Afterlife, digital copies or clones

[ai_guardian]

MR Walker wrote in another thread....(I thought it was more appropriate to address it here)

Quote

There is enough science about the mind to know that it is transferrable but not enough technology to do it just yet

I'm curious, please cite this "enough science about the mind to know that it is transferrable"

[+Sherapy]

On 11/27/2019 at 1:18 AM, Mr Walker said:

 i found this interesting 

quote 

 

Subconscious Mind: Where Does It Hide?

It’s not uncommon to hear about conscious and unconscious types of actions when scientists talk about the brain. As a result, most of us are familiar with the idea that our behavior is less rational than we believe to be.

Whether we like it or not, our ability to control thoughts, synchronize movements, or experience emotions depends on the depth of information processing.

The idea of deeper levels of information processing was developed and extensively studied by famous Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) who introduced the 3 level mind model. According to his model, the mind could be divided into following levels:

Conscious – defines all thoughts and actions within our awareness.

For example, the beauty and pleasance of the smell of a red tulip

Subconscious – defines all reactions and automatic actions we can become aware of if we think about them.

For example, our ability to drive a car: once we get skilled we stop thinking which gears to use, which pedals to press, or which mirror to look at, yet can always become aware of what was done once we think about it.

Unconscious – defines all past events and memories, inaccessible to us no matter how hard we try to remember to bring things up.

For example, the first word we’ve learned to say, or how it felt to be able to walk on our own.

 

https://imotions.com/blog/what-is-the-subconscious-mind/

 

I am speaking of the first two, although i think the last one is actually a much smaller group than some imagine  ie if we ever  thought something, it is there in our mind and brain.  There may be problems recalling it, but different  techniques can help us do this. Examples include childhood trauma and abuse,  but also lesser concerns like phobias fetishes etc. 

eg after a stroke an adult has to learn to access their subconscious mind to learn how to control their movements. We have been using our bodies so long that  tour movements have become subconsciously directed Not consciously but not unconsciously either.

As babies we would have learned to walk/ talk  etc very consciously and deliberately, gradually   mastering control of speech and movement. Later in life movement and speech often becomes subconsciously controlled.   

 

Mr. Walker a stroke affects ( by damaging) the cell), we don’t have control or access to our biology at this level from a conscious level, this is what Paul is saying.  We couldn’t even access it like you are suggesting, one is not controlling or guiding the  unconscious like you claim. If this was so, then certainly one would consciously notify the subconscious to stop or intervene an impending stroke or heart attack.
 

My ex husband had a debilitating stroke the damage was extensive Which at first we didn’t know how bad.. He lost sight in his right eye, and the use of his left arm and hand, he lost the ability to read, he had no memory of his job skills. In time, he regained the ability to read and remembered  his job skills, these things just came back once he healed, he never regained control of his left arm or got his vision back though,
How frustrating would it be for a person to be told that they can access their unconscious and retrain areas that have sustained irreversible damage. 

Babies have emerging motor skills and language skills ( they are wired to their native language too), I would take a guess and call these adaptions initiated in the brain that controls motor development and language. What we see is an emerging motor skill, or language skill but it is more like the baby refines and gains control over the emerging ability via an interaction between the environment and experience ( learning). 

 

 

[Mr Walker]

12 hours ago, Sherapy said:

Mr. Walker a stroke affects ( by damaging) the cell), we don’t have control or access to our biology at this level from a conscious level, this is what Paul is saying.  We couldn’t even access it like you are suggesting, one is not controlling or guiding the  unconscious like you claim. If this was so, then certainly one would consciously notify the subconscious to stop or intervene an impending stroke or heart attack.
 

My ex husband had a debilitating stroke the damage was extensive Which at first we didn’t know how bad.. He lost sight in his right eye, and the use of his left arm and hand, he lost the ability to read, he had no memory of his job skills. In time, he regained the ability to read and remembered  his job skills, these things just came back once he healed, he never regained control of his left arm or got his vision back though,
How frustrating would it be for a person to be told that they can access their unconscious and retrain areas that have sustained irreversible damage. 

Babies have emerging motor skills and language skills ( they are wired to their native language too), I would take a guess and call these adaptions initiated in the brain that controls motor development and language. What we see is an emerging motor skill, or language skill but it is more like the baby refines and gains control over the emerging ability via an interaction between the environment and experience ( learning). 

 

 

I appreciate your personal history and didnt mean to challenge it 

I wouldnt say that a person who could access and control their subconscious could always  stop a stroke and  they certainly could not   repair the biological damage 

however when, as in my wife's case, the stroke was trigrered by a single very stressful incident, maybe she could have prevented it if  she  had controlled her blood pressure  pulse rate and emotions.

it is clear that some strokes are directly related to stress, 

it is possible  tha t even some cancers are a result of stress and if you can reduce or eliminate anxiety / stress you might have a lower risk of cancer 

quote

 “Stress has a profound impact on how your body’s systems function,” says Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor of General Oncology and Behavioral Science, and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at MD Anderson. Health experts are still sorting out whether stress actually causes cancer. Yet there’s little doubt that it promotes the growth and spread of some forms of the disease. Put simply, “stress makes your body more hospitable to cancer,” Cohen says.

https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/how-stress-affects-cancer-risk.h21-1589046.html

   we certainly do have much more control over our biology via our mind than most people realise.

You can control most aspects of your body by mind, including even pain.

 

Babies are not "wired"  to their native language. They learn the language being spoken around them, by imitation of sounds, and facial movements used to produce those sounds  and if the y are deaf the y have great difficulty learning to speak.  Due to the plasticity of a child's brain, it is much easier for them to learn ( and become fluent in ) speaking and thinking in several languages at the same time 

Edited December 4, 2019 by Mr Walker

[+Sherapy]

54 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

I appreciate your personal history and didnt mean to challenge it 

I wouldnt say that a person who could access and control their subconscious could always  stop a stroke and  they certainly could not   repair the biological damage 

however when, as in my wife's case, the stroke was trigrered by a single very stressful incident, maybe she could have prevented it if  she  had controlled her blood pressure  pulse rate and emotions.

it is clear that some strokes are directly related to stress, 

it is possible  tha t even some cancers are a result of stress and if you can reduce or eliminate anxiety / stress you might have a lower risk of cancer 

quote

 “Stress has a profound impact on how your body’s systems function,” says Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor of General Oncology and Behavioral Science, and director of the Integrative Medicine Program at MD Anderson. Health experts are still sorting out whether stress actually causes cancer. Yet there’s little doubt that it promotes the growth and spread of some forms of the disease. Put simply, “stress makes your body more hospitable to cancer,” Cohen says.

https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/how-stress-affects-cancer-risk.h21-1589046.html

   we certainly do have much more control over our biology via our mind than most people realise.

You can control most aspects of your body by mind, including even pain.

 

Babies are not "wired"  to their native language. They learn the language being spoken around them, by imitation of sounds, and facial movements used to produce those sounds  and if the y are deaf the y have great difficulty learning to speak.  Due to the plasticity of a child's brain, it is much easier for them to learn ( and become fluent in ) speaking and thinking in several languages at the same time 

Read Noam Chomsky he advanced that babies are wired to their native language, I hedge my bets with him. All due respect. It’s just his area.

My ex smoked, ate bad and refused to exercise and never slept and refused to take his meds., said god would heal him. He refused to listen to his doctors. He had his first stroke at 30, kept on smoking, didn’t diet, next stroke came, then the next then finally the one that killed him, we tried to get him to listen, he refused.  My ex sped up his demise by not following his doctors advice.

It sounds like you love your wife very much and wish you could make her better. I imagine just having you helps a lot. 

 

[+Hammerclaw]

4 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Read Noam Chomsky he advanced that babies are wired to their native language, I hedge my bets with him. All due respect. It’s just his area.

My ex smoked, ate bad and refused to exercise and never slept and refused to take his meds., said god would heal him. He refused to listen to his doctors. He had his first stroke at 30, kept on smoking, didn’t diet, next stroke came, then the next then finally the one that killed him, we tried to get him to listen, he refused.  My ex sped up his demise by not following his doctors advice.

It sounds like you love your wife very much and wish you could make her better. I imagine just having you helps a lot. 

 

Haven't read him but it seems pretty obvious. Babies are exposed to language long before they're birthed. It reverberates through the womb, each time the mother speaks. It can hear others, more distantly, too. It's, thus predisposed to a set of sound symbols.

[Mr Walker]

23 hours ago, ai_guardian said:

MR Walker wrote in another thread....(I thought it was more appropriate to address it here)

I'm curious, please cite this "enough science about the mind to know that it is transferrable"

Scientists  has directly transferred thoughts (both as images and words)  form one mind to another, using a computer interface  They have also produced images from  the dreams of people.

All is in its infancy yet, and the results are not high quality, but they show that the words and images in our mind are physical, observable, entities.

As this is so they can be recorded and stored.  It also means that the thoughts of one person can be transferred to another, and that  one person's mind can be stored in another brain or on an artificial "brain"  of sufficient quality (not available yet,  but on present trends in computing technology  will be by around 2050 

This article is 5 years old and things have advanced since then 

 https://www.livescience.com/47708-human-brain-link-sends-thoughts.html

The y have been recording images from  the mind since 2011.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/ 

In 2018 the first fairly rough images recorded directly from  dreams were made, 

Edited December 4, 2019 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

3 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

Haven't read him but it seems pretty obvious. Babies are exposed to language long before they're birthed. It reverberates through the womb, each time the mother speaks. It can hear others, more distantly, too. It's, thus predisposed to a set of sound symbols.

This is true, but shows that language is learned, not wired into our genes. We learn the languages we are exposed to, and if not exposed to ANY, can not learn to speak.

Exposure probably does begin pre birth, given the fact that many children are almost fully formed for a period before they are born

.However language is learned by observation (and then imitation) of facial  movements, as much as by sound. And you  cant see a lot from  within the womb   

[Mr Walker]

4 hours ago, Sherapy said:

Read Noam Chomsky he advanced that babies are wired to their native language, I hedge my bets with him. All due respect. It’s just his area.

My ex smoked, ate bad and refused to exercise and never slept and refused to take his meds., said god would heal him. He refused to listen to his doctors. He had his first stroke at 30, kept on smoking, didn’t diet, next stroke came, then the next then finally the one that killed him, we tried to get him to listen, he refused.  My ex sped up his demise by not following his doctors advice.

It sounds like you love your wife very much and wish you could make her better. I imagine just having you helps a lot. 

 

I wont comment on your  first husband  but yes   I love my wife very much.

i was hit by the thunderbolt when i saw her sitting on a swing, crying, under a spreading pepper tree in my back yard on my 21st birthday. 

She had just lost a much older man( her first love) who had moved from Sydney to her/our home town, to be with her, then dropped dead of a massive heart attack shortly after.

  She saw this happen, but could do nothing; it was so quick. 

It is one of the reason's i dont drink or smoke, and try to keep as healthy as my genes allow.

She is 9 years older than me,  ( born in 1942, while i was born in 1951) which is good, as women are biologically about that much younger then men, so with  bit of luck neither of us will outlive the other by much    

This runs in my family a bit 

My mum was born in 1922 and lived until 2017 My dad was born in 1929 and died in 2009  He died  on the operating  table a few days short of their 60th wedding anniversary  Mum died in the local hospital, after contracting pneumonia in the hospital, while recovering from a hip which was broken in a fall.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Mr Walker

[ai_guardian]

42 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

Scientists  has directly transferred thoughts (both as images and words)  form one mind to another, using a computer interface  They have also produced images from  the dreams of people.

All is in its infancy yet, and the results are not high quality, but they show that the words and images in our mind are physical, observable, entities.

As this is so they can be recorded and stored.  It also means that the thoughts of one person can be transferred to another, and that  one person's mind can be stored in another brain or on an artificial "brain"  of sufficient quality (not available yet,  but on present trends in computing technology  will be by around 2050 

This article is 5 years old and things have advanced since then 

 https://www.livescience.com/47708-human-brain-link-sends-thoughts.html

The y have been recording images from  the mind since 2011.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/ 

In 2018 the first fairly rough images recorded directly from  dreams were made, 

Oh my, I'm bitterly disappointed to say the least. These studies I have already known about, unfortunately for you they say nothing with regards to "enough science about the mind to know that it is transferrable". It is NOT about thransferring a mind, it is about transmitting a thought, albeit crudely yes (that I guess is your reference to the technological difficulty). If only it was as you claim it is  Nevermind, I'm sorry I asked, I thought you may really have something.

[Bed of chaos]

17 hours ago, Sherapy said:

Read Noam Chomsky he advanced that babies are wired to their native language, I hedge my bets with him. All due respect. It’s just his area.

My ex smoked, ate bad and refused to exercise and never slept and refused to take his meds., said god would heal him. He refused to listen to his doctors. He had his first stroke at 30, kept on smoking, didn’t diet, next stroke came, then the next then finally the one that killed him, we tried to get him to listen, he refused.  My ex sped up his demise by not following his doctors advice.

It sounds like you love your wife very much and wish you could make her better. I imagine just having you helps a lot. 

 

That's horrible. I can't imagine what you (and ex) went through. I was smoking over a pack a day (unfortunately over 20 years). Its catching up with me. Chest pains. Spontanteouly waking up w breathing problems (however I'm significantly close to quitting). My doctor recently said 'if you quit now perhaps you wont develop serious breathing problems in 50's or 60's'. Almost all of my immediate family works in healthcare and smokes. Smart, right?

 

[Mr Walker]

13 hours ago, ai_guardian said:

Oh my, I'm bitterly disappointed to say the least. These studies I have already known about, unfortunately for you they say nothing with regards to "enough science about the mind to know that it is transferrable". It is NOT about thransferring a mind, it is about transmitting a thought, albeit crudely yes (that I guess is your reference to the technological difficulty). If only it was as you claim it is  Nevermind, I'm sorry I asked, I thought you may really have something.

lol Of course that is how you would see it.

However it is the first step and the proof that a mind can be transferred  ie a mind is a physical entity which can thus be reproduced stored and replicated not an ephemeral transient set of thoughts  

There is also of course the work by Darpa  and others, ongoing since the sixties, but finally making some real progress, on creating artificial brains which could store a human mind,  temporarily before transfer to another brain, or permanently in android body 

What has been achieved so far is like the discovery of sound frequencies, which can be transmitted, allowing radio and TV to be developed  The scientists working on this claimed as early as 10 years ago that their children would benefit from  this technology, by basically becoming immortal, as their mind was transferred to a new host when/before  the old body/brain died. 

[ai_guardian]

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

lol Of course that is how you would see it.

And that would be because that is what the study is. 

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

However it is the first step and the proof that a mind can be transferred  ie a mind is a physical entity which can thus be reproduced stored and replicated not an ephemeral transient set of thoughts  

I, unlike you, don't sensationalise and exaggerate to the point where you finish up with "transfer mind" from "transmit thought"  And mind btw, includes transient set of thoughts - the activations of neural networks and subsets thereof, we just agreed on this in the other thread.

I dare not even bother to look up what you are further claiming (chances are I probably had seen it), since you already disappointed me once on this.

[+Sherapy]

3 hours ago, Bed of chaos said:

That's horrible. I can't imagine what you (and ex) went through. I was smoking over a pack a day (unfortunately over 20 years). Its catching up with me. Chest pains. Spontanteouly waking up w breathing problems (however I'm significantly close to quitting). My doctor recently said 'if you quit now perhaps you wont develop serious breathing problems in 50's or 60's'. Almost all of my immediate family works in healthcare and smokes. Smart, right?

 

You can significantly improve your breathing by quitting. Do not beat yourself up it is an addiction, not easy to quit, and it is never to late to quit. 
 

There are a lot of quitting smoking aides that work well, the patch is one of them. 

 

Good luck, even thinking about quitting is a step in the right direction.

In regards to my ex, I struggled with the idea that he would continue smoking after a stroke with young children. 
It seemed selfish to me, he would continue smoking, eventually quit and then chewed tobacco till he died. 
In the end,  it was his call. He died at 59, leaving behind sons.

[+Sherapy]

34 minutes ago, ai_guardian said:

And that would be because that is what the study is. 

I, unlike you, don't sensationalise and exaggerate to the point where you finish up with "transfer mind" from "transmit thought"  And mind btw, includes transient set of thoughts - the activations of neural networks and subsets thereof, we just agreed on this in the other thread.

I dare not even bother to look up what you are further claiming (chances are I probably had seen it), since you already disappointed me once on this.

Eventually most reach this conclusion on many topics. Well, it is clear that you bring a lot of expertise to this topic and I have learned a lot reading your contributions. Thank you for the in depth interesting posts, and the corrections. 
 

 

[Mr Walker]

1 hour ago, ai_guardian said:

And that would be because that is what the study is. 

I, unlike you, don't sensationalise and exaggerate to the point where you finish up with "transfer mind" from "transmit thought"  And mind btw, includes transient set of thoughts - the activations of neural networks and subsets thereof, we just agreed on this in the other thread.

I dare not even bother to look up what you are further claiming (chances are I probably had seen it), since you already disappointed me once on this.

The one demonstrates the physical possibility of the other.

One means the other will eventually occur (given continued human progress in science and technology)

  and yes it is complex 

BUT

Transmission of sound began with dots and dashes and ended up where we are today, after only about 18O years.

  However, once it was established that it was possible, all the rest could follow,'  up to  modern mobile phones, and later (in the future)  to technologies beyond this, like direct mind to mind linkage and communication.Your grandchildren, and perhaps even your children,(or humans from those age groups if you don't have any of your own)   will probably be able to communicate, mind to mind, over a neural network which might be called the internet of the mind.    as long as you can transfer memories into an operating mind, then you have yourself and a slef capable of going on just like your old self,  but perhaps for many more decades  The transient set of thoughts of this moment  becomes memories, and when you combine memory with abilty to  self direct   current transient thoughts,  you have an individual identity  

 

 

quote

 

According to Moore's law, computing power doubles approximately every two years. Several technologies are undergoing similar exponential advances, from genetic sequencing to 3D printing, Kurzweil told conference attendees. He illustrated the point with a series of graphs showing the inexorable upward climb of various technologies.

By 2045, "based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold," Kurzweil said.

Itskov and other so-called "transhumanists" interpret this impending singularity as digital immortality. Specifically, they believe that in a few decades, humans will be able to upload their minds to a computer, transcending the need for a biological body. The idea sounds like sci-fi, and it is — at least for now. The reality, however, is that neural engineering is making significant strides toward modeling the brain and developing technologies to restore or replace some of its biological functions.

 

Mind uploading

The conference took a surreal turn when Martine Rothblatt — a lawyer, author and entrepreneur, and CEO of biotech company United Therapeutics Corp. — took the stage. Even the title of Rothblatt's talk was provocative: "The Purpose of Biotechnology is the End of Death."

Rothblatt introduced the concept of "mindclones" — digital versions of humans that can live forever. She described how the mind clones are created from a "mindfile," a sort of online repository of our personalities, which she argued humans already have (in the form of Facebook, for example). This mindfile would be run on "mindware," a kind of software for consciousness. "The first company that develops mindware will have [as much success as] a thousand Googles," Rothblatt said.

But would such a mindclone be alive? Rothblatt thinks so. She cited one definition of life as a self-replicating code that maintains itself against disorder. Some critics have shunned what Rothblatt called "spooky Cartesian dualism," arguing that the mind must be embedded in biology. On the contrary, software and hardware are as good as wet ware, or biological materials, she argued.

Rothblatt went on to discuss the implications of creating mindclones. Continuity of the self is one issue, because your persona would no longer inhabit just a biological body. Then, there are mind-clone civil rights, which would be the "cause célèbre" for the 21st century, Rothblatt said. Even mindclone procreation and reanimation after death were mentioned.

 https://www.livescience.com/37499-immortality-by-2045-conference.html

 quote

Scientists Are Convinced Mind Transfer Is the Key to Immortality

Now we can add Stephen Hawking to the list of prominent scientists touting a cybernetic post-mortal human race.

Call it mind transfer, uploading, brain backup, whatever—the idea of copying the human brain to a computer so it can live on without the body has a strong hold on futurists, neuroscientists, and folks that just want to live forever.

Also Stephen Hawking. At screening of a new film about his life this week, the cosmologist said he believes it's possible to retain a digital version of the brain after the body dies—though it probably won't happen in his lifetime.

These thought leaders in cybernetics gathered this summer in New York City for the Global Future 2045 International Congress, organized by Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov. Itskov grabbed headlines for claiming humans will download digital copies of themselves into android avatars by 2045—just how a Cylon downloads its consciousness into the next copy when it "dies."

Futurist and transhumanist Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, suggested at the event that we'll be able to transfer the entire human mind to a computer within four decades. "Based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold," Kurzweil said at the conference.

Indeed, for all its sci-fi fanfare, technical singularity is rooted in science. And there are continuous advances in cybernetics lending credence to the claim that mind transfer holds the key to a post-mortal human race. Massive supercomputers are getting better at simulating the human brain. Artificial intelligence experts are developing increasingly smart machines that can reason, think, and learn by mimicking the brain's cerebral cortex. And brain-computer interfaces—machines that can effectively read your mind—are advancing fast.

Still, the concept of digitally preserving the human mind is based on what's theoretically possible, not a step-by-step roadmap. One of the biggest holes in the theory (and there are many to poke) is more philosophical than scientific: the notion of whether consciousness would survive the digital switchover in tact. Or even beyond that, what about the soul? Or whatever it is that makes you you, beyond the biological puzzle pieces.

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ezzj8z/scientists-are-convinced-mind-transfer-is-the-key-to-immortality

Edited December 5, 2019 by Mr Walker

[ai_guardian]

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

The one demonstrates the physical possibility of the other.

One means the other will eventually occur (given continued human progress in science and technology)

  and yes it is complex 

BUT

Transmission of sound began with dots and dashes and ended up where we are today, after only about 18O years.

  However, once it was established that it was possible, all the rest could follow,'  up to  modern mobile phones, and later (in the future)  to technologies beyond this, like direct mind to mind linkage and communication.Your grandchildren, and perhaps even your children,(or humans from those age groups if you don't have any of your own)   will probably be able to communicate, mind to mind, over a neural network which might be called the internet of the mind.    as long as you can transfer memories into an operating mind, then you have yourself and a slef capable of going on just like your old self,  but perhaps for many more decades  The transient set of thoughts of this moment  becomes memories, and when you combine memory with abilty to  self direct   current transient thoughts,  you have an individual identity  

 

 

quote

 

According to Moore's law, computing power doubles approximately every two years. Several technologies are undergoing similar exponential advances, from genetic sequencing to 3D printing, Kurzweil told conference attendees. He illustrated the point with a series of graphs showing the inexorable upward climb of various technologies.

By 2045, "based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold," Kurzweil said.

Itskov and other so-called "transhumanists" interpret this impending singularity as digital immortality. Specifically, they believe that in a few decades, humans will be able to upload their minds to a computer, transcending the need for a biological body. The idea sounds like sci-fi, and it is — at least for now. The reality, however, is that neural engineering is making significant strides toward modeling the brain and developing technologies to restore or replace some of its biological functions.

 

Mind uploading

The conference took a surreal turn when Martine Rothblatt — a lawyer, author and entrepreneur, and CEO of biotech company United Therapeutics Corp. — took the stage. Even the title of Rothblatt's talk was provocative: "The Purpose of Biotechnology is the End of Death."

Rothblatt introduced the concept of "mindclones" — digital versions of humans that can live forever. She described how the mind clones are created from a "mindfile," a sort of online repository of our personalities, which she argued humans already have (in the form of Facebook, for example). This mindfile would be run on "mindware," a kind of software for consciousness. "The first company that develops mindware will have [as much success as] a thousand Googles," Rothblatt said.

But would such a mindclone be alive? Rothblatt thinks so. She cited one definition of life as a self-replicating code that maintains itself against disorder. Some critics have shunned what Rothblatt called "spooky Cartesian dualism," arguing that the mind must be embedded in biology. On the contrary, software and hardware are as good as wet ware, or biological materials, she argued.

Rothblatt went on to discuss the implications of creating mindclones. Continuity of the self is one issue, because your persona would no longer inhabit just a biological body. Then, there are mind-clone civil rights, which would be the "cause célèbre" for the 21st century, Rothblatt said. Even mindclone procreation and reanimation after death were mentioned.

 https://www.livescience.com/37499-immortality-by-2045-conference.html

 quote

Scientists Are Convinced Mind Transfer Is the Key to Immortality

Now we can add Stephen Hawking to the list of prominent scientists touting a cybernetic post-mortal human race.

Call it mind transfer, uploading, brain backup, whatever—the idea of copying the human brain to a computer so it can live on without the body has a strong hold on futurists, neuroscientists, and folks that just want to live forever.

Also Stephen Hawking. At screening of a new film about his life this week, the cosmologist said he believes it's possible to retain a digital version of the brain after the body dies—though it probably won't happen in his lifetime.

These thought leaders in cybernetics gathered this summer in New York City for the Global Future 2045 International Congress, organized by Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov. Itskov grabbed headlines for claiming humans will download digital copies of themselves into android avatars by 2045—just how a Cylon downloads its consciousness into the next copy when it "dies."

Futurist and transhumanist Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, suggested at the event that we'll be able to transfer the entire human mind to a computer within four decades. "Based on conservative estimates of the amount of computation you need to functionally simulate a human brain, we'll be able to expand the scope of our intelligence a billion-fold," Kurzweil said at the conference.

Indeed, for all its sci-fi fanfare, technical singularity is rooted in science. And there are continuous advances in cybernetics lending credence to the claim that mind transfer holds the key to a post-mortal human race. Massive supercomputers are getting better at simulating the human brain. Artificial intelligence experts are developing increasingly smart machines that can reason, think, and learn by mimicking the brain's cerebral cortex. And brain-computer interfaces—machines that can effectively read your mind—are advancing fast.

Still, the concept of digitally preserving the human mind is based on what's theoretically possible, not a step-by-step roadmap. One of the biggest holes in the theory (and there are many to poke) is more philosophical than scientific: the notion of whether consciousness would survive the digital switchover in tact. Or even beyond that, what about the soul? Or whatever it is that makes you you, beyond the biological puzzle pieces.

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ezzj8z/scientists-are-convinced-mind-transfer-is-the-key-to-immortality

And this is supposed to prove what? To me it proves people dream big, people want to live forever, there are conferences to discuss and drum up funds (for research into prolonging life and or other life preserving strategies). If you read the articles, which btw are reports on conferences and appear to be opinions of futurists, lawyers, authors, cosmologists, directors of engineering and maybe neuroscientists (I could not spot one though), you will find that there is actually no study cited and a lot of uncertainty whether anything resembling a mind will come out of any of the digitizing, cloning or transfer. The closest one of the articles comes to "transfer of mind" is "advances in cybernetics lending credence to the claim that mind transfer holds the key" but without the study this refers to, we might as well assume that the author of the article took some creative licence when writing the article.

Again, quite disappointing and nothing that is "enough science about the mind to know that it is transferrable".

[Bed of chaos]

12 hours ago, Sherapy said:

You can significantly improve your breathing by quitting. Do not beat yourself up it is an addiction, not easy to quit, and it is never to late to quit. 
 

There are a lot of quitting smoking aides that work well, the patch is one of them. 

 

Good luck, even thinking about quitting is a step in the right direction.

In regards to my ex, I struggled with the idea that he would continue smoking after a stroke with young children. 
It seemed selfish to me, he would continue smoking, eventually quit and then chewed tobacco till he died. 
In the end,  it was his call. He died at 59, leaving behind sons.

Again I'm sorry (after reading my comment again last nite, it very well came off as narcissistic) considering what you've been thru. Anyway hope you and sons are doing well. 

Edited December 5, 2019 by Bed of chaos

[+Sherapy]

4 hours ago, Bed of chaos said:

Again I'm sorry (after reading my comment again last nite, it very well came off as narcissistic) considering what you've been thru. Anyway hope you and sons are doing well. 

I didn’t take it that way at all.

Thank you for your kind words.

[+Sherapy]

6 hours ago, ai_guardian said:

And this is supposed to prove what? To me it proves people dream big, people want to live forever, there are conferences to discuss and drum up funds (for research into prolonging life and or other life preserving strategies). If you read the articles, which btw are reports on conferences and appear to be opinions of futurists, lawyers, authors, cosmologists, directors of engineering and maybe neuroscientists (I could not spot one though), you will find that there is actually no study cited and a lot of uncertainty whether anything resembling a mind will come out of any of the digitizing, cloning or transfer. The closest one of the articles comes to "transfer of mind" is "advances in cybernetics lending credence to the claim that mind transfer holds the key" but without the study this refers to, we might as well assume that the author of the article took some creative licence when writing the article.

Again, quite disappointing and nothing that is "enough science about the mind to know that it is transferrable".

On a positive note, knowing how to read these articles, and what to look for to weigh and assess their merit is invaluable.

 

[ai_guardian]

2 hours ago, Sherapy said:

On a positive note, knowing how to read these articles, and what to look for to weigh and assess their merit is invaluable.

 

Yes, absolutely. Funny thing, my wife comes up to me the other day with tears in her eyes, "did you see the letter Steve Jobs wrote just before he died? Here, isn't it wonderful, and how true?". I reply, "whilst some content, with regards to a 'rich' vs 'poor' life may be true, I'd hate to break it to you honey, Steve jobs never wrote the letter". Whilst having empathy is good, becoming someone's emotional puppet is not.

I think, with regards to Mr W, his reading of articles, to me anyway, appears to support any fantasy he can think of. It all boils down to: man is creative therefore X (substitute x with anything you can think of). At the expense of getting a waffle thrown at me by Mr W, something like reading that we have sequenced the entire genome of man translates to "we can cure cancer", lol. Whilst we probably will be able to cure cancer eventually, in this example, one does not follow from the other.

From the latest run-ins it appears to me that all the years of "training his mind", cosmic aliens, lucid dreaming, wild fantasy and what have you, have actually trained logic out 

Edited December 5, 2019 by ai_guardian

[+Sherapy]

20 hours ago, ai_guardian said:

Yes, absolutely. Funny thing, my wife comes up to me the other day with tears in her eyes, "did you see the letter Steve Jobs wrote just before he died? Here, isn't it wonderful, and how true?". I reply, "whilst some content, with regards to a 'rich' vs 'poor' life may be true, I'd hate to break it to you honey, Steve jobs never wrote the letter". Whilst having empathy is good, becoming someone's emotional puppet is not.

I think, with regards to Mr W, his reading of articles, to me anyway, appears to support any fantasy he can think of. It all boils down to: man is creative therefore X (substitute x with anything you can think of). At the expense of getting a waffle thrown at me by Mr W, something like reading that we have sequenced the entire genome of man translates to "we can cure cancer", lol. Whilst we probably will be able to cure cancer eventually, in this example, one does not follow from the other.

From the latest run-ins it appears to me that all the years of "training his mind", cosmic aliens, lucid dreaming, wild fantasy and what have you, have actually trained logic out 

This is an excellent way of looking at it and a great example, and not in a having a go at MW, but in the sense of a teachable moment.

For ex: 

“ve always explained how i learned to regulate my responses, both psychological/emotional and physical” ( Walker)

“I began aged 3 or 4, from the moment i became aware of my inner stream of consciousness while sitting on our outside toilet and first becoming conscious of that inner voice,  and thus first developed my sense of identity, and have worked on it all my life” ( Walker). 
 

What he really means is in the life of a 3 to 4 year old, what he means by regulating himself physically/ mentally/ emotionally is the following:

He had an awareness of self evident in using pronouns such as “I or me”, kids have likes and dislikes, they can identify themselves by name, they also show acts of empathy (and these days) they have learned symbols to identify affect states, meaning they have emotional awareness, and some have imaginary friends and their explanations and thinking are magical, they have no ability to discern reality from fantasy, one of my sons friends thought if he thought of a word he invented it, they take everything they see and hear literal, they believe in Santa, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy etc. monsters etc. The most significant milestone in the 3 year olds life is being potty trained, 

Sitting on the toilet means he was in the midst of being potty trained as at this point he most likely had demonstrated the ability to

 

• follow simple instructions
• understand and use words about using the potty
• make the connection between the urge to pee or poop and using the potty
• keep a diaper dry for 2 hours or more
• get to the potty, sit on it for enough time, and then get off the potty
• pull down diapers, disposable training pants, or underpants
• show an interest in using the potty or wearing underpants

Anyone with kids would read his claim of recognizing his own enlightenment/gnosis as magical thinking and see right through it.

His parents were humanists he was influenced by them, nothing mysterious here right in line with what one would expect from a 3 year old with humanist parents. 
Geez,one kid I knew believed that Bloody Mary lived in the bathroom mirror and could be summoned if she didn’t do her homework, turns out her mom told her this. Another kid was terrified to eat watermelon seeds  because his grandma had told him he would grown watermelon trees in his stomach. 

“Whittle” Wally  took a poo poo and was enlightened. I see mom and dad all over this. Wink wink

Edited December 6, 2019 by Sherapy

[jmccr8]

Hi Guys

 Bought a new toy and haven't been around 

jmccr8

[ThereWeAreThen]

On 12/8/2019 at 1:52 AM, jmccr8 said:

Hi Guys

 Bought a new toy and haven't been around 

jmccr8

That's no excuse!

[jmccr8]

12 hours ago, ThereWeAreThen said:

That's no excuse!

Hi ThereWeAreThen

It wasn't an excuse it is a fact . I got a good deal on an off duty vehicle, fortunately the main features like turning it on and putting it in gear are  the same but I have been reading the manual to understand the rest of it and I am still having trouble getting it to understand my Canadian accent. But I have been enjoying the ride anyway.

jmccr8

[jmccr8]

nup that is a false conclusion you drew based on an incomplete knowledge and understanding of my life  Somehow you got the idea that i had always lived a sheltered life I wisely seek a quiet life but often have to put myself in harms way to help people who are already there, without being able to get help from  authorities  This is one reason we owned a small arsenal of guns while living on our farm  

 

Lone Wolf Walker coming to a clone near you.

Hey Walker come home.

jmccr8