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[PTTG??]

I'm studying for a career in biomedical engineer, computer science and robotics. I fully support our new machine overlords. Hopefully with said machine overlords being our uploaded minds.

My problem with that is there's no way to prove that consciousness/identity remains continuous over the transfer. My problem with THAT problem is that there's no way to prove that consciousness/identity remains continuous while you're asleep, too.

[Rose]

I'm studying for a career in biomedical engineer, computer science and robotics. I fully support our new machine overlords. Hopefully with said machine overlords being our uploaded minds.

My problem with that is there's no way to prove that consciousness/identity remains continuous over the transfer. My problem with THAT problem is that there's no way to prove that consciousness/identity remains continuous while you're asleep, too.

I've had a head injury.

My conciousness/identity was not continuous.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Frankly, there's no way to prove consciousness remains continuous from moment to moment. There is no way to even internally verify the subjective experience of consciousness if it is actually not truly continuous, but reconstructs itself from state to state at a speed higher than we can perceive.

Which is one of many reasons why questions of consciousness are doomed to collapse into solipsism and conjecture. This is not a problem that can be solved philosophically, except perhaps by backing the view that these questions should be rejected.

[wierd]

Your state of being alert, and talking, can be temporarily disrupted with a large intracranial transducer. It distrupts the electrical activity inside your brain, without having to surgically fiddle about in there.  When they flip the switch on the paddle, you slow down, then shut off.

When they turn the paddle off, you pick right back up where you left off, and are unaware of any passage of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMR_T0mM7Pc

If they stimulate the right spots, you lose consciousness-- then wake right back up when it gets shut off.

[Starver]

When they turn the paddle off, you pick right back up where you left off, and are unaware of any passage of time.

Or the "new you" that would normally start up and continue the work of the "old you", moment by moment, this time only picks up the work after an enforced pause (a longer gap between 'ticks' than normal), but still with the same prior history.

Simple continuity is a conjecture, albeit the simplest conjecture to go along with, so we might as well...

[Putnam]

Frankly, there's no way to prove consciousness remains continuous from moment to moment. There is no way to even internally verify the subjective experience of consciousness if it is actually not truly continuous, but reconstructs itself from state to state at a speed higher than we can perceive.

This is... interesting. Actually, I've only heard similar from Eliezer Yudkowsky IIRC, he believes that the Eliezer Yudkowsky of 5 minutes ago is about as much as the Eliezer Yudkowsky of now as an Eliezer Yudkowsky 30 meters away would be the Eliezer Yudkowsky sitting where he is... eh, it was this video. Strange, when I think of it, since he also used continuity of consciousness as a plot point in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Then again, I might be interpreting his beliefs as the exact opposite of what they actually are (it's either that consciousness is consistent over both time and space instead of neither, basically not treating time as a priveleged dimension, which is way Yudkowsky, what with all the timeless physics and decision theory and all, though I don't remember if he's changed his mind about all that).

I have no opinion. I don't think free will's real. That's about as far as I go with all that. I'm not sure trying to figure out the nature of consciousness is very scientific at all if there's no way to test it whatsoever. It's also difficult to test what with ethics and such. Gaps in time seem to allow consciousness to "resume", but what exactly does that mean? Is time priveleged in that way? Etc.

[hops]

I'm studying for a career in biomedical engineer, computer science and robotics. I fully support our new machine overlords. Hopefully with said machine overlords being our uploaded minds.

My problem with that is there's no way to prove that consciousness/identity remains continuous over the transfer. My problem with THAT problem is that there's no way to prove that consciousness/identity remains continuous while you're asleep, too.

Even if I die, I would still be okay with having a more intelligent entity which can live indefinitely and possess the same memories and sense of identity as me living on. I mean, it'd be like going to sleep and waking up for it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is... interesting. Actually, I've only heard similar from Eliezer Yudkowsky IIRC, he believes that the Eliezer Yudkowsky of 5 minutes ago is about as much as the Eliezer Yudkowsky of now as an Eliezer Yudkowsky 30 meters away would be the Eliezer Yudkowsky sitting where he is... eh, it was this video. Strange, when I think of it, since he also used continuity of consciousness as a plot point in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Then again, I might be interpreting his beliefs as the exact opposite of what they actually are (it's either that consciousness is consistent over both time and space instead of neither, basically not treating time as a priveleged dimension, which is way Yudkowsky, what with all the timeless physics and decision theory and all, though I don't remember if he's changed his mind about all that).

He is saying the opposite, Yudkowsky advocates Pattern Identity Theory, where your I-ness is not dependent on continuity at all, but a particular complex electrochemical pattern that makes up your mind, regardless of where in space and time it is or even if there are more than one at the same time.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, if we're bringing the "What is consciousness?" discussion over here as well as in the Technological Immortality thread, I'll say here, too, that arguing about what consciousness is tends not to be a debate over the nature of reality, but over the semantics of how we describe it. Experiments aren't relevant until you can work out a coherent hypothesis. Our language isn't really equipped to do that yet.

I'll also repeat my usual advice of finding definitions for words that describe reality, instead of finding words with definitions that describe reality. It's better to accept that temperature is really a measure of aggregate kinetic energy than to discard the word when you learn that heat isn't really a fluid or whatever. Or, in this case, it's better to accept that "free will" doesn't involve acausality or anything magical like that, and try to figure out what really does seem to distinguish between the behavior of a rock and a person when either rolls down a hill.

[Sirus]

And only with that last post did I realize that this wasn't the Technological Immortality thread.

Isn't there any other science news to discuss without bringing it into multiple threads?

[Starver]

Isn't there any other science news to discuss without bringing it into multiple threads?

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter being launched?  (Or should that be instead posted in the Space Thread?)

Edit: Or maybe a joke!
- I say I say I say, my dog's got two noses!
- How does he smell?
- Like a normal dog, presumably...

[martinuzz]

Researchers at Stanford University have been inspired by ants, and managed to make a team of 6 micro robots, whose combined weight is less than 100 grams, pull a car weighing 1750 kilograms. The robot's feet are covered with sticky nanotechnology inspired by gecko's toes.
They will present their findings at the international robotics conference in Stockholm, coming may.

https://youtu.be/wU8Q7gIdiMI

[Bauglir]

I, for one, am not sure whether to be welcoming our new overlords as robotic or insect-like.

[Solifuge]

Micro tug bots are pretty cool. Thanks for sharing those!

[itisnotlogical]

Alright, I have a physics question that may be really dumb. Bear with me, it's been a long, long time since I knew anything about electricity or physics.

In zero gravity, a moving object will stay in motion until it's stopped or slowed by something else, correct? If you were to create a turbine in zero gravity, could you start it spinning very fast using an extremely small amount of thrust, then just let it keep moving on its own inertia until it needs another little bit of thrust to counteract the friction from the brushes?