Eternal life: replacing the brain with another carrier while maintaining consciousness and personality


    How many of us at least once in our lives did not think about how to live forever?
    It happened to me. You can make a biological cell oriented to an infinite number of divisions, regardless of the type of cell.
    But as a real techie, I understand that the human body is imperfect.
    Eternal life for a biological individual can be achieved in two ways. Different in their complexity and capabilities that these solutions will provide.

    1. Controlled endless division of a biological cell
    2. Transfer of consciousness to another more fault-tolerant carrier.

    The point of the article and the subsequent discussion is to investigate the theory precisely according to point 2, because it does not mean copying the personality when your brain is copied to someone else, but you remain yourself, but transferring your brain to another medium, so that you do not cease to exist, the mental continuum, self-awareness.


    Cynicism? Utopia? Inevitable reality.

    If it is quite simple to replace a damaged biological body with a new one without loss of functionality, then the brain, alas, is almost impossible. Because it will not be you.

    Why is it necessary


    The biological mind is vulnerable. First of all, in front of other biological life forms. (bacteria, viruses, etc.). Not to mention the lack of power, damage.

    The biological mind is difficult to standardize - you will not find 2 identical brains. As a result, it is impossible to instantly train him. Read - to release a "expansion unit" that can be connected to any brain - and it is already possible to solve the range of tasks for which it is designed.

    If we create technology ... an artificial eternal brain, then
    on the one hand, we can scale it as you like with an increase in productivity, without damaging the scalable part
    on the other, you can connect it to a biological body in the same way as the natural brain. At the same time, be content with all the blessings and pleasures of the biological body, knowing that you are immortal. In any case, the transfer technology (rather than copying!) Is described below. She doesn’t care from which carrier to which transfer.

    Technology of consciousness transfer. High level design


    In total there are 2 axioms that are experimentally verified and are intuitive to humans. Not requiring evidence.
    There is a source brain / consciousness. We call it X.
    Let X consist of some units x [i], losing which X practically does not lose the functional (well, or approaches an ideal - DOES not lose the functional). For the biological brain, these will be neurons or clusters of connected neurons.

    1. From the point of view of the interested subject X: if you copy X to Y, then destroy X, then Y will be the double of X at the time of copying. But entity X will be gone.
    From a practical point of view, this means that if your brain was copied and you were killed, then your copy will live, but not you. She will think like you, do the same as you. But at the time of your death, you will cease to exist for yourself. Those. your conscious existential thought continuum will break off.
    Which seems paradoxical, for all the rest you will live (if they do not know that they copied you), but for yourself - no. A kind of philosophical paradox.

    2. If in X dies from m to nx [i], where m> = 1, n> = m, then X will not die at the same time. I will
    explain in practice. You drink a bottle of vodka. One or more neurons dies (say). Or they hit you on the head well. Neurons have died, but after that you did not stop being yourself
    All the memories that you had. all skills, your self-awareness - everything is preserved. Those. you have not ceased to exist. And after hitting \ a glass of vodka you are you, not your copy. All thanks to the noise immunity of the drive (brain). Another thing is if you were severely affected and / or before that you also drank. So much so that they lost consciousness.
    The neocortex is disconnected But it does not collapse (does not die)
    That is the phrase "conscious existence" is not applicable. Existence remains.
    But self-conscious existence (the existence of a neural network that stores information about itself and the world) continues.

    A little lyrical digression.
    And here is an interesting situation.
    De facto human consciousness continues to exist. Those. brain functions and it remains the same brain X with brain X point of view . But others perceive this as a loss of consciousness. It's funny And if you copy X into Y, and destroy X, then for those who do not know about copying, “X” will continue to exist consciously and from their point of view it will be X. But from the point of view of X, X will not continue to exist. Because no more X.

    Which of the following follows in practice?
    From the first axiom it follows that the system cannot be transferred completely. Those. if we transfer the system incompletely, we can transfer and not copy. (sufficient condition)
    From the second axiom it follows that the system should be transferred according to the minimum possible components of this system. The temporary absence of which will not affect the functioning of the system (a necessary condition).


    It follows from this that it is possible to replace the smallest possible set of x [i] s in X in parallel with the corresponding y [i]. Moreover, each element x [i] needs to be assigned y [i] (for now, for simplicity, we consider the ratio 1: 1)
    In this case, we must ensure that the same functions are fulfilled as x [i] did. Those. the set of functions that x [i] performed was retained in y [i], but at the same time, y [i] would possess the new properties we needed .

    The simplest iterative example. We take the brain, replace one neuron with a silicon analog, which is designed immediately to get along with biological neurons. And so all the neurons are one at a time.
    On the one hand - because you temporarily lose one neuron — you do not stop life and your conscious existence, self-awareness. Do not lose anything practically (at the time of replacement) . And immediately after the replacement , you will have everything the same as before the replacement. Those. you don’t lose anything at all. You are purchasing another medium. And since there is no copying of X to Y entirely with the subsequent destruction of X, (where Y is another medium), this will not be your double, but you.

    (... the development of technology ....)
    Profit !!!
    You can moveyourself anywhere. You can increase your computing power as you like, etc. You can live as long as you like and adapt as you like to changes in the outside world. If you fantasize, the multiplicity of transferring oneself (when there will be appropriate technologies) into, say, a piece of drifting interstellar dust is not excluded.
    But from a purely practical point of view, one must also have the potential for action. Conscious dust must be able to do something, otherwise why exist. But this is a philosophy :)

    Open questions, the solution of which can bring the creation of technology closer


    Replacing neurons directly inside the brain - a fairly well-developed technology is needed.

    Perhaps you can just connect the electronic to the biological brain. Through the wire into the ear :)
    Before the transfer - biological - complete. Electronic - empty.
    Biological - X, electronic - Y.
    X is connected to Y so that initially the consciousness of X is distributed between the drive system X + Y

    Copy. Turn off the neuron \ site in the biological brain. We copy it to Y. The copied area did not disappear anywhere, and after copying to Y and deleting it in X, the consciousness remained unharmed, because X continues to see everything that is in Y. So, piece by piece from X to Y. Until X becomes empty.

    If how to “turn on” a section in Y is even more or less clear, then how to “turn off” a section in X ...

    Summary


    I proved only the fundamental possibility of transferring consciousness to any medium. It doesn’t matter where we are moving from. From the biological brain to silicon, from silicon to plasma, from plasma to quarks or somewhere else, to a parallel universe. The only requirement is that the original system (the one from which the transfer of consciousness occurs) must be noise-immunity. Those. she must be able to lose at least one element of which she consists without significant losses for herself. In this case, the materiality of losses will be expressed in the size of memory failures in one way or another. This is a prerequisite. And enough - the system should not cease to exist when this single element is turned off. Such a system will be portable.

    The fact that this will require technology, I do not argue :) But it is possible.
    What technologies - we talk about this in the comments.

    Added Sat Sat 15 02:10:52 GMT + 2
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    Discussion and its results


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    Very grateful to everyone join the discussion.
    Since not all people understood for the first time what I wanted to convey, and I had to explain in the comments, I realized (how) that the article should be supplemented with a thought experiment. Which, however, will be different from the conducted earlier.

    Plus, you should add a block about consciousness. When it exists, when not. Such a function of consciousness from time to time. And examine if it has gaps. One is already outlined (@streepteaze pushed for this). Because on the one hand, it will facilitate understanding (I meant it, but never mentioned it explicitly). Some people took it on the fly for granted. Some are not. Because I didn’t mention him and this is my mistake. On the other hand, the explanation will become simpler and more formal.

    It will take some time to finalize. Reflect, gather information. End the discussion.
    After that I will present this article in a new, more formalized and understandable way. With all the comments and objections.

    It also turned out some interesting points. But about them - in the updated article.

    08/05/2013 UPD: My approach is invariant with respect to the definition of “you” and “me”. Those. observing the proposed algorithm, you can transfer the "I" from one medium to another without giving a definition of "I". It does not matter what is tolerated. The only important thing is that it is transferred. "I" turns out to be a "free variable"

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