4 ms·

You're assuming this "grey mush" can't be recovered. We don't actually know that. A sufficiently advanced AI should be able to recover a person from way less.

danieltillett 11y ago
The problem is the information is encoded in the arrangements of the neural connections. Once your brain has reached the grey mush stage all those connection are lost.
- htns 11y ago
  Aren't neurons relatively sizable? I don't see why they would totally "decay" in a short time frame, but maybe it's because I'm ignorant.
davidgerard 11y ago
You're assuming the phrase "a sufficiently advanced AI" answers anything at all. Presumably you're assuming if the information is there at all - if the necessary data hasn't been scrambled beyond the noise floor of the scrambling process - then there's something for magic (because you're really talking about magic here) to work with. So, please (a) set out your claim with precision (b) back up your claim. * What is the information you need to recover? * To what degree is it scrambled? * What of it is scrambled below the noise floor of the process? * How do you know all this? (wrong answer: "here's a LessWrong/Alcor page." right answer: "here's something from a relevant neuroscientist.") For comparison: even a nigh-magical superintelligent AI can't recover an ice sculpture from the bucket of water it's melted into. It is in fact possible to just lose information. So, since you're making this claim, I'd like you to quantify just what you think the damage actually is.
- atrus 11y ago
  Sure it can. Look at a photograph, make a mould and find a freezer :P
- M8 11y ago
  If it's a godlike AI it can simulate humankind in reverse and resurrect everyone's consciousness before each person's death.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    That is absolute bunk that defies the basic principles of computational complexity and information theory in almost every possible way.
- SCHiM 11y ago
  I'm quite sure I've read somewhere that information cannot be lost in the absolute sense, lost to us: yes, lost irrevocably and irrefutably: no. In that sense, 'a sufficiently advanced AI' is not magic, because when people say that they definitively have something in mind, at least the people I often discuss this with do. In short: if you're smart(fast, precise, determined) enough to look at the individual molecules of a puddle of brain-goo. And if you can infer the way it has collapsed by ray tracing those molecules back through how they collided with each other/the walls of your mold then it should be possible to reconstruct the spatial form of the brains at least. That's a pretty big IF obviously, but equally obviously not impossible. If only you can look deep/far/fast enough. If you want to be theoretical about it, then yes. There is probably an upper bound on how smart/big an AI mind can possibly be. And thus there is a limit on how much information it can extract from arbitrary systems. So I agree with your assertion that there is information that even the smartest of all AIs cannot possibly reconstruct, but I'm not sure that the brain is such a structure. Any justification about why/how 'a sufficiently advanced AI' could come about is more questionable. Many knowledgeable people are making guesses based on our current understanding of intelligence/computation/AI, and then extrapolating. The paradoxical thing is that on the one hand AI-doomsday speakers tell us no to anthropomorphise (for good reasons) with the motives of an AI, but on the other hand apply human reasoning/understanding to predict such machines/patterns.
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    > I'm quite sure I've read somewhere that information cannot be lost in the absolute sense, lost to us: yes, lost irrevocably and irrefutably: no. This is probably not quite at the requested standard of backing up a claim, and sounds very like "but you can't prove it isn't true!" But I'm not the one making a claim. In any case, please back up your claim. What is "the absolute sense"? How does it differ from "in a practical sense", with examples? > In short: if you're smart(fast, precise, determined) enough to look at the individual molecules of a puddle of brain-goo. And if you can infer the way it has collapsed by ray tracing those molecules back through how they collided with each other/the walls of your mold then it should be possible to reconstruct the spatial form of the brains at least. That's a pretty big IF obviously, but equally obviously not impossible. If only you can look deep/far/fast enough. Noise floor. In this case, thermal noise. Also, you literally can't know that much about all the molecules in your puddle of goo. (Heisenberg.) We do not live in a Newtonian universe.
M8 11y ago
Such AI will only be able to recover a gradient set of possible personalities depending on the percentage of missing data. Something like 1000000 of slightly different permutations of you.

danieltillett 11y ago

The problem is the information is encoded in the arrangements of the neural connections. Once your brain has reached the grey mush stage all those connection are lost.

htns 11y ago
Aren't neurons relatively sizable? I don't see why they would totally "decay" in a short time frame, but maybe it's because I'm ignorant.

davidgerard 11y ago

You're assuming the phrase "a sufficiently advanced AI" answers anything at all. Presumably you're assuming if the information is there at all - if the necessary data hasn't been scrambled beyond the noise floor of the scrambling process - then there's something for magic (because you're really talking about magic here) to work with. So, please (a) set out your claim with precision (b) back up your claim. * What is the information you need to recover? * To what degree is it scrambled? * What of it is scrambled below the noise floor of the process? * How do you know all this? (wrong answer: "here's a LessWrong/Alcor page." right answer: "here's something from a relevant neuroscientist.") For comparison: even a nigh-magical superintelligent AI can't recover an ice sculpture from the bucket of water it's melted into. It is in fact possible to just lose information. So, since you're making this claim, I'd like you to quantify just what you think the damage actually is.

atrus 11y ago
Sure it can. Look at a photograph, make a mould and find a freezer :P
M8 11y ago
If it's a godlike AI it can simulate humankind in reverse and resurrect everyone's consciousness before each person's death.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  That is absolute bunk that defies the basic principles of computational complexity and information theory in almost every possible way.
SCHiM 11y ago
I'm quite sure I've read somewhere that information cannot be lost in the absolute sense, lost to us: yes, lost irrevocably and irrefutably: no. In that sense, 'a sufficiently advanced AI' is not magic, because when people say that they definitively have something in mind, at least the people I often discuss this with do. In short: if you're smart(fast, precise, determined) enough to look at the individual molecules of a puddle of brain-goo. And if you can infer the way it has collapsed by ray tracing those molecules back through how they collided with each other/the walls of your mold then it should be possible to reconstruct the spatial form of the brains at least. That's a pretty big IF obviously, but equally obviously not impossible. If only you can look deep/far/fast enough. If you want to be theoretical about it, then yes. There is probably an upper bound on how smart/big an AI mind can possibly be. And thus there is a limit on how much information it can extract from arbitrary systems. So I agree with your assertion that there is information that even the smartest of all AIs cannot possibly reconstruct, but I'm not sure that the brain is such a structure. Any justification about why/how 'a sufficiently advanced AI' could come about is more questionable. Many knowledgeable people are making guesses based on our current understanding of intelligence/computation/AI, and then extrapolating. The paradoxical thing is that on the one hand AI-doomsday speakers tell us no to anthropomorphise (for good reasons) with the motives of an AI, but on the other hand apply human reasoning/understanding to predict such machines/patterns.
- davidgerard 11y ago
  > I'm quite sure I've read somewhere that information cannot be lost in the absolute sense, lost to us: yes, lost irrevocably and irrefutably: no. This is probably not quite at the requested standard of backing up a claim, and sounds very like "but you can't prove it isn't true!" But I'm not the one making a claim. In any case, please back up your claim. What is "the absolute sense"? How does it differ from "in a practical sense", with examples? > In short: if you're smart(fast, precise, determined) enough to look at the individual molecules of a puddle of brain-goo. And if you can infer the way it has collapsed by ray tracing those molecules back through how they collided with each other/the walls of your mold then it should be possible to reconstruct the spatial form of the brains at least. That's a pretty big IF obviously, but equally obviously not impossible. If only you can look deep/far/fast enough. Noise floor. In this case, thermal noise. Also, you literally can't know that much about all the molecules in your puddle of goo. (Heisenberg.) We do not live in a Newtonian universe.

M8 11y ago

Such AI will only be able to recover a gradient set of possible personalities depending on the percentage of missing data. Something like 1000000 of slightly different permutations of you.