working to create a road map to substrate independence by pulling together all the research that is going on, identify where the gaps are and then what we need to do to plug it.​

Indeed the successful results of Berger's work are fact, not fiction.
It may only be a simple proof of concept result, but its still proof.

We all start with baby steps

As a lad i remember seeing bakelite telephones wired up to thermos sized dry cell batteries, now ppl carry them in their shirt pockets.

Star trek is another good example in the original series the communicator was voice only, because at that time TV's were a cubic metre of glass CRT and valves, The cameras used to film the show so heavy they had to be pushed around on wheels.
The idea of a hand held phone with a camera and screen built in was simply inconceivable........
Today you can pull a device smaller than the ST communicator out of your pocket and talk face to face with someone on the other side of the planet........
It wasnt that long ago the device that was used by Cpt Kirk to say "beam me up Mr Scott" was sci fi

If we apply that J curve to Bergers work...............
 
These are incredibly frightening concepts. They strike at the very heart of our being. I am obviously uncomfortable with the issues that trans-humanism raises. I think this is because I see the ultimate goal of myself as an individual is to be truly human. Transending my humanity seems neither desirable nor advantageous, but rather a betrayal.
 
So does a heart transplant or pacemaker transcend your humanity ?

Would you use dialysis or simply accept your biological components had failed and your human span expired

Would you be betraying your inbuilt use by date by having a machine replace your kidneys ?
 
So does a heart transplant or pacemaker transcend your humanity ?

Would you use dialysis or simply accept your biological components had failed and your human span expired

Would you be betraying your inbuilt use by date by having a machine replace your kidneys ?

I am looking at the ultimate expression of the ideal. The completely synthetic human. There will be varying degrees building up to that. I've thought about that a lot Mike. I know so many people with knee replacements for example. At what point do you loose your humanity? Emotionally, I see this at the central nervous system level for some reason.
 
Which raises an interesting philosophical question.

If and its only an IF, But IF you were indeed a simulation, would you object to being transfered to a seperate partition, once your function in this part of the simulation has run its course ?
 
So if "you" are in essence simply a large and complex dataset, One than can be stored and function on a non biological platform, Is it logical to prefer oblivion over transfer ?

 
So if "you" are in essence simply a large and complex dataset, One than can be stored and function on a non biological platform, Is it logical to prefer oblivion over transfer ?

I can only fall back on the imperfection of the original. The inherent suffering of the human condition made unrelenting, unending, and immortal in itself. The very idea that we could supersede the wisdom of the ancient and immutable evolutionary pr0cesses of the Earth is absolutely absurd in my opinion. We imagine ourselves gods, but we are but leaves in a stream.
 
But we do it all the time, reading glasses and contact lenses just a single example

I dont understand why imperfection and immutable would be desirable

From the moment we started shaping tools, the tools have been shaping us
 
Back
Top