On Monday, July 22, 2019 at 8:39:57 PM UTC-5, Dan Sonik wrote: > > Hello List, > > In my extracurricular studies, I have been reading Kolb's "An Introduction > to Brain and Behavior" (2e, 2005), specifically the opening chapter on the > origins of the feedback loop between brain and behavior, and the dramatic > impact that small lesions throughout the brain have on ones behavior. > > This is relevant to a number of discussions on this list (to my > mind/brain) as it seems to create some rather severe constraints > surrounding the success criteria of a "duplication" of a brain. > > From the reading, it would appear that, in order to a proper digital > duplication of a brain to take place, the so-called "substitution level" at > which you would be willing to say "Yes doctor" would actually have to be > satisfied at multiple levels of analysis (i.e. chemically, neurochemically, > biologically, physically, socially, psychologically, interpersonally). > These levels of analysis are not captured in any complete mathematical > formalism that I know of. > > A doctor intending to "duplicate your brain" would have to plan on a) > copying your brain in a current state (statically + dynamic equations to > fill in details of "next state" operation; b) destroying some or all parts > of your brain to be replaced/duplicated; c) reconstituting your brain (in > either the biological way (probably absolutely intractable) or some > sufficiently digitally exact copy (today, practically intractable) such > that it replicated the function of what was to be replaced/duplicated. This > would have to be perfect enough to keep all of the levels of > substitution/analysis described above in tact. > > We know from even seemingly minor cases of brain damage that the "person" > before the damage (i.e. YOU) and the "person" after the damage (YOU?) are > not the same... memories are fragmented, behavioral patterns change, and > significant others who would previously have enjoyed YOUR company might now > be frustrated when spending time with YOU. > > So would you ever say yes to the doctor? Why? What kind of confidence > would you need to be willing to bet such a duplication/replacement would be > successful? > > I submit that your confidence would (and should) be quite low. This is > because a) there could be more than one substitution level; b) dynamical > properties of the brain are just as important (if not more) as their > general static properties (eg. the connectome); c) intersubjective > agreement about whether you are the same person is just as (if not more) > important after duplication, as it is assumed after the duplication that > you will go on to join society in whatever capacity you did before the > duplication. > > My computer earlier today wouldn't boot up. Apparently, one of the key > files it needed got corrupted and I needed to replace it using a restore > disk. It took about an hour to fix. This is for an actual full fledged > honest-to-goodness digital machine. And its failure was completely > unpredictable based on previous behavior of the machine.Either a) I did > something in my previous session to cause the corruption or b) the > corruption happened randomly. > > What about something as complex (and integrated into its environment) as > the brain? What could go wrong in a duplication here? > > TL;DR CONCLUSIONS -- > > 1) Thought experiments about the completion of duplications/destructions > of brains gloss over so many necessary empirical details regarding brain > function and continual identity that they can come to no useful conclusions > about anything. > > 2) "Mechanism" as used on this list (i.e. the computational hypothesis > that our minds can (and indeed are) replicated in the structure of the > natural numbers is FALSE. >
Any brain (or part-brain) replacement would have to be made (biocompiled) via synthetic biology, with possibly some new neural-like polymers w/ neurochemistry as in the brain. @philipthrift -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/5807adf9-b770-4d59-9146-518360f07acb%40googlegroups.com.
