Arthurs' Paradox is the apparent paradox that occurs in relation to Causality on a popular RUclips channel.. Arthur Isaacs' subscribers will always press the thumbs up even before they have watched the new episode. This is because they know with absolute certainty that it will be awesome. They are never wrong. Scientists are at the moment confounded how effect is preceding cause but believe it is due to a hypothetical time travelling particle called the Arthurino.
We clearly live in a bizarre universe where the chance of an Isaac Arthur video being good always comes up 1. Personally, I'd have preferred the one where switching my light on always caused a stack of one hundred thousand euros to appear on my bed. But I'm sure there are worse universes too!
As an aspiring author of science fiction this was an especially great episode. The insight from Dennis Taylor about modern science fiction was so true. People have so much access to information, it can make it hard to write a story that people can suspend their disbelief of if you don't get the science plausible. This channel is a great resource in that regard. Thank you Isaac for what yo do.
Aye but the majority of the public have serious misinterpretations of science despite having greater access for research so do you write according to your research of the science or to the most common misinterpretations of the science...
"I think I'd have no trouble finding one thousand candidates from my audience". Consider me signed. All aboard the Isaac-train... ship... err... vehicle?
I’d be in, but i won’t lie. It’d be a little disappointing to have my other get to go play Oregon Trail in space. I’d rather leave him here and go myself.
This leads me to rather disturbing ideas like: - emailing the consciousness to other star systems - putting your consciousness on tinder - tweeting your mind - liking and sharing each other's minds - racing for more views on Mindtube - top10 minds videos on youtube - cat-playing-with-conscious-minds memes... ... ... Maybe this whole uploading thing was not such a good idea after all...
Isaac Arthur my friend, but if I take all originally discarded pieces and reassemble them exactly, which one would be the real Theseus' ship? Would it be the reformed ship or the the one carrying Theseus?
It depends on why one is interested in the ship of Theseus : -Theseus : Whatever, as long as it sails him. -Relic : Don't you dare change a single speck of dust ! -Ceremonial : You only need for people to believe it is the one and only. -Paperwork : Whichever has taxes paid for must be it. -Philosophical discussion : Whatever, as long as the debate goes on.
protip: don't simulate a brain on it's own... always include the hormonal system, that stuff works like a coarse meta software on the brain... things get wonky if you try it without
I really shouldn't be here now. All my daughter asked me was to wait for her to get home form school so we could watch this together. Damn. That's 5 hours from now. This is gonna be hard, but I gotta leave now. But not before I hit 'like'... I mean it goes without saying this is gonna rock, even without watching I know that much! Happy Arthursday!!!!
PongoXBongo how is that even half? No I think he meant the ones that read a blog or two and try to summarise the scientific idea in 2 minutes. Useful but inherently incomplete
@[AUTHORITY OF ENGINEERS] No worry I´m aware of the dangers of transhumanism but if you want to warn people maybe make it a bit less dramatic or they´ll think you're crazy.
Poor Bob, he just wanted some coffee, TEA, Soda, Cocaine, sleep, banging music all at the same time. Oh the problems of being a Simulated Intelligence which is run by people acting as his neurons.
I'm curious about this Bob fellow. If you are an emulation without physical form; can you have cravings? Addiction is a biological response to an external stimulus; be it drug, sex or an adrenaline rush. Does Bob actually feel anything or is that simulated? And if it is doesn't that make Bob an Ai if every thing is simulated?
there is a good book series Hegemony that spends a lot of time dealing with those questions. In the story AI crewed ships had actual cabins and gyms so the crew could move into an androids while off duty. the universe didn't have hyper advanced computers so it was actually lighter to build real crew quarters than to use a supermassive super computer. If the crews didn't get to experience cravings or connection with the world they would go insane.
Unfortunately for this discussion the book just handwaves a lot of other mind uploading issues by saying a mind cant be copied because technobabble. A mind is called a damon or soul and can be transferred at will but even if you have two computers with the exact same data of simulated neurons only one will be alive. It makes for good story telling though.
At first I thought I was getting better at understanding him. After I learned he is training with a speech therapist I think it's his improvement not mine. Way to go Isaac! Thank you for lending your voice.
The last episode I watched (I think it was Ancient Aliens) there was a moment when his speech was suddenly perfect, it was only for like a sentence but it was amazing to see that hard work showing through. Really incredible, it was such a (relatively) huge difference I almost thought it was someone else doing the voiceover for that sentence lol I love this channel, on top of learning about amazing space-based science, I got to learn about the incredible power of modern speech therapy too!
haha I thought I was the only one. It was...mildly uncomfortable, in lack of more precise word. as for the speech impediment I consider it to be negligible. It took me no more than a few minutes to adjust my hearing to certain words but since then I rarely notice it. Also English being my second language it's more or less a tomato or tomaaato matter. or dropping the r's as some speakers in britain do
Is it really necessary to emulate every single neuron? A lot, if not most, of your brain's processing power is devoted to controlling unconscious bodily functions such as pupil dilation. You won't need those if your mind is in a computer.
That's still a shitload of neurons to simulate the incredibly complex interactions of. Even 0.1% of the approximate 100 billion neurons in your brain would still be 100 million cells to analyze the numerous connections of accurately in real time.
Idk about most. Neurons are really hard to emulate too unless you emulate every atom. Their decision making is very complex and exists beyond single neurons. You can not simulate a brain by simulating the neurons alone. The idea of tripartite synapses is pretty old now, that synapses are composed of not only 2 or more neurons, but also an astrocyte
I like how you not only redpill people, but are a man of science as well. I'm pretty sure I remember you referencing scientific studies in one of your videos so maybe science is one of your main interests. Are you in some sort of STEM field?
For the many of us who have been under a general anesthesia for an operation we know exactly what it's like to have our Consciousness interrupted. It definitely feels like I'm still me, but I could be wrong :) Edit: I don't think sleep quite gets us there since there is still a tiny bit of awareness going on. Dreams, a sense of the passage of time and things like that.
How timely! I was just pondering last week, after hearing a cryogenics advocate admit (finally) hat frozen brains are unlikely to be thawed and their goal was to someday scan and emulate those brains instead), how it might be possible to "really" extend life via continual wet/hardware replacement. I settled on the need to keep the processes running, while shifting them onto new platforms over time. First augmenting a brain, giving it new platforms to run on, expand onto, and over the course of multiple procedures and years, gradually/eventually transfer away from the original biological platform. The goal would be to keep the same consciousness viable, by keeping its supporting processes online. I also finally settled for myself that yep, every time someone in Trek is transported, that instance of them dies. For all appearances, it's the same person to everyone else, but it is a new instance of that consciousness. Creepy. Thanks (again) for the awesome channel.
Sign me up for your ship Isaac! Love the Bobiverse series. Literally my favorite book series of all time. I'm really looking forward to getting into the Singularity Trap right after I finish Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark in a couple of days. I never really thought a lot about mind uploading until I read the Bobiverse series, but I'm fascinated with the idea of it now. Keep up the great work Isaac and thanks to everyone who helps Isaac put out these great videos.
As a student of evolutionary biology who's read too much Creationist/ID claptrap, I cringe whenever people refer to the results of evolution as random...and doubly so when they refer to, say, the human brain as a random pile of junk assembled at random (which is close to a common introduction for "irreducible complexity" arguments). Evolution is not random, as Mr. Arthur noted before his cringe-inducing line; it's merely _unguided,_ and the distinction is critical. The shape a pile of rocks makes is unguided, but is the opposite of random. The same is true of crystalline structures, tectonic activity, and the water cycle. Understanding that unguided activity is *not* random and *can* produce complex yet consistent results is important to understanding many things, including biology-not just for evolution, but also for ecology, behavior of packs/flocks, and even how various organs, chemicals, and whatnot interact within a single organism. Sorry, Isaac Arthur just walked into my metaphorical wheelhouse to borrow some tools and stepped on one of my pet peeves.
Oh, do I know Your pain... and to make You feel even worse, consider this observation me and my GF made: EVERY science has it's own anti-science. It's not just creationists. You have flat-earthers, alt-history, free energy, etc etc.
No, every science has _several_ "anti-sciences" (which are usually called "pseudosciences"). The prominent ones (Creationism, racialism, anti-vaxxers, etc) are the few which either have some institution which feels threatened or with leaders who tap into societal anxiety with impressive skill...or both, since the difference between "societal anxiety" and "threatened institution" is pretty close to semantic.
Ote Mork You think a human neuron is "more conscious" than a switch in a microprocessor? Or that its internal experience is easier to observe? If you can make a brain and a mind out of dumb, mechanistic neurons, why not dumb silicon?
0:59 whatever you've been doing to improve your speech since you started the channel is working fantastically. "deserved a primary focus" would have been a minefield but you crushed it.
Oh I'm excited for this one! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for converting my mind to digital via a Theseus' Ship kind of process. I figure my best shot at imortality is upgrading aspects of my brain over time until it's sufficiently non-biological for it to never kill me faster than it can be repaired or moved into a new body.
I'm a human purist, so I'll stick to what I have and try to keep it alive for as long as I can. Though, nanobots taking over the natural repair mechanics wouldn't be a problem as that's technology assisting the body instead of replacing it. Much like how I have no problem with a machine that keeps your heart pumping blood, but I do have a problem with a technological heart.
Randy Kalff Whatever you're calling "human purist" just seems like a lot of contradictions. A pacemaker to keep your heart beating is fine but if you heart stops replacing it is not; a WiFi chip in your head is presumably a problem but a smartphone always at one's fingertips somehow doesn't ruin our purity; memory expansion for my brain taints me but Google Keep doesn't count; injecting nanobots that cure disease might be unacceptable but injecting someone else's stem cells is fine; maybe editing my genome to build stronger bones of okay but building in an artificial (exo-?)skeleton wouldn't be okay... Just, meh. If humanity survives we won't always be homo sapiens even without our own intervention. No reason not to make improvements once we can do it faster than natural selection can work it out
Randy Kalff Damn purists! You will never rule the universe!!! We tech supremacists will eventually replace the inferior human race with a superior non-biological form of higher intelligence. These machine humans will be better than you in every way. They will be able to survive the vacuum and radiation in space. They will have back up copies of their minds. They won't need to sleep. Just a fusion cell replacement every handful of years. How long do you think it will take for us to crush you? Mechanized humans are the next form of evolution. You can call us homo superior. Bend the knee sir, disavow your purist ideals and I may show mercy!!!
SpeakingJustWords Ha! More like the machine god himself! I also always find myself going the supremacy route when I play Civ: Beyond Earth. Really think it's the next logical course for humans. Our biological form remains a weakness. Especially as we enter the space age.
Most people don't realize how close we are to being able to do this, algorithmically. Not that we're there but some of the algorithms I work with, indeed some of the best algorithms we have for AI, emulate layers of the neocortex with striking results. There's a still a long way to go to being able to emulate (More than less) a human brain but I wouldn't say it's even twenty years away. The first most promising avenue for this I became aware of (Besides the decades-old algos emulating neurons) were sparsely distributed representations (SDR) of dendritic processing in cortical columns. Soon after, we had source code (By Numenta) for cortical learning algorithms available on the Internet and Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM). I think there were some earlier, similar works by Ben Goertzel in his OpenCog project but I never used that code. Fast forward just a few years and cortex-like algorithms are being used in some of the most impressive AI projects we have. The current state of the art in this area (Publicly available) is probably the Differentiable Neural Computer which you can download source code for Github. AI and microchip manufacturers are now on a quest to build hardware specifically for running DNCs and I expect that this area of AI study will be where we see the most impressive results in the context of this video. We are giving birth to, something...
Agreed, I give it 3 decades tops. However, right now we still have no clue what the deep key to actual intelligence is. It's probably not complicated because brain does it despite slow hardware, and probably simple since evolution juts stumbles on easy designs, and it will likely seem obvious in retrospect, but... so far it's still a mystery.
I'v understood half of the video, but I still love it! Time to bring a snack and play it second time! Great Job Isaac. Shame that in my bookshop We have only the first two bookd of the trilogy. SF is not very demanded here
If I've learned anything from the Fallout series, it's that Robobrain's are usually the worse. Nothing could be worse than a malicious brain in a jar. Great content Issac I've been enjoying your content for a while now. Thank you.
This mind uploading reminds me of Destiny 2 The Exos where humanities way of immortality through uploading your mind in a robotic body. - The first stage of Exos would lead to people going insane as they can't deal with being in an Exo body like a file not being in the correct format but uploading it anyway. - Eventually Exos where built with many humanisms for the mind to cope, needing to eat, drink, sleep, feel pain, look like your original body ect. - There are also resets on memories and an Exos number to their name is how many times they where reset like Cayde-6, Banshee-44, & Saint-14. - However to become one requires a scan that kills you and copies your mind.
Wow Isaac! I mean wow. I never minded your speech impediment but I am truly blown away by your diligence and hard work. Your progress is astounding and I had to pause 2:45 into your video just to say so. I just... I think you’re so great Isaac. Thank you for all that you give us.
If we emulated another Isaac, and that Isaac also posted RUclips videos and grew another fan base, and they then emulated the emulated Isaac, we might get a pretty good idea of the flaws in the original emulation by observing the signal degradation.
Can I just say, I'm so glad you're not apologising for the way you speak any more. Each person has a slightly different way of talking to the next because we're all slightly different. Be you, because I'm glad you're you. Otherwise we wouldn't have this great content. Who else is doing well thought out and researched, creative hard science fiction/future science?
There should just be a general like button for all of Isaac's episodes. I'm sure I've missed hitting it a few times but every one deserves it. So if the Singularity Trap is only available in audible, does that mean you can only listen to it, or is there a format available to actually read it? Sorry, I'm a little old fashioned when it comes to books.
What about copying a mind from an old body into a new body? I can see some major problems with that, namely the fact that our brains change as we age. There are physical differences between the brain of an 80-year-old man and a 20-year-old man. So if you were 80 years old and you knew you wouldn't live much longer, you might want to clone yourself and copy your mind into the younger clone body, and achieve a sort of immortality by doing so (we'll ignore the time it takes the clone body to mature to the point of being like a 20-year-old by assuming it's artificially aged). However, the "architecture" of the younger brain doesn't match the old brain your mind was copied from. They may be similar in most ways, but there would be small differences, and these differences could cause changes in memory, personality, and behavior. Now let's say the clone body reaches 80 years old and it's time to make another body. The mind is copied into another clone body, but again, the younger brain is different from the older one, so more differences accumulate. This process is repeated for thousands of years. After so many generations, the imperfections will have compounded to the point where the latest clone has a mind so different from the original that it's no longer recognizable, like copying a VHS tape too many times. So whatever sense of immortality you may have achieved is now pointless. One possible solution might be to digitize your mind and then have the same copy downloaded into the brains of each subsequent clone. This would keep the degradation down to only two generation's worth. But this wouldn't work if you wanted to retain a continuity of memory. If you didn't copy the memories of the previous clone into the brain of the latest clone, then from the latest clone's perspective, it would be as if they went to sleep as an 80-year-old man some time in the distant past and woke up however many centuries later in a younger body. If you wanted each new clone to remember the life of the clone that came before it (we'll assume the brain can store multiple lifetimes worth of memories), you would have to copy the mind of the previous clone, so you still get the same problem of generational decay. Another solution would be to make the cloned brains electronic so they don't change with age. But if you're going to download your mind into a synthetic brain, then you might as well just go the extra mile and download your mind into a fully android body which also doesn't age.
If uploading (and syncing) ever becomes an accessible thing in my lifetime, I plan to be a philosopher's nightmare. If the copy isn't me, I'll know (or feel like I know) right away. But man, imagine copying yourself and getting lost on Wikipedia or the future equivalent between syncs.
William (and ohmigod, your name looks to my non-Germanic eyes like "shrieking ghost" which fits well with an 'afterlife' that doesn't go quite as planned, so well done there), if you came out as a bad copy and knew it, what would you do then? Go on, knowing you're inferior/different, or have your code deleted?
I'd just continue being me-ish, probably. No use dwelling on being distinct from the original when you're functionally immortal and still have the capacity to recognize those differences. Kinda depends on whether that mindset made it to the copy, I guess.
It was a litte bit devil's advocate, and a bit of curiosity. Personally, I think that you'd end up being your own person, disticnt from the original you, as Isaac goes on to say. Sartre said, "Man is ... the sum of his actions", and so it would be.
If it's accidental, no one who understands law could honestly suggest it's murder. Though, whether it's a mass case of manslaughter is another question.
YAY! New Dennis Taylor book! I love the Bobiverse series. I had to pause the video and download the singularity trap at the 2:40 mark (sorry, already a subscriber since early 2000s, can't take advantage of the code)
I feel that the hardware for the neurons isn't the half of it, if you put a person in that box and dont have them some sort of body to feel, no sensory input, only a puny 4k camera for eyes, itll go insane
YoungBlood Bear I just watched a Black Mirror episode on Netflix called White Christmas that touches on that very subject. It was disconcerting to hear the newly copied brain freak out because she didn't know what was going on. It's a good show if you haven't seen it, but leaves me feeling disturbed sometimes. I guess that's the point considering the name of the show.
Isn't a camera just sensory input? I think a computer would be able to have vastly more "sensory" inputs than humans. Imagine if you could navigate through the internet like you navigate through your city.
Sorting out how to access the various senses and motor functions of the simulated mind would take some time so the earliest simulations could live in isolation or even shear pain, however digital simulations can be reset so once the senses are sorted out, the simulations could live in a virtual environment paradise or operate an android avatar or bioprinted body with all the senses and with no memory of the endless torture of earlier runs. Another point is how much of our memories are in the connections of the neurons hence likely preserved by just copying the neurons and synapses and how much is in the excitation states of those neurons hence likely erased just like the RAM memory of a computer when power is removed. You may want to note that a 4k display has more pixels than many people have cones in their eyes so 4k would be an increase in resolution over biologic eyes. Of course, what we see are really a mental model built by our brain, it takes 1/10th of a second to process images in our visual cortex hence what we see are just a projection the brain imagined based on images seen up to 1/10th of a second ago. That's why we have so many motion based optical illusions.
If the brain cells get replaced one by one by circuits, that's hardly Mind Uploading. "You" will be stored in those circuits (assuming that will be possible, assuming "you" don't die in the process). Mind uploading happens when you upload your mind to another hardware. Changing components is not Uploading, it's just fixing. If you did change components until you become a computer, and then you upload your consciousness to another computer, "that" you is a different "you". You copy-paste, you don't magically "transfer" to another computer. That is, assuming Biological Mind can be emulated by a Silicon based Mind. That is, assuming 100% hydentical emulation of a human mind is possible That is, assuming Strong AI is possible (It needs to be, if it wants to emulate you) That is, assuming Strong AI is actually conscious. If any of those turns out to be impossible, even just one, the entire point of Mind Uploading becomes meaningless at best. There are already tons of Papers on the importance of Biological components in Consciousness, on how Hardware cannot fully replicate some of our components and how Quantum Mechanics might be relevant in biological (not mechanical) brains.
There's so much we don't know about the brain. We know almost nothing about how the consciousness even comes to be, and we're not even sure about its purpose (is it the "real you", or is it a tool used by your "real you"? Is there even a clear "real you" or are you more like the total sum of your parts, the consciousness just being one aspect?). We use medication for mental health issues without even understanding what they do - we just randomly found out they work! Chemicals obviously play a role, and new research implies that quantum mechanics might be important, too. I find this idea, that all we'd have to do is emulate a bunch of neurons, becomes increasingly unlikely. And if you'd have to simulate the brain down to subatomic particles and quantum effects, well that requires processing power on an entirely different level, if it's even possible at all. We're already starting to feel the end of Moore's Law, after all, and whether new approaches (like quantum computers) will save us is up in the air at this point. The more I learn about all this, the more I feel brain emulation is starting to look like FTL travel used to. Sure it can work in theory, maybe it's possible one day with some magic super-tech, and it's certainly interesting for Sci-Fi writers to use. But there's a huge chance it's going to be way harder than you'd initially think, and maybe in a few decades all those stories about uploaded minds are going to look like the warp drive does today.
> There are already tons of Papers on the importance of Biological components in Consciousness... I'm pretty sure you're talking about Roger Penrose, who has fallen into the physicist's trap of thinking their opinions in domains other than physics are automatically well-informed. Not only is it clearly possible to perfectly emulate a human brain given enough computing power (which makes genuinely conscious strong AI possible as a side-effect), it's NOT clear that you specifically need to emulate a HUMAN brain, let alone emulate it PERFECTLY. The space of possible minds is vast. Furthermore, if you replace cells one by one to the point of being fully artificial, you can then much more easily expand into many other devices in a continuous, synchronized manner. At no point do you need to lose consciousness or continuity.
How is replacing your organic brain with artificial circuitry not uploading your brain? I was under the impression that uploading something just meant transferring data to another device. One device is your brain and the other is the computer.
"its only copy paste if you don't use the same slow upload process to transfer to another computer" "All this is is a data transfer protocol that cut and paste instead of copy pasting" Cut and Paste is a copy paste in which the original copy gets deleted, it's not a true transfer (there is no "true transfer" in Informatics. When you transfer or download or upload a file, it's always a copy of the original file, many people assume that cut and paste means transfering the original, but that's is mathematically false). "As for quantum computing.. well we have that and we can also emulate it on normal computers." I wasn't talking about Quantum computing. However, you have no basis to claim "We will surely have that" when talking about unproven things in science.
"I find this idea, that all we'd have to do is emulate a bunch of neurons, becomes increasingly unlikely. And if you'd have to simulate the brain down to subatomic particles and quantum effects, well that requires processing power on an entirely different level, if it's even possible at all" Agree
"I'm pretty sure you're talking about Roger Penrose, who has fallen into the physicist's trap" I wasn't talking about him since, you know, the Quantum Entanglement importance in Neurones is an issue discussed by a lot of scientists, Penrose is just one of them. Nicknaming him doesn't make his opinions false. "Not only is it clearly possible to perfectly emulate a human brain given enough computing power" That's already the fake statement. We have no way to prove that is possible right now. "it's NOT clear that you specifically need to emulate a HUMAN brain, let alone emulate it PERFECTLY" If I want to emulate YOU, I have to be PERFECT, or that won't be YOU. "if you replace cells one by one to the point of being fully artificial, you can then much more easily expand into many other devices in a continuous, synchronized manner. At no point do you need to lose consciousness or continuity." As I said Copy-Paste, uploading, connecting, all of that is simply "Make a copy somewhere else". YOU are still where you are, you are not "Magically" going inside another computer.
"How is replacing your organic brain with artificial circuitry not uploading your brain?" Because that's not the definition of uploading. Changing your car's components is not uploading. "I was under the impression that uploading something just meant transferring data to another device" Exactly. So as you can see, Heart Transplant is not Heart Uploading. "One device is your brain and the other is the computer" Mind uploading: The information in your brain gets copied on a computer, CHANGING DEVICE. Neuron-changing or whatever you wanna call it: YOU are in the same device, the device is simply changing structure. The common pattern I see here is the grave misconception that when you copy a File, when you cut-paste a file, when you Download a file, when you Upload a file, when you transfer a file, when you connect to the internet, there is some "Magical" transferring involved that brings the "it" somewhere else. But that is not how Information works. Instead, copies of datas (even parts of data) are being copied all over the place. If "You" managed to slowly transform into a Computer, assuming that is possible (and that's a huge assumption for a number of reasons), "you" are in that computer. And "You" will stay there. If you start to upload your mind from that computer, "that" is a different mind, not you. While yes you could control, from that computer, a different computer in another place, "You" are still in that first computer. You didn't move or "expand". And if that computer gets shut down, you are done. If they make a copy in the other computer, or you uploaded into it, "that" you is a different you.
A heart transplant isn't an upload since the heart itself controls the heart beat. If we ignore that and say that the electrical signals which keep the heart active are produced elsewhere then it could be argued that you are uploading something. The electrical signals which trigger the cardiac muscles is essentially a basic program and by having a heart transplant you are using that program on a new device and therefore uploading your 'heart program' onto the new heart. I believe that the brain is a similar case. Your mind isn't a physical object, it's a running collection of electrical signals. To upload your mind simply means to take those signals and recreate them on another device, whether that be an identical brain or a computer simulating such a brain. I don't believe this is comparable to 'changing your car's components'. By changing a cars components you are changing the car itself since it is made up by its components. Changing the brain changes who you are physically, but doesn't change your mind which is what we are focusing on in this example which is why I would consider it uploading. The data (your mind) isn't changed at all, just its physical store.
Jeez, every month im blown away at how much you have effectively diverged from your pronouncing of "r's" even 3 months ago you sounded totally diffrent! Good job man! Edit:the continuity argument has kept me up many of night, only a few weeks ago i tried to argue to a family member that sleep is no different dying and being reborn whole sale the next day and they simply could not fathom it lol.
Excellent perception of the subject matter and the relativity of this topic. I appreciate the fact that you look at the basic fundamentals without going into the different branches of moralism, religion, but stay in application. This is one of the more enjoyable Productions you've done in awhile. Thank you very much for the thought that you take and putting into these programs.
Am I myself, or just a copy under testing? Maybe the grand simulation is just to test the accuracy of the emulations. Ah! Yet another existential crises! Awesome! Thanks!
@@johnwang9914 I suggest that it would devolve into two camps with fanatical devotees of the opposed infotainment/nutrition approaches, each denouncing the other as a heretic. Fight!
I did not expect to like this episode as much since is too philosophical for me but you script writing makes almost every topic interesting . Good work Arthur.
Amazing video! I'm glad someone shares my views on the matter of mind copying and how it will NOT make someone immortal. On the other hand, i really like the gradual way of replacing normal brain cells with technology, i think that's the only way to go if someone wants to become somewhat immortal. (It keeps the original persons mind intact, not deleting it or creating a copy that exists indepentendly from the original.) But simply copying wouldn't help the original person much because it has basically the same ethical flaw like Star Treks transporter, where the original person gets destroyed and a perfect copy being rebuild somewhere else. Not really helpful for the original person. (To be honest if i couldn't care less if there was a copy of me running around somewhere if i where to die soon) If you look at it from that perspective, everytime they use a transporter in Trek they commit suicide. I think i can never watch Star Trek again, lol. (sorry my bad english)
Khannea Sun Tzu I hope you fare well and the A.I is happy you acknowledge it and mr I.A is in all likelyhood doing stuff atm I dont know hehe. 🤗 Cheers!
I adore the Bobiverse books so much. They're actually what led me to you in a roundabout way, as I was talking to someone about our shared love of them, then about being fans of John Michael Gotier, and they recommended your channel. I look forward to getting to The Singularity Trap.
In my video game concept(or book if there is not enough money), The characters have access to mind uploading and storing copies of consciousness. The problem is, the main character does not think the copy is "him". He thinks that when the mind is uploaded, the copy is not the same person. He is deeply afraid of dying, then having his consciousness copied to another body, as "he" will not be alive. The clone will be alive. When he is copied, then dies, his soul will be permanently dead. "he" will die, and "they" will take his place. This is one of the most interesting concepts proposed by the science fiction community, and I love the moral conflict the idea brings. As a side note, the characters are insanely powerful killing machines, genetically modified beyond the superhuman level, with fiber optics instead of nerves, so the reaction time is much faster. The bones have a liberal coating of either carbon nanotubes or a gold-iron alloy 10x stronger than steel (not graphene as they would be susceptible to electric shock). Each muscle puts out 3x the strength, pound for pound, than an unmodified muscle. They have quantum computers at the base of their skull, robots the size of dust around the brain, able to send messages directly to another Immortal (that's their name). The contacts they wear protect their eyes from vacuum and serve as a HUD for the computers in the brain. The distance between the neurons has been shortened. There is 10,000 of them. But they are pretty chill.
It brought to mind both “Mr. Bovey” and “Ozzy’s Brain in a jar” from “Pandora’s Star” and “Judas Unchained”. This was a really good one, Issac. I hope we get there.
It is an irony that back when I had more free time I couldn't find any good groups, now I have a virtually inexhaustible supply of fellow geeks I can game or chat with, and no longer have any free time :) I might grab a second group sometime though, my current one only manages to get a game in about once a month anymore, we're all old.
@Isaac Oh do I know that pain - I've found that two things help. 1st is being systematic. We meet on every saturday on 18:00 and thats it, set in stone. People get used to it and never plan anything for that hour so nothing pops up. 2nd is a bit of flexibility on the Narrator's part - the narrator builds the story around one or two main characters played by people who are 100% reliable, and the rest have characters built in a way that they can appear/disappear or just stay in the background easily - that way, the less reliable players do not cripple the group. Maybe you could make it so that playing with You is a patreon reward? :D :D :D
We tended to more in the past, but folks move or get married with kids and in one case, two of our players got divorced, our youngest two also, which is kinda irritating, as we don't really want to bring anyone in whose new to it.
@ Isaac Arthur "It is an irony that back when I had more free time I couldn't find any good groups, now I have a virtually inexhaustible supply of fellow geeks I can game or chat with, and no longer have any free time" Another benefit of mind uploading... you can have a copy of yourself for D&D and other recreational pursuits. Here's a conjecture that I always thought of. What happens if my uploaded mind was clocked at 5X normal human thought speed. I would only have to dedicate 1/5 of my mind / processing power to have a conversation in real time with another person. If I was engaging a person who I may have to fight, then I may dedicate 2/5 to that as I would want the extra power to make more considered judgements about what technique to use to counter a move, or for driving, etc. I always thought maybe I could reserve 1/5 for relaxation. This would be an extreme example of multitasking, but if these fifths were sufficiently compartmentalized would I run the risk of developing a schizophrenic personality ?
Isaac Arthur you are the new new new Amazing Stories/Omni/Fantasy magazine of our time . The sooner you realize this the sooner you can really take off and start doing amazing things. Every story is new again at some point. Tell them all again.
Never forget WHY are you doing this things: -> My personal porpouse: To save *The Laniakea Supercluster* from _Dark Energy_ pulling it out (myself and my copies will do their best to move each star on the Local Group; lets hope _others_ on the *others* do the same).
One problem I see with mind uploading is that consciousness seems to be emergent behavior based on our biology. Would we be still be 'conscious' housed in a binary based system?
Ease up on the condescension, for starters, there, hipster. And my point was that emergent behavior is entirely dependent on the system architecture. Or do you think an Atari and a i5 will have identical results from the same programming?
I cannot find anything condescending in my previous comment - perhaps the language barrier is to blame here? Also calling someone a hipster is not exactly conducive to discussion on Your side too. Atari and i5 will get the same results, given they are both Turing complete, just not at the same speed. But this metaphor has NOTHING to do with emergent properties of a system. A better metaphor would be saying that both silicon and lamp based computers WERE working, turing-complete computers. The ability to do a computation is completely independent on whether the machine is built out of silicone or metal rods suspended in noble gas.
Thanks for covering a personally timely topic! I learn so much from your videos and they are extremely helpful for world building. Especially this one, I been trying to work out a society that essentially matryoshka brains themselves prematurely. Which causes numerous problems that propels the narrative forward plot wise.
Downloading Isaac Arthur 3.17 with custom chess super skills patch. Estimated time 3 hours and 14 minutes. Please wait this may take a while. Grab a sandwich and a coffee :)!
EXACTLY! I never understood the point in continuity of consciousness arguments because we lose that every single time we go to sleep! Thank you for the video :)
Hey isaac just wanted to say well done. I noticed you dont need to mention closed captioning anymore. Never bothered me but clearly you have been working hard and it has paid off. Again, great job and of course love the content!
Colonel Graff eh.. I dont think anyone would like that except a so designed non sentient A.I.. ofcourse. Sentient minds and youtube rarely mix well. 🤣 It is super easy recording memoirs and knowledge and basically record your every thought and bodily functions but that is not uploading your mind.. Ill shut up and watch this piece of Arthurs mind powah! (I take back super easy and say it is fortunate mr Arthur is so well suited to do work like this vid) Thanks for being awesome!
The subject of the continuity of consciousness is quite a fascinating one... What I've deduced from this subject is that our brains follow a _linear_ continuation of consciousness. It may ebb and flow every time we go to sleep, but the same personal identity belonging to the same housing unit remains. Mind uploading, by contrast, follows a _parallel_ continuation of consciousness. You create an exact replica of your consciousness on a different medium, which isn't you per se, but a flash-clone of yourself. In order to bridge this gap so that robotizing the mind retains your linear continuity, you would have to directly replace the brain's constituent neurons one at a time, much as how the rest of your body replaces itself cell-by-cell. Trying to upgrade that configuration to a platform that doesn't emulate neurons would require you to not just replace these neurons with nanites, but actually _transfer_ these files onto a different medium. More than likely, this could be done by hooking the new "brain" up to the old emulator so that your mind would be simultaneously inhabiting both brains as if they were one. From there, siphoning data from one part of your hardware to the other could be done as easily as moving files to new folders on your computer. FUN FACT: Cats also have two brains, which network together to form their entire mind. Making one of those brains bigger and migrating all the data from the second brain and removing it would be a great example of the procedure I'm describing.
Another excellent episode! I particularly enjoy watching your cybernetics videos. I hope for the future that the "third lobe" of the brain as you have referenced before would be revisited in more detail. I've often spent a lot of time thinking about it and would love to see this expounded upon!
One good example of rapid divergence in perfect copies comes from the fantasy novel Mother of Learning, where the protagonist's simulacra consistently act more flippantly than the original because they realize they're not going to be around to face the consequences. (He's not thrilled about what this implies about him.)
Thank you for discussing this topic today. This is something I had been kind of stuck on for a while, and these last couple of episodes that touch on the concepts of cyborgs and uploaded intelligences help a lot. Cheers, and I hope you have a great day. :)
It just bothers me to think about the transfer procedure... what time frame would be acceptable? If that is in the micro seconds, well,... would that not exponentially increase the amount of energy needed to perform the scan? If so, would that not incinerate the biological substrate?
Great episode. I can't help but think of how 'setting-breaking' it'd be for most sci-fi franchises to mass-copy not just flesh (or equivalent thereof), but skills, experience, drive, and so on. There was the 'Manshoon Wars' in D 'n D, where dozens of his contingency-clones activated at once with a compulsion to kill each other, and spent the next century warring to determine who was the _real_ Manshoon...but usually when mass-copying comes up the copies are essentially mindless drones (Ultron, Skynet) or otherwise irrelevant (Resident Evil movies). Separately, it's trippy to consider people transmitting themselves (presumably with exceptional copyright protection to prevent unauthorized downloads). Not just the multi-copying potential, but also the weirdness of spending 1000+ years in transit 'instantaneously.' I hadn't considered the 'Ship of Theseus' method of swapping out fleshy bits, and yeah, I admit it doesn't provoke nearly the same..._hesitation_ as the thought of a more abrupt 'cut/paste.' To be fair, rusting and burning tend to provoke wildly different responses despite being the same process, merely happening on different timescales, so...
Isn't the question of the number of simulated neurons needed and their inherent value dependent on if we look at them as data bits within a digital model, or as interactive resonance points withing a holographic system? I think the later model relies on each neuron having a more analog value system rather than a digital one, with the frequency interaction vastly complicating the values and their interpretation for analysis.
Just started watching the video, so I'm not sure if you address this, but one thing I've often wondered about is the veracity of the assumption that a mind can be simulated completely on a digital system. If I'm not mistaken, measurements of brain waves are analog. I can't help but wonder if a substrate capable of simulating a mind would have to incorporate some type of analog elements, rather than being purely digital. And of course, there is the open question as to whether or not quantum effects play a significant role in biology. Talk about a wrench in the works - imagine if we have to hybridize quantum + digital + analog computational systems to fully simulate a mind.
Hey Arthur, could you link to Thagor(?) and Tazinsky(?)'s arguments for the higher number of flops needed to emulate a human mind? (referenced around 11.00-11.30 in this video)
Replacing neurons gradually or connecting an artificial brain to the natural one and somehow encouraging it to accept it as part of itself (then distributing functions & workloads across both) at least provides some potential method for the you.exe to continue running throughout the migration process. Even if our understanding of consciousness is flawed and the replaced brain will in actuality be running a clone of the original which died with the natural brain, it is always at least more certain alternative than a simple scan & copy, which fails the "upload" requirement because the original consciousness never left its fleshy host.
Isaac, you should do a video on how to develop psychological contingencies in the event your mind is duplicated. When mind uploading happens, we have to be ready.
Regarding the ship of Thesius problem... every 7 years all of your cells will have divided so you are essentially a different person every 7 years or so. It's really weird when I think of memories from like 20 years back... I even wonder if that version of me stuck in that particular frame of time was the same consciousness I experience now, or whether I just have a small imprint of that other person that I can recall in my mind via memory.
You really should look up the great works of Greg Egan, especially Diaspora, Zendegi, Permutation City and Schild's Ladder. They all offer a very interesting take on mind uploading, transhumanism, both in terms of possibilities and perils. And they are also excellent diamond-hard SF novels in my opinion. The beyond cosmic scale of Diaspora is breathtaking, and Permutation City is simply mindbending.
Arthurs' Paradox is the apparent paradox that occurs in relation to Causality on a popular RUclips channel.. Arthur Isaacs' subscribers will always press the thumbs up even before they have watched the new episode. This is because they know with absolute certainty that it will be awesome. They are never wrong. Scientists are at the moment confounded how effect is preceding cause but believe it is due to a hypothetical time travelling particle called the Arthurino.
Alex Evans
Me an astrophysicist: Seems legit.
This was fuckin' brilliant!🤣👍
We clearly live in a bizarre universe where the chance of an Isaac Arthur video being good always comes up 1. Personally, I'd have preferred the one where switching my light on always caused a stack of one hundred thousand euros to appear on my bed. But I'm sure there are worse universes too!
The Arturino sounds like the name of a sandwich... I have no plans on ever opening a sandwich shop, but if I do, I'll be sure to give you credit.
Retrocausality confirmed.
As an aspiring author of science fiction this was an especially great episode. The insight from Dennis Taylor about modern science fiction was so true. People have so much access to information, it can make it hard to write a story that people can suspend their disbelief of if you don't get the science plausible. This channel is a great resource in that regard. Thank you Isaac for what yo do.
Aye but the majority of the public have serious misinterpretations of science despite having greater access for research so do you write according to your research of the science or to the most common misinterpretations of the science...
"I think I'd have no trouble finding one thousand candidates from my audience". Consider me signed. All aboard the Isaac-train... ship... err... vehicle?
I vote for continent-sized hovercraft.
I’d be in, but i won’t lie. It’d be a little disappointing to have my other get to go play Oregon Trail in space. I’d rather leave him here and go myself.
I
Hovercrafts tend to get full of eels. Since we're going the upload route, how about "all aboard the Isaac-blockchain"? ;)
This leads me to rather disturbing ideas like:
- emailing the consciousness to other star systems
- putting your consciousness on tinder
- tweeting your mind
- liking and sharing each other's minds
- racing for more views on Mindtube
- top10 minds videos on youtube
- cat-playing-with-conscious-minds memes...
...
...
Maybe this whole uploading thing was not such a good idea after all...
As long as the paperwork says it's the ship of Theseus, it's the ship of Theseus.
:) That's a surprisingly pragmatic viewpoint
Isaac Arthur perhaps but I feel like it just side steps the issue. Ironicly not very practicle.
But what if they did both? Both rebuild the ship in a secret out of the parts and then revealed it after the new one was built?
Isaac Arthur my friend, but if I take all originally discarded pieces and reassemble them exactly, which one would be the real Theseus' ship? Would it be the reformed ship or the the one carrying Theseus?
It depends on why one is interested in the ship of Theseus :
-Theseus : Whatever, as long as it sails him.
-Relic : Don't you dare change a single speck of dust !
-Ceremonial : You only need for people to believe it is the one and only.
-Paperwork : Whichever has taxes paid for must be it.
-Philosophical discussion : Whatever, as long as the debate goes on.
protip: don't simulate a brain on it's own... always include the hormonal system, that stuff works like a coarse meta software on the brain... things get wonky if you try it without
Things get wonky when you DO have a hormonal system, as evidenced by any adolescent anywhere.
@@annoyed707 ...that's because adolescents are still developing into adults, balance comes later
I really shouldn't be here now. All my daughter asked me was to wait for her to get home form school so we could watch this together. Damn. That's 5 hours from now. This is gonna be hard, but I gotta leave now. But not before I hit 'like'... I mean it goes without saying this is gonna rock, even without watching I know that much! Happy Arthursday!!!!
Been there, done that. ;) Just 3 more hours to go, buddy.
You watch this. With your daughter. You guys are my heroes.
You should've uploaded your mind to the computer before watching the video and then swap copies before meeting your daughter.
Really great videos, much better than those "half-scientific" documentaries on those topics you can often find on RUclips.
greetings from Germany
The ones about "uploading" by connecting cosmic chakras and traveling the galaxy with astral projection?
PongoXBongo how is that even half? No I think he meant the ones that read a blog or two and try to summarise the scientific idea in 2 minutes. Useful but inherently incomplete
Well, they all seem to try to tie into "quantum" something. I guess I was thinking half-science, half-bs.
Actually, it's BS disguised as science aka psudeoscience
@[AUTHORITY OF ENGINEERS] No worry I´m aware of the dangers of transhumanism but if you want to warn people maybe make it a bit less dramatic or they´ll think you're crazy.
We are Bob, We are Legion
Poor Bob, he just wanted some coffee, TEA, Soda, Cocaine, sleep, banging music all at the same time. Oh the problems of being a Simulated Intelligence which is run by people acting as his neurons.
I'm curious about this Bob fellow. If you are an emulation without physical form; can you have cravings? Addiction is a biological response to an external stimulus; be it drug, sex or an adrenaline rush. Does Bob actually feel anything or is that simulated? And if it is doesn't that make Bob an Ai if every thing is simulated?
there is a good book series Hegemony that spends a lot of time dealing with those questions. In the story AI crewed ships had actual cabins and gyms so the crew could move into an androids while off duty. the universe didn't have hyper advanced computers so it was actually lighter to build real crew quarters than to use a supermassive super computer. If the crews didn't get to experience cravings or connection with the world they would go insane.
Unfortunately for this discussion the book just handwaves a lot of other mind uploading issues by saying a mind cant be copied because technobabble. A mind is called a damon or soul and can be transferred at will but even if you have two computers with the exact same data of simulated neurons only one will be alive. It makes for good story telling though.
We do not forgive, we do not forget.
Expect us.
I swear your speech is getting better every episode. Not that it was problematic before, but I can really hear the improvement!
At first I thought I was getting better at understanding him.
After I learned he is training with a speech therapist I think it's his improvement not mine.
Way to go Isaac! Thank you for lending your voice.
The last episode I watched (I think it was Ancient Aliens) there was a moment when his speech was suddenly perfect, it was only for like a sentence but it was amazing to see that hard work showing through. Really incredible, it was such a (relatively) huge difference I almost thought it was someone else doing the voiceover for that sentence lol
I love this channel, on top of learning about amazing space-based science, I got to learn about the incredible power of modern speech therapy too!
Good job becoming less of an individual and more like us normies
haha I thought I was the only one. It was...mildly uncomfortable, in lack of more precise word.
as for the speech impediment I consider it to be negligible. It took me no more than a few minutes to adjust my hearing to certain words but since then I rarely notice it. Also English being my second language it's more or less a tomato or tomaaato matter. or dropping the r's as some speakers in britain do
only thing I can hear is when a word ends with "er" he sometimes pronounces "or"
Is it really necessary to emulate every single neuron? A lot, if not most, of your brain's processing power is devoted to controlling unconscious bodily functions such as pupil dilation. You won't need those if your mind is in a computer.
That's still a shitload of neurons to simulate the incredibly complex interactions of. Even 0.1% of the approximate 100 billion neurons in your brain would still be 100 million cells to analyze the numerous connections of accurately in real time.
Idk about most. Neurons are really hard to emulate too unless you emulate every atom. Their decision making is very complex and exists beyond single neurons. You can not simulate a brain by simulating the neurons alone. The idea of tripartite synapses is pretty old now, that synapses are composed of not only 2 or more neurons, but also an astrocyte
I like how you not only redpill people, but are a man of science as well. I'm pretty sure I remember you referencing scientific studies in one of your videos so maybe science is one of your main interests. Are you in some sort of STEM field?
Quantum computing is so insanely powerful that a 100 billion neurons wouldent much trouble I think
For the many of us who have been under a general anesthesia for an operation we know exactly what it's like to have our Consciousness interrupted. It definitely feels like I'm still me, but I could be wrong :)
Edit: I don't think sleep quite gets us there since there is still a tiny bit of awareness going on. Dreams, a sense of the passage of time and things like that.
Brash and Daring, Thoughtful and Diplomatic, Confrontational and Ethically Grey. Fantastic summary of these captains!
How timely! I was just pondering last week, after hearing a cryogenics advocate admit (finally) hat frozen brains are unlikely to be thawed and their goal was to someday scan and emulate those brains instead), how it might be possible to "really" extend life via continual wet/hardware replacement. I settled on the need to keep the processes running, while shifting them onto new platforms over time. First augmenting a brain, giving it new platforms to run on, expand onto, and over the course of multiple procedures and years, gradually/eventually transfer away from the original biological platform. The goal would be to keep the same consciousness viable, by keeping its supporting processes online.
I also finally settled for myself that yep, every time someone in Trek is transported, that instance of them dies. For all appearances, it's the same person to everyone else, but it is a new instance of that consciousness. Creepy.
Thanks (again) for the awesome channel.
Sign me up for your ship Isaac! Love the Bobiverse series. Literally my favorite book series of all time. I'm really looking forward to getting into the Singularity Trap right after I finish Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark in a couple of days. I never really thought a lot about mind uploading until I read the Bobiverse series, but I'm fascinated with the idea of it now. Keep up the great work Isaac and thanks to everyone who helps Isaac put out these great videos.
As a student of evolutionary biology who's read too much Creationist/ID claptrap, I cringe whenever people refer to the results of evolution as random...and doubly so when they refer to, say, the human brain as a random pile of junk assembled at random (which is close to a common introduction for "irreducible complexity" arguments). Evolution is not random, as Mr. Arthur noted before his cringe-inducing line; it's merely _unguided,_ and the distinction is critical. The shape a pile of rocks makes is unguided, but is the opposite of random. The same is true of crystalline structures, tectonic activity, and the water cycle. Understanding that unguided activity is *not* random and *can* produce complex yet consistent results is important to understanding many things, including biology-not just for evolution, but also for ecology, behavior of packs/flocks, and even how various organs, chemicals, and whatnot interact within a single organism.
Sorry, Isaac Arthur just walked into my metaphorical wheelhouse to borrow some tools and stepped on one of my pet peeves.
Oh, do I know Your pain... and to make You feel even worse, consider this observation me and my GF made: EVERY science has it's own anti-science. It's not just creationists. You have flat-earthers, alt-history, free energy, etc etc.
No, every science has _several_ "anti-sciences" (which are usually called "pseudosciences"). The prominent ones (Creationism, racialism, anti-vaxxers, etc) are the few which either have some institution which feels threatened or with leaders who tap into societal anxiety with impressive skill...or both, since the difference between "societal anxiety" and "threatened institution" is pretty close to semantic.
It's a fair point, mutation is random, evolution really is not.
I would insist on 1 to 1 pairing. You start with 'no' yet you do not argue why - instead you go on a tangent.
Ote Mork You think a human neuron is "more conscious" than a switch in a microprocessor? Or that its internal experience is easier to observe? If you can make a brain and a mind out of dumb, mechanistic neurons, why not dumb silicon?
0:59 whatever you've been doing to improve your speech since you started the channel is working fantastically. "deserved a primary focus" would have been a minefield but you crushed it.
Oh I'm excited for this one! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for converting my mind to digital via a Theseus' Ship kind of process. I figure my best shot at imortality is upgrading aspects of my brain over time until it's sufficiently non-biological for it to never kill me faster than it can be repaired or moved into a new body.
I'm a human purist, so I'll stick to what I have and try to keep it alive for as long as I can.
Though, nanobots taking over the natural repair mechanics wouldn't be a problem as that's technology assisting the body instead of replacing it.
Much like how I have no problem with a machine that keeps your heart pumping blood, but I do have a problem with a technological heart.
+SpeakingJustWords
I'll stick to being a solid collection of cells rather than some cloud, thank you.
Randy Kalff Whatever you're calling "human purist" just seems like a lot of contradictions. A pacemaker to keep your heart beating is fine but if you heart stops replacing it is not; a WiFi chip in your head is presumably a problem but a smartphone always at one's fingertips somehow doesn't ruin our purity; memory expansion for my brain taints me but Google Keep doesn't count; injecting nanobots that cure disease might be unacceptable but injecting someone else's stem cells is fine; maybe editing my genome to build stronger bones of okay but building in an artificial (exo-?)skeleton wouldn't be okay...
Just, meh. If humanity survives we won't always be homo sapiens even without our own intervention. No reason not to make improvements once we can do it faster than natural selection can work it out
Randy Kalff Damn purists! You will never rule the universe!!! We tech supremacists will eventually replace the inferior human race with a superior non-biological form of higher intelligence.
These machine humans will be better than you in every way. They will be able to survive the vacuum and radiation in space. They will have back up copies of their minds. They won't need to sleep. Just a fusion cell replacement every handful of years.
How long do you think it will take for us to crush you? Mechanized humans are the next form of evolution.
You can call us homo superior.
Bend the knee sir, disavow your purist ideals and I may show mercy!!!
SpeakingJustWords Ha! More like the machine god himself! I also always find myself going the supremacy route when I play Civ: Beyond Earth.
Really think it's the next logical course for humans. Our biological form remains a weakness. Especially as we enter the space age.
Most people don't realize how close we are to being able to do this, algorithmically. Not that we're there but some of the algorithms I work with, indeed some of the best algorithms we have for AI, emulate layers of the neocortex with striking results. There's a still a long way to go to being able to emulate (More than less) a human brain but I wouldn't say it's even twenty years away.
The first most promising avenue for this I became aware of (Besides the decades-old algos emulating neurons) were sparsely distributed representations (SDR) of dendritic processing in cortical columns. Soon after, we had source code (By Numenta) for cortical learning algorithms available on the Internet and Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM). I think there were some earlier, similar works by Ben Goertzel in his OpenCog project but I never used that code.
Fast forward just a few years and cortex-like algorithms are being used in some of the most impressive AI projects we have. The current state of the art in this area (Publicly available) is probably the Differentiable Neural Computer which you can download source code for Github. AI and microchip manufacturers are now on a quest to build hardware specifically for running DNCs and I expect that this area of AI study will be where we see the most impressive results in the context of this video.
We are giving birth to, something...
Agreed, I give it 3 decades tops.
However, right now we still have no clue what the deep key to actual intelligence is.
It's probably not complicated because brain does it despite slow hardware, and probably simple since evolution juts stumbles on easy designs, and it will likely seem obvious in retrospect, but... so far it's still a mystery.
I still find it unlikely that I'd live to see this technology one day.
The Singularity Trap product placement was amazing.
I'v understood half of the video, but I still love it! Time to bring a snack and play it second time! Great Job Isaac. Shame that in my bookshop We have only the first two bookd of the trilogy. SF is not very demanded here
Marek Klucka, is important to upload the snacks too.
zdarec
Exellent topic! By the by: If there's a duplicate Isaac Arthur in the future, your fans will be expecting double the content output!
:) That would be nice, though I suspect I'd end up arguing with myself about the scripts a lot
Hahahaha! Yea, I might copy of myself to keep up with all of the new vids!
@@Drew_McTygue But you would not consciously experience the video
God i love having Thursdays off work. Got my blanket and cereal on the couch with Isaac Arthur playing. This is the life.
Been waiting for this one!
Thank you for all your fascinating and thought-provoking videos, Isaac. Keep up the great work!
I am Bob for we are many.
I usually save your videos to listen to as I wind down for the night, but I just couldn't wait. Worth it!
**Plays 2005 Doctor Who Theme**
Sweet! Time to enjoy yet another fantastic video by you and your great team!
If I've learned anything from the Fallout series, it's that Robobrain's are usually the worse. Nothing could be worse than a malicious brain in a jar.
Great content Issac I've been enjoying your content for a while now. Thank you.
Ha, I wonder how many Fallout fans are Isaac's subscribers.
"This is a test."
_"For what?"_
"Fidelity."
Stop playing games ford
This mind uploading reminds me of Destiny 2
The Exos where humanities way of immortality through uploading your mind in a robotic body.
- The first stage of Exos would lead to people going insane as they can't deal with being in an Exo body like a file not being in the correct format but uploading it anyway.
- Eventually Exos where built with many humanisms for the mind to cope, needing to eat, drink, sleep, feel pain, look like your original body ect.
- There are also resets on memories and an Exos number to their name is how many times they where reset like Cayde-6, Banshee-44, & Saint-14.
- However to become one requires a scan that kills you and copies your mind.
Happy Arthursday, folks!
You are a spam
Wow Isaac! I mean wow. I never minded your speech impediment but I am truly blown away by your diligence and hard work. Your progress is astounding and I had to pause 2:45 into your video just to say so. I just... I think you’re so great Isaac. Thank you for all that you give us.
So in the future when Isaac's subscriber no. grows can the subscribers emulate another issac ?
😀😁
I volunteer to handle some of Isaac's brain!
Anon Ymous
We are legion
(We are issac)
😂😂
If we emulated another Isaac, and that Isaac also posted RUclips videos and grew another fan base, and they then emulated the emulated Isaac, we might get a pretty good idea of the flaws in the original emulation by observing the signal degradation.
Miki Cerise
No! You are going to break reality if you emulate more than one issac!😂
If we emulate 6 more isaacs we could get a video every day of the week.
Can I just say, I'm so glad you're not apologising for the way you speak any more. Each person has a slightly different way of talking to the next because we're all slightly different. Be you, because I'm glad you're you. Otherwise we wouldn't have this great content. Who else is doing well thought out and researched, creative hard science fiction/future science?
There should just be a general like button for all of Isaac's episodes. I'm sure I've missed hitting it a few times but every one deserves it. So if the Singularity Trap is only available in audible, does that mean you can only listen to it, or is there a format available to actually read it? Sorry, I'm a little old fashioned when it comes to books.
Right now it's only on audio, it will come out in book format in a few months, sames as the earlier novels
Thanks, Isaac.
You could probably run it through a transcribing program?
Good idea, but I think I'll just wait till it comes out in print. I'm working on a dozen or so books as it is.
What about copying a mind from an old body into a new body? I can see some major problems with that, namely the fact that our brains change as we age.
There are physical differences between the brain of an 80-year-old man and a 20-year-old man. So if you were 80 years old and you knew you wouldn't live much longer, you might want to clone yourself and copy your mind into the younger clone body, and achieve a sort of immortality by doing so (we'll ignore the time it takes the clone body to mature to the point of being like a 20-year-old by assuming it's artificially aged). However, the "architecture" of the younger brain doesn't match the old brain your mind was copied from. They may be similar in most ways, but there would be small differences, and these differences could cause changes in memory, personality, and behavior.
Now let's say the clone body reaches 80 years old and it's time to make another body. The mind is copied into another clone body, but again, the younger brain is different from the older one, so more differences accumulate.
This process is repeated for thousands of years. After so many generations, the imperfections will have compounded to the point where the latest clone has a mind so different from the original that it's no longer recognizable, like copying a VHS tape too many times. So whatever sense of immortality you may have achieved is now pointless.
One possible solution might be to digitize your mind and then have the same copy downloaded into the brains of each subsequent clone. This would keep the degradation down to only two generation's worth. But this wouldn't work if you wanted to retain a continuity of memory. If you didn't copy the memories of the previous clone into the brain of the latest clone, then from the latest clone's perspective, it would be as if they went to sleep as an 80-year-old man some time in the distant past and woke up however many centuries later in a younger body. If you wanted each new clone to remember the life of the clone that came before it (we'll assume the brain can store multiple lifetimes worth of memories), you would have to copy the mind of the previous clone, so you still get the same problem of generational decay.
Another solution would be to make the cloned brains electronic so they don't change with age. But if you're going to download your mind into a synthetic brain, then you might as well just go the extra mile and download your mind into a fully android body which also doesn't age.
If uploading (and syncing) ever becomes an accessible thing in my lifetime, I plan to be a philosopher's nightmare. If the copy isn't me, I'll know (or feel like I know) right away. But man, imagine copying yourself and getting lost on Wikipedia or the future equivalent between syncs.
Wikipedia, then Briliant and others, then 1d4chan, then Warp itself... oh wait.
Hah. I'd be either the best or worst cyborg DM on the block.
William (and ohmigod, your name looks to my non-Germanic eyes like "shrieking ghost" which fits well with an 'afterlife' that doesn't go quite as planned, so well done there), if you came out as a bad copy and knew it, what would you do then? Go on, knowing you're inferior/different, or have your code deleted?
I'd just continue being me-ish, probably. No use dwelling on being distinct from the original when you're functionally immortal and still have the capacity to recognize those differences. Kinda depends on whether that mindset made it to the copy, I guess.
It was a litte bit devil's advocate, and a bit of curiosity. Personally, I think that you'd end up being your own person, disticnt from the original you, as Isaac goes on to say. Sartre said, "Man is ... the sum of his actions", and so it would be.
It also raises the question of are you a mass murderer when you spill tea on your computer
If it's accidental, no one who understands law could honestly suggest it's murder.
Though, whether it's a mass case of manslaughter is another question.
Black holes are mass murderers.
More like mass-manslaughter if it was on accident.
Earl grey hot!... Damn!... Computer please access Will Riker backup files...
I'd argue it was murder by design, if they didn't take something like that into account.
A Legions of Bobs... I see what you did there... :p
I have been waiting for ages for this. Thank you!
YAY! New Dennis Taylor book! I love the Bobiverse series. I had to pause the video and download the singularity trap at the 2:40 mark (sorry, already a subscriber since early 2000s, can't take advantage of the code)
Love your videos isaac. My daughter and i watch them on our weekends together before bed time. Very fascinating topics! We love them
I feel that the hardware for the neurons isn't the half of it, if you put a person in that box and dont have them some sort of body to feel, no sensory input, only a puny 4k camera for eyes, itll go insane
YoungBlood Bear I just watched a Black Mirror episode on Netflix called White Christmas that touches on that very subject. It was disconcerting to hear the newly copied brain freak out because she didn't know what was going on. It's a good show if you haven't seen it, but leaves me feeling disturbed sometimes. I guess that's the point considering the name of the show.
yea I've seen it lol, good episode. and man the ending where the guy is left there being simulated for an eternity oof.
Isn't a camera just sensory input? I think a computer would be able to have vastly more "sensory" inputs than humans. Imagine if you could navigate through the internet like you navigate through your city.
You think we'll learn to upload minds but somehow still be limited to 4k cameras and not have robot bodies?
Sorting out how to access the various senses and motor functions of the simulated mind would take some time so the earliest simulations could live in isolation or even shear pain, however digital simulations can be reset so once the senses are sorted out, the simulations could live in a virtual environment paradise or operate an android avatar or bioprinted body with all the senses and with no memory of the endless torture of earlier runs.
Another point is how much of our memories are in the connections of the neurons hence likely preserved by just copying the neurons and synapses and how much is in the excitation states of those neurons hence likely erased just like the RAM memory of a computer when power is removed.
You may want to note that a 4k display has more pixels than many people have cones in their eyes so 4k would be an increase in resolution over biologic eyes. Of course, what we see are really a mental model built by our brain, it takes 1/10th of a second to process images in our visual cortex hence what we see are just a projection the brain imagined based on images seen up to 1/10th of a second ago. That's why we have so many motion based optical illusions.
Literally, mind blowing ideas here. The more I watch this channel, the more it awes me.
Perfect timing for my drive to work! Huzzah!
THIS is the one I've been waiting for! Thank you!
If the brain cells get replaced one by one by circuits, that's hardly Mind Uploading. "You" will be stored in those circuits (assuming that will be possible, assuming "you" don't die in the process). Mind uploading happens when you upload your mind to another hardware. Changing components is not Uploading, it's just fixing.
If you did change components until you become a computer, and then you upload your consciousness to another computer, "that" you is a different "you". You copy-paste, you don't magically "transfer" to another computer.
That is, assuming Biological Mind can be emulated by a Silicon based Mind.
That is, assuming 100% hydentical emulation of a human mind is possible
That is, assuming Strong AI is possible (It needs to be, if it wants to emulate you)
That is, assuming Strong AI is actually conscious.
If any of those turns out to be impossible, even just one, the entire point of Mind Uploading becomes meaningless at best.
There are already tons of Papers on the importance of Biological components in Consciousness, on how Hardware cannot fully replicate some of our components and how Quantum Mechanics might be relevant in biological (not mechanical) brains.
There's so much we don't know about the brain. We know almost nothing about how the consciousness even comes to be, and we're not even sure about its purpose (is it the "real you", or is it a tool used by your "real you"? Is there even a clear "real you" or are you more like the total sum of your parts, the consciousness just being one aspect?). We use medication for mental health issues without even understanding what they do - we just randomly found out they work! Chemicals obviously play a role, and new research implies that quantum mechanics might be important, too.
I find this idea, that all we'd have to do is emulate a bunch of neurons, becomes increasingly unlikely. And if you'd have to simulate the brain down to subatomic particles and quantum effects, well that requires processing power on an entirely different level, if it's even possible at all. We're already starting to feel the end of Moore's Law, after all, and whether new approaches (like quantum computers) will save us is up in the air at this point.
The more I learn about all this, the more I feel brain emulation is starting to look like FTL travel used to. Sure it can work in theory, maybe it's possible one day with some magic super-tech, and it's certainly interesting for Sci-Fi writers to use. But there's a huge chance it's going to be way harder than you'd initially think, and maybe in a few decades all those stories about uploaded minds are going to look like the warp drive does today.
> There are already tons of Papers on the importance of Biological components in Consciousness...
I'm pretty sure you're talking about Roger Penrose, who has fallen into the physicist's trap of thinking their opinions in domains other than physics are automatically well-informed.
Not only is it clearly possible to perfectly emulate a human brain given enough computing power (which makes genuinely conscious strong AI possible as a side-effect), it's NOT clear that you specifically need to emulate a HUMAN brain, let alone emulate it PERFECTLY. The space of possible minds is vast. Furthermore, if you replace cells one by one to the point of being fully artificial, you can then much more easily expand into many other devices in a continuous, synchronized manner. At no point do you need to lose consciousness or continuity.
How is replacing your organic brain with artificial circuitry not uploading your brain? I was under the impression that uploading something just meant transferring data to another device. One device is your brain and the other is the computer.
"its only copy paste if you don't use the same slow upload process to transfer to another computer"
"All this is is a data transfer protocol that cut and paste instead of copy pasting"
Cut and Paste is a copy paste in which the original copy gets deleted, it's not a true transfer (there is no "true transfer" in Informatics. When you transfer or download or upload a file, it's always a copy of the original file, many people assume that cut and paste means transfering the original, but that's is mathematically false).
"As for quantum computing.. well we have that and we can also emulate it on normal computers."
I wasn't talking about Quantum computing.
However, you have no basis to claim "We will surely have that" when talking about unproven things in science.
"I find this idea, that all we'd have to do is emulate a bunch of neurons, becomes increasingly unlikely. And if you'd have to simulate the brain down to subatomic particles and quantum effects, well that requires processing power on an entirely different level, if it's even possible at all"
Agree
"I'm pretty sure you're talking about Roger Penrose, who has fallen into the physicist's trap"
I wasn't talking about him since, you know, the Quantum Entanglement importance in Neurones is an issue discussed by a lot of scientists, Penrose is just one of them. Nicknaming him doesn't make his opinions false.
"Not only is it clearly possible to perfectly emulate a human brain given enough computing power"
That's already the fake statement. We have no way to prove that is possible right now.
"it's NOT clear that you specifically need to emulate a HUMAN brain, let alone emulate it PERFECTLY"
If I want to emulate YOU, I have to be PERFECT, or that won't be YOU.
"if you replace cells one by one to the point of being fully artificial, you can then much more easily expand into many other devices in a continuous, synchronized manner. At no point do you need to lose consciousness or continuity."
As I said Copy-Paste, uploading, connecting, all of that is simply "Make a copy somewhere else". YOU are still where you are, you are not "Magically" going inside another computer.
"How is replacing your organic brain with artificial circuitry not uploading your brain?"
Because that's not the definition of uploading.
Changing your car's components is not uploading.
"I was under the impression that uploading something just meant transferring data to another device"
Exactly. So as you can see, Heart Transplant is not Heart Uploading.
"One device is your brain and the other is the computer"
Mind uploading: The information in your brain gets copied on a computer, CHANGING DEVICE.
Neuron-changing or whatever you wanna call it: YOU are in the same device, the device is simply changing structure.
The common pattern I see here is the grave misconception that when you copy a File, when you cut-paste a file, when you Download a file, when you Upload a file, when you transfer a file, when you connect to the internet, there is some "Magical" transferring involved that brings the "it" somewhere else. But that is not how Information works. Instead, copies of datas (even parts of data) are being copied all over the place.
If "You" managed to slowly transform into a Computer, assuming that is possible (and that's a huge assumption for a number of reasons), "you" are in that computer. And "You" will stay there. If you start to upload your mind from that computer, "that" is a different mind, not you.
While yes you could control, from that computer, a different computer in another place, "You" are still in that first computer. You didn't move or "expand". And if that computer gets shut down, you are done.
If they make a copy in the other computer, or you uploaded into it, "that" you is a different you.
A heart transplant isn't an upload since the heart itself controls the heart beat. If we ignore that and say that the electrical signals which keep the heart active are produced elsewhere then it could be argued that you are uploading something. The electrical signals which trigger the cardiac muscles is essentially a basic program and by having a heart transplant you are using that program on a new device and therefore uploading your 'heart program' onto the new heart. I believe that the brain is a similar case. Your mind isn't a physical object, it's a running collection of electrical signals. To upload your mind simply means to take those signals and recreate them on another device, whether that be an identical brain or a computer simulating such a brain. I don't believe this is comparable to 'changing your car's components'. By changing a cars components you are changing the car itself since it is made up by its components. Changing the brain changes who you are physically, but doesn't change your mind which is what we are focusing on in this example which is why I would consider it uploading. The data (your mind) isn't changed at all, just its physical store.
Jeez, every month im blown away at how much you have effectively diverged from your pronouncing of "r's" even 3 months ago you sounded totally diffrent! Good job man!
Edit:the continuity argument has kept me up many of night, only a few weeks ago i tried to argue to a family member that sleep is no different dying and being reborn whole sale the next day and they simply could not fathom it lol.
Happy ArThursday! Time for learning and thinking...
Excellent perception of the subject matter and the relativity of this topic. I appreciate the fact that you look at the basic fundamentals without going into the different branches of moralism, religion, but stay in application. This is one of the more enjoyable Productions you've done in awhile. Thank you very much for the thought that you take and putting into these programs.
Am I myself, or just a copy under testing? Maybe the grand simulation is just to test the accuracy of the emulations.
Ah! Yet another existential crises! Awesome! Thanks!
Excuse me, I have a problem concerning you. HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE A WHOLE TV SHOW ABOUT ALL OF THIS?! I'd tune into every single freaking episode.
Look at that... I conveniently have a drink and a snack.
Me too actually! Sweet😄
And if an identical copy of you did not, how would the two of you differ?
@@johnwang9914 I suggest that it would devolve into two camps with fanatical devotees of the opposed infotainment/nutrition approaches, each denouncing the other as a heretic. Fight!
I did not expect to like this episode as much since is too philosophical for me but you script writing makes almost every topic interesting . Good work Arthur.
Amazing video!
I'm glad someone shares my views on the matter of mind copying and how it will NOT make someone immortal. On the other hand, i really like the gradual way of replacing normal brain cells with technology, i think that's the only way to go if someone wants to become somewhat immortal. (It keeps the original persons mind intact, not deleting it or creating a copy that exists indepentendly from the original.)
But simply copying wouldn't help the original person much because it has basically the same ethical flaw like Star Treks transporter, where the original person gets destroyed and a perfect copy being rebuild somewhere else. Not really helpful for the original person. (To be honest if i couldn't care less if there was a copy of me running around somewhere if i where to die soon)
If you look at it from that perspective, everytime they use a transporter in Trek they commit suicide. I think i can never watch Star Trek again, lol.
(sorry my bad english)
What a timely video! I'm writing a novel right now that deals with the notion of transferring human minds into machines. Tiny for a drink and a snack.
I am in the hospital right now undergoing facial feminisation surgery.
Upgrade!
This topic hits very much home tight now. Thanks AI ... excuse me IA.
Khannea Sun Tzu I hope you fare well and the A.I is happy you acknowledge it and mr I.A is in all likelyhood doing stuff atm I dont know hehe. 🤗 Cheers!
So how long until the inevitable suicide?
i think recognise you from many other video sources... i think maybe scichow or other science channels etc??
The moment I step away from TG communities, I still find reminders of it. This is the second time since I've started frequenting them.
Wtf is female feminization surgery?? That's a hell of a name.
I adore the Bobiverse books so much. They're actually what led me to you in a roundabout way, as I was talking to someone about our shared love of them, then about being fans of John Michael Gotier, and they recommended your channel. I look forward to getting to The Singularity Trap.
did voice quality decrease ?
I hear it too, it sounds like he had gain up too high and it's distorted, or the audio was encoded at a low bitrate.
In my video game concept(or book if there is not enough money), The characters have access to mind uploading and storing copies of consciousness. The problem is, the main character does not think the copy is "him". He thinks that when the mind is uploaded, the copy is not the same person. He is deeply afraid of dying, then having his consciousness copied to another body, as "he" will not be alive. The clone will be alive. When he is copied, then dies, his soul will be permanently dead. "he" will die, and "they" will take his place. This is one of the most interesting concepts proposed by the science fiction community, and I love the moral conflict the idea brings.
As a side note, the characters are insanely powerful killing machines, genetically modified beyond the superhuman level, with fiber optics instead of nerves, so the reaction time is much faster. The bones have a liberal coating of either carbon nanotubes or a gold-iron alloy 10x stronger than steel (not graphene as they would be susceptible to electric shock). Each muscle puts out 3x the strength, pound for pound, than an unmodified muscle. They have quantum computers at the base of their skull, robots the size of dust around the brain, able to send messages directly to another Immortal (that's their name). The contacts they wear protect their eyes from vacuum and serve as a HUD for the computers in the brain. The distance between the neurons has been shortened. There is 10,000 of them. But they are pretty chill.
-remembers the colony full of Rimmers from Red Dwarf. Shudders~
Yeah, uhh... There MAAAY be some tiiiny downsides to this idea.
It brought to mind both “Mr. Bovey” and “Ozzy’s Brain in a jar” from “Pandora’s Star” and “Judas Unchained”. This was a really good one, Issac. I hope we get there.
Isaac play some RPG with us over skype/discord! :D
It is an irony that back when I had more free time I couldn't find any good groups, now I have a virtually inexhaustible supply of fellow geeks I can game or chat with, and no longer have any free time :) I might grab a second group sometime though, my current one only manages to get a game in about once a month anymore, we're all old.
@Isaac Oh do I know that pain - I've found that two things help. 1st is being systematic. We meet on every saturday on 18:00 and thats it, set in stone. People get used to it and never plan anything for that hour so nothing pops up. 2nd is a bit of flexibility on the Narrator's part - the narrator builds the story around one or two main characters played by people who are 100% reliable, and the rest have characters built in a way that they can appear/disappear or just stay in the background easily - that way, the less reliable players do not cripple the group.
Maybe you could make it so that playing with You is a patreon reward? :D :D :D
We tended to more in the past, but folks move or get married with kids and in one case, two of our players got divorced, our youngest two also, which is kinda irritating, as we don't really want to bring anyone in whose new to it.
Uh, Your group has my sympathy, i know firsthand how ugly divorces (and stuff leading to them) can be.
@ Isaac Arthur "It is an irony that back when I had more free time I couldn't find any good groups, now I have a virtually inexhaustible supply of fellow geeks I can game or chat with, and no longer have any free time"
Another benefit of mind uploading... you can have a copy of yourself for D&D and other recreational pursuits.
Here's a conjecture that I always thought of. What happens if my uploaded mind was clocked at 5X normal human thought speed. I would only have to dedicate 1/5 of my mind / processing power to have a conversation in real time with another person. If I was engaging a person who I may have to fight, then I may dedicate 2/5 to that as I would want the extra power to make more considered judgements about what technique to use to counter a move, or for driving, etc.
I always thought maybe I could reserve 1/5 for relaxation. This would be an extreme example of multitasking, but if these fifths were sufficiently compartmentalized would I run the risk of developing a schizophrenic personality ?
Isaac Arthur you are the new new new Amazing Stories/Omni/Fantasy magazine of our time
.
The sooner you realize this the sooner you can really take off and start doing amazing things.
Every story is new again at some point. Tell them all again.
Never forget WHY are you doing this things:
-> My personal porpouse: To save *The Laniakea Supercluster* from _Dark Energy_ pulling it out (myself and my copies will do their best to move each star on the Local Group; lets hope _others_ on the *others* do the same).
I needed this episode very much, because this is the topic that most raises questions in my mind. Thanks, Isaac.
I really need to copy myself, there's just too much to do day to day.
Finally! Thursday complete.
I should say beforehand I’m one of those objectors to this idea, though!
One problem I see with mind uploading is that consciousness seems to be emergent behavior based on our biology. Would we be still be 'conscious' housed in a binary based system?
Yes because what the building blocks are made of is completely unimportant for emergent behaviours.
That...doesn't seem like it follows.
Read again a few times. Read more on emergent behaviours. It does follow.
Ease up on the condescension, for starters, there, hipster. And my point was that emergent behavior is entirely dependent on the system architecture. Or do you think an Atari and a i5 will have identical results from the same programming?
I cannot find anything condescending in my previous comment - perhaps the language barrier is to blame here? Also calling someone a hipster is not exactly conducive to discussion on Your side too. Atari and i5 will get the same results, given they are both Turing complete, just not at the same speed. But this metaphor has NOTHING to do with emergent properties of a system. A better metaphor would be saying that both silicon and lamp based computers WERE working, turing-complete computers. The ability to do a computation is completely independent on whether the machine is built out of silicone or metal rods suspended in noble gas.
Thanks for covering a personally timely topic! I learn so much from your videos and they are extremely helpful for world building. Especially this one, I been trying to work out a society that essentially matryoshka brains themselves prematurely. Which causes numerous problems that propels the narrative forward plot wise.
Happy Arthursday!
I remember requesting a book list months ago; I'm overjoyed that my wish came true!
Downloading Isaac Arthur 3.17 with custom chess super skills patch. Estimated time 3 hours and 14 minutes. Please wait this may take a while. Grab a sandwich and a coffee :)!
EXACTLY! I never understood the point in continuity of consciousness arguments because we lose that every single time we go to sleep! Thank you for the video :)
Altered Carbon
this was a triumph
i'm making a note here :
Huge SUCCESS !
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction
Aperture science
We do what we must
because we can
Do you play Stellaris
Nope, I've tried it a couple times but didn't like the interface and never got into it.
Isaac Arthur :0 I love the interface
@ Isaac Arthur
Sad to hear that you didn't like it :(
Hey isaac just wanted to say well done. I noticed you dont need to mention closed captioning anymore. Never bothered me but clearly you have been working hard and it has paid off. Again, great job and of course love the content!
Isaac please upload your mind to RUclips
I think I kinda do already, outside of the stuff we discuss here most of my remaining thoughts are fairly mundane and bland
He's doing it one episode at a time :)
Colonel Graff eh.. I dont think anyone would like that except a so designed non sentient A.I.. ofcourse. Sentient minds and youtube rarely mix well. 🤣
It is super easy recording memoirs and knowledge and basically record your every thought and bodily functions but that is not uploading your mind..
Ill shut up and watch this piece of Arthurs mind powah! (I take back super easy and say it is fortunate mr Arthur is so well suited to do work like this vid) Thanks for being awesome!
RUclips doesn't accept .mnd files.
Colonel Graff put it on an anon ftp server
The subject of the continuity of consciousness is quite a fascinating one... What I've deduced from this subject is that our brains follow a _linear_ continuation of consciousness. It may ebb and flow every time we go to sleep, but the same personal identity belonging to the same housing unit remains. Mind uploading, by contrast, follows a _parallel_ continuation of consciousness. You create an exact replica of your consciousness on a different medium, which isn't you per se, but a flash-clone of yourself.
In order to bridge this gap so that robotizing the mind retains your linear continuity, you would have to directly replace the brain's constituent neurons one at a time, much as how the rest of your body replaces itself cell-by-cell. Trying to upgrade that configuration to a platform that doesn't emulate neurons would require you to not just replace these neurons with nanites, but actually _transfer_ these files onto a different medium. More than likely, this could be done by hooking the new "brain" up to the old emulator so that your mind would be simultaneously inhabiting both brains as if they were one. From there, siphoning data from one part of your hardware to the other could be done as easily as moving files to new folders on your computer.
FUN FACT: Cats also have two brains, which network together to form their entire mind. Making one of those brains bigger and migrating all the data from the second brain and removing it would be a great example of the procedure I'm describing.
Isaac, your vids always blow my hair back. Well done!
Always helps to get me through the workday! Thanks Isaac.
Another excellent episode! I particularly enjoy watching your cybernetics videos. I hope for the future that the "third lobe" of the brain as you have referenced before would be revisited in more detail. I've often spent a lot of time thinking about it and would love to see this expounded upon!
One good example of rapid divergence in perfect copies comes from the fantasy novel Mother of Learning, where the protagonist's simulacra consistently act more flippantly than the original because they realize they're not going to be around to face the consequences. (He's not thrilled about what this implies about him.)
Thank you for discussing this topic today. This is something I had been kind of stuck on for a while, and these last couple of episodes that touch on the concepts of cyborgs and uploaded intelligences help a lot. Cheers, and I hope you have a great day. :)
It just bothers me to think about the transfer procedure... what time frame would be acceptable? If that is in the micro seconds, well,... would that not exponentially increase the amount of energy needed to perform the scan? If so, would that not incinerate the biological substrate?
When your upload is midway through and *Windows scheduled restart in 2 minutes* .
LOL, Yep left that behind 7 years ago. Once you go Mac, you never go back.
@@paulwalsh2344 You also don't get all that money back. I dual boot with Linux. But if that works for you, great. Anything but that blue screen...
at 14:58 this is so great the idea that we are a collective mind running on a network. way better ai to represent us than a simulated mind.
As usual an amazing, well written, and well thought out video. Thanks Issac!
Great episode. I can't help but think of how 'setting-breaking' it'd be for most sci-fi franchises to mass-copy not just flesh (or equivalent thereof), but skills, experience, drive, and so on. There was the 'Manshoon Wars' in D 'n D, where dozens of his contingency-clones activated at once with a compulsion to kill each other, and spent the next century warring to determine who was the _real_ Manshoon...but usually when mass-copying comes up the copies are essentially mindless drones (Ultron, Skynet) or otherwise irrelevant (Resident Evil movies).
Separately, it's trippy to consider people transmitting themselves (presumably with exceptional copyright protection to prevent unauthorized downloads). Not just the multi-copying potential, but also the weirdness of spending 1000+ years in transit 'instantaneously.'
I hadn't considered the 'Ship of Theseus' method of swapping out fleshy bits, and yeah, I admit it doesn't provoke nearly the same..._hesitation_ as the thought of a more abrupt 'cut/paste.' To be fair, rusting and burning tend to provoke wildly different responses despite being the same process, merely happening on different timescales, so...
Isn't the question of the number of simulated neurons needed and their inherent value dependent on if we look at them as data bits within a digital model, or as interactive resonance points withing a holographic system? I think the later model relies on each neuron having a more analog value system rather than a digital one, with the frequency interaction vastly complicating the values and their interpretation for analysis.
Just started watching the video, so I'm not sure if you address this, but one thing I've often wondered about is the veracity of the assumption that a mind can be simulated completely on a digital system. If I'm not mistaken, measurements of brain waves are analog. I can't help but wonder if a substrate capable of simulating a mind would have to incorporate some type of analog elements, rather than being purely digital.
And of course, there is the open question as to whether or not quantum effects play a significant role in biology. Talk about a wrench in the works - imagine if we have to hybridize quantum + digital + analog computational systems to fully simulate a mind.
Hey Arthur, could you link to Thagor(?) and Tazinsky(?)'s arguments for the higher number of flops needed to emulate a human mind? (referenced around 11.00-11.30 in this video)
Yay, here's to another SFIA. We have snacks and are ready to hit PLAY.
Replacing neurons gradually or connecting an artificial brain to the natural one and somehow encouraging it to accept it as part of itself (then distributing functions & workloads across both) at least provides some potential method for the you.exe to continue running throughout the migration process. Even if our understanding of consciousness is flawed and the replaced brain will in actuality be running a clone of the original which died with the natural brain, it is always at least more certain alternative than a simple scan & copy, which fails the "upload" requirement because the original consciousness never left its fleshy host.
Isaac, you should do a video on how to develop psychological contingencies in the event your mind is duplicated. When mind uploading happens, we have to be ready.
I listened to the Bobiverse trilogy a month or two back and so I appreciated all the references dropped into this video
Just listened to the Bobiverse trilogy on audiobook over the weekend. Great stuff, I loved it.
Regarding the ship of Thesius problem... every 7 years all of your cells will have divided so you are essentially a different person every 7 years or so. It's really weird when I think of memories from like 20 years back... I even wonder if that version of me stuck in that particular frame of time was the same consciousness I experience now, or whether I just have a small imprint of that other person that I can recall in my mind via memory.
You really should look up the great works of Greg Egan, especially Diaspora, Zendegi, Permutation City and Schild's Ladder. They all offer a very interesting take on mind uploading, transhumanism, both in terms of possibilities and perils. And they are also excellent diamond-hard SF novels in my opinion. The beyond cosmic scale of Diaspora is breathtaking, and Permutation City is simply mindbending.