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Brains are to consciousness like birds are to flight

Date post: 10-May-2015
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Computers can achieve consciousness, despite their simplicity compared to brains, just as aircraft can achieve flight, despite their simplicity compared to birds.
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Brains are to Minds as Birds are to Flight: Can Software Achieve Consciousness As Readily As Aircraft Have Achieved Flight? Transvision 2010 2010 October 22 Martine Rothblatt [email protected] 1
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Page 1: Brains are to consciousness like birds are to flight

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Brains are to Minds as Birds are to Flight:  

Can Software Achieve Consciousness As Readily As Aircraft Have Achieved Flight?

Transvision 20102010 October 22Martine Rothblatt

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\“One illusion I hope to 

dispel is the notion that 

our brains are computers 

and that consciousness 

could emerge from 

computation. ”  

G Edelman, Second Nature

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Greater Shearwater, N Mayer

“One illusion I hope to dispel 

is that birds are planes & that 

flight could emerge from 

aircraft.” Experts Circa 1900

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When a famous scientist states something is possible, he is almost certainly right. 

When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.

Arthur C. Clarke 

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Why Don’t Famous Scientists Like Cyberconsciousness?

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Brains Are Very, Very Complex

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COMPUTERS ARE VERY, VERY SIMPLE

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ERGO…

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BUT…

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AND STILL WE FLY!

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So What Gives?  Over-Reaction Against Spooky Cartesian Dualism Led to Erroneous Thinking That the Mind MUST Be Embodied in Biology

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For Sure the Mind Must Be Embodied

But Software and Hardware Will Do As Well as Wetware and Fleshware

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But the Brain Is Vastly More Complex!

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And Birds Are Way More Complex Than Airplanes, Jets & Other Aircraft

Shearwater Gesture, Mayer

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Top Planes Have ≈ 6 Million Parts

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Top Birds Have Over 100 Billion Parts

 (Eukaryotic Cells)

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Yet We Fly Pretty Darn High, Far &  Well

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Don’t Have to Replicate a Bird to Fly; Don’t Have to Copy a Brain to Be Conscious

Shearwater Sketchbook, N Mayer

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As Birds and Jets Differ, So Will Brains & 

Cyberconscious Minds

NO EGGS, WORMS OR DOG PROBLEMS

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Fast

er M

inds

Mea

n

Free

r Tho

ught

s

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CAN IT BE DONE?

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It’s Clear That Mindfiles Need Not Even Approach 100%

• Normal People Remember Only a Small Percent of What They Experience

• Mannerisms, Personality, Feelings, Beliefs, Attitudes & Values Are– Not infinitely variable and unique– Finite sets that repeat across people– Minor variations not material– Recollections & combinations create uniqueness

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Fascinating Mindfile Facts:  Estimated Number of…

An adult’s short term memory

Up to 7 items for 3 - 20 seconds

Recognizable faces Several hundred

Personality sub-types Few dozen

Universal facial expressions

6

Adult’s thoughts retained per day

7% - 13%

Emotions Few dozen

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One Hour a Day of Mindfile Deposits Is Enough

• 5 Years to Complete 100,000 Bainbridges

• 5 Years to Upload, Label & Emotion-Code 100K Photos

• 2000 Hours of You on Video! (In 5 Yrs)

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The  Lifenaut & CyBeRev  Projects

Android Phones:  Download PersonalityMD from Google Marketplace

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Revival Via Mindware

• Software that enables equivalent functionality to a mind from which mindfiles were abstracted

• “Auto-tunes” based on processing of mindfiles

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So What Makes Us Unique?

• The formula for the number of unique personality frameworks available to mindware, known as a “repeating combination”, would be ST, where S = the number of possible personality trait scores and T = the number of possible personality traits.  For our example, ST = 2015 = 328,080,401,001.

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Antecedents of Mindware

• Gameware Avatars• Autonomous Cars• Social Chatbots• AI Engines

– E.g. Novamente

• Neuro-Electronic Mapping

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FROM MINDFILES TO MINDWARE TO MINDCLONES

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Bina48

•The First MindClone Begins

•Located in Bristol, VT USA

•As Seen in

www.lifenaut.com

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BUT IS CYBERCONSCIOUSNESS ALIVE?

• The expression of a code that enables self-replication and maintenance against disorder– SCHRODINGER

• Capable of replication, mutation, variation and natural selection -- DARWIN

•  Something that savors reality, contributes to better enjoyment of reality, a fresh lens on the wonder of creation -- GALILEO

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“Downloading is Pretty Fucking Far From Suicide”

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Mindloading Trusts That Our Bodies Are But a Canvas

“The naked fear of sleeving [is just] paranoid essentialism with its back to the wall.” 

Morgan, Richard. Altered Carbon. Victor Gollancz Ltd., 2002, p.164.

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IMPLICATIONS – 4TH DOMAIN OF LIFE

N Mayer at [email protected]

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IMPLICATIONS:  Techno-Immortality

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IMPLICATIONS – EVOLVED IDENTITIES

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THE OBJECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

CONSCIOUSNESS,> Continuum of abilities> When healthy> To be autonomous> & empathetic> As determined by others      

Juries do this for brain intent; Psychologists can do this for mindclone consciousness

A Turing

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Biological Essentialists v. Functionalists

Gerald Edelman• “One illusion I hope to 

dispel is the notion that our brains are computers and that consciousness could emerge from computation.”  Second Nature, Yale University Press, 2006, p. 9

Today’s Presentation• Whether brains are computers is 

not determinative of whether consciousness can emerge from computation

• Birds are not planes but airflight emerges from jets

• Autonomy and empathy, semantics and subjectivity, arise from value-weighted pattern associations, regardless of substrate

• Consciousness is what consciousness does

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Conclusion

• The Terasem Hypothesis says that consciousness will arise from sufficiently advanced mindware applied to sufficiently detailed mindfiles.

• It is a falsifiable hypothesis as per Popper • Let the testing proceed• I think the odds are in its favor


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