8. WHAT IS TECHNO-IMMORTALITY?

"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”, Samuel Langhorn Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, in a May, 1897 note to the New York Journal, which had reported news of the fatal illness of Twain’s cousin, James Ross Clemens, as that of Twain. New York Observer, June 2, 1897. (In fact, Twain died the day after the 1910 perihelion of Halley’s Comet, having been born two weeks after its 1835 perihelion, leading him to immortally observe “now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”)

Cyberconsciousness implies techno-immortality. Immortality means living forever. This has never happened in the real world, so we think of immortality as a spiritual existence (as in heaven) or as a non-personal existence (as in ‘Bach’s music will live forever’). With cyberconsciousness it will be possible, for the first time, for a person to live forever in the real world. This unique, technologically empowered form of living forever is called techno-immortality.

Mindclones are the key to techno-immortality. Imagine that before a person’s body dies he or she creates a mindclone. After bodily death is declared the person will insist that he or she is still alive, albeit as a mindclone in cyberspace. The surviving mindclone will think, feel and act just as did the deceased original. While the mindclone will be stuck in cyberspace, he or she will still be able to read online books, watch streaming movies, and participate in virtual social networks. It will seem no more right to declare the mindclone dead than it would be to declare someone dead upon becoming a paraplegic. Practically speaking the mindclone’s original achieved techno-immortality.

A semantic purest may argue that “immortal” means “forever”, and since we have no way to know how long the mindclones will last they cannot be deemed immortal. This is a fair point, but it should be recognized that mindclones last far longer than the hardware they run on at any particular time. Mindclones, just as people, are really sets of information patterns. In the same way that the information patterns of great books and works of art are copied through the ages in new media after new media, so will be the case with mindclones. We are continuing to copy and interact with human texts that are thousands of years old, originally written in stone, and now stored digitally. Mindclones, being conscious beings with a desire to survive, can be expected to last even longer.

Therefore, by techno-immortal, we do not literally mean living until the sun explodes and the stars disappear. Such eschatological timeframes are beyond our consideration. Techno-immortality means living so long that death (other than by suicide) is not thought of as a factor in one’s life. This uber-revolutionary development in human affairs is the inevitable consequence of mindfiles, mindware and mindclones. Our souls will now be able to outlast our bodies -- not only in religion, but also on earth.

Techno-immortality need not imply an eternity of life in a box. Broadband connectivity to audio and video, and to tactile, taste and scent enabled future websites, will make life much more enjoyable than the ‘in a box’ phrase suggests. The outputs of our fingertips, taste buds and olfactory nerves are electronic signals that can be interpreted by software in the same manner as are sound waves and light signals. Nevertheless, it is hard to beat a real flesh body for mind-blowing experiences. Within a few score years for an optimist, and not more than a few centuries for a pessimist, current rates of technology development will result in replacement bodies grown outside of a womb. Such spare bodies, or “sleeves” as novelist Richard Morgan calls them , will be compatibly matched with mindclones. To make the sleeve be the same person as the mindclone either:

(a) the sleeve’s neural patterns will need to be grown ectogenetically to reflect those of the mindclone’s software patterns; or
(b) the sleeve’s naturally grown neural patterns will need to be interfaced and subordinated to a very small computer implanted in the cranium that contains a copy of the mindclone’s software.

Once these feats of neuro-technology are accomplished, techno-immortality will then also extend into the walkabout world of swimming in real water and skiing on real snow. In addition, mechanical bodies, including ones with flesh-like skin, are rapidly being developed to enable robotic help with elder care in countries like Japan (where the ratio of young to old people is getting too small). Such robot bodies will also be outfitted with mindclone minds to provide for escapes from virtual reality.

Techno-immortality triggers a philosophical quandary about identity. The gist of it is that people say ‘you cannot be dead and alive at the same time.’ This is related to another objection to mindclones – that they can’t really be ‘me’ or ‘you’ because we can’t be two different things, or in two different places, at the same time. All of these objections flow from the inability of the philosopher to accept that identity is not necessarily body-specific. In other words, a person’s identity is more like a fuzzy cloud that encompasses, to a greater or lesser extent, whatever loci contain their mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values.

It is hard for us to feel comfortable with this view of identity because we have had no experience with it. Throughout history the only locus for our mind was the brain atop our head and shoulders. Hence, it is natural for us to believe that identity is singular to one bodily form. In a similar way, before Einstein, it was natural to believe that the speed of light depends upon how fast the source of light is traveling. All of our experience was that a rock thrown from a moving train must have the combined speed of the train’s motion and the rock’s pitch. When Einstein showed us how to think about something outside of our experience, we were able to logically deduce that the speed of light must be invariant. Similarly, when you think about a computer that runs mindware on a mindfile that is equivalent to your mind, then you must logically deduce that identity is not limited to one locus. Identity follows its constituents – mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values – wherever those components may reside.

We are all familiar with the associative law of mathematics: if a = b, and b = c, then a = c. In our case a = our identity as defined by b, the key memories and characteristic thought patterns stored in our brain’s neural connections. With the advent of mindfiles and mindware it is possible to recreate those key memories and characteristic thought patterns in c, a mindclone. Since our original identity, a, derives from our cognitive status, b, and since the cognitive status from a brain, ba, is no different than the cognitive status from a mindclone, bc, it follows logically that our mindclone identity, c, is the same as our brain identity, a. Furthermore, this proof demonstrates that identity is not limited to a single body or “instantiation” such as a or c. Ergo, with the rise of mindclones has come the demise of inevitable death. While unmodified bodies do inevitably die, software-based patterns of identity information do not.

There is a great inclination to argue that unless every aspect of the a-based identity is also present in the c-based identity, then ba is not the same thing as bc and hence a is not really equal to and c. This argument is based on a false premise that our identity is invariant. In fact, nobody maintains “every aspect” of identity from day to day, and certainly not from year to year. We remember but a small fraction of yesterday’s interactions today, and will remember still less tomorrow. Yet we all treat each other, and our selves, as people of a constant identity.

Even in the extreme cases of amnesia or dementia, we do not doubt that the patient has a constant identity. Only in the final stages of Alzheimer’s does our confidence in the sufferer’s identity begin to waver. Therefore, a perfect one-to-one correspondence between ba and bc is not necessary in order for them to be equivalent. Instead, if suitably trained psychologists attest to a continuity of identity between ab and cb, which would tend to track with the perceptions of laypeople as well as of the original and their mindclone, then it must be accepted that the psychological fuzz of identity has cloned itself onto a new substrate. The individual’s cloud identity is now instantiated in both a brain and a mindclone.

Techo-immortality is possible because it will be soon possible to replicate the constituents of your identity – and hence your identity – in multiple, highly survivable loci, namely in software on different servers. It is irrelevant that these copies are not identical to the original. Perfect copies of anything are a physical impossibility, both in space as well as in time. Mindclones that are cognitively and emotionally equivalent to their originals, and practically accepted as their original identities, must be techno-immortal continuations of the original beings.

This question reminds me of the amazing story about how a young student, Aaron Lansky, saved Yiddish literature from disappearing. By the late 20th century, virtually all of the native speakers of Yiddish were elderly. After they died, their Yiddish books were being thrown away – almost no one understood a need to preserve this literature. Perhaps 5%-10% of the entire literature was literally disappearing each year. Lansky took it upon himself, with the help of a small group of friends, to collect all of the Yiddish books in the world before they ended up in dumpsters. After a decade his team had collected over a million volumes, had reignited interest in the language and had created a global Yiddish book exchange system. However, because the books were so frail (Yiddish was mostly read by poor Jews, and thus printed on cheap early 20th century paper to keep prices down) they were disintegrating before they could be shared. Consequently, Lansky then raised the money and signed contracts to digitize the entire collection. Indeed, the first literature completely digitized was Yiddish. Thereafter, those who wished any particular book simply selected the title from an online catalog and a print-to-order new copy was sent to them, on nice acid-free paper.

Did digitizing Yiddish literature save it from death by oblivion via dumpsters? Absolutely. Were the digitized texts the exact same as the handworn books? No. Did it matter? Absolutely not. The culture, what might be called the Yiddish soul, was exactly the same in the reprinted books of hundreds of authors, poets and playwrights.

Lingering objections to mindclones based upon inexactitude simply misunderstand the nature of identity. Identity is a property of continuity. This means that a person’s identity can exist to a greater or lesser extent depending upon the presence or absence of its constituents. We believe that we have the same identity as we grow from teenagers to adults because to a great extent our mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values have been continually present over those years. Of course we have changed, but the changes are on top of bedrock constancy. For the same reason it is not necessary for our mindclone to share every memory with its biological original to have the same identity as that original. Similarly, Yiddish literature is alive even if only 98% rather than 100% of Yiddish literature has been digitized. To love your mother you need not remember all that she has done for you. A continuity of strong positive and emotive orientations toward her, as well as the remembered highlights of your life with her, are plenty adequate.

In summary, techno-immortality is the ability to live practically forever through the downloading of your identity to a mindclone. Identity exists wherever its cognitive and emotional patterns exist, which can be in more than one place, in flesh as well as in software, and in varying degrees of completeness. While humans have never before experienced out-of-body identity, that is about to change with mindcloning. Along with this change will come something else new to humanity – techno-immortality.

7. HOW CAN WE KNOW CONSCIOUSNESS IS REALLY THERE?

One way to know that something exists is to measure it. A common perspective is that consciousness is immeasurable, because it is subjective. However, even subjective phenomena may be measured through approximations, and hence a science of consciousness is quite possible.

Expressed symbolically, a Consciousness Product (CP) along the continuum of consciousness can be defined as A*E, where A = Autonomy and E = Empathy. In other words, each of Autonomy and of Empathy are necessary, to at least some small degree, but neither is sufficient alone, to establish consciousness. Hence, neither an animal that appears self-aware but purely instinctual, nor a software routine that appears to reason but lack sentience, is at all conscious. The former lacks the potential for Autonomy, and the latter lacks the potential for Empathy. But grant the instinctual animal some measure of independent thought -- idiosyncratic choosing among instinctual options -- and Autonomy creeps in (idios "one's own" and syn-krasis "mixture"). Or provide future software with understanding of people’s feelings, via words or graphics, and via software settings for happiness or sadness, and Empathy slips in as well. Such consciousness can arise from human action either directly (by writing code for it) or indirectly (by emerging from sufficiently complex pattern association code). In either event, consciousness will arrive on the combined backs of Autonomy and Empathy.


Were the average human Consciousness Product (CP) arbitrarily set at something like 100, as are IQ scores, with equal contributions of Autonomy and Empathy, then someone like Martin Luther King would have a score higher than that because he was more conscious than average. He empathized with others more than most people do, and his moral judgments were more fine-tuned. The net result of his and Gandhi’s consciousness was an adamant insistence on non-violence. The average military recruit, or passively supportive citizen, can rationalize nationally organized killing. On the other hand, a household pet might have a CP equal to half or less than the human average. This does not make the pet non-conscious, just less conscious. How far down the CP scale can one go before there is no consciousness? It disappears when there is not even a fraction of a percent of typical human autonomy or not even a fraction of a percent of typical human empathy.

A brilliant machine with no ability to ever feel another’s pain or joy would be considered soul-less; without consciousness. A snuggly life form that feels every human emotion but can do nothing else would be considered mind-less; without consciousness. Between mindless and soulless is a vast continuum of possible expressions of consciousness. Hence, consciousness is widespread, as advocates of a simple self-awareness definition usually insist. However, some beings are more conscious than others, as humanists have always claimed.

The earliest hints of consciousness arose from genetic mutations that directed neurons to be connected (or grown) in a way that empowered self-awareness. In other words, inanimate molecules are ordered by DNA to assemble into conscious-trending clumps of neurons. It would not seem less improbable that inanimate lines of code can be ordered by human intelligence to assemble into conscious-trending clumps of software programs.

Nobody knows what the minimum number, and arrangement, of neural connections or lines of software code are for various levels of consciousness to arise. What must be the case, barring mystical explanations, is that consciousness is an epiphenomena of a good enough relational database. “Good enough” means not only multi-dimensional arrays of associations, but also sophisticated capabilities for running persistent series of associations – stories, emotions, scenarios, simulations, conversations, personalities -- through the database, with outputs and inputs occurring in near real-time. Each person’s idiosyncratic pattern of activating and maintaining groups of associations, coupled with their unique relational database, is their self, their consciousness. The strengths of the neural connections that form the relational database patterns have been firmed-up over a life such that we are familiar to ourselves (and to others) at (almost) every moment of our wakefulness.

Brains are awesome relational databases, and human brains are the best of the best, with complex patterns of association-sequencing worthy of the term “mindware.” But brains need not be made solely of flesh. There are other ways to flexibly connect billions of pieces of information together. Software brains, designed to run on powerful processors, are in hot pursuit. These software brains will not necessarily arrive with a typical CP of 100, but neither do humans. The continuity of consciousness paradigm makes room for a range of autonomous and empathetic beings, human and non-human. The closer these souls think like us, and feel like us, the closer their consciousness will be like ours. But so long as they reason and feel at all, there is a conscious mind at play. This means that there is a characteristic pattern of association sequencing that tries to maintain a coherent mental structure of the world (autonomy), with the being at the center, other relevant beings not far off, and conceptions of those other beings’ feelings of significant concern (empathy).

There are two main reasons we think consciousness is such a big deal. First, consciousness makes us vulnerable to psychic harm and thus triggers the Golden Rule – we must be aware of other people’s consciousness because we want others to be aware of our own. This underlies the great importance attached to respecting the dignity of others. To the extent someone or some thing is conscious, we need to respect its dignity, for we expect to be similarly respected. Therefore, determining the existence and extent of consciousness is crucial to our social system. Second, consciousness is itself a shared thing, a kind of social property. Each of our minds is full of thoughts and feelings placed there by other people . When a mindclone claims to be conscious, they are attaching themselves to this social grid. They are claiming at least some of the rights, obligations and privileges that attach to humanity. Naturally, applications to membership in so important a club will be viewed cautiously.


Consciousness is Like Pornography

So, if consciousness can be created solely with software, how will we recognize it? How will mindclones’ CPs be correlated with those of their human originals?
We’ll recognize conscious software by evidence of the telltale signs of autonomy and empathy. If an electronic toy, or customer service computer, or software package seems to us to have some fraction of human independence, and some aspect of human caring, then it has some portion of human consciousness. Some consciousness, even a little, is still consciousness.

The toy, computer or software will have a fraction of autonomy if it shows a unique, idiosyncratic approach to problem solving. Every person approaches problems with an individualized blend of innate skill and experience. For many problems, such as getting from New York to Washington, there are limited options from which almost everyone will select one or the other of the obvious choices. However, for maintaining a conversation or describing one’s goals, the options are much greater. Consequently, these are good tasks through which to assess the consciousness of software beings. If the toy, computer or software talks about half as sensibly as a human adult, or expresses personal goals that make about half as much sense as those of most adults, then they have demonstrated an Autonomy value in the CP equation of about 5 out of a possible 10.

In a similar vein, if the toy, computer or software demonstrates about half the empathy of a typical human adult, then it would a 5 out of 10 on the Empathy Axis as well. Its total CP would be 25 (CP = A*E), meaning it has about one fourth the consciousness of a human. This is still consciousness; it is just not what we’d recognize as human consciousness. How would a piece of software demonstrate empathy? One way would be to make gestures and sounds that mimic human emotions such as happiness and sadness when sensory data indicates that a person defined as a friend is emoting either happiness or sadness. It is not fair to say “well, that’s not real empathy, that’s just programming or mimicry,” because humans are no less programmed and mimickers in that regard – just without lines of software code.

Ultimately this becomes a philosophical issue between Essentialists and Materialists. The former believe emotion can only arise from a human (or perhaps biological) brain, whereas the latter believe that “emotion is as emotion does.” Susan Blackmore summarizes the Materialist view as: “There is no dividing line between as if and real consciousness. Being able to sympathize with others and respond to their emotions is one part of what we mean by consciousness.”

Another insight into the question “how do we know consciousness when we see it” is to recall the long-running judicial conundrum of “how do we know if something is pornographic?” In a landmark Supreme Court case, Jacobellis v. Ohio, Justice Potter Stewart concluded that pornography was hard to define but “I know it when I see it.” Consciousness is similarly hard to define, but most people feel they “know it when they see it.” Of course the reason pornography is a judicial conundrum is because different people perceive it differently; one man’s pornography is another man’s work of art. Similarly, one woman’s conscious mindclone will be another woman’s inanimate chatbot.

Ultimately the Supreme Court pioneered a rational path by adopting some standards (analogous to our empathy and autonomy thresholds) and recognizing that the same film or photograph could be pornographic in one community but artistic in another. In other words, pornography was largely in the eyes of the beholder. This is like our recognition earlier that it is other people who determine our consciousness. To make determinations more predictable – which are important when faced with a possible plethora of allegedly conscious mindclones – let’s now expand on the CP concept, offering a more specific approach to quantification of consciousness.

Quantifying Consciousness

We can be much more precise about the existence and value of a CP by agreeing upon some standard measures. For example, there are psychological tests of human consciousness that have repeatability values on the order of 80%. These tests measure many facets of autonomy and empathy. They do not rank the test-takers as more or less conscious, but they do quantify them in terms of the unique features of their consciousness. A similar test could be developed that was intended to measure autonomy and empathy. After the test was given to a large enough sample of people (cross-culturally would be better), there would be a normal distribution of scores for each of autonomy and empathy. The peak of these distributions could be associated with CP component scores of 10 for each of Empathy and Autonomy. Thereafter, mindclones who scored higher or lower than the averages would be said to have higher or lower than average CP scores.

By way of example, suppose we have a CP test question “Do you choose your own friends?” Choices might range from “Always” (value 1), “Usually” (value 0.75), “Sometimes” (value 0.5), “Rarely” (value 0.25) to “Never” (value 0.0). If the value most often selected by people is the “Sometimes” value of 0.5, then twenty such questions would comprise each of the Autonomy and Empathy prongs of the CP test, since that would result in an average CP score of 100.

At least two challenges may be anticipated. First, it can be argued that a CP score is no more a measure of consciousness than an IQ score is a measure of intelligence. A second criticism is that even if consciousness is being measured, it is only human consciousness being assessed, which is irrelevant to software consciousness.

As to the first objection, the test of complex phenomena is never the same thing as the phenomena. Even the numerical measure of a length of wood is not the same thing as the actual length of that wood due to inconsistencies in the accuracy of rulers. The point of the CP scale is to give objectivity to the continuum of consciousness paradigm; to take what is abstract theory and render it subject to empirical research. While scores along the CP scale will always be fuzzy, an argument as to whether a piece of software has a CP score of, say 10 or 20, reveals a more important truth – that the software is very likely conscious, but does not constitute a mindclone since people have far higher CPs.

The second objection is that the test is human-centric, whereas consciousness is something that transcends species. This criticism ignores the fact that it is our intention to measure degrees of human consciousness. It is possible that there will be modes of consciousness missed by this test, but it is also likely that non-human modes of consciousness will be captured by the test. By “consciousness” most people mean “human consciousness.” Hence, a test for the emergence of consciousness in mindclones must measure human consciousness in order to be accepted by the human community.

The following 1908 quotation from the famous deaf-and-blind celebrity pioneer, Helen Keller, is poignant in how clearly it implies human consciousness builds on human language skills:

“Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am. I lived in a world that was a no-world. I cannot hope to describe adequately that unconscious, yet conscious time of nothingness….Since I had no power of thought, I did not compare one mental state with another.”

Similar reports can be found in the literature on feral children. Higher-order languages, such as human languages, can be thought of as a kind of enzyme for making synaptic connections. While some mental conceptualizations are possible without this enzyme, abstract meanings proceed with great viscosity, if at all. Hence, it would wholly appropriate for beings lacking such language skills to receive much lower CP scores. This is not so much a matter of human-centricity, but of abstract-centricity, and it is in the realm of abstractions that consciousness dwells.

Mindclones will have human consciousness because they will have the full panoply of human language skills, the full pattern-association capability of mindware, and the full synchronization of their thoughts, personalities and emotions to those of their biological original. A mindclone should test, repeatedly, to have the same CP as their biological original. This is measurable and hence scientific proof that mindclone consciousness really exists, at least to the same extent that our own consciousness measurably exists.

6. HOW CAN CONSCIOUSNESS BE CREATED IN SOFTWARE?

“Some men see things as they are and wonder why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not?” Robert F. Kennedy



There are thousands of software engineers across the globe working day and night to create cyberconsciousness. This is real intelligent design. There are great financial awards available to the people who can make game avatars respond as curiously as people. Even vaster wealth awaits the programming teams that create personal digital assistants with the conscientiousness, and hence consciousness, of a perfect slave.

How can we know that all of this hacking will produce consciousness? This takes us to what is known as the “hard problem” and “easy problem” of consciousness. The “hard problem” is how do the web of molecules we call neurons give rise to subjective feelings or qualia (the “redness of red”)? The alternative “easy problem” of consciousness is how electrons racing along neurochemistry can result in complex simulations of “concrete and mortar” (and flesh and blood) reality? Or how metaphysical thoughts arise from physical matter? Basically, both the hard and the easy problems of consciousness come down to this: how is it that brains give rise to thoughts (‘easy’ problem), especially about immeasurable things (‘hard’ problem), but other parts of bodies do not? If these hard and easy questions can be answered for brain waves running on molecules, then it remains only to ask whether the answers are different for software code running on integrated circuits.



At least since the time of Isaac Newton and Leibniz, it was felt that some things appreciated by the mind could be measured whereas others could not. The measurable thoughts, such as the size of a building, or the name of a friend, were imagined to take place in the brain via some exquisite micro-mechanical processes. Today we would draw analogies to a computer’s memory chips, processors and peripherals. Although this is what philosopher David Chalmers calls the “easy problem” of consciousness, we still need an actual explanation of exactly how one or more neurons save, cut, paste and recall any word, number, scent or image. In other words, how do neuromolecules catch and process bits of information?

Those things that cannot be measured are what Chalmers calls the “hard problem.” In his view, a being could be conscious, but not human, if they were only capable of the “easy” kind of consciousness. Such a being, called a zombie, would be robotic, without feelings, empathy or nuances. Since the non-zombie, non-robot characteristics are also purported to be immeasurable (e.g., the redness of red or the heartache of unrequited love), Chalmers cannot see even in principle how they could ever be processed by something physical, such as neurons. He suggests consciousness is a mystical phenomenon that can never be explained by science. If this is the case, then one could argue that it might attach just as well to software as to neurons – or that it might not – or that it might perfuse the air we breathe and the space between the stars. If consciousness is mystical, then anything is possible. As will be shown below, there is no need to go there. Perfectly mundane, empirical explanations are available to explain both the easy and the hard kinds of consciousness. These explanations work as well for neurons as they do for software.

As indicated in the following figure, Essentialists v. Materialists, there are three basic points of view regarding the source of consciousness. Essentialists believe in a mystical source specific to humans. This is basically a view that God gave Man consciousness. Materialists believe in an empirical source (pattern-association complexity) that exists in humans and can exist in non-humans. A third point of view is that consciousness can mystically attach to anything. While mystical explanations cannot be disproved, they are unnecessary because there is a perfectly reasonable Materialist explanation to both the easy and hard kinds of consciousness.

MATERIALISM vs. ESSENTIALISM







If human consciousness is to arise in software we must do three things: first explain how the easy problem is solved in neurons; second, explain how the hard problem is solved in neurons; and third, explain how the solution in neurons is replicable in information technology. The key to all three explanations is the relational database concept. With the relational database an inquiry (or a sensory input for the brain) triggers a number of related responses. Each of these responses is, in turn, a stimulus for a further number of related responses. An output response is triggered when the strength of a stimulus, such as the number of times it was triggered, is greater than a set threshold.



For example, there are certain neurons hard-wired by our DNA to be sensitive to different wavelengths of light, and other neurons are sensitive to different phonemes. So, suppose when looking at something red, we are repeatedly told “that is red.” The red-sensitive neuron becomes paired with, among other neurons, the neurons that are sensitive to the different phonetics that make up the sounds “that is red.” Over time, we learn that there are many shades of red, and our neurons responsible for these varying wavelengths each become associated with words and objects that reflect the different “rednesses” of red. The redness of red is simply (1) each person’s unique set of connections between neurons hard-wired genetically from the retina to the various wavelengths we associate with different reds, and (2) the plethora of further synaptic connections we have between those hard-wired neurons and neural patterns that include things that are red. If the only red thing a person ever saw was an apple, then redness to them means the red wavelength neuron output that is part of the set of neural connections associated in their mind with an apple. Redness is not an electrical signal in our mind per se, but it is the associations of color wavelength signals with a referent in the real world. Redness is part of the gestalt impression obtained in a second or less from the immense pattern of neural connections we have built up about red things.



After a few front lines of sensory neurons, everything else is represented in our minds as a pattern of neural connections. It is as if the sensory neurons are our alphabet. These are associated (via synapses) in a vast number of ways to form mental images of objects and actions, just like letters can be arranged into a dictionary full of words. The mental images can be strung together (many more synaptic connections) into any number of coherent (even when dreaming) sequences to form worldviews, emotions, personalities, and guides to behavior. This is just like words can be grouped into a limitless number of coherent sentences, paragraphs and chapters. Grammar for words is like the as yet poorly understood electro-chemical properties of the brain that enable strengthening or weakening of waves of synaptic connections that support attentiveness, mental continuity and characteristic thought patterns. Continuing the analogy, the self, our consciousness, is the entire book of our autonomous and empathetic lives, written with that idiosyncratic style that is unique to us. It is a book full of chapters of life-phases, paragraphs of things we’ve done and sentences reflecting streams of thought.



Neurons save, cut, paste and recall any word, number, scent, image, sensation or feeling no differently for the so-called hard than for the so-called easy problems of consciousness. Let’s take as our example the “hard” problem of love, what Ray Kurzweil calls the “ultimate form of intelligence.” Robert Heinlein defines it as the feeling that another’s happiness is essential to your own.

Neurons save the subject of someone’s love as a collection of outputs from hard-wired sensory neurons tuned to the subject’s shapes, colors, scents, phonetics and/or textures. These outputs come from the front-line neurons that emit a signal only when they receive a signal of a particular contour, light-wave, pheromone, sound wave or tactile sensation. The set of outputs that describes the subject of our love is a stable thought – once so established with some units of neurochemical strength, any one of the triggering sensory neurons can harken from our mind the other triggering neurons.

Neurons paste thoughts together with matrices of synaptic connections. The constellation of sensory neuron outputs that is the thought of the subject of our love is, itself, connected to a vast array of additional thoughts (each grounded directly or, via other thoughts, indirectly, to sensory neurons). Those other thoughts would include the many cues that lead us to love someone or something. These may be resemblance in appearance or behavior to some previously favored person or thing, logical connection to some preferred entity, or some subtle pattern that matches extraordinarily well (including in counterpoint, syncopation or other form of complementarities) with the patterns of things we like in life. As we spend more time with the subject of our love, we further strengthen sensory connections with additional and strengthened synaptic connections such as those connected with eroticism, mutuality, endorphins and adrenaline.

There is no neuron with our lover’s face on it. There are instead a vast number of neurons that, as a stable set of connections, represent our lover. The connections are stable because they are important to us. When things are important to us, we concentrate on them, and as we do, the brain increases the neurochemical strengths of their neural connections. Many things are unimportant to us, or become so. For these things the neurochemical linkages become weaker and finally the thought dissipates like an abandoned spider web. Neurons cut unused and unimportant thoughts by weakening the neurochemical strengths of their connections. Often a vestigial connection is retained, capable of being triggered by a concentrated retracing of its path of creation, starting with the sensory neurons that anchor it.

What the discussion above shows is that consciousness can be readily explained as a set of connections among sensory neuron outputs, and links between such connections and sequences of higher-order connections. With each neuron able to make as many as 10,000 connections, and with 100 billion neurons, there is ample possibility for each person to have subjective experiences through idiosyncratic patterns of connectivity. The “hard problem” of consciousness is not so hard. Subjectivity is simply each person’s unique way of connecting the higher-order neuron patterns that come after the sensory neurons. The “easy problem” of consciousness is solved in the recognition of sensory neurons as empirical scaffolding upon which can be built a skyscraper worth of thoughts. If it can be accepted that sensory neurons can as a group define a higher-order concept, and that such higher-order concepts can as a group define yet higher-order concepts, then the “easy problem” of consciousness is solved. Material neurons can hold non-material thoughts because the neurons are linked members of a cognitive code. It is the meta-material pattern of the neural connections, not the neurons themselves, that contains non-material thoughts.




Lastly, there is the question of whether there is something essential about the way neurons form into content-bearing patterns, or whether the same feat could be accomplished with software. The strengths of neuronal couplings can be replicated with weighted strengths for software couplings in relational databases. The connectivity of one neuron to up to 10,000 other neurons can be replicated by linking one software input to up to 10,000 software outputs. The ability of neuronal patterns to maintain themselves in waves of constancy, such as in personality or concentration, could equally well be accomplished with software programs that kept certain software groupings active. Finally, a software system can be provided with every kind of sensory input (audio, video, scent, taste, tactile). Putting it all together, Daniel Dennett observes:

“If the self is ‘just’ the Center of Narrative Gravity, and if all the phenomena of human consciousness are explicable as ‘just’ the activities of a virtual machine realized in the astronomically adjustable connections of a human brain, then, in principle, a suitably ‘programmed’ robot, with a silicon-based computer brain, would be conscious, would have a self. More aptly, there would be a conscious self whose body was the robot and whose brain was the computer.”

At least for a Materialist, there seems to be nothing essential to neurons, in terms of creating consciousness, which could not be achieved as well with software. The quotation marks around ‘just’ in the quote from Dennett is the famous philosopher’s facetious smile. He is saying with each ‘just’ that there is nothing to belittle about such a great feat of connectivity and patterning.

5. WHAT IS CYBERCONSCIOUSNESS?

“Am not going to argue whether a machine can really be alive, really be self-aware. Is a virus self-aware? Nyet. How about oyster? I doubt it. A cat? Almost certainly. A human? Don’t know about you, tovarishch, but I am. Somewhere along evolutionary chain from macromolecule to human brain self-awareness crept in. Psychologists assert it happens automatically whenever a brain acquires certain very high number of associational paths. Can’t see it matters whether paths are protein or platinum. (Soul? Does a dog have a soul? How about cockroach?)” Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Cyberconsciousness means consciousness in a cybernetic medium. Cybernetics is the replication of biological control systems with technology. In 1984 Robert Gibson coined the term ‘cyberspace’ in his novel Neuromancer about an alternative reality existing inside computer networks. Soon thereafter, cyber became a prefix meaning anything computer-related. That much is easy. Lengthy answers are needed for what is consciousness, and how could it possibly exist in a computerized form, outside of a brain.

The biggest problem with discussions of consciousness is that people are not sure what they are talking about. This is because consciousness is what Marvin Minsky calls a “suitcase word.” Such a word carries lots of meanings, so there are constant problems of comparing apples to oranges in debates about consciousness. For example, most people speak of consciousness as if it was one thing, self-awareness. Yet, surely baby self-awareness is different from adolescent self-awareness. The self-awareness of an octopus (if it exists) may well be quite diminished – or advanced -- compared to that of a cat (if it exists).

A Suitcase Full of Autonomy and Empathy

There are three reasons why the common use of “self-awareness” as a definition for consciousness does not work well with cyberconsciousness. First, “any beginning programmer can write a short piece of software that examines, reports on, and even modifies itself.” It is thus easy to program software to be self-aware. For example, the software running a robot vehicle could be written to define objects in its real world. Those objects might be the terrain (“navigate it using sensors”), programmers (“follow any orders coming in”) and the vehicle itself (“I am a robot vehicle that navigates terrain in response to programming orders.”) Yet, very few people would accept that such a simple set of code, albeit literally “self-aware”, was conscious. It bears too little in common with what most people think of as conscious – a being that thinks independently and is sensitive to the feelings of others (when not infantile, sleeping or seriously ill).

A second problem with the “self-awareness” definition of consciousness is that it is an all-or-nothing proposition. In fact, given the graduated fashion in which brains have evolved, it is more likely that there are gradations of consciousness. Beings can be more or less independent thinkers – even human thought is largely dictated by genetics and upbringing – and beings can be more or less sensitive to other’s feelings – consider the animals you know, including the human ones. So, our definition of consciousness shouldn’t be the common “self-awareness” one because that term would force too gross a categorization. Its “either you are or are not” standard is inconsistent with the blurry reality of multitudinous and ambiguous differences in self-awareness.

A final problem with the “self-awareness” definition is that it doesn’t necessarily require what is called “phenomenal consciousness” (meaning awareness of one’s feelings and subjective perceptions), or “sentience.” The possibility of self-awareness without sentience (such as the Mr. Smiths of Matrix) exemplifies this third problem with the common definition of consciousness. For example a person who acts as if they have no emotions is called a robot or zombie, meaning a machine without consciousness. Self-awareness is clearly necessary, but also far from sufficient, for a definition of consciousness that matches what people really mean by the term.

So, self-awareness is at once both the most common meaning of consciousness as well as a horrible match for what people really mean by consciousness! This occurs because when applied to humans, self-awareness secretly brings along (in Prof. Minsky’s suitcase) independent thought, sentience and empathy – all of which are part of being human. But when applied to other species, and to mindclones, we can no longer be sure what if anything is in “the suitcase.” Hence, the term self-awareness is inadequate to express our expectations for consciousness. We know the self-aware human is also somewhat rational, emotional and caring. So, self-aware humans are good enough proxies for conscious humans. We don’t know that a self-aware software program is anything but self-aware. Hence, for species other than humans, mere self-awareness is an inadequate definition for consciousness because we really require reason, feelings and concern as well.

Shortcomings of “What It Is Like to Be”

Consciousness entails a processing of perceptions into a mental worldview. This is what some people call the “what it is like to be” definition. Consciousness uses patterns of neural connections, usually triggered in real-time by physical sense data, to create something meta-physical – a more or less coherent, individualized and hence subjective, virtual image of one’s relevant world. It is the immeasurability of this subjectivity that also underlies the confusion over consciousness.

Most people require this mental subjectivity to include feelings or emotions (sentience) in order to qualify as consciousness. This is of course because feelings and emotions are integral to human consciousness. Sentience, on the other hand, is no better than self-awareness as a stand-alone definition of consciousness. This is because as noted above, we expect conscious beings to be independent thinkers as well as feelers. We can say humans are conscious if they are sentient, because we know all humans are also independent thinkers (Minsky’s suitcase again). But we cannot make the same statement regarding other species, or mindclones (that suitcase is still empty).

Feelings do not require having any cognitive capability at all. When a hooked worm or fish squirms, most people interpret that as evidence that it hurts (others however consider it a mere reaction like a knee jerk that indicates no emotion). If the hooked worm or fish is in pain, or is stressed, this means it has sentience. But most people would not consider the fish or worm conscious because we don’t believe some part of their neurology is thinking about the pain, and complaining about it. Instead, we think the worm or fish is simply reacting in pain, and is reflexively trying to get out of the nasty situation. Of course we humans would do likewise, but we would also (to the extent pain subsided) commiserate about it, and contemplate what to do next. It is upon such recondite differences, that the definition of human consciousness resides. To satisfy the common conception of consciousness there needs to be autonomy (e.g., contemplation) and empathy (e.g., commiseration) as well as sentience and self-awareness.

To determine if software will become conscious we need a tighter definition for consciousness than self-awareness. We also need a definition that requires sentience, but is not satisfied with it alone. Most people will not be satisfied that a software being is conscious simply because there is something “that it is like to be” that software being – any more so than we think a fish is conscious because there may be something “that it is like to be a fish”, or a bat, or any other being. Experience, per se, is not what most people really mean by consciousness. There must also be an independent will – something akin to what is thought of as a soul – and also an element of transcendence – a conscience. Finally, we need a definition that can span a broad range of possible forms of consciousness.

The Continuum of Consciousness

A comprehensive solution to the consciousness conundrum is to adopt a new approach – “the continuum of consciousness” -- that explains all of the diverse current views, while also pointing the way for fruitful quantitative research. Such a “continuum of consciousness” model would encompass everything from seemingly sentient animal behaviors to the human obsession with how do others see me. It would provide a common lexicon for all researchers. Hence, the definition of consciousness needs to be broad but concrete:

Consciousness = A continuum of maturing abilities, when healthy, to be autonomous and empathetic, as determined by consensus of a small group of experts.

Autonomous means, in this context, the independent capacity to make reasoned decisions, with moral ones at the apex, and to act on them.

Independent means, in this context, capable of idiosyncratic thinking or acting.

Empathetic means, in this context, the ability to identify with and understand other beings’ feelings.

Feelings, in this context, mean a perceived mental or physical sensation or gestalt.

Small group of experts means, in this context, three or more individuals certified in a field of mental health or medical ethics.

This definition says a subject is a little conscious if they think and feel a little like us; they are very conscious if they think and feel just like us. It is a human-centric definition because when people ask “is it conscious?,” they mean “is it in any way humanly conscious?” In other words, conscious is a shorthand way of judging whether a subject “thinks and feels at all like people.”

How do we know if someone or something is empathetic or autonomous? Since “independence” and especially “feelings” are internal mental states, it is very difficult to be definitive about the existence of consciousness. It is likely that in the future individual neuron mapping will enable consciousness to be determined empirically. Until that time one’s consciousness is determined by others. A subject is conscious to the extent other people think they are autonomous and empathetic. This makes sense because, as noted above, it is compared to human consciousness that we measure any other consciousness as either absent or present to some degree. We think our dogs and cats are conscious because we see aspects of human consciousness in them.

Someone is guilty of an intentional crime if other people (the jury) think they had the mental intent to do the crime (as well as performing the criminal acts). Society is accustomed to letting others make determinative decisions about one’s mental state. Thus, it is logical to also let society make determinative decisions as to whether or not someone or something is conscious. For the determination of consciousness, the consensus of three or more experts in the field, such as psychologists or ethicists, substitute for a jury. As software does actually present with consciousness, it is likely that professional associations will offer special mindclone psychology certifications to better standardize consciousness determinations.

Of course an expert determination of consciousness is not the same thing as a fully objective determination of consciousness. Similarly, a jury may think a defendant lacked criminal intent whereas, in fact, he really had the intent. However, when objective determinations are impossible, society readily accepts alternatives such as appraisals of one’s peers or experts. Also, when the experts determine that a software being is or is not conscious, they are of course only considering human consciousness. Prof. Minsky’s consciousness suitcase always carries a human-centric bias.

It is important to clarify a few aspects of the “continuum of consciousness” definition. First, the inability to make moral decisions, due to lack of understanding of right and wrong, makes one less conscious. This is because human consciousness includes moral judgments, and it is compared to this understanding of consciousness that we decide whether a gradation of it exists.

The reason for moral choice having a dominant role is that consciousness matters because it embodies the most important shared value among humans, that of a moral conscience. In other words, while consciousness has a minimalist definition of being awake, alert and aware – “is he conscious?!” – it also has a more salient meaning of thinking and feeling like a normal human. To think like a normal human, one must be able to make the kind of moral decisions, based on some variant of the Golden Rule, which Kant taught were hard-wired into human brains.

For example, no matter how self-aware or empathetic a being was, most people would not admit they shared human consciousness unless they had a maturing ability to understand, when healthy, the difference between shared concepts of right and wrong. To such people a Hitler is conscious, whereas a crocodile is merely self-aware, because a Hitler makes (very wrong) moral choices, while a crocodile makes no moral choice at all. The continuum of consciousness paradigm would call the crocodile less conscious than Hitler if experts agreed it had diminished but still present idiosyncratic decision-making capability (even if moral judgment was absent) and at least some modicum of empathy.

A second important clarifying point relates to the term “independent.” While the true independence of anyone in society is contestable (e.g., do we just do what our genes tell us to do?), the inclusion of this term would exclude from consciousness only an entity that had absolutely no independent capacity, i.e., an automaton or zombie. The reason for the requirement of idiosyncratic thought is that we expect each human to be unique. Even if we are bounded by our genes, and constrained by our culture, we are each a one-of-a-kind, not fully predictable mixture of such programming. We are independent because our blended nature enables us to transcend our programming. (Skeptics of software consciousness, such as Roger Penrose in his book the Emperor’s Mind, rely on this characteristic, while others believe code can be written to transcend code). It is this fresh and slightly enigmatic characteristic, especially when applied in furtherance of rationality and/or empathy, which we expect in anyone who is conscious rather than autonomic. Hence, “independence” does not require being a pioneer, or a leader. It does require being able to decide things and act based on a personalized gestalt rather than only on a rigid formula.

There is a philosophical gray zone called “free will” between independent reasoning and instinctual or programmed behavior. A benefit of the continuum of consciousness paradigm is that it empowers a wide variety of views regarding the independence of behavior to be considered conscious, while still recognizing important differences in the role played by genes, instinct or programming.

A third clarifying point concerns the use of “empathy” in the definition of consciousness. Similar to moral choice, empathy is crucial to a definition of consciousness because it tells us whether someone feels like us, as well as thinks like us (autonomy). For example, no matter how good a machine was at being an autonomous decision-maker (including moral decisions), and aware of its surroundings and of itself, most people would not admit it was conscious unless it truly seemed to understand and identify with other people’s feelings – which would require it to have feelings of its own. A mere ability to expertly arrive at moral judgments, without any affect in relation to any of those judgments, will not pass a consciousness litmus test with most people. To be humanly conscious one must not only know that genocide is wrong; one must also feel that genocide is horrific.

Empathy is a subset of sentience, which is the ability to have feelings and/or emotions. Hence, sentience is a necessary, but not sufficient, basis for consciousness. While every animal that feels pain is sentient, only those that identify and understand another being’s pain, at least to some extent, have a position on the Empathy axis of consciousness. Empathy also overlaps self-awareness, another necessary, but not sufficient, basis for consciousness. As shown in the chart below, the overlapping domains of self-awareness, sentience, empathy and autonomy define the continuum of consciousness.






Definition of Consciousness Diagram
1 – Self-aware entities that lack feelings as well as autonomy, such as the DARPA car that drives itself but cannot decide to do anything else.
2 -- Sentient entities that lack self-awareness as well as empathy, such as an arthropod (< 10M neurons).
3 -- Autonomous entities that lack feelings, such as a suitably programmed robot without emotion routines.
4 -- Empathetic entities that lack self-awareness, such as some pets.
5 – Conscious entities that are self-aware and sentient, and more specifically are relatively autonomous and empathetic, like people.

Why Worry About This Sci-Fi Stuff Now?

The term “mindclone” evokes a wide range of sci-fi images from the “Cylons” of Battlestar Galactica to the “Mr. Smiths” of The Matrix. While it is indisputable that we are creating large mindfiles, as described in Question 1, and surely there are geeks working hard on mindware, as reviewed in Question 2, how close could we be to an actual mindclone when computers can’t converse on their own much better than a two-year old kid?

Very close. Close enough to feel the bits and bytes of cyberbreath on our cheeks. To realize how close we are to cyberclone reality it is necessary to understand the exponential nature of advances in information technology.

Pattern recognition expert Ray Kurzweil has shown in his best-seller, The Age of Spiritual Machines, that information technology has been doubling its capabilities every one to two years since the early 1950s. For example, we have more computing power in our cellphones today, for about $200, than there was in the Apollo spacecraft that went to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s at a cost of $30 billion. While voice recognition technology was non-existent in the 1990s, only ten years later it was a free feature in most laptops and PDAs, and a ubiquitous customer service front end for large companies. Ray Kurzweil and others have shown that based upon the doubling rate of information technology it is reasonable to expect mindclones for about $1000 by the end of the 2020s, and sooner than that for a higher price.

The following chart compares the number of information processing circuits available at various dates with biological lifeforms that have the equivalent number of neurons. Up through 2010 we see computer programs no smarter than a mouse or a bug, and are not impressed. However, this is most misleading in two ways.


First, there are a great many software packages that are already far smarter than even very clever humans. For example, the mapping software in your cellphone or PDA can best any of us at finding addresses in unknown neighborhoods. Gaming software, from grandmaster chess to the complex Asian game of go, and including all manner of virtual world environments, far outstrip the conceptual capabilities of ordinary humans. Hence, while no software package has “put it all together” the way a human mind does, programs are popping into existence with great competence in many of the areas to which we devote our mental skills. How long could it be until some software “puts it all together?” Per Kurzweil’s chart, no longer than the 2020 timeframe in which computers will have as many processors as the human brain has neurons.

There is a second reason, born of psychology, why we find it hard to realize how near-term the mindclones are when all we see on television are robots with the brains of a rodent or a bug. This reason relates to the difference between our natural way of perceiving things, which is linear, and the way in which information technology is advancing, which is exponential. Linear things proceed the way children grow, perhaps half-a-foot or so a year until they reach a plateau height. This is the “linear” way we have evolved to perceive the relationship between changing things and the time it takes them to change forms. Things that change like people grow, linearly, change about the same amount each year or so. Hence, if there is a billion-fold deficit between the processing capability of a computer today, and that of a human mind, it is natural for us to project the arrival of mindclones as equal in years to about one billion divided by the increase in processor speed we can get on our computers from one year to the next.

For example, my one year-old computer has about 1/100,000th of the capability of a human mind (its processing speed is about that fraction of the number of human brain neural connections, although its software is in some areas pretty advanced). In other words, it has only .001% of the capability of a human mind. It’s a rodent. I could go buy a new computer today that has 2/100,000th or .002% of the capability of a human mind. At this rate, with the way my linear mind works, I would expect to be able to buy a mindclone in 99,998 more years. What, me worry! Our linear minds take our most recent experience – such as going from a 1/100,000th of a human mind computer to a 2/100,000th of a human mind computer in one year – and extrapolate it forward such that we think it will take 998 more years to get 1% of a human mind, another 1000 years to get to 2% of a human mind, another 1000 years to get to 3% of a human mind, and so on.

In fact, though, information technology does not grow linearly, but exponentially. This means, according to “Moore’s Law”, information technology doubles each 1-2 years – something very different from growing linearly. Because computer capability doubles it means next year I will get not 3/100,000th of a human brain computer, but 4/100,000th of one. Exponential growth means the year after that I will get not 5/100,000th of a human brain computer, but 8/100,000th of one. With information technology, I can expect to reach mindclone computing as rapidly as this:

Years From Now Fraction of a Mindclone
Next Year 4/100,000th
Year After 8,100,000th
Third Year 16/100,000th
Fourth Year 32/100,000th
Fifth Year 64/100,000th
Sixth Year 128/100,000th
Seventh Year 256/100,000th
Eighth Year 512/100,000th
Ninth Year 1000/100,000th
Tenth Year 2000/100,000th
Eleventh Year 4000/100,000th
Twelfth Year 8000/100,000th
Thirteenth Year 16,000/100,000th
Fourteenth Year 32,000/100,000th
Fifteenth Year 64,000/100,000th
Sixteenth Year 128,000/100,000th = MINDCLONE

Four clarifying comments are in order. First, the rounding down from 1,024 to 1,000 in the ninth year is just to make the arithmetic easier to follow. Second, while Moore’s Law says that the doubling occurs every 1-2 years, in the example given above I showed the doubling every year. The effect of making it every two years would simply be to postpone mindclones to 32 years from now instead of 16, or to 24 years from now if we use a doubling period of every 18 months. The important point is that mindclones are around the corner – not in some other millennium, or even in some other generation. This is about our lives.

The third clarifying comment is that some people question for how long Moore’s Law can continue, noting that other exponential phenomena – such as the growth of bacteria in a Petri dish – end when the room for growth runs out. In fact, because knowledge (unlike bacteria) can grow without limit, the doubling of information technology is not limited. Knowledge is the only resource that the more you exploit it, the more you have to exploit. Engineers have already designed the pathways for Moore’s Law to continue for many decades. For example, when technology limits are reached with flat integrated circuits computers will shift to three-dimensional integrated circuits.

The fourth comment is that it takes more than brain-level hardware to create a mind -- it requires human-level software. My premise is that the software will arrive no later than the hardware. I cannot prove this premise because there are no "lines of code" equivalent to the mind that one could show exponential progress against (more code is not necessarily better). While it is true that we will be able to use the computational power of our hardware to "reverse engineer" the human brain, there may be more rapid approaches born of intuitive software design.

Let me share an analogy that reveals the fallacy underlying those who believe the software challenge of reverse engineering the brain puts us centuries away from mindware. I contend that the quest for artificial consciousness is analogous to the quest for artificial flight. The two broad approaches to these quests can be called “structural replication” and “functional replication.” Humans tend to fixate on structural replication as it seems apparent that “if we could but flap wings like a bird then we could fly like a bird.” Similarly, “if we could but reverse engineer the human brain, then we could be conscious like a human brain.” While structuralists are probably correct, theirs is not the more rapid approach. Instead, we have functionally replicated flight using non-bird approaches such as propellers and jet engines married to largely fixed wings.

We will also be able to functionally replicate human consciousness using non-brain approaches such as massively cross-correlated relational databases, virtualization software and iteratively modifiable natural language-based programs. We can copy what a brain does (make a mind) rather than copy what a brain is, just as we have copied what a bird does (make a flight) rather than copy what a bird is. Of course brains do many things besides make minds, and birds do many things besides flying. But, those other things are beyond the scope of our mindware (and others’ aerodynamics) projects.

So, in summary, we delude ourselves that mindclones are in the distant future because our linear minds have great difficulty projecting exponential phenomena. In fact mindclones are as close to us in time as the birth of punk rock and Apple Computer. The very same revolution that:

➢ brought cellphones from almost no one’s hands to almost everyone’s hands in under 20 years, and
➢ brought the internet from a military toy to a universal joy in under 15 years,
➢ will bring mindclones from chatbot infancy to human simulacra adulthood in the time it will take to get a kid through school or complete a first professional career.

Not everything sci-fi is far-off. I have a wristwatch communicator (thanks to SkyTel) and daily videophone conversations (thanks to iChat). My Oakley sunglasses magically deliver stereo music and phone calls directly to my ears, without wires (thanks to Bluetooth). My eyes are fixed by lasers, my teeth are cleaned by ultrasound and my food is cooked by microwaves. Weren’t all these things supposed to be sci-fi? I don’t see any of them in classic movies or early TV shows.

Nothing in our society is advancing faster than software, and mindclones are simply that: one part mindfile software and one part mindware software. True, some good processors are needed to run that software, but Moore’s law is delivering those processors right on schedule. We need to figure out this mindclone thing right now because this is one part of the future, one aspect of sci-fi, that is banging on the front door.

There is plenty of time to dream about flying cars. There’s a century to wait for a family trip to Mars. But mindclones are in a whole different category. They are riding a wave of exponential information technology that is real, here and now. Climb outside your linear mind and check out the latest avatars. If you do so, if you think exponentially, then it is impossible to not see the first, costly mindclones in 10-20 years, and then a mass-market explosion of them in 20-30 years.

Wait, and get caught by surprise, or read on, and be poised for the prize. The future is an opportunity that benefits the prepared. These 100 answers will make you mindclone savvy. So prepped, your mindclone will help make you happy. What a deal! Read on!

What Are Mindclones?

A mindclone is a software version of your mind. He or she is all of your thoughts, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values, and is experiencing reality from the standpoint of whatever machine their mindware is running on. Mindclones are mindfiles being used and updated by mindware that has been set to be a functionally equivalent replica of one’s mind. A mindclone is your software-based alter ego, doppelganger, or mental twin. If your body died, but you had a mindclone, you would not feel that you personally died, although the body would be missed more sorely than amputees miss their limbs .

We have absolutely no experience with mindclones. Never in history has there been anything like them. Hence, it is natural to find it difficult to understand the concept. From time immemorial we have thought of our identity as being limited to one instantiation, namely that contained within our body. To grasp mindcloning it is necessary to envision identity as being a unique pattern of thinking that can occur in two or more substrates or forms. If you can accept that a mind can be duplicated, with appropriate mindware and a rich enough mindfile, then you have accepted that a single identity can occur at least twice.

Now, it is certainly true that an easy distinction can be drawn between an original identity and that of its mindclone. Simply by virtue of being a copy, the mindclone is not the original, and hence it can be said that the mindclone does not have the same identity as the original. Yet, this is a distinction without significance. It is analogous to claiming that identity changes over time because people grow and acquire new experiences. While there is no doubt that our personality evolves, and our thoughts change, we are still the same person – the same identity.

So, why is it that we feel an uploaded version of our mind knows that it is an upload, and is thus not really us, whereas an aging version of our mind knows it is different from its youth, but is still definitely us? The reason is our deep-felt bias, based upon our entire human experience, that identity is substrate-specific. Some people take this so far as to believe that transplant recipients, especially of hearts, assume some of the identity of the organ donor.

With mindcloning we will have our first experience with the technological possibility of substrate-independent identity. It will take some time for society to adapt. Ultimately, though, most people will understand that just as a person’s voice can be in two places simultaneously via telephone, their identity can be in two places simultaneously via mindcloning.

When I have presented mindcloning in conferences there are usually one or two people who rush to the microphone after my talk. They are insistent that a mindclone cannot be the same person as the original because it is not the same person. The fault in this kind of reasoning is that it is a tautology, a circular form of argument that just restates itself. The “same person” is different from the “same body”, or substrate. While it is true that a mindclone is not the same body as the original person, it is the same mind. Hence, my questioners have difficulty because they think that a person is their body and I insist that a person is their mind.

Sometimes the questioners challenge me as follows: “If you created a mindclone, surely you would not agree to be killed in favor of your mindclone!” My reply is that I like my body quite a bit, and if my mindclone could be given one like mine or better (such as through some future medical technology), then I would not be any worse off, save for the trauma of the killing. The questioners are rarely satisfied; they simply do not accept that identity can remain constant across two or more substrates. Logically, however, they are in error. Assuming a mind can be replicated, such as with mindfiles and mindware, its identity would thereafter have in fact been altered to become a two-substrate version of the original one-substrate identity.

Another question that arises is for how long would a singular identity span two substrates? Each mind – the biological original and the mindclone – will surely have its own thoughts just as each of us has different thoughts from minute to minute. Indeed, this is sometimes used as an argument why mindclones do not share the identity of their original.

I believe a singular identity will always span the mindclone and its original. This is easier to appreciate when you consider that normally each of them will continuously synchronize their common mindfile, using high-speed links. Both parts of the single identity will take note of what the other has done. Perhaps fear of losing control over one’s life to a mindclone will dampen enthusiasm for creating them. As mindware gets ever better at making mindclones that are absolutely faithful psychological replicas this fear will dissipate. In any event, most people do not fail to get married out of fear that another person will have access to a joint bank account. And we will know our mindclones far better than we know our fiancées.

There will be instances in which the mindclone and the original do not update each other. Instead, the single identity decides, in conversation with itself (we biological originals do talk to ourselves, weighing pros and cons in our heads), to experience life separately. Like being dealt two 8s in a blackjack game, and deciding to split, some people and their mindclones will go separate ways. Even in such cases I believe we are speaking of a single identity. We must remember that both the biological original and the mindclone share a unique psychological profile based upon a mountain of mindfile data. They are the same person. The fact that they subsequently have many unique, perhaps life-changing experiences does not change either of their individual identities, and hence cannot have changed their common identity.

While the original and the mindclone will be very different after years of unique experiences, they will still be the same person. It will be as if you visited a close friend after first living ten years in Ethiopia, and then again after living ten years in China. On the first visit your friend would remark on how the Ethiopian experiences changed you, but would still recognize you as his friend. On the second visit your friend would see yet another version of you, this time changed by life in China. Once again, though, your friend would surely recognize you as the same person who first left for Ethiopia twenty years earlier. This is the power of an established set of mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values. Whatever changes will not be able to entirely mask the starting set of conditions. It is all but impossible to completely crawl out of an established mind.

Perhaps deciding to have a mindclone is analogous to having a child. Once the child is born, you will always be a parent. Similarly, once a mindclone is created, you will always be a dual-substrate identity. Many parents have little or nothing to do with their offspring, but neither the parent nor the offspring can get the parental relationship out of their mind. Their identity has permanently been altered to include the fact that they are part of a (good or bad) parent-offspring relationship. Analogously, even if a mindclone parts ways with their original, neither will ever be able to forget the fact that someone else with their same mind exists. The creation of a cognitive doppelganger is an identity-altering experience.

In summary, a mindclone is a fully functional, software-based copy of your mind, residing on computer substrate. You and your mindclone will think the same thoughts, and feel the same feelings, as well as having unique ones. In most instances the two of you will be wirelessly linked to a common mindfile so there will be a constant synchronization of cognition and experiences. When mindclones arise in the next few years, as a consequence of our burgeoning mindfiles and rapidly developing mindware, we will get used to the idea that identity is replicable. A person will be able to be in two places at the same time.

How will we really know that our mindclone is conscious, actually feeling the same fears, and dreaming the same dreams, as are we? It is easy to imagine a mindclone just doing an amazing job of mimicking our consciousness, like some chatbots today mimic human conversational behavior. Is the mindclone my real life, or a compelling, tear-jerking “movie” of my real life? These questions of consciousness, and of cyberconsciousness, are answered next.