[ExI] seamless uploading

Thu Jul 14 04:23:00 UTC 2011

Hi Jeff,

It's great to hear from you, and to hear about this kind of 'seamless' 
uploading from yet another source!  I think I remember you in some of 
our great old time conversations about identity way back when?  That was 
before we could ever make any progress without a tool to track and 
amplify such conversations like we now have with canonizer.com.

This information your provide is kind of getting some of the details 
wrong, but it is precicely the kind of seamless 'effing' of the 
ineffable uploading that will be possible, as predicted by the current 
leading scientific consensus camp at the consciousness survey project at 
canonizer.com on what consciousness is (see: 
http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 , and let me know if you want to 
review the latest state of the art version of the camp statement the 
experts are currently about ready to submit to replace that now year old 
version.  And notice that this theory is already accepted by far more 
diverse leading experts, including Lehar, Chalmers, Smythies, Hameroff, 
Ramachandran..., and continues to extend the lead the more comprehensive 
the survey becomes, than even the second next leading theory.)

One of the things missing about a critical difference between current 
'wet' and 'computer brains', as predicted by the leading expert 
consensus, is that, for computer brains, it doesn't matter what you 
represent red with, as long as whatever is doing the representation 
(whether it be water pipes, silicone, 5 volts, 0 volts, or whatever) the 
only important thing is that the representation be interpreted 
appropriately.  If 5 volts represents red, and 0 volts represents green, 
and you swap these two, and still properly interpret them, the computer 
will go on picking the strawberry from the green leaves just as capably 
- -there will be no difference.  What is representing the red and green 
knowledge, by design, doesn't matter - only the correct interpretation 
of such representations matters.

But, if you invert our knowledge of the strawberries and leaves, made of 
redness and greenness, such that the leaves are now represented with 
redness, and the strawberries now with greenness, sure, we'll be picking 
the strawberies just as intelligently, but our consciousness experience 
of it will be phenomenally very different - and that ineffable 
difference is what consciousness is all about.  If you shine a light on 
whatever it is, in our brain, that has this reddnes (if it is greay 
matter, it will reflect grey light) and if you interpret it as 'grey' 
you will surely be misinterpreting the representation incorrectly (this 
is refereed to as the "qualia interpretation problem" in the new draft 
version being collaboratively developed by the consensus experts).

The Representational Qualia Theory predicts we will soon be effing and 
sharing these sensations between minds, by connections that will work 
like the Corpus Callosum must be working, to join all this redness and 
greenness that our knowledge is made of together.

You quoted:

"By being able to have consciousness span current brain and new brain
for a sufficient period of time and having real time consciousness
operating throughout the upload and eventual shutoff there would be
less issue over is consciousness preserved."

But this is a little bit off, and surely no time will be required, once 
we start effing and merging minds like this.  It also totally misses 
such ideas as there will surely be way more phenomenal properties being 
discovered and added in that nobody has ever experienced yet...  There 
is a more precise description of this kind of seamless upload, and what 
it will be like, as predicted by this expert leading consensus theory, 
described in the 5th chapter of a fictional narrative in my story "1229 
years after Titanic" here if you are interested:

http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742

I'd love to know if you agree that this is what 'seamless' uploading 
will be like and how there will soon be no 'problem of other minds', 
everyone will look forward to uploading, and that the turning test is 
only an ignorant test, since the only important question to ask such a 
machine, is a question like what is red like for you?

And, by the way, you pointed out how hard it is to keep up, with things 
like what are currently the leading theories of consciousness and how 
well accepted are each.  How can you keep up with this, when there is 
now more than 20K publications in Chalmers bibliography, all mostly 
saying yes, no, yes, no in a childish, stuck in ever deeper trivial rat 
wholes debate...?  That is precisely why we created canonizer.com, so we 
could better keep up with all the important stuff, and amplify the 
intelligence of the entire crowd about all such scientific and moral 
things as ever more demonstrable scientific proof comes in at ever 
increasing rates.

Brent Allsop

On 7/13/2011 8:00 PM, Jeff Davis wrote:
> Extropes,
>
> I want to apologize if this post here is a case of "Well, duh!".  You
> know, obvious to all except me, and I'm just catching up now.
>
> I was reading this piece from Brian Wang's Blog, Next Big Future:
>
> How long until there is a significantly independent robot economy and
> how quickly could computer brain interfaces improve ?
>
> http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/07/how-long-until-there-is-significantly.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail
>
> Focusing on the brain interface aspect, Brian provides the following:
>
> Kyle [Munkittrick] recently made the case for a Cybernetic Singularity
>
> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2011/06/25/towards-a-new-vision-of-the-singularity/
>
>      "The Singularity should be re-imagined as a cybernetic process in
> which the human mind is progressively augmented with better and more
> complimentary artificial left-brain capacities. The Singularity will
> be the perfection of the mind-computer interface, such that where the
> mental processes of the human right-brain ends and the high-powered
> computer left-brain ends will be indistinguishable both externally by
> objective observation and internally by the subjective experience of
> the individual. I call this event the Cybernetic Singularity."
>
> Then Brian continues:
>
> "If we get enough memory and a high traffic wetbrain to computer brain
> connection so that there is a shared consciousness from the wetbrain
> with the added part. Then over days/months and years there is
> consciousness over both parts. Memory and visual stimuli spanning both
> systems and we can ensure thorough copying and duplication."
>
> [Here I paraphrase Brian's text]:  If then you suffer a "shutoff"(as
> used below) of the wetbrain, consciousness and identity continue, and
> you achieve a full and seamless upload (ie transfer of consciousness).
>
> "By being able to have consciousness span current brain and new brain
> for a sufficient period of time and having real time consciousness
> operating throughout the upload and eventual shutoff there would be
> less issue over is consciousness preserved."
>
>
> **********************************************
>
> The article and its links provide a wealth of info showing just how
> far along this process has advanced.
>
> Over the years the list has hashed and rehashed -- delightfully -- the
> upload and its related identity issue(s).  Brain scanning of the
> biological self followed by transfer into an alternative substrate --
> "cloned" or manufactured biological, android cybernetic, or pure boxed
> computronium.  This is the first time I have encountered an upload
> scenario that feels like a real world real tech roadmap.  Persuasively
> achievable.
>
> Reminiscent of a short-story fragment posted to the list In 98 or 99
> by Anders, about a cybernetically "connected" individual who
> experiences a sense of severe intellectual deficit when his machine
> connection goes down.  That was however a case of computer brain
> crash, rather than wet brain "retirement".
>
> Over the years I have repeatedly expressed my utter delight at living
> in and witnessing this juggernaut of science and technology.  Not just
> reading and dreaming about what might be possible, but actually
> watching the wonders of imagination tumble forth into reality.  Each
> time, I thought to myself that the pace would remain more or less the
> same, and that I could handle it, could absorb it.  By which I mean
> superficially, to be sure.  Now things are coming at me so fast I
> can't keep up, not even superficially.
>
> Anyone else feel similar?  What about you younger folks (I'm
> sixty-two, now.  How the hell did that happen?! I don't feel
> sixty-two)? Do you feel more in synch, more in control?
>
> Best, Jeff Davis
>
>   "My guess is that people don't yet realize how
>       "handy" an indefinite lifespan will be."
>                         J Corbally
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