Mind Transfer
I was thinking about how things will happen in the future when we are able to download our minds into a computer or robot or some other device to allow our consciousness to live on forever. When Gerard and I were discussing this a while ago he was complaining that the living entity would no longer be you. Imagine these two scenarios:
- First scenario: You are getting old and so as a backup “insurance” copy of yourself, you have your mind downloaded into a robot. You and the robot are both active for a few more years until you eventually die. However you also live on in the robot with all the same childhood memories, experiences, etc from when you were little.
- Second scenario: You are getting old so you decide transfer your mind to a robot so you can continue living. Your mind is downloaded to the robot, your body is put to rest, and you wake up in your new robot body. You have all the memories and experiences that you used to have, but now you have a shiny robot body.
To me the first scenario does not seem too pleasant, even though your mind lives on in the robot, “you” still die. Of course you also live on but the human version of you does still die and even when you decide to backup your mind to a robot you will still know you are going to die, just some copy of you will live. However in the second scenario, it seems like you are just getting a new body, like a snail changing shells. It doesn’t seem as bad, it seems like you can live forever and you won’t die. Even though that robot is the same and the only difference in the two scenarios is that in the second one the human body is killed much earlier. It’s weird how little changes like that can make such a big impact on how something seems or feels.
August 20th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Indeed…the whole key part of scenario 2 is that it’s a transfer. But how to guarantee that it is indeed a transfer and that nothing’s left in the body…I don’t know. Maybe I’d not care so much about scenario 1 if the the body was immediately killed, and never regained consciousness after the copying. Otherwise from one point of view, you’d have the robot version watching itself grow old and die…not fun. And of course, the other point of view is that the original one would grow old and die…also not fun.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
It’s just easier to think of it as a mind transfer if there is only the one mind the whole time. If you have a mind in the body and a mind in the robot at the same time, you start thinking: which one is the real me?
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:36 pm
Exactly.
August 29th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
We should watch the movie “Free Jack”; the underlying theme is mind transfer to a computer and its implications for society in general and for human relationships in particular. Cool movie and Mick Jagger is quite good in it.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
This concept scared me at first, but somehow after finishing The Age of Spiritual Machines by RK, I just felt so optimistic and excited about the future of machines. One thing that makes it less scary is the idea that he talks about that in reality, it’s likely to be a gradually changeover instead of an immediate transfer. A new hearing system one year, new eyes the next, new back up brain storage, etc. If you change little by little, it wouldn’t be as scary and would be easier to be excited by the new skills and opportunities available now that you are enhanced.