<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 10:29 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Yes, and one side has language and the other doesn't. I would like to see data on left-handed people with split brains. Some data indicate that their language is on both sides. bill w </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Language ability on both sides is more common among left handed people. There was one such left-handed person who got a Callosotomy. This allowed both of his hemispheres to be independently interviewed:</div><div><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>Paul was unusual in that he possessed verbal capacities in both his right and left</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>hemispheres. This enabled each of his minds to be interviewed concerning their thoughts, beliefs,</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>and desires. When asked his name, both hemispheres answered "Paul." When asked his location,</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>both answered "Vermont." But when asked what he wanted to be, his right hemisphere answered</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>"Automobile racer" while his left answered "Draftsman." These experiments took place during the</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>Watergate scandal, and so Paul's opinion of President Nixon was queried. His right hemisphere</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>expressed "dislike" while his left hemisphere expressed "like." One wonders how Paul would have</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>voted. It might depend on which hand he used to pull the lever.</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>In addition to preferences, hemispheres can differ even on fundamental beliefs. The</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran recounted the case of a patient with a right hemisphere that</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>believed in God and a left hemisphere that did not. Sometimes these conflicts manifest physically.</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>In a condition known as alien hand syndrome, split-brain patients may find one hemisphere, and the</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>limbs it controls, behaving independently from and contrary to the will of the other. One patient</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>struggled to get dressed in the morning. While his left hemisphere (and right hand) tried to pull his</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>pants up, his left hand would pull them down. On a separate occasion, this same patient became</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>angry at his wife. His left hand attacked her while his right hand tried to protect her!</div></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>Roger Sperry, who received a Nobel prize for his work on split-brains, remarked "Although</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>some authorities have been reluctant to credit the disconnected minor hemisphere even with being</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>conscious, it is our own interpretation, based on a large number and variety of non-verbal tests, that</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>the minor hemisphere is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking,</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and that both</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel."</div></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div>Jason </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 10:17 AM Gadersd via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>The split-brain phenomenon is illustrative of this point. Due to epilepsy some people have had their brain split in half to prevent each hemisphere from communicating with the other. However, each hemisphere is able to function independently from the other which implies that each hemisphere produces a separate consciousness in these people. "In a particularly dramatic recorded demonstration, the famous patient
“Joe” was able to draw a cowboy hat with his left hand in response to
the word ‘Texas' presented in his left visual half field. His commentary
(produced by the verbal left hemisphere) showed a complete absence of
insight into why his left hand had drawn this cowboy hat. Another
astonishing example involved the same patient. MacKay and MacKay (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/#CR66" role="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" target="_blank">1982</a>)
flashed a digit in the left visual field and trained the patient to
play a version of ‘20 questions’ across hemispheres. The left hemisphere
guessed the answer vocally, and the right hemisphere provided responses
by pointing ‘up’ (meaning ‘guess a higher number’) or ‘down’ with the
left hand. In this way the patient managed to vocalize the right answer.
This suggests two independent conscious agents communicating with each
other (one steering the left hand, the other agent controlling vocal
expressions).”<div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/" target="_blank">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/</a><br><div><br></div><div><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Feb 24, 2023, at 6:18 AM, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</div><br><div><div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 2:31 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large"><br></div><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large">Thanks, Ben - another question: why do we, or they, or somebody, think that an AI has to be conscious to solve the problems we have? Our unconscious mind solves most of our problems now, doesn't it? I think it does. bill w</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"></blockquote></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Why do we assume our "unconscious mind" is unconscious, rather than another mind whose consciousness we don't have access to?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br></blockquote>.<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 12:24 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">bill w asked:<br>
<br>
>Three silly questions: how would you know if you had created a <br>
conscious mind? Why do you want to do that? What makes that necessary? <br>
bill w<br>
<br>
<br>
I like silly questions! (some of them anyway)<br>
<br>
1) How would you know?<br>
Probably you would never know for sure, just as you don't know for sure <br>
that I'm a conscious mind. But I'd say we'd use the same criteria as we <br>
do with each other, or for the existence/non-existence of gods, so while <br>
we never absolutely know for sure, we can make a damned good guess, <br>
based on the evidence at our disposal.<br>
<br>
2) Why do it?<br>
Because we're transhumanists, and want the sum total of self-awareness <br>
and intelligence in the universe to increase. Because we recognise the <br>
severe limitations of biological life, and if we can create artificial <br>
minds, we can overcome these limitations. Because we know that humans <br>
have a limited lifespan, both as individuals and as a species, and this <br>
is a way of going way beyond that.<br>
<br>
3) What makes it necessary?<br>
Well, that depends on your priorities. People who think that humanity is <br>
a stain on the world and things would be better without it, probably <br>
think it's not only not necessary, but undesirable. I think it's <br>
necessary because we are tragically weak, fragile and confused, and <br>
anything we can do to correct or side-step that is a good thing. <br>
Artificial minds are our chance to pass down our most significant <br>
quality to the future, in a form that has a chance of surviving and <br>
thriving in the long-term (very long-term, as in billions of years and <br>
more).<br>
<br>
Oh, and it may be the only realistic way to achieve mind uploading. We <br>
probably aren't capable of figuring it out, or at least of actually <br>
doing it, by ourselves.<br>
<br>
And it may be the only way we're going to get out of the many pickles <br>
we're getting ourselves into, too. Maybe we need a non-human perspective <br>
to solve the various seemingly unsolvable problems we've got. I don't <br>
need to make a list, I'm sure you can think of plenty.<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
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