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I think you don't have to be religious or believe in anything supernatural for the implications of this question to be at least bit freaky. If we could record o

I think you don't have to be religious or believe in anything supernatural for the implications of this question to be at least bit freaky. If we could record on very minuscule detail the physical actions that take place anywhere, and play them back, suppose we record a glimpse of you thinking about something, and then we played back that recording, does it manifest you and your thought, is it a clone/alive/natural? What if we played it back in a computer as a simulation? What does it mean that everything is just physics in the natural world? It begs answers to some really weird shit, so it's not easy to just buy it and move on.

dogma1138 8y ago
Not really a replay of a brain scan is just a replay of a brain scan it is not more “alive” or “conscious” than video footage. If we’re talking about VSI/GAI or some sort of singularity event where people can upload their brains into a computer and remain conscious well then their definition would be which ever legal and common definition society would grant them. There is absolutely nothing special about intelligence or consciousness and it’s an arbitrary definition in the first place which we put in due to fear of the unknown and our own physical limitations. Anything beyond that is for the most part intellectual masturbation with little actual value or true insight that can be gained from it. We created the definition for what is alive, conscious and intelligent based on our limited understanding of the universe and our human centric world view these definitions change as time changes just like every other arbitrary definition we have set in stone in the past.
beautifulfreak 8y ago
A clone of a brain state in a different medium would be a Boltzmann brain. It is indeed a freaky concept. Stranger still is the possibility that inanimate matter could randomly fall into an arrangement that mimics a brain state, say a cloud of atoms in interstellar space, or inside a star. Is it conscious? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Why is this freaky? Consciousness is an utterly arbitrary definition that is not free from debate or alteration. Same goes for life which is why often we use the phrase life as we know it. If a cloud of gas can do everything a brain can and we set an arbitrary set of rules of consciousness and it passes the benchmark then it’s conscious based on our arbitrary definition on a cosmic scale it’s still a cloud of dust just like we are lumpy specs of hydrated carbon. There is no special meaning to life or to consciousness other than the former might be an intrinsic outcome of a universe with an entropy driven arrow of time, and the latter might be an intrinsic outcome of iterative natural selection of self assembling replicating strands of hydrated carbons and other organic molecules.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Why is this freaky? Consciousness is an utterly arbitrary definition that is not free from debate or alteration. It's somewhat arbitrary, but hardly utterly. If anything, not only it comes from direct experience, but is also the most constant experience we have. (That's the point of Descartes cogito ergo sum, btw. We could doubt that the landscape arounds us that we see exists, but we can't really doubt that we think, for to doubt is itself part of thinking).
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      Consciousness is utterly arbitrary now you put in complex thought, doubt, inner monolog and many other things into the mix which again just show how utterly arbitrary the definition of consciousness is as you conjured one yourself. There is no single objective and useful definition for consciousness in philosophy or natural science other than the clinical definition of being aware and responsive to one's surroundings which technically mean that an ameba can be considered conscious since it's definitely aware of it's surroundings. And even the clinical definition is arguably not very useful in the grand scheme of things because it does not deal with inanimate objects and the definition of life is murky at best. So the best the best definition we have for consciousness is a clinical definition which is only applicable to life as we know it which has nothing to do with what ever you were talking about, hence utterly arbitrary.

dogma1138 8y ago

Not really a replay of a brain scan is just a replay of a brain scan it is not more “alive” or “conscious” than video footage. If we’re talking about VSI/GAI or some sort of singularity event where people can upload their brains into a computer and remain conscious well then their definition would be which ever legal and common definition society would grant them. There is absolutely nothing special about intelligence or consciousness and it’s an arbitrary definition in the first place which we put in due to fear of the unknown and our own physical limitations. Anything beyond that is for the most part intellectual masturbation with little actual value or true insight that can be gained from it. We created the definition for what is alive, conscious and intelligent based on our limited understanding of the universe and our human centric world view these definitions change as time changes just like every other arbitrary definition we have set in stone in the past.

beautifulfreak 8y ago

A clone of a brain state in a different medium would be a Boltzmann brain. It is indeed a freaky concept. Stranger still is the possibility that inanimate matter could randomly fall into an arrangement that mimics a brain state, say a cloud of atoms in interstellar space, or inside a star. Is it conscious? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

dogma1138 8y ago
Why is this freaky? Consciousness is an utterly arbitrary definition that is not free from debate or alteration. Same goes for life which is why often we use the phrase life as we know it. If a cloud of gas can do everything a brain can and we set an arbitrary set of rules of consciousness and it passes the benchmark then it’s conscious based on our arbitrary definition on a cosmic scale it’s still a cloud of dust just like we are lumpy specs of hydrated carbon. There is no special meaning to life or to consciousness other than the former might be an intrinsic outcome of a universe with an entropy driven arrow of time, and the latter might be an intrinsic outcome of iterative natural selection of self assembling replicating strands of hydrated carbons and other organic molecules.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Why is this freaky? Consciousness is an utterly arbitrary definition that is not free from debate or alteration. It's somewhat arbitrary, but hardly utterly. If anything, not only it comes from direct experience, but is also the most constant experience we have. (That's the point of Descartes cogito ergo sum, btw. We could doubt that the landscape arounds us that we see exists, but we can't really doubt that we think, for to doubt is itself part of thinking).
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Consciousness is utterly arbitrary now you put in complex thought, doubt, inner monolog and many other things into the mix which again just show how utterly arbitrary the definition of consciousness is as you conjured one yourself. There is no single objective and useful definition for consciousness in philosophy or natural science other than the clinical definition of being aware and responsive to one's surroundings which technically mean that an ameba can be considered conscious since it's definitely aware of it's surroundings. And even the clinical definition is arguably not very useful in the grand scheme of things because it does not deal with inanimate objects and the definition of life is murky at best. So the best the best definition we have for consciousness is a clinical definition which is only applicable to life as we know it which has nothing to do with what ever you were talking about, hence utterly arbitrary.