Sun Oct 25, 2015 02:13 AM
Moved to WordsFromRob blog.
I watched the UK film The Machine. An AI researcher’s daughter dies but he uploaded her memories and consciousness into a computer. The computer program has the memories of his daughter, and this consciousness can interact with him like his daughter.
This makes me wonder if someone close to me were to die, but I had an exact replica of that person in a machine with all of their memories, then is that the same or just an artificial copy? Am I honoring or dishonoring the one who died while the machine version still interacts with me?
What if there was an exact copy of me, and maybe with a few enhancements – taller, better personality, and more fit? This being could interact with my friends and take my place. It could become a better friend to them than me. But with it being detached from my consciousness, it is a separate copy of me, and I can’t share in the good times with my friends like my copy. My copy replaces me. That copy would replace me after I die, much to the benefit of my friends but not to me.
What is what I call “me?” Most of the matter in my body is replaced roughly every month. My memories are not exact and get slightly changed each time I remember them. My personality slowly evolves over time and I hope I get wiser as I get older. I am slowly changing collective of matter, information, and consciousness, and one day that will stop. I know this, but I have deep instincts and emotions that tell me to survive as an individual, a static whole component. I see myself apart from others even though we sometimes share the same mass at different times (air and water).
My mind-body-collective is spatially + temporally separate from other collectives. I know where here my body is right now. We are genetically programmed to sometimes compete with each other for genetic dominance even though there is only a slight fraction of a difference genetically for each individual. It doesn’t seem to make sense logically that I would feel jealous of an exact copy of me or another person like me. We have a survival instinct that makes us want to take care of the mind + body that we have already. We have an instinct for caring about “the self”.
Or maybe it’s not instinct. Maybe it’s a byproduct of the limitation of seeing the world through only one body. If a kid grew up being able to consciously pass through different bodies, would that kid feel biased towards one body? (On a side note, the kid’s experiences in other bodies would be limited (to sensations, emotions, and thoughts) because people won’t allow other people to control their bodies.)
What if I were able to share consciousness with the replica of me? I would be able to experience the emotions that my replica experiences at the same time (or later) if I wanted to. I would feel a greater connection to the replica and not separate. I would be able to look back at myself through my replica’s eyes. If my body was ill and close to death, then I would probably feel like I could live on through my replica. I would not feel this way if I saw my replica as separate from me, like the clone in the movie The Sixth Sense or Lt Commander Ryker’s double in Star Trek TNG (teleportation failure). That would be eery and kind of horrifying.
What is it about the direct connection which is more comforting to me than the separated copy?
What if I were interacting with the replica of my loved one which was consciously separated from my real loved one? I would be temporarily neglecting my real loved one. If my real loved one died, I think I would still feel the loss even though I could still interact with the replica, and that would feel like I cheapened the life and memory of the real one.
What if we could share consciousness with other people? How woud that change how we relate to people? Maybe it would make us less jealous of each other since it would be possible for us to experience the same emotions. Our brain implants would need pathway barriers to ensure that others can’t access parts of our brain that we want to remain secret. The brain implants would also need something that identifies where the transmitted thoughts are coming from, or else it could confuse the mind over whose thoughts are whose. The implant would have to be limited to being able to sense what someone else is sensing already (all 5 major senses), sensing the same emotions as others, and transmitting and receiving vocal thoughts (voices in head). If someone is on a roller coaster, they could transmit there excitement and sensations to others. Voyeurism would feel more direct. Men can feel the same things as a woman, and vice versa, and it could lead to some weird explorations where heterosexual people find what its like to have sex with their self and what it’s like for a person of the opposite gender to have sex. It could help couples become more intimate and resolve their differences easier by building up more empathy. It could help resolve political differences by building empathy between opposing sides. It could help students learn more by understanding the teacher’s thoughts.
What if there were multiple copies of you wandering around doing their own things? Would you feel special? As separate persons, they would eventually choose to do things in more different ways than you, and making some decisions that oppose yours.
What if a younger backup of you was restored? How would it feel about the older you?
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