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What happens if your mind lives for ever on the internet?

cduggles

cduggles

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Would you upload your brain so the virtual you could “live” forever?

www.theguardian.com

What happens if your mind lives for ever on the internet?

It may be some way off, but mind uploading, the digital duplication of your mental essence, could expand human experience into a virtual afterlife
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Imagine that a person’s brain could be scanned in great detail and recreated in a computer simulation. The person’s mind and memories, emotions and personality would be duplicated. In effect, a new and equally valid version of that person would now exist, in a potentially immortal, digital form. This futuristic possibility is called mind uploading. The science of the brain and of consciousness increasingly suggests that mind uploading is possible – there are no laws of physics to prevent it. The technology is likely to be far in our future; it may be centuries before the details are fully worked out – and yet given how much interest and effort is already directed towards that goal, mind uploading seems inevitable. Of course we can’t be certain how it might affect our culture but as the technology of simulation and artificial neural networks shapes up, we can guess what that mind uploading future might be like.
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The "Soul" or "Spirit" simply wouldn't be there.
The "data" may well be in a digital form but there is nothing in it that truly makes us human.

I've said it now so many times on BL & I'll say it again you can ALWAYS tell the people that have smoked DMT from those who haven't.
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
The "Soul" or "Spirit" simply wouldn't be there.
The "data" may well be in a digital form but there is nothing in it that truly makes us human.

I've said it now so many times on BL & I'll say it again you can ALWAYS tell the people that have smoked DMT from those who haven't.
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That is very true, about how the 'soul' or 'spirit' would not be there. I have never smoked/ingested DMT, and it is not something I want to personally ever do.

What exactly did smoking/vaping/intesting DMT teach you about human existence, the soul, what happens after death, etc.?
 
cduggles said:
Would you upload your brain so the virtual you could “live” forever?
Click to expand...
The human brain cannot be digitalized unfortunately due to nonbinary, nonphysical storage capabilities of the human brain. In other words, thoughts, memories, beliefs, etc. do not take up actual space in your brain in the form of a cell or cell connection or what not. This is not how it works. There is no ability to extract the information of one's mind.

Just my 2c.

If such a thing occured w/ my mind (AND HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT A BRAIN IN A VAT ALREADY?! Hmmm?) there would be an endless stream of suicidal depressive poetry in Words ranging from a variety of influences.

My brain online = totally pointless. I've already written a cyclical novel. You do not need "me" on a screen "forever" when in fact humans are already trying to do this in much more artistic, quaint, real ways. I'm not buying this science ever pans out nor would I be interested in doing this even if it were possible.
 
PriestTheyCalledHim said:
What exactly did smoking/vaping/intesting DMT teach you about human existence, the soul, what happens after death, etc.?
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I can't say it "taught me" anything immediately/directly. Psychedelics, on the whole including some DMT experiences, point toward eternal recurrence as compatibilism, concrete timespace, determinism (referring back to the first concept; that we are for sure in the second+ iteration) and the "message" I got in the immediate interim was something I couldn't put into words. "You're going to be OK." are the only words that come to mind, kind of how Brittany Murphy and her costar were saying it to each other in the car about 70 minutes into Spun.

I sincerely hope for another life instead of what I believe as "me forever" would be "infinitely boring" if that makes any sense. I don't believe in reincarnation or nirvana so much, and I do not believe in striving for total nonexistence as that seems a bit impossible for me.

Imagine that a person’s brain could be scanned in great detail and recreated in a computer simulation.
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I would think, gee, what an amazing use of technology WHILE THE WORLD IS DYING. What the fuck, scientists...

Feed into people's fears of death why don't you. Or if there's someone who is so repulsive and arrogant and disagreeable as myself perhaps the end-game is to create a friend in yourself because no one else fucking likes you. What's the end-game here? So you can talk to the grandma you never knew? I mean I don't get it.

People have romantically fallen for technology and the technological singularity itself and want to dive in head-first, pun intended. This is all sorts of weird to me.

Hylight said:
darn toot yes, how can you not answer yes to that !
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I mean if I was going to be like a Bender Bot with a body, I might change my mind? I don't know? I'd have to long/hard think on it.

But sitting around in a computer for interaction like a museum display, no thanks. Do not want. I know I'm only information but it seems like Edison's Ghost Machine come to life and I don't see the point of abusing information technology to this extreme for such little gain.

However I'm totally OK Hylight wants to do it and it would be totes chill for her even if it doesn't appeal to me! :D
 
PriestTheyCalledHim said:
What exactly did smoking/vaping/intesting DMT teach you about human existence, the soul, what happens after death, etc.?
Click to expand...

That "death" is an illusion as we think of it, "God" is real & he/she/it is NOT the nice & loving being Christians think it is. "God" can see everything we do & "it" has many entities that are around us all the time & can crush us faster than a blink of the human eye. The human ego is given to us by free choice & it is upto you how you use it BUT if you think you are better than anyone else on Earth at the moment your body & "consciousness" as you know it "dies" you are in for one hell of a HUGE fucking shock.

Be kind to animals, people less off than you are, don't go around like you are something as you may get away with it for decades but what we call "death" isn't the end, it is the next stage & that place is way beyond anything we understand in our normal day & if you are a prick on Earth as a human something is waiting to show you where you went wrong & the "punshiment" waiting for you will be HORRIFIC!!!!!

@TripSitterNZ knows what I'm saying I feel.
 
I've done so many Tryptamine chemicals but smoked DMT is something else, it hits like a brick to the face, there is nobody there to be scared when you blow it out, the whole world breaks into pieces in front of you so fast you are just knocked sideways. The first pipe when I came down I sat there for a good 10 mins just saying to myself outloud "What the fuck??!!" over & over again.

I hit it again & that trip was nothing like the first, I was crushed beyond words & that was when "God" came through & told me I am NOTHING & I can be taken/crushed like an ant, I was then told the wisdom I shared with you above, I felt like crying when I came down & still to this day I've not fully come to terms with it.
 
I've thought about this topic a lot. It brings to mind the very nature of consciousness vs the illusion of consciousness. I know I am conscious, and not merely seemingly conscious, because I am having an experience. I infer that other humans are also conscious because why should I be the only one? That wouldn't make sense (though I had a period of time as a young kid where I seriously couldn't wrap my head around anyone else having an experience simultaneously as me, calling themselves "I", and I seriously wondered whether everyone else was an automaton). Likewise, I infer that other creatures are conscious because it seems clear they are. But where is the line between simulation of consciousness (which we are not at yet but which we will surely get to with technology... robots/computers that appear to us to be sentient because of sophisticated programming), and actual consciousness? Is it possible for a machine with sensory "organs" and sufficiently complex decision-making and self-reflecting and learning capabilities going to develop self-awareness at some point? Or is that a unique magic reserved for organic life-forms? Does the universe only attach itself to living creatures or would it manifest its awareness into a machine? My guess is it is something reserved for living creatures, but I'm by no means sure of that. I would also suspect that uploading your consciousness to the Internet is not possible, as our brains works very differently from digital computers. We are an analog technology, not digital. I'm not sure I'd want to, either. Seems like eventually you'd want to die after long enough. I certainly wouldn't want to be part of the first wave of this sort of thing, either...
 
Xorkoth said:
I've thought about this topic a lot. It brings to mind the very nature of consciousness vs the illusion of consciousness. I know I am conscious, and not merely seemingly conscious, because I am having an experience.
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The humans in 'The Matrix' were having experiences, and while physically alive, not really living.

= = = = =

Captain.Heroin said:
The human brain cannot be digitalized unfortunately due to nonbinary, nonphysical storage capabilities of the human brain. In other words, thoughts, memories, beliefs, etc. do not take up actual space in your brain in the form of a cell or cell connection or what not. This is not how it works. There is no ability to extract the information of one's mind.
Click to expand...

My thoughts are along these lines but slightly different. I interpret the OP as an 'image' of my mind - all memories. That's a hard drive backup, static, available for reference. What I do not see in this is the capacity to think, to learn, to grow or evolve. THAT to me is the point of being alive, and not a book on a shelf. IF there were a means for that image to think, to learn, and grow...I cannot trust that it would go in a path that would be natural for the person I am vs some algorithm interpreting inputs. Again, not alive.

= = = = =

Lastly, if we were to be digitized....

images
 
For Gibson fans, this reminds me of the Dixie Flatline construct. It can’t form memories, although once “he” is given this ability to do so and figures out what he is, he requests to be erased.

Dixie Flatline A famous computer hacker named McCoy Pauley, who earned his nickname by surviving three "flat-lines" while trying to crack an AI. He was one of the men who taught Case how to hack computers. Before his death, Sense/Net saved the contents of his mind onto a ROM. Case and Molly steal the ROM and Dixie helps them complete their mission.
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en.m.wikipedia.org

Neuromancer - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 
I remember learning that the hippocampus stores memories. My guess would be there is some physical storage basis for memories, even if it's dispersed across the brain rather than just in one spot. Otherwise, how are memories saved?
 
ever since taking physiological psych classes i've figured all of what we consider the soul physically exists within the cns. when i took those classes 10+ years ago, a lot -- including a physical basis for memory -- was assumed but ultimately unknown.
 
Xorkoth said:
I remember learning that the hippocampus stores memories. My guess would be there is some physical storage basis for memories, even if it's dispersed across the brain rather than just in one spot. Otherwise, how are memories saved?
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Dendrite formation. Presumably we can replicate this digitally and, in a crude way, we already use smartphones+internet as an extension of our memory.

The most crucial thing for cloning our minds though would be replicating the structure that houses our ego (or soul/spirit, if you prefer these romantic euphemisms)
 
An average lifespan is all i feel like my brain should get. Maybe its temporary for a reason? To be around forever wouldnt be a good reflection of my soul. In my next or previous lifetime i might think or act totally different than i did while i had the brain i am currently using. I think how our brains work are just a matter of circumstances and wouldn't be a good reflection of who we are as spirit beings.
Idk, its cool to think about though.
 
Zopiclone bandit said:
That "death" is an illusion as we think of it, "God" is real & he/she/it is NOT the nice & loving being Christians think it is. "God" can see everything we do & "it" has many entities that are around us all the time & can crush us faster than a blink of the human eye. The human ego is given to us by free choice & it is upto you how you use it BUT if you think you are better than anyone else on Earth at the moment your body & "consciousness" as you know it "dies" you are in for one hell of a HUGE fucking shock.

Be kind to animals, people less off than you are, don't go around like you are something as you may get away with it for decades but what we call "death" isn't the end, it is the next stage & that place is way beyond anything we understand in our normal day & if you are a prick on Earth as a human something is waiting to show you where you went wrong & the "punshiment" waiting for you will be HORRIFIC!!!!!

@TripSitterNZ knows what I'm saying I feel.
Click to expand...

Zopiclone bandit said:
I've done so many Tryptamine chemicals but smoked DMT is something else, it hits like a brick to the face, there is nobody there to be scared when you blow it out, the whole world breaks into pieces in front of you so fast you are just knocked sideways. The first pipe when I came down I sat there for a good 10 mins just saying to myself outloud "What the fuck??!!" over & over again.

I hit it again & that trip was nothing like the first, I was crushed beyond words & that was when "God" came through & told me I am NOTHING & I can be taken/crushed like an ant, I was then told the wisdom I shared with you above, I felt like crying when I came down & still to this day I've not fully come to terms with it.
Click to expand...
Zopiclone bandit said:
@PriestTheyCalledHim I take it you also have never smoked potent Salvia?
Click to expand...

It seems like you had a bad trip on the DMT that you smoked. A friend of mine who is not even into any drugs at all now, had a really bad trip on 5-MEO-DMT.

Can you or anyone else reading this who had bad experiences on DMT go to a Peruvian or Brasilian shaman and take Ayahuasca in a ceremony? I was told by a friend who used to lead such ceremonies in Peru, that if people take DMT without a shaman or guide, how they run the serious risk of going mad or into psychosis, and that with a guide/shaman the experience is completely different.

What sort of entities did you experience? If there are ones that are basically as you wrote, akin to the Hindustani gods/goddesses of 'destruction' like Shiva and Kali, certainly there are ones who are benevolent, healing, and loving.

That is good to know that serial killers, and psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, and spree killers, or mass murderers all get punished for hurting animals and people.

My use of psychedelics is limited to high doses of smoked/eaten/vaped cannabis, high/moderate/low doses of LSD 11 times, and mushrooms in a high and low dose twice. On my first mushroom experience at a high ego-fragmenting dose (for me), I felt the presence of God but he/she/it was not as you described but did not communicate with me but I knew or could sense the presence of God. On my first very high LSD experience I learned that everything in the universe is connected somehow. I had an out of body experience on that LSD trip but it was not akin to an an out of body experience that is experienced by people during lucid dreaming or near death experiences but I just saw myself from outside of myself.
 
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