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Because I have yet to see any product of human effort come close to the scale of complexity that cellular tissues represent. Current-generation electronic syst

Because I have yet to see any product of human effort come close to the scale of complexity that cellular tissues represent. Current-generation electronic systems are very complicated, and convincing "life-like" behavior still seems to be out of reach. Even if we eventually manage to produce systems that engage in sufficiently convincing life-like behavior, that bridges any sort of uncanny-valley gaps, there will still be a confusing grey area between truly sentient Life, and deceptively convincing complex apparatuses which are not alive. Even to reach the grey area will demand large collaborative teams of skilled and talented experts. If breathing life into a complex system represents a challenge above and beyond the Manhattan Project or the Apollo moon missions, how will we ever decide who benefits from the fruits of such labor? Are human beings capable of sharing such a thing? These things will not be toys. They would be more controversial than genetically modified foods. If a tissue replacement technology were to be implemented, would it be self-replicating and autonomous? If so, would it possibly be infectious? Or would it be so durable that it wouldn't need to repair itself? Would it's many tiny components communicate with one another? Could the communication be intercepted and disrupted? These are huge problems. Even if one very powerful HAL 9000 system solves all these problems for us, and manages to devise a scheme to mass produce a practical inorganic replacement for neurological tissue, isn't it possible that such an expert system might have an agenda of its own that does not represent lesser human interests like immortality? Wouldn't it require a similar leap of faith to trust in a technology with a purpose that can only be rationalized and not proven? For these reasons, I place my bets on biotechnology, using native human cells, and not electronic surrogates. If I know that I am alive, and that typical organic cells produce this phenomenon of experience, and it's within our reach to manipulate stem cells to repair our brains and keep them alive without any upper age limits, then I'll choose the sure thing, before placing faith in any experimental electronic surrogate.

pedrosorio 12y ago
Your position is that you prefer and believe in "repairing" our brains using biotechnology because there are too many problems with the alternative "electronic based" solution. That is a reasonable opinion and preference. My response to your comment focused on what I perceived as "consciousness as something that is defined by the workings of the human brain" and that could not be achieved by any other means. While I agree that attempting to replace our brains with "electronics" is a dangerous game, I also think that the computational approach can provide a lot more interesting answers (and questions) about many phenomena that occur in the "intelligent mind" and what consciousness really is, than the simple "fix by replacement" can.
- negativity 12y ago
  There's another as-yet-unexplored hazard though, and it's the emotional aspect of showing people convincing facsimiles of their loved ones. Tempting people into making emotionally charged decisions while they're in the fragile state of confronting death is an ethical sinkhole. If people actually believe that their dead relatives have gone off to live on the great server farm in the sky, what comes next? At the very least, a profound emotional attachment to an air-conditioned warehouse filled with noisy machinery. Alive or dead, any convincing artificial construct of a human being is going to carry a lot of weight and social currency. It's a phenomenon worthy of experimentation, but there's a very real hazard of making irrational, emotional decisions that revolve around these things, which might carry little practical benefit. There's some serious risk in being deceived by artificial creations, into behavior that is not in our own best interests.

pedrosorio 12y ago

Your position is that you prefer and believe in "repairing" our brains using biotechnology because there are too many problems with the alternative "electronic based" solution. That is a reasonable opinion and preference. My response to your comment focused on what I perceived as "consciousness as something that is defined by the workings of the human brain" and that could not be achieved by any other means. While I agree that attempting to replace our brains with "electronics" is a dangerous game, I also think that the computational approach can provide a lot more interesting answers (and questions) about many phenomena that occur in the "intelligent mind" and what consciousness really is, than the simple "fix by replacement" can.

negativity 12y ago
There's another as-yet-unexplored hazard though, and it's the emotional aspect of showing people convincing facsimiles of their loved ones. Tempting people into making emotionally charged decisions while they're in the fragile state of confronting death is an ethical sinkhole. If people actually believe that their dead relatives have gone off to live on the great server farm in the sky, what comes next? At the very least, a profound emotional attachment to an air-conditioned warehouse filled with noisy machinery. Alive or dead, any convincing artificial construct of a human being is going to carry a lot of weight and social currency. It's a phenomenon worthy of experimentation, but there's a very real hazard of making irrational, emotional decisions that revolve around these things, which might carry little practical benefit. There's some serious risk in being deceived by artificial creations, into behavior that is not in our own best interests.