transhumanism/bionics - would you do it?

[dafydd manton]

You can guarantee that it would happen, although I've no doubt that somebody will shout "prophet of doom" at me. If evil minds are going to spread viruses, just for the fun of it, how much more is the evil mind going to exploit this.
I think I'll just stick with the empty head that nobody can get into - unless they feed me alcohol.

[OrphanPip]

I can see where he is coming from, but isn't/won't technology such as that be a good deal more expensive than vitamins or early education?

At first it probably would, 300 years ago and only the well to do could afford to have their child educated, eventually things get cheaper as we get better at developing them and they get more popular. The only way it would probably stay extremely expensive is if there is an element of scarcity or market control to keep it such. Doctors are certainly expensive, but most people can afford basic medical care for their child.

It certainly raises questions of social justice, but once the technology exists, you know somebody is going to want to take advantage of it.

Another popular idea is that of the technological singularity, which would be the moment that we develop machines smart enough to improve themselves, the idea is that they would then be able to advance technology at a rate far superior to what we measly humans can do. And if Sci-fi is any indicator, we better make sure that their programing is under control .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[LitNetIsGreat]

No way. Nobody is sticking any internet connection thing in my brain, are you kidding? It sounds like an horrendous thing to me. OK, so it is nearly impossible to avoid all the nonsense, the adverts, the news etc as it is, but stick the thing in your brain and I guarantee you'll be getting awoken to the sound of DFS half-price weekend deals on new sofas. I'd rather be dead.

[Leland Gaunt]

On a more serious note, wouldn't those nanobots enable advertisers, Big Brother governments, terrorists and nosy people to hack into our brains and spy on us or manipulate us?

I guess it depends on the nanobots purpose. If they are there to do things like eradicate cancer, then I doubt that they would be to manipulate us in any way. This also applies to government surveillance and nosy neighbors. But of course that is assuming that they are very task specific. I think that being connected to the internet has been unanimously denounced, so I imagine there's a way to avoid that. Here is where my lack of computer know-how is going to limit me. But if the nanobots need updates then I think that the computer to do so could be limited access, perhaps even given to you after receiving the nanobots and then you would be the only person to have access to your nanobots. So if the nanobots served a purely medical purpose, and would in no way be connected to the internet or be accesible by hackers with malice in mind, would some of you change your mind?

At first it probably would, 300 years ago and only the well to do could afford to have their child educated, eventually things get cheaper as we get better at developing them and they get more popular. The only way it would probably stay extremely expensive is if there is an element of scarcity or market control to keep it such. Doctors are certainly expensive, but most people can afford basic medical care for their child.

That makes sense. Though it seems to me that there would be a very big gap that would have to be made up over a long period of time, but then again I'm completely unaware of how medical procedures' prices change over time.

Another popular idea is that of the technological singularity, which would be the moment that we develop machines smart enough to improve themselves, the idea is that they would then be able to advance technology at a rate far superior to what we measly humans can do. And if Sci-fi is any indicator, we better make sure that their programing is under control .

I'll let James Cameron speak for me on this issue.

No way. Nobody is sticking any internet connection thing in my brain, are you kidding? It sounds like an horrendous thing to me. OK, so it is nearly impossible to avoid all the nonsense, the adverts, the news etc as it is, but stick the thing in your brain and I guarantee you'll be getting awoken to the sound of DFS half-price weekend deals on new sofas. I'd rather be dead.

What if you had all the other benefits, and you just lacked the internet connection? Also, just think of the savings.

I think I'll just stick with the empty head that nobody can get into - unless they feed me alcohol.

Or start an interesting thread on the internet.

[Taliesin]

It is somewhat difficult to give my opinion right now when there are no technologies like that which means that I don't know even in broad terms how they are supposed to work and what dangers there are.

In general, though, I am for transhumanism, although there are certainly some alarming issues - e.g the growing sentiment shown by most large software companies that privacy is just not important and if there is something you'd rather prefer the whole world not to know about, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

Or let's take solar-powered augmented reality contact lenses, for example - when you first hear about it, it sounds absolutely awesome and the possibilities seem endless. And then you understand that the endless possibilities mean also vast spam attacks, advertising etc. Then again, maybe it might be possible to develop some equivalent of AdBlock. Or maybe not. Etc.
What I mean is, if technologies as such emerge, they will have vast possibilities -and that might also include vast possibilities of spam, advertising, malware etc. And, of course, there might be tools to protect oneself from stuff like that. And so it is rather difficult to judge those technologies if they don't exist and we don't know what is and what is not possible.

[Dodo25]

There's a lot of talk about what is 'natural', the 'limits of our species' and such stuff. I think that's all nonsense, who cares what is natural?

Contraceptives, socialism and welfare is 'unnatural', this doesn't mean these are all bad things.

So if we forget all unjustified emotional first reactions of 'unnatural' or 'playing gods', we can analyze the facts and consequences objectively and make informed decisions.

First a philosophical note though: I am convinced that nothing 'dies' when one downloads consciousness. At least not the sense we mean it. Death is just like falling asleep, with the sole exception that one doesn't wake up. Every morning, one's a 'different person', molecularily and experience-wise. The continuity of consciousness is an illusion generated by the memories and brain configuration.

I think there's really nothing wrong with wanting to live longer. If one doesn't like it, there's always euthanasia or suicide.

More serious ethical concerns do however exist. If humans are improved through technology, we'll soon have a two-class society. The rich ones who can afford it, and the poor and the ones who object to it. Nazi attitudes are then extremely likely to come up. Furthermore, it will cost a lot of resources, and those resources would in turn be missing when it comes to supporting the needs of the poor in third world countries.

I think we are morally obliged to care for all self-conscious beings, and for the reasons mentioned above, technological improvement becoming the norm is highly questionable.

Yet still, with the use of technology, we can significantly diminish suffering from diseases. Why would that be a bad thing??

Another argument in favor of it would be the 'great good' argument: If technology makes us better people (not just more intelligent and sportive, also compassionate and motivated), then I suppose it might be worth a shot - and even the risk of a two-class society. However, such utilitarian 'greater good' arguments are very dangerous, a single misjudgement or wrong belief can turn it into something like the nazi example.

[Virgil]

Contraceptives, socialism and welfare is 'unnatural', this doesn't mean these are all bad things.

That's your opinion.

[Leland Gaunt]

That's your opinion.

And it wasn't the only one he expressed.

First a philosophical note though: I am convinced that nothing 'dies' when one downloads consciousness. At least not the sense we mean it. Death is just like falling asleep, with the sole exception that one doesn't wake up. Every morning, one's a 'different person', molecularily and experience-wise. The continuity of consciousness is an illusion generated by the memories and brain configuration.

Thats a perspective I've never considered before. I'm of the mind though that, you will largely remain the same person from day to day. Barring some very significant life experience, of course. Any changes would likely be incremental, perhaps in form of the reinforcement of an attitude or life outlook. (The more I think about your position, the more I like it.)

I'm still a little confused on the subject of downloading consciousness. Where are our consciousnesses being downloaded into?

I think there's really nothing wrong with wanting to live longer. If one doesn't like it, there's always euthanasia or suicide.

Me neither. But I do think that there is a finite amount of enjoyment one can get from life.

More serious ethical concerns do however exist. If humans are improved through technology, we'll soon have a two-class society. The rich ones who can afford it, and the poor and the ones who object to it. Nazi attitudes are then extremely likely to come up. Furthermore, it will cost a lot of resources, and those resources would in turn be missing when it comes to supporting the needs of the poor in third world countries.

Why? It's just that another poster has suggested otherwise, and it seems like it could be an interesting discussion.

I think we are morally obliged to care for all self-conscious beings, and for the reasons mentioned above, technological improvement becoming the norm is highly questionable.

Can we prove if a creature is self-conscious?

[SleepyWitch]

I'm still a little confused on the subject of downloading consciousness. Where are our consciousnesses being downloaded into?

Ray Kurzweil wasn't specific about that in the interview, if I remember correctly. Does your question boil down to 'Would you have an android body or would you be stuck inside a computer/fancy new storage device?"

Can we prove if a creature is self-conscious?

He said in the interview that we can't prove this without some philosophical definition of what consciousness is.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

Now that is actually funny. Can you imagine what would happen if the brain got a computer virus? Would we go into convulsions like an epilectic or would we go catatonic? Now that could be a funny sci-fi story.

I have already read several such stories. As soon as even the notion of an new aspect like that is mentioned, someone will write a story about it.

/Claes

[Dodo25]

I'm still a little confused on the subject of downloading consciousness. Where are our consciousnesses being downloaded into?

It's not substance that makes us conscious, it is information, memes. Without information, i.e. if a deaf and blind person never gets to learn some kind of language, her form of consciousness would be entirely different from ours, she would only live 'in the moment' and not understand that she exists.

So there's a rudimentary computer/brain into which one coulld download personal experiences and condition, at least that's how I'd do it. One could call it 'personalizing the default brain', in the most literal sense.

Why? It's just that another poster has suggested otherwise, and it seems like it could be an interesting discussion.

Can we prove if a creature is self-conscious?

Here I was being unclear, and upon further reflection, I think my argument was wrong. What I was trying to say is that transhumanism is ethically questionable because it would lead to a two-class society. That would be wrong because we're morally obliged to promote happiness for all self-conscious beings, not just 'super-humans'. Obviously, one can still give aid to the poor, and with more rationality, attitudes like racism (or speciesism in that case) are less likely to develop. So I'm just saying it's dangerous, but with a smart form of government and good general education, it would be okay from an ethical point of view.

And to address the question of proving if a creature is self-conscious, I think that's actually possible by using the Turing Test. In the Turing Test, an examiner chats with a person, and a computer, which are in different rooms. If the examiner can't tell the difference between the human and the computer, then the computer is most likely self-conscious. Why? Because it is a necessary by-product as soon as the thinking machine has enough power of self-reflection, meaning analyzing it's own reasons and attitudes. From that view, philosophical 'zombies' are impossible.

There's a joke about it too: If the computer manages to convince the examiner himself that he's in fact a robot, then it (or shall we now call it 'he'?) gets extra credit.

There is some controversy about this among philosophers, some still think that machines will never be conscious. I think they're wrong, the most convincing approach and framing of consciousness I've read is Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained'.

Now, a chimpanzee wouldn't pass the Turing Test, yet there is still evidence that they are, in a weaker from, self-conscious. For instance, they can plan ahead for the future in non-instinct-based behavior. And they do recognize themselves in mirrors. In fact, they can even use sign language. So there are intermediates that might be hard to determine, yet with some experiments like done with chimps, I think one can give satisfactory approximations.

[Taliesin]

Oh, come on. With all the respect I have for Turing, there are simple bots that fool people online. E.g Scheherezade on this very forum - I bet that the majority of people here haven't understood that she is actually a bot, answering questions, contributing to conversations and modding by simple algorithms.


One of the most important subfields in AI research nowadays is expert systems - constructing programs that are used for one narrow set of problems - playing chess, finding the shortest route from point A to point B, translating text from Hindi to Russian etc. Thing is - if you take an expert system built for playing chess then it is absolutely useless for using in medicine.

And that, in my opinion is the problem with the Turing test - intelligence (and consciousness, which is even trickier) is about solving problems from various areas. A system which passes the Turing test is actually rather similar to the chess-playing program - it can solve one particular class of problems - convincing the examiner that it is a human being. I'm afraid that it is more complicated than that.

[Scheherazade]

Oh, come on. With all the respect I have for Turing, there are simple bots that fool people online. E.g Scheherezade on this very forum - I bet that the majority of people here haven't understood that she is actually a bot, answering questions, contributing to conversations and modding by simple algorithms.

Hey, now!!!!

There is nothing simple about those algorithms!!!

[The Atheist]

About downloading your consciousness: Ray Kurzweil himself said that consciousness cannot be explained by science and we need philosophy to speculate about it. So how can we be sure this will work?

Kurzweil could be wrong, too.

Even if it works, won't the original person 'die' anyway and the newly awakened virtual person will be someone else? I.e. would there be continuity of consciousness?

It's a fascinating subject all round, requiring advances in medical and computer science that I don't think we even understand yet, so it's a long way off, if ever.

Barring scientific advancement, I see no impediment to me downloading my entire "consciousness" into a chip, having myself cloned 1000 years later and waking up in 3138 AD feeling as though I'd lived 83 years already, but was a now a fit and raring-to-go 26-year old.

Using Pascal's wager as a running mate, I'd have scientific "immortality" raging hot favourite.

I have to say that I find the idea wholly repugnant. I intend to remain 'human' until the day I die, whenever that may be. Medicine, the concept of healing the sick, is one thing, but this represents a denial of the limits of our species.

It should only be taken so far: if you can cure diabetes, then great. You're treating a specific, identifiable ailment. But old age is not the same as illness.

Personally speaking, I'm rather looking forward to death, though I hope it will be a while off yet. It'll be an experience, if nothing else.

I see wooden legs have already been noted. Would you use a prosthetic, or would you just remain "human" but minus a leg?

Would you have laser surgery on your eyes? Keyhole surgery on your heart?

Where's the limit, and why?

Obviously, you would need to be assured that nothing's going to take over your mind or remove the illusion of free will, but if those were covered, in what way would nanobots be different from pacemakers?

No way. Nobody is sticking any internet connection thing in my brain, are you kidding? It sounds like an horrendous thing to me.

What's so wrong with that? My computer is always connected to the internet, but it's still completely independent. It lives behind several impenetrable firewalls - a bit like one of those gated communities, but guarded by many fences, within which run crocodiles, hamadryads and starving rottweilers.

Bring it on!

There's a lot of talk about what is 'natural', the 'limits of our species' and such stuff. I think that's all nonsense, who cares what is natural?

Couldn't agree more.

Thing is, by its own definition, if we design it, it's natural. In terms of what sandal-wearing tree-huggers class as "natural", there are parts of Antarctica and a wee spot in the south of Fiordland that can really be called "natural" in 2010.

Cooking dinner is as unnatural as hell.

The continuity of consciousness is an illusion generated by the memories and brain configuration.

Nice.

More serious ethical concerns do however exist. If humans are improved through technology, we'll soon have a two-class society.

I disagree with you here, on two fronts:

We already have a two-class society.

Technological advances to date have lessened rather than increased the divide between haves and have-nots..

There is some controversy about this among philosophers, some still think that machines will never be conscious. I think they're wrong, the most convincing approach and framing of consciousness I've read is Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained'.

I'll sign you for a $1 on the transhumanism immortality wager then.

Now, a chimpanzee wouldn't pass the Turing Test, yet there is still evidence that they are, in a weaker from, self-conscious.

While I think the Turing test is the best example we have of picking whether a machine can be conscious, using it to try to find animalian consciousness just won't work. Not unless we learn their language, at least. It's like trying to prove dolphins are smarter than humans by dropping a human in the middle of the ocean to see how long he lasts.

For instance, they can plan ahead for the future in non-instinct-based behavior. And they do recognize themselves in mirrors.

Even better, I'm not convinced chimpanzees are the third-smartest species on the planet. Marine mammals and gorillas might be more suitable targets, but they're not quite so easy to handle.

I take the position that animalian consciousness exists, but remains in a different and more primitive form than ours due to the minimal communication available.

In fact, they can even use sign language.

I'm not so sure that's a fact.

I've seen a couple of very well researched studies into the science used and there seemed to have been many instances of biased or negligent recording which helped the "they can communicate with ASL" brigade.

That was some years ago, so if you have anything more recent, do you have a link?

[Dodo25]

Oh, come on. With all the respect I have for Turing, there are simple bots that fool people online.

That's because the questions asked are 'how are you?', 'how old are you' and 'where are you from'. I've tried all the 'AI' programs, nothing even comes close to understanding i.e. irony or humor.

E.g Scheherezade on this very forum - I bet that the majority of people here haven't understood that she is actually a bot, answering questions, contributing to conversations and modding by simple algorithms.

Haha good one!

And that, in my opinion is the problem with the Turing test - intelligence (and consciousness, which is even trickier) is about solving problems from various areas. A system which passes the Turing test is actually rather similar to the chess-playing program - it can solve one particular class of problems - convincing the examiner that it is a human being. I'm afraid that it is more complicated than that.

Human beings are conscious, thus if they act like humans, they might well be conscious. An interesting question is the newly emerging science of 'embodiment' in AI. It has been noted that one can save an enormous amount of computing power by 'outsourcing' computational tasks to sense facilities like eyes or arms. So maybe the computer program that passes the Turing Test is actually a humanoid robot. Not because it couldn't work otherwise but much rather because this is most efficient. One shouldn't forget the power of evolutionary processes and algorythms when it comes to consciousness.

Even better, I'm not convinced chimpanzees are the third-smartest species on the planet. Marine mammals and gorillas might be more suitable targets, but they're not quite so easy to handle.

Why third? If we only count living species, I think you mean second.

I doubt marine mammals are that smart. I don't know much about them, but I just don't think the social interactions are as strong as they are among chimps, and social interaction is the primary selection pressure towards self-conscious intelligence. Furthermore, with the danger of sounding anthropocentric, chimps are our closest living relatives. I think the pygmy chimp (or bonobo) is the second smartest living animal.

In this context, I used 'smart' as equal to 'self-conscious'. I wonder if the two are directly linked or if there can be some aberrations. For instance, I've read octopuses are pretty smart, but I really don't think they're even nearly as conscious as chimps.

I take the position that animalian consciousness exists, but remains in a different and more primitive form than ours due to the minimal communication available.

Imagine a bonobo that learned sign language. I claim his consciousness has changed, it has become self-conscious through culture. I know you disagree with me on that, but I think it's one of the most fascinating thougths ever.

I'm not so sure that's a fact.

I've seen a couple of very well researched studies into the science used and there seemed to have been many instances of biased or negligent recording which helped the "they can communicate with ASL" brigade.

That was some years ago, so if you have anything more recent, do you have a link?

Yeah I know what you mean. When I first read about it, it did sound too good to be true, and likely, some of the talk about it is exagerated. I have read about the flawed methology too. But some accounts remain very convincing, and there is hardly an alternative explanation that could deny that bonobos/chimps can learn and apply a significant vocabulary of sign language.

I don't remember where I read it, but what impressed me the most was the following story:

The researchers would celebrate the chimp's birthday's with all the chimps, and they'd also celebrate christmas with a christmas tree with candy.

One chimp, after some years, remembered that Christmas comes two days after another chimp's birthday. And on Christmas day, he went to the researcher and made the sign for 'tree' plus the sign for 'candy'.

These kind of things, which seem to happen in more than just one instance, shows true understanding, not just imitation.