On Sunday, December 18, 2016 at 6:40:17 AM UTC+1, Brent wrote: > > Bruno poses the question of whether we would let "the doctor" substitute > some functionally equivalent mechanism for our brain. But why substitute? > Why not just add on. >
Good question. > Well before it's possible to provide a substitute brain, it will be > possible to provide a brain prosthesis that allows enormously greater > storage capacity and communication with the internet and other similarly > augmented people. This offers a kind of immortality much more satisfying > that survival in some other branch of the Multiple Worlds. If my memories > and experiences and knowledge can be transferred to my children, then they > will be me+. > That assumes that children would want our memories. Because with such memories our descendants could also inherit bad habits, traumas etc. along with what we deem to be the positive content. In certain circumstances you'd want perhaps to label certain stored memories with a warning maybe, as "useful but with side-effect of trauma that caused me social anxiety" and leave the choice up to the kids. :-) Perhaps offer abridged text-based or holodeck VR versions that require less commitment and a bit of distance for some flexibility, lol. I've often reflected how inefficient it is that each child has to start > over learning reading, writing, and Peano. > Inefficient only when we rigidly impose our standards and biases. When we don't do that, these seemingly boring tasks are the most awesome magic available because above the tedium, you see the full person developing into who they are, refuting all our theories and standards + sharing with us the beginning of fresh new worlds that replenish the appetite for life. I wouldn't trade these useless memories for anything nor would I want descendants to be necessarily encumbered by them. This keeps control-freakishness and insecurities in check for folks who practice the art of letting go. > But if my memories survive then that's pretty close to immortality since > memories are the primary element of identity that connects me to Brent > Meeker of 10yrs ago and of 20yrs ago and 40yrs ago... > There is also perhaps some Brentness beyond the memories. Attitudes, styles, the type of clothing/hats we wear, our musics, our jokes, aesthetic dimensions of who we are etc. The stuff only our intimate buddies and partners have the pleasure or displeasure to get to approach/know, which might be alluded to through some poetry, music, farewell from friends and family or similar things when we pass away? There are also the practical limits of memory: what we can be aware of in any single moment, as with Turing machines, is limited to the symbol being scanned, even if a Turing machine can alter their m-configuration to remember symbols previously scanned. And in any language, there is a good reason for an upper limit to awareness concerning length of compound symbols. 555555555555555 or 5555555555555555 are compound symbols and we can't tell at a glance whether one is larger or the same. So that harmonizes nicely with experience. Also, Turing machines are assumed to have finite amount of states for a similar reason to limits of compound symbols: If we allow infinity of states, some of them will be arbitrarily close and we get a messy confusion, when we could avoid use of highly complicated/confusing states of mind by writing more symbols on the tape and referring to memory as needed. But indeed, why encumber descendants with ALL our luggage? Some memories of mine, even I can live without, lol. I'll just make sure to leave the keys, nuclear weapons, Doctors', lawyers' and accountants' contact details, should there ever be any trouble, and place memories into some sorted storage with warning labels and sales pitches. That is, if this variety of fuzzy Sunday afternoon options ever does become available. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
