tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64544740354870941082024-03-16T05:18:44.716-04:00Mindfiles, Mindware and MindclonesOne hundred questions answered about the coming age of our own cyberconsciousness and techno-immortality.
Copyright 2009-2011 Martine RothblattUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-71059292770576314712013-10-04T17:17:00.000-04:002013-10-04T17:17:18.908-04:00MINDCLONES in 4 Easy Pieces<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 37.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><b>Undeniable</b></span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people
in the world are compiling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mindfiles</i>,
knowingly or not, through their unavoidable interface with digital
communications systems. (Eg, Facebook timeline, Google glass, cloud
auto-backups)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 37.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.0pt;">
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><b>Undeniable</b></span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thousands of
smart people are developing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mindware</i> (eg
neuromorphic engineers, US BRAIN & EU HBP projects, Silicon Valley
startups, hackers) to make the creation and use of mindfiles easier, with the
ultimate goal, generally unintended, of giving them so many trappings of
consciousness that some will seem to be (eg Siri), & some will claim to be
(eg Bina48), humanly conscious.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 37.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><b>Extrapolation</b></span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humanly
cyberconscious <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mindclones</i> of us will
arise from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mindware</i> operating on our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mindfiles</i>, and new cyberconscious beings
who value human rights, which I call <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bemans,</i>
will arise from de novo or blended mindfiles and generalized human mindware. The extrapolation is warranted even if the brain cannot be replicated in software because brain is to mind as birds are to flight.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><b>Implications</b></span></u></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="color: #741b47;">: (i) Ethics will dictate that cyberconsciousness with
human values and morality be accorded human rights and obligations – lack of a
body is differently abled, not sub-human, (ii) Techno-immortality will result
from the human rights of our mindclones – concepts of identity will change, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(iii) the next demographic transition is
toward majority cyberconscious societies – 10 billion is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i></b> the ultimate human
cyberconscious population, and (iv) two of the most popular professions in the
near future will be cyber-psychology and cyberconsciousness law as they will be
on the frontlines of society’s effort to separate cyberconscious beings into
human and non-human categories, with differential privileges to each.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-11349332719121247122013-09-07T15:32:00.001-04:002013-09-07T15:35:08.230-04:00Kitty Hawk of Cyberconsciousness<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FpKk8eiLRkI" width="459"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-47083869872187167012013-07-15T20:45:00.002-04:002013-07-15T20:45:18.007-04:00<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/video/discussion-on-avatars-robots-with-2045-initiative-dNrXBnLlQX2jBr1sb74LTA.html">Mindfiles, Mindware and Mindclones going Mindstream</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-40041726231083163742012-11-25T19:29:00.002-05:002012-11-25T19:29:51.340-05:00<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="213" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/51138699?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff005a" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/51138699">TRUE SKIN</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/h1chung">H1</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
This is too dystopic to be for real. But it is too for real to be utopia. Pretty much straight on the mindfiles, mindware and mindclones trajectory. Many bodies, one mind.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-9927816746466064032012-03-29T19:05:00.002-04:002012-03-29T19:05:53.072-04:00Another step from mindfiles to mindware to mindclones<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39917/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-03-16">http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39917/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-03-16</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-17603564525582369492012-03-14T15:18:00.000-04:002012-03-14T15:18:55.261-04:00Bina48 at South By Southwest<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5Jzv-Q3XFeo" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-88875627565621353102011-08-14T16:48:00.000-04:002011-08-14T16:48:31.936-04:00Interview with Bina48 -- Mindclone Age 1<iframe frameborder="0" height="224" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27678685?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=1" width="398"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-20779780176772286102011-04-17T21:21:00.000-04:002011-04-17T21:21:22.044-04:0025. WON’T IT BE IMPOSSIBLE TO ETHICALLY TEST AND DEVELOP CYBER-CONSCIOUSNESS?<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Partial freedom seems to me a most invidious mode of slavery.” Edmund Burke</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do, and what is right to do.” Potter Stewart</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A fundamental principle of bioethics requires the consent of a patient to any medical procedure performed upon them. A patient will exist the moment a conscious mindclone arises in some academic laboratory, or hacker’s garage. At that moment ethical rules will be challenged, for the mindclone has not consented to the work being done on eir mind. Does this situation create a catch-22 ethical embargo against developing cyber-consciousness?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are at least three ways to answer this challenge. First, it can be approached with a medical ethics focus on the mindclone itself. Second, it can be approached philosophically – focusing on the mindclone as just part and parcel of the biological original. Third, it can be approached pragmatically – what will the government likely require?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Creating Ethical Beings Ethically</u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How can it be ethical to test mindclone-creating mindware when any resulting mindclone has not first consented to being the subject of such an experiment? How will we know we have mindware that creates an ethically-reasoning mindclone if it is not ethical to even do the tests and trials? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As to the first question, ethicists agree that someone else can consent to a treatment for a person who is unable to consent. For example, the parents of a newborn child can consent to experimental medical treatment for them. The crucial criterion is that the consenter must have the best interests of the patient in mind, and not be primarily concerned with the success of a medical experiment. One of the purposes of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or medical review committee is to exercise this kind of consent on behalf of persons who cannot give their consent. Hence, having a responsible committee act on their behalf solves the problem of ethical consent for the birth of a mindclone or beman. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv40B7ybNOo/TauP2B2qdCI/AAAAAAAACfM/hbKK0sbG1Gk/s1600/wanderer_awake_1296_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Uv40B7ybNOo/TauP2B2qdCI/AAAAAAAACfM/hbKK0sbG1Gk/s320/wanderer_awake_1296_1.jpg" width="320" /></a>Sometimes people complain that they “did not ask to be born.” Yet, nobody has an ethical right to decide whether or not to be born, as that would be temporally illogical. The solution to this conundrum is for someone else to consent on behalf of the newborn, whether this is done implicitly via biological parenting, or explicitly via an ethics committee. In each case there is a moral obligation (which can be enforced legally today for biological parents) to avoid intentionally causing harm to the newborn. We are now ready to turn to the second question: how can an ethics committee, acting on behalf of the best interests of future mindclones or bemans, avoid causing harm to them?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">One possible solution to ethically developing mindclones is to take the project in stages. The first stage must not rely upon self-awareness or consciousness. This would be based upon first developing the autonomous, moral reasoning ability that is a necessary, but not sufficient, basis for consciousness. Recall from Question 5 that consciousness is a continuum of maturing abilities, when healthy, to be autonomous and empathetic, with autonomous defined as: “the independent capacity to make reasoned decisions, with moral ones at the apex, and to act on them.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Independent</i> means, in this context, “capable of idiosyncratic thinking and acting.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">By running many simulations mindclone developers can gain comfort that the reasoning ability of the mindware is human-equivalent. In fact, the reasoning ability of the mindware should match that of the biological original who is being mindcloned. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">The second stage of development expands the mindware to incorporate human feelings and emotions, via settings associated with aspects of pain, pleasure and the entire vast spectrum of human sentience. At this stage all the feelings and emotions are terminating in a “black box”, devoid of any self-awareness. Engineers will measure and validate that the feelings are real, via instruments, but no “one” will actually be feeling the feelings.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">The third stage entails creating in software the meaningful memories and patterns of thought of the original person being mindcloned. This can be considered the identity module. If this is a case of a de novo cyberconscious being, i.e., a beman, then this identity module is either missing or is created from whole cloth. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">Finally, a consciousness bridge will be developed that marries the reasoning, sentience and identity modules, giving rise to autonomy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">with</i> empathy and hence consciousness. Feelings and emotions will be mapped to memories and characteristic ways of processing information. There will be a sentient research subject when the consciousness bridge first connects the autonomy, empathy and identity modules. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">This bridging approach to ethically creating mindclones is reminiscent of Dennett’s observation that the disassociation from themselves that some victims of horrible abuse exhibit – a kind of denial that the abuse happened to them – is not only a way to avoid the sensation of suffering, but is also likely to be the normal state in beings that have not integrated consciousness into their mind.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a> In other words, if a being is unable to mentally organize a conceptualized self into a mental world of conceptualized things and experienced sensations, then they cannot actually suffer from pain because there is not a yet a self to suffer. Pain can be experienced, and it can hurt like hell, but it is an autonomic hurt and not a personally experienced hurt. In Dennett’s view, when people witness this kind of pain in most animals, they anthropomorphize themselves into the animal’s position and imagine the animal’s hurt. But because most animals cannot do this, they cannot hurt. Similarly, until a self was bridged into a mindclone’s or beman’s complex relational database of mindware and mindfiles, there would be “no one home” to complain.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">Ethically, approval from research authorities should be obtained before the consciousness bridge is activated. There will be concern not to cause gratuitous harm, nor to cause fear, and to manage the subject at the end of the experiment gracefully or to continue its virtual life appropriately. The ethics approvals may be more readily granted if the requests are graduated. For example, the first request could be to bridge just a small part of the empathy, identity and autonomy modules, and for just a brief period of time. After the results of experiments are assessed, positive results would be used to request more extensive approvals. Ultimately there would be adequate confidence that a protocol existed pursuant to which a mindclone could be safely, and humanely, awakened into full consciousness for an unending period of time – just as there are analogous protocols for bringing flesh patients out of medically induced comas.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">For example, before companies are allowed to test new drugs on patients they must first test a very small dose of the drug, for a very short period of time, on a healthy volunteer. Only gradually, based on satisfaction with the safety of previous tests, are companies allowed to test the drugs more robustly. Analogously, we can envision ethical authorities first permitting the test of only a small sliver of consciousness and only for a small sliver of time. Gradually, as ethical review committees become convinced that the previous trials were safe (did not cause pain or fear), greater tests of consciousness would be permitted. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">Of course we are all aware of drugs that have been withdrawn from sale after having even been approved. In these cases evidence of dangerous side effects appear that were not evident during the clinical trials. No doubt the same situation will occur with mindclones – some tortured minds may be created inadvertently. This does not mean it is unethical to create mindclones. It means that every means practical should be employed to minimize the risks of such side effects, and if they manifest, to be able to rapidly resolve the problem. For example, if test equipment indicates a serious problem with a mindclone it should be promptly placed into a “sleep-mode” so as not to suffer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">In the graduated process described above the experimental subject still did not consent to being “born.” However, ey could not so consent. In these cases a guardian (such as an institutional review board or certified cyberpsychiatrist or attorney) can ethically consent on an incompetent’s behalf, with such conditions as they may to impose. Alternatively, humans may in fact consent that their donated mindfiles can be used to create mindclones through a medical research process, assuming such consent was fully informed with a disclosure of the risks to the best of the researcher’s abilities.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">In the foregoing way it will be possible to ethically develop mindware that can be approved by regulatory authorities as capable of producing safe and effective mindclones for ordinary people. The authority may be the FDA in the U.S., or the EMA in the E.U., or some new regulatory entity. They will need to be assured that the mindware is safe and effective, and that proving it so was accomplished via clinical trials that were ethically conducted. As shown in the answer to this Question, by taking the inchoate mindclone through incrementally greater stages of consciousness, the regulatory hurdle can be met.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><u>What’s the Big Deal – Just Me and My Mindclone</u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TYFmzxeWJhw/TauQsvPXOEI/AAAAAAAACfQ/leXUMhS5P0c/s1600/artificial-intelligence-d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TYFmzxeWJhw/TauQsvPXOEI/AAAAAAAACfQ/leXUMhS5P0c/s320/artificial-intelligence-d.jpg" width="243" /></a>Another approach to the ethics of mindcloning is to remember the explanation in Question 23 that a mindclone and eir biological original are the same person. Hence, the ethical requirement of “consent” is satisfied so long as a biological person requests their mindfile to be activated with mindware into a mindclone. For example, there is no ethical objection to a person authorizing one, two or twenty-two plastic surgeries upon their face, in the process transforming their looks almost beyond recognition. With mindcloning the plastic surgery is replaced with cyber surgery, and it is performed outside of one’s body. However, the end result, functionally, is quite similar – a person has consented to change of self -- from one face to another in the case of plastic surgery; from one instantiation to two instantiations in the case of mindcloning. In each case the individual’s future will be changed, because others will interact differently with them, and they will behave differently. However, we recognize the right for a person to medically do as they please with their body (and mind), provided no doctor is being called upon to harm them without a countervailing benefit.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">When consciousness first arises in a mindclone, it is not a new consciousness but an expansion of an existing consciousness. If it hurts, if it frightens, if it enlightens, it is not pain, fear or inspiration occurring to a new soul, but to an existing soul who now transcends two substrates, brain and software. The opening of consciousness in a mindclone is like what occurs to us when we have a profound educational experience. I remember that I cried when I first read how the Nazis tied the legs of pregnant Jews together to kill them and their babies, and how, half a century later, the Liberian rebels chopped off the hands of young teenagers and talented craftsmen. My consciousness opened up to realms of cruelty that I had never imagined. I can’t say that I’m any better off for that education, but I knew what I was getting into in reading those stories. Similarly, creating a mindclone is going to change our minds. But it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our</i> minds that we are changing, and this is something we have an ethical right to do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">We must also always remember that our minds are dynamically evolving pastiches of information and patterns of information processing. There is no such thing as having one mind, completely formed at birth, and never changing after that. Indeed, an excellent definition of <span style="color: green;">a mind is that which idiosyncratically aggregates, utilizes and exchanges information and information processing patterns.</span> Consider the following meditation by Douglas Hofstadter:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><br />
<blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">“We are all curious collages, weird little planetoids that grow by accreting other people’s habits and ideas and styles and tics and jokes and phrases and tunes and hopes and fears as if they were meteorites that came soaring out of the blue, collided with us, and stuck. What at first is an artificial, alien mannerism slowly fuses into the stuff of our self, like wax melting in the sun, and gradually becomes as much a part of us as ever it was of someone else (and that person may very well have borrowed it from someone else to begin with). Although my meteorite metaphor may make it sound as if we are victims of random bombardment, I don’t mean to suggest that we willingly accrete just any old mannerism onto our sphere’s surface – we are very selective, usually borrowing traits that we admire or covet – but even our style of selectivity is itself influenced over the years by what we have turned into as a result of our repeated accretions. And what was once right on the surface gradually becomes buried like a Roman ruin, growing closer and closer to the core of us as our radius keeps increasing. All of this suggests that each of us is a bundle of fragments of other people’s souls, simply put together in a new way. But of course not all contributors are represented equally. Those whom we love and who love us are the most strongly represented inside us, and our “I” is formed by a complex collusion of all their influences echoing down the many years.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a></div></blockquote><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The relevance of Hofstadter’s extended metaphor lies in its implication that a mindclone is very much a part of its biological original because so very much of it would be copied from the original. If we are an agglomeration of other people, we surely must be much more an agglomeration of ourselves -- even as we evolve from month to month and year to year. Our mindclones will be consolidations of ourselves, extensions of ourselves, and expansions of ourselves. They will be “of ourselves” and hence we are on firm ethical ground when we consent to their conscious awakening.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Quite a different situation prevails for the creation of a non-mindclone beman. Such consciousness is not an extension of anyone, but an entirely new idiosyncratic mixture of information and information processing patterns. The creation of such consciousness could be ethically considered as an exercise of a person’s own personal autonomy only in terms of each person having a right to create new life, as with biological reproductive rights.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>The Ethics of Practicality</u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Singularity is Near</i>, futurist Ray Kurzweil argues with environmentalist Bill McKibbon over the ethics of keeping people alive as long as technology makes a good quality of life possible. McKibbon says he is worried about the ethics of avoiding death. Kurzweil responds, “I don’t think people are going to wax philosophical if they are healthy but 120 years old, and a government official says they have to die.” The clear implication is “hell no.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HpnisATQZcE/TauRJHTeqHI/AAAAAAAACfU/Ofk83-GBclI/s1600/SIN53007+-+Posterv4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HpnisATQZcE/TauRJHTeqHI/AAAAAAAACfU/Ofk83-GBclI/s320/SIN53007+-+Posterv4.jpg" width="240" /></a>Similarly, I started a truck locating company called Geostar back in the 1980s. At first people wrung their hands over the ethics of monitoring the truck drivers’ locations via satellite. Many thought the drivers would rip the satellite locators off their cab roofs. Instead, the drivers embraced the technology because it enabled them to make much more money. The satellite tracking technology permitted trucking company dispatchers to know at all times if locator-equipped drivers were close to the locations newly called-in loads. Not a single locator was ripped off the thousands of trucks using our service.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I think practically speaking the benefits of having a mindclone will be so enticing that any ethical dilemma will find a resolution. With mindclones we are offering people the opportunity to cram twice as much life into each day, absorb twice as many interesting things and continue living beyond the days of their bodies – with a practical hope of future transplantation via downloading into a new body. I doubt that those who wax philosophically about the ethics of mindcloning will win many arguments. People will want their mindclones, like we want smartphones, especially as they become cheaper and better.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There will be different companies competing to offer mindclone-creating mindware. As described in Questions 12 and 16, they will need some sort of regulatory approval in order to legally sell their mindware (as opposed to black market sales). The public will be reluctant to permit cyber-consciousness to arise in great numbers without some guarantee of its safety and efficacy, e.g., lack of psychoses in mindclones. Certainly the public will only accept the citizenship of mindclones that are created from mindware that has been certified by an expert government agency to produce mindclones that are mentally equivalent to their biological originals (assuming adequate mindfiles).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I think it is unlikely that cyber-consciousness will be accepted as real consciousness until it has manifested itself, probably many times over, and been shown to be persuasive in media interviews and court cases. Hence, it will be difficult to hold up experimental development of cyber-consciousness because regulators will not believe there is any real sentience to worry about – “just code.” Yet, once cyber-consciousness has appeared, and been generally accepted, then the ethics of its development is a moot point.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thus, practically speaking, the first mindclones will arise without much (or any formal) ethical protection during their development. Before the mindware that produced these mindclones can be generally marketed to the public, as certified to produce mindclone citizen extensions of biological originals, government agencies will require safety and efficacy testing. Specifically, government agencies will want proof that the mindware produces a healthy mind, and one that is practically indistinguishable from the mind of the biological original with an adequate size mindfile. Government agencies will not give their blessings to such proof unless it is developed ethically. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ethical guidelines for developing mindclones will include a requirement of consent for the creation of a conscious being. As to the creation of mindclones, the consent of the biological original will likely be acceptable. As to the creation of bemans, there will be a more challenging pathway. Ethical review boards will need to be persuaded that the beman minds are not suffering during the process of accruing cyber-consciousness. This is not an insuperable barrier. However, it will require a much more deliberate development pathway based upon numerous graduated introductions of elements of cyber-consciousness, such as autonomy, empathy, identity and software bridges amongst these elements.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The bottom line is that ethical considerations favor a more rapid introduction of mindclones than non-mindclone bemans. Ultimately, however, the seeming catch-22 of how does a consciousness consent to its own creation can be solved.</div><div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a> D. Dennett, Kinds of Minds, New York: BasicBooks, 1996, pp. 166-68.</div></div><div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> D. Hofstadter, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Am A Strange Loop</i>, p. 251-52.</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-3513479455392177192011-03-20T20:38:00.000-04:002011-03-20T20:38:54.200-04:0024. WON’T MINDCLONES JUST BE FOR THE RICH AND FAMOUS?<style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“So the first to come with cash to spend</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Will be the first one served</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We've got a box to put in your brain </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hard wired for downloading</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">All the secrets and the mysteries</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">You've been selfishly withholding”</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Tracy Chapman, “Hard-Wired”</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1987 was the first year in which one billion people boarded airline flights. In that year the world’s population hit 5 billion, meaning approximately 20% of all people experienced a fantastic luxury not available to history’s wealthiest monarchs. By 2005 two billion people were boarding airliners each year, and the world’s population had grown to 6.5 billion. In the short span of years between 1987 and 2005, airline flight grew from being a right of 20% to a right of 31% of humanity, from barely a fifth to almost a third. Even assuming more frequent flights by the wealthier, this is startling evidence of the democratization of technology.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1987 was also noteworthy as the first year mobile phone sales hit one million units. A tool for the rich? Twenty-two years later, in 2009, half the world’s population owned their own mobile phone. <i>From one million to three billion in 22 years.</i> Even assuming some rich people have two or more mobiles, this is undeniable evidence of the democratization of technology.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-TG79_obvIZ8/TYaXqI3ZQPI/AAAAAAAACeo/RMifZBZIJgY/s1600/bot+or+not.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-TG79_obvIZ8/TYaXqI3ZQPI/AAAAAAAACeo/RMifZBZIJgY/s320/bot+or+not.jpg" width="140" /></a>As with flying and phoning, so it will be with mindcloning. At first just a few. Almost overnight it will be almost everyone. Technology democratizes. That’s what it does. I can’t think of a technology that does not democratize. Heart transplants? The first was in 1967, and currently thousands of poor and middle class people are getting them each year, mostly in countries such as the United States (including at least one impoverished prisoner), but also countries such as Vietnam and India (where the first recipient was the wife of a handkerchief vendor). The improvement of eyesight? Eyeglasses are almost universally available, and in wealthier countries even those in the lowest wealth deciles of the population routinely wear contact lenses or have corrective eye surgery.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even in totalitarian countries, technology democratizes. Citizens of non-capitalist or non-democratic countries rarely lack TVs or radios, even if they have little interesting content available. Aside from sub-Saharan Africa, 90% or more of all urban populations worldwide have access to electricity, and even 50% or more have access in rural areas.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a> Even in Africa, wracked by impediments to technological development, two-thirds of city dwellers and a quarter of villagers have electricity.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Not one single person, monarch or mendicant, had access to the magic of electricity for over 97% of recorded history. Yet, in that last three percent of recorded history since the technology arose, it has been made available to over half the species, including the poor in the great majority of countries. Facts such as this demonstrate that mindcloning technology will rapidly be available to the masses. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What possible reason would there be for mindcloning technology to be a unique exception to the overwhelming tendency of technology to democratize, especially information technology? It would have to be something uniquely related to mindcloning. It could not be anything such as mindcloning involving storage of a lot of personal data – many companies have already democratized that function. The only thing really unique about mindcloning is that it creates a new form of life, vitological life. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hzn7nCuYdj0/TYaeBSSbrtI/AAAAAAAACe0/K1w-iQbbHkE/s1600/test-tube+baby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hzn7nCuYdj0/TYaeBSSbrtI/AAAAAAAACe0/K1w-iQbbHkE/s320/test-tube+baby.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>In fact, though, there are many examples of democratized technology for creating new forms of life. From biologically-produced new kinds of medicine (ie, creating new kinds of bacteria that make pharmaceutical ingredients), to transgenically-produced new kinds of crops and animals, new forms of life have in every instance been rapidly made available to far greater populations than the rich. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps it is the fact that the mindclones will be sentient life that will be used as an argument to restrict them to the rich? Not a chance. Humans produce sentient life by the mega-ton, from pets to pregnancies, and there is no possible way for the rich to corner the market (nor would there be any reason to do so). Or maybe it is the fact that the mindclones might be so smart that the rich will want to keep all of that intelligence for their own quest to get ever richer? While I do not doubt that they would, if they could, the historical record shows that they can’t, and hence they shan’t. The supercomputers of 20 years ago are less powerful than the laptops of today. Indeed, a run-of-the-mill MacBook Pro is over 1000 x more powerful than the legendary Cray-1 supercomputer. In other words, any effort by the rich and powerful to control mindclone technology would be as fruitless as an effort to control the Cray supercomputers of the late 20<sup>th</sup> century – other companies’ technologies will swirl around the controlled technology, like a rushing river around boulders in its riverbed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t believe there is any doubt as to why technology always democratizes. It is as simple as this: (1) people want what makes life better for other people (generally this entails technology), (2) satisfying popular wants is in the self-interests of those who control technology (both technology originators and government regulators), and (3) over time the magnitude of these two factors overwhelm any countervailing forces (such as cultural bugaboos or fears of losing control). The wanted technology becomes available, either because scales of production make it cheaper, innovation makes it more accessible<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></a>, or officialdom finds its interests better served by channeling rather than blocking the wanted technology. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-JwohPtPIXrY/TYacdX6NHHI/AAAAAAAACew/ZcdshPDZVPc/s1600/rockwell_antenna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-JwohPtPIXrY/TYacdX6NHHI/AAAAAAAACew/ZcdshPDZVPc/s320/rockwell_antenna.jpg" width="296" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are two further reasons why mindcloning will be rapidly democratized. The first is that the marginal costs of providing mindfile storage and mindware vitalizations to the billionth, two billionth, three billionth and so on persons are virtually nil. The second reason is that it is in the economic interests of the persons having mindclone technology to share it as broadly as possible. Each reason will be considered in more detail below.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s first think about the costs of mindcloning. There are four main elements: (1) the cost of storing a person’s mindfile, estimated in Question 1 as about a gigabyte a month based on Gordon Bell’s experience, (2) the cost of running that mindfile through vitalizing mindware to set its consciousness parameters, (3) the cost of transmitting mindfile data and mindclone consciousness, and (4) the cost of user electronics for accessing mindclones. Because the costs of these elements are amortized across tens of millions if not billions of users, the incremental costs of these for each person are negligible. For example, if it costs a billion dollars to create mindware, the costs per person are but one dollar for a billion people and fifty cents for two billion people. Assume the cost of building out a high-speed transmission network with capacity for six billion mindclones is $6 billion. In that case, the cost is $2/mindclone for three billion mindclones, but only $1/mindclone for six billion mindclones.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There has never been an easier thing to place in the hands of the masses than information. Shortwave radio broadcasts cover every human in the world for the same cost as if there were only 1% as many humans spread throughout the world. Consequently, the cost of shortwave radio per person is less the more people who listen. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Sirius XM Satellite Radio project I launched in the 1990s cost over a billion dollars. In a way that was the price that one very wealthy person would have had to pay for the enjoyment of satellite radio. It was possible to offer the service only to rich people, say for a million dollars a year, so that they could show off their exclusive and amazing audio toy. But nobody considered doing that for even a millisecond. Instead we priced the service around $10 a month and today over 20 million people listen. That billion dollar project, which grew to over two billion dollars, when divided by 20 million listeners, comes out to just $100 per person. It will be much the same way with mindcloning.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mindclone technology is simply the shortwave or satellite radio of tomorrow. Instead of someone sending commoditized information down the airwaves to the masses, in the form of broadcasts, for matriculation and selection within the brains of those masses, someone will send individualized information down the cyberchannels to the masses, in the form of mindclone consciousness, for refinement and enhancement via interaction with the brains of those masses. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a 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" /></a>The second factor forcing democratization of mindfile technology is the economic interests of its creators. The more people who create mindfiles, the wealthier will be those who create mindfile technology. This is really just Google on steroids (or Facebook, or Twitter, or Tencent, or a dozen other competitors). It is in the economic interests of Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on to share their technology as broadly as possible. The more people who use a social media site, the more valuable the owner of that site becomes. This is because more people, more human attention, translates, some way or another, into more money. And so it will be with mindfiles. The sites, or sources, that we go to for our mindware, or for tune-ups of our mindware, or for storage of our mindfiles, or for organization of our mindfiles, or for housing of our mindclones, or for socializing of our mindclones – those sites and sources will be valuable to the people and companies who want to sell things to us…things like virtual real estate, and things like real-world interfaces.</div><div><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="edn1"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a> International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook, 2008, http://www.iea.org/weo/electricity.asp</div></div><div id="edn2"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> Ibid.</div></div><div id="edn3"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></a> Entrepreneurs in developing countries often excel at figuring out ways to deliver rich country technology for a small fraction of the offering price. </div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-90372519964931154162011-02-20T19:13:00.001-05:002011-02-20T19:26:17.300-05:0023. WHAT IF MY MINDCLONE WANTS TO BE ME?<style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“If I am I because you are you, and if you are you because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.” </i>Hassidic Proverb<i></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“There was a young man who said, ‘Though</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>It seems that I know that I know,</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i> What I </i>would<i> like to see</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i> Is the ‘I’ that knows ‘me’</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>When I </i>know<i> that I know that I know.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">Alan Watts</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Your mindclone <i>will</i> want to be you because your mindclone will <i>be</i> you. I know this is tough to swallow, so with a nod to former President Bill Clinton<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a>, let’s say it <span style="color: red;">all comes down to </span><i style="color: red;">how you define</i><span style="color: red;"> what makes ‘me’ me. ;-)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Much of philosophy and psychology grapples with the meaning of me. Yet there is little that is agreed upon. To most people, ‘me’ is a first person pronoun for a consciousness. There is also general agreement that no two consciousnesses are the same, so ‘me’ is equivalent to personal uniqueness. To such people, if they came upon someone exactly like themselves, they would have to conclude that ‘me’ was a two-body self – still unique, but spread across two bodies. We never have that experience, so we feel strongly that me is a totally unique entity, both in consciousness and embodiment, and it is that very uniqueness, that makes ‘me’ me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Unique-Entity Definition of Me</u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SiHNg7WI25I/TWGqrNtXFEI/AAAAAAAACdw/dOgetXnxqwQ/s1600/continuity+of+self.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SiHNg7WI25I/TWGqrNtXFEI/AAAAAAAACdw/dOgetXnxqwQ/s320/continuity+of+self.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>Now this unique-entity definition of me does not require that me’s uniqueness be static. Everyone realizes we are constantly forgetting, and more-getting, thinking good thoughts on one day and bad thoughts on another. Hence, me’s uniqueness really means a unique stream of connected conscious states. I am ‘me’ because I have pretty much the same (but not exactly, as I know they are subtly changing) mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values as previously, or at least I remember once having them and evolving from them. This is what is meant by “connected conscious states.” I am me because, for starters, when I wake up each morning, I remember (ie, I know) where I am, who I am, when I am, what I should do, why I’m doing it, and how I got to these states of being. It’s not like I need a user’s manual. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Eyes open: <i>my bedroom</i>. Thoughts flowing: <i>get dressed, expected at work</i>. See bedmate: <i>my soulmate, I love her so much, slide over to kiss her good morning</i>. <i>Thinking is hazy. Need coffee</i> Drinking coffee: <i>TGIF, gonna ride my bike farther tomorrow than last weekend, gotta run, first meeting in one hour</i>. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mnMrEihVQaQ/TWGrD_yscVI/AAAAAAAACd0/MrjNvOcvCjI/s1600/Fuzzy+Me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Each italicized phrase in the above example is connected to my memories. That is what makes me ‘me.’ My soulmate doesn’t have or know about my first meeting in one hour. If I say to her, “get up, you have a first meeting in one hour,” she’ll reply “not me.” As I move through the day everything I know and do is connected to memories of things I knew and did. I have new experiences and learn new things, there are surprises, but those new parts of me fit like jigsaw puzzle pieces into pre-existing parts of me. There is nobody that <i>continues</i> just like me!<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Part of the unique-entity view of me is the perspective that ‘me’ is kind of a fiction. In this philosophical-psychological theory, the concept of a ‘me’ is something the immense neural web in our brain naturally makes up (greatly assisted by language and social conditioning). A constant ‘me’ is an effective organizational axis for a brain that receives blizzards of input. A body that does what ‘me’ says will usually be a happier body. ‘Me’ is not an organ in my brain. It is simply a term for a neural pattern that associates its connected body, and its safety and even survival, with relatively consistent personal characteristics. In the same way that the brain interprets the jerky images sent to it by the eye as a stable image, the brain interprets the jerky thoughts arising in it as a stable identity -- me. Brains that did not do this did not pass on that survival-threatening dysfunction to many offspring. Something in our genetic coding predisposes neural patterns to construct a ‘me.’ Perhaps it is related to our propensity for language.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If I remember making a mindclone, then I must conclude that mindclone is part of me, because it will have a connected stream of mental stuff just like me and unlike anyone else. It is weird to have two me’s, but I have only myself to blame for that. I can’t blame the mindclone for telling me what to do, since my own mind tells me what to do. If I ignore the mindclone, it will keep banging away at me, like an ignored conscience. “Hey original mind, don’t watch that horror movie, you won’t sleep good. You insist, huh? Well, fine, I’m not going to stream it. You’ll be sorry!” The mindclone is just as much a part of me as are the different parts of my brain (like the part that tells me to close my eyes during the scariest part of a film that another part told me to go see). Perhaps I should have had the foresight to remember too many chefs spoil the broth!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The fact that one of ‘me’ saw the horror flick, and the other ‘me’ didn’t, does not make them less of one ‘me.’ That is because nobody thinks what makes ‘me’ ‘me’ to be an <i>identity</i> of mental state from time to time. Biological minds constantly forget huge tracts of experience, only to later remember some, but it still feels like the same ‘me.’ </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What matters is as simple as this: is the stream of self-experienced mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values (a) seemingly connected over time, and (b) largely differentiable from others? If the answers are yes, then that stream is ‘me,’ even if present in more than one form – body and mindclone. If the answer to (a) is no, then I don’t really know who I am; I’m amnesiac or some kind of a constructed hodge-podge of other people’s minds. I’m not a ‘me,’ or perhaps I’m an evacuated ‘me’, because I don’t have a past. The rare cases of people who unfortunately have virtually no memory<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></a>, but live in an eternal present, are in essence mini, mini, mini ‘me’s. If the answer to (b) is no, then I’m not a ‘me,’ but a sort of commoditized person who lacks the idiosyncrasy to create a unique consciousness. But if I’m only <i>slightly</i> differentiable from the mind of my mindclone, or from the mind of my biological original, then I am a ‘me’, and that ‘me’ exists across two substrates – body and mindclone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s a conversation with a skeptic to sharpen the distinctions being made about what makes a “me” me:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me</u>: <i>If there is someone </i><b>else</b><i>, no matter how connected they are to my background and to my mind, they are someone </i><b>else</b><i>. Therefore, they cannot be me!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness</u>: <i>You are assuming your conclusion. You are simply asserting as a matter of definition that someone else cannot be you. It is like saying any guy wearing pink is gay, but we all know that is not always true</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>But the word “me” means “not someone else”, so someone else cannot be me. The color pink on a guy does not mean gay. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>Your definitional approach doesn’t help, because you have still not described what is “someone else” except by reference to “not me.” The only way to make progress is to describe “me” functionally, in a way that can be measured without regard to semantic equivalents.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me</u>: <i>OK, how would we do that? Isn’t it kind of too obvious to measure?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness</u>. <i>Functionally, “me” is someone whose entire consciousness is a stream of continued and largely unique memories and behaviors. If two or more beings share such a comprehensive stream of largely unique memories and behaviors, then functionally they are a “me” that extends across those beings.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me</u>: <i>Aren’t you just doing what you accused me of? Assuming your own conclusion? In this case you are saying a “me” is a “stream of largely unique memories and behaviors” whereas I was saying a “me” is “not someone else.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>There is an important difference. I’m setting out an empirical test for determining if a “me” exists: examining whether two or more beings in fact share their stream of largely unique memories and behaviors. You, on the other hand, were saying that no examination is necessary because, by definition, a different body or “else” is a different “me.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>Ah-hah. Now I see your point. To be scientific we should define “me” in terms of something that can be empirically assessed, such as with psychological tests. Then, if two bodies score the same on that test, then they must be a common “me.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness</u>: <i>Precisely. Furthermore, we can think of “me” not as an either-or state but as a variable, analogic state. We can be more-or-less the same me without testing identically the same, because all of us have more of a fuzzy than a crystal clear identity. After all, we each change from day-to-day.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me: </u> <i>You are so right. I’m largely the same as I was last year, but definitely not exactly the same.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness</u>: <i>And it is because of that “largely the same” that we all think of you as the same Mr. Me. If your mindclone came along and also had largely the same mind as you, we’d also think of him as part of Mr. Me.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me</u>: <i>Well, watch out, he’s likely to be a much better debater than I am!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness</u>: <i>I would look at it as the creation of a mindclone made you a much better debater, just as would better training, more education and lots of practice. Your mindclone will be part of you!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>Touche!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Just because today the only me’s we know are one-body, one-‘me’ me’s, does not mean it will always be that way. Once the characteristics that makes a ‘me’ me become duplicable, as with mindclones, then the instantiation of a ‘me’ can be duplicated as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Unbounded Definitions of Me</u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: right;"></div>The above definition of me is based upon our common sense concepts of ‘me.’ Even it yielded the odd result that, with mindclones, what makes ‘me’ ‘me’ will make ‘me’ twice. Philosophers have developed counter-intuitive definitions of ‘me’ that, for all we know, may be closer to a strange truth. There are many variants for these abstract personal identity concepts. They all share the common feature of me-ness extending not only beyond one body, but also beyond the uniqueness of any one mind (or mindclone). Let’s consider these other definitions of me, and examine what happens to mindclones if what makes ‘me’ ‘me’ includes a large element of ‘we.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The 20<sup>th</sup> century philosopher Alan Watts synergized ancient and modern “holistic” or “universalist” thinking about personal identity in <i>The Book on the Taboo About Knowing Who We Are</i>. Watts argues that individual, unique ‘me-ness’ is an illusion born of neural predispositions and social pressures to form an ego.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[iv]</span></span></span></a> In reality, he insists, we are just transient facets of an environmental process of change.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[v]</span></span></span></a> Watts and others of his school see our unique thoughts as nothing but one of countless fleeting expressions of a universal medium. To them, each ‘me’ is like the momentary solution that pops out of a complex formula once you plug some numbers into enough of its variables. The real ‘me’ is not the solution, but the complex formula and the process of selecting numbers to plug into variables:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">“We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come <i>out</i> of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[vi]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In this universalist point of view all humans are made of atoms that came from starbursts across the galaxy. Therefore, humans are part of the galaxy and the galaxy is the real me. Taking it a step further, brains are made of galactic matter that thinks thoughts, and those thoughts must be of something within the galaxy. Therefore, the real situation is that the galaxy is thinking thoughts of itself. The ancient and modern Taoists summarized by Watts are basically saying reality is the universe playing with itself; thought and identity are universal mental masturbation.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[vii]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dan Kolak is a more recent and rigorous exponent of this perspective. In his book, <i>I Am You</i>, he defines “Open Individualism” as recognizing that the <i>borders</i> between people (such as our skin or mental uniqueness) are not actually <i>boundaries</i> between people.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[viii]</span></span></span></a> Kolak teaches that since boundaries (which make higher-level distinctions than borders) are transparent among people, all people are in fact one common ‘me.’<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[ix]</span></span></span></a> For example, a pebble that is half black and half white has a color border, but that border is not a boundary to its stoneness. We think of it as one pebble, notwithstanding the fact that nature probably agglomerated it together from two different kinds of sand. Similarly, Kolak would say that the uniqueness we think of as ‘me’ is but a border that is easily transcended by shared human consciousness.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[x]</span></span></span></a> He would not believe consciousness is bounded by me-ness. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mnMrEihVQaQ/TWGrD_yscVI/AAAAAAAACd0/MrjNvOcvCjI/s1600/Fuzzy+Me.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mnMrEihVQaQ/TWGrD_yscVI/AAAAAAAACd0/MrjNvOcvCjI/s320/Fuzzy+Me.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conceptualizations of Me-ness</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course we have unique mannerisms, personalities, feelings, recollections, beliefs, attitudes and values. These are real borders. But we only have these attributes as a consequence of a common human consciousness based on common neural wiring and common social experiences. <span style="color: red;">Our uniqueness is not a boundary to our commonness.</span> Ergo, argues the Open Individualist, the ‘big Me’ (as in ‘we’) is the real ‘me’ and the ‘little me’ is but a mirage. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Another version of what might be called the ‘we-ness of me’ comes from Doug Hofstadter. In his book, <i>I Am a Strange Loop</i>, he observes that we each embed a bit of ourselves in everyone we interact with. The closer we are to the person, the more of ourselves are embedded in their psyche. At the extreme, you could think the thoughts, feel the feelings and talk the talk of someone you knew as well as yourself. Would they be you? It could get pretty blurry. As noted earlier in this Question, a “me” is “largely differentiable” from all others. <span style="color: red;">As two people become less differentiable from each other, but largely differentiable from all others, they merge toward a two-bodied ‘me.’</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We come into the world as a blank slate. We develop a personality that is a composite of all the people with whom we have engaged. It is somewhat like physically we are a mélange of our two parents’ genes, but psychically we are a mélange of many more people’s bemes. No sooner does our personality begin to emerge than it begins to embed elements of itself in all the minds it reaches. If Watts can be summarized as Universal Mental Masturbation, Hofstadter is more like The Endless Mental Orgy – everyone leaves more or less of themselves in many others, and are themselves shaped by many others. Both agree that Me is a very We kind of thing, although Hofstadter is much closer to our familiar unique-identity concept of ‘me.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A very cool thing for mindclones is that they have just as good a handle on being ‘me’ under the abstract, unbounded, universalist definitions as they do under the familiar unique-entity thinking. If we are all part of some great cosmic me, then creating a clone of a part is no less of that great cosmic me than the original. It will just be a modification of an indivisible aspect of an indefinite thing. Under unbounded definitions of me, creating a mindclone is of little more significance than getting an education, traveling the world or taking up an unusual hobby. A mind has been modified in each case. In no event does it change the underlying collectivist nature of ‘me.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The more people you feel are part of ‘me’ i.e., the larger is your meaning of ‘me’, then the more natural it will be to think of a mindclone as having the same identity as you. Indeed, to feel more comfortable with mindclones under the Unique-Identity approach to ‘me’, simply think of you and your mindclone the way Universalists think of all human beings. If you can see the unity of identity in you and your mindclone that the Universalists see in all consciousness, then the singular me-ness of a biological-mindclone composite will be quite clear.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To address the question at hand, what if my mindclone wants to be me? The universalist replies, “wake up and smell the metaphysics!” That “want” of the mindclone is of no significance to personal identity. “Me-ness” is not closed under borders of skin or software. The mindclone already is you, and together the two of you are an indivisible element of all human consciousness. The only boundary to me, or to you, in terms of personal identity, is the limit of global human (including beman) consciousness.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, don’t get too worked up over whether your mindclone really is you, or whether it really wants to be you, or even whether you are you. People far smarter than you or I have studied this matter for centuries and are quite foggy on the definition of what makes ‘me’ me. If it’s blurry enough to include the whole human race, or even blurry enough to include all the people we know well, then surely it is blurry enough to include a man and his mindclone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At minimum your mindclone and you will be just like yourself – always trying to figure out what to do. Get up or stay in bed. Study or play. Watch this movie or that. At most your mindclone and you will be part of a great we-ness that subsumes all me’s within it. In any event, just tell yourselves, two minds are better than one.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>The Your Life or Mine Challenge</u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At most presentations I give about mindclones, I can count on one of the following questions:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">“Come on, if either me or my mindclone is forced to choose one of us to die, who do you think will get the slug to the head? Proof that we are not one person is that I would fry my mindclone and my mindclone would fry me.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A variant of this challenge is as follows:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">“Suppose I have a mindclone, but I then find out that I have a fatal illness and will die. You know that I’ll be very sad to leave this good green earth. That sadness alone is proof that I’m not my mindclone and my mindclone’s not me. If we were one person, then I wouldn’t be sad.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">These two challenges fail to realize that making a choice that favors part of you, or being sad about losing part of you, is a natural aspect of our composite me-ness. Those choices or sadness are not proof of different identities. Anything composite being will have different feelings about different parts. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When a person loses their hearing, the sighted part of them is still sad about that. It doesn’t mean that they were two different people. The part of their mind that loves music will be very sad, while another part of their mind will think “thank Goodness at least I can still admire visual art.” It is one person sorry to lose part of themselves but nevertheless soldiering on with life. So it would be with a mindclone. I’d be pissed to die – or for my mindclone to die. But this doesn’t make me and my mindclone two people. We are one composite ‘me’ who feels the pain of loss when it touches any aspect of us.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A forced decision, by definition, will have a winner and a loser. It is not surprising that decisions will be biased in favor of greater happiness. If a right-handed person has to choose an arm to cut off, ey’ll cut off the left arm, and vice versa for the left-handed person. It is not that the person doesn’t want both hands, and isn’t naturally a two-handed person. It is just that if forced to make a decision, a decision will be made in the direction of greater perceived happiness (or less regret).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As discussed earlier in this question, when we make a decision to create a mindclone we are expanding our mind in a very important way. That mental expansion will come with its own biases, just as we develop mental biases from all manner of life experiences. To pursue a mental bias is not to create a new personal identity. It is simply doing what seems to part of an individual to be in its overall best interest. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is a fuzziness to ourselves, and this fuzziness is amplified by mindcloning. We are not exactly the same day to day, and each of us is often of several “minds.” <span style="color: red;">If we create a mindclone, we have in essence created a larger me. It is therefore unavoidable that there will be more opportunities for conflicts and choices – more fuzziness to who is me.</span> But it is still ‘me.’ If we then alter our perspective and think like Hofstadter that there “are people in me”, and that there aspects of ‘me’ in the minds of our loved ones, we have clearly expanded both the size – and the fuzziness – of me once again. Finally, if we adopt an Open Individualist point of view, such as espoused by Dan Kolak or the universalism of a Tom Watts, we have expanded the size – and the fuzziness – of me toward infinity. Watts’ argues that the bodily parts of a person are not separate beings and:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">“In precisely the same way, the individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being. That is – rather literally – to be spellbound. Naturally, it isn’t the mere fact of being named that brings about the hoax of being a ‘real person’; it is all that goes with it. The child is tricked into the ego-feeling by the attitudes, words, and actions of the society which surrounds him – his parents, relatives, teachers, and, above all, his similarly hoodwinked peers. Other people teach us who we are.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hence, a mindclone is only going to feel as separate an identity from its biological original as it is socialized. A mindclone ‘gowith’ its biological original the way the crest of a wave ‘gowith’ its trough.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn11" name="_ednref11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 16pt;">[xi]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The answer to the “Your Life or Mine” challenge is that making a <i>larger</i> me, via mindcloning, implies different mental biases with respect to decisions, as well as both more possible sorrow over loss and more possible comfort over survival. The software substrate of you will think, if there must be a choice, that you will be more happy as IT substrate than as flesh, and the flesh substrate of you will think the opposite. This doesn’t make them different people. They are both trying to make the best of the situation for YOU, taking into account their substrate biases. But there is a continual stream of conscious states that transcends substrate. That continual stream is YOU. Each manifestation of YOU is trying to make the best decision for YOU. Let’s give our conversational skeptic another visit:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“I get the point about one ‘me’ transcending two forms. But the fact reminds that if the flesh ‘me’ is killed, then I will no longer have all these flesh sensations I appreciate. The mindclone continuation of me will never reprise my flesh feelings. That ‘me’ is gone.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>“Losing your flesh body would be a humongous tragedy, no doubt about it. But suppose you lost just your legs. Would you still be you?”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“Of course.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>“How about paralyzed from the neck down? Still you?”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“Horrible, but yes, still some shrunken form of me.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness</u>: <i>“Then you have agreed that if all that is left is your mind, you have suffered a terrible loss, but it is not the end of your ‘me-ness.’”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“Then at what point is my me-ness totally gone?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>“It is partly a matter of fact, and partly a matter of philosophy. Objectively, you me-ness is gone when observers could not find evidence that your unique pattern of thoughts and memories responded to events in the world.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“Such as if both my mindclone and flesh body were gone?”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>“Yes. But it could still be hypothesized that your unique pattern of thoughts and memories were responding to events in the world as interlaced subroutines within the minds of other people who knew you.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“Wow. That would mean that I continued to live as kind of a fractured self embedded in others?”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>“Exactly. Advanced psycho-metric techniques might even be able to detect this, and extract it back into a mindclone.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“Whoah, that’s wild!”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness:</u> <i>“And philosophically, if your unique pattern of thoughts and memories are simply expressions of a deeper, underlying humanity-wide mindspace, then nothing has really been lost at all. You live on in the global mindspace, although you don’t feel like you any more.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Master Me:</u> <i>“I rather like me, so I think I’ll stick with my mindclone. At least I know that’s really me.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Royal Me-ness: </u> <i>“There you go.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Any person is likely to feel a coin’s toss of indecision over life-changing events at some time or another in their life – generally more than once. We often regret the decisions we make, and at different times of our life, we might readily have made a decision opposite of one made earlier. Sometimes these different decisions could have been biased by which friends were persuading us at the time, or even just how healthy or ill we were feeling at the moment. This doesn’t make us different people, like split personalities. It simply means that even life-or-death decisions can be biased by composite parts of our psychological whole.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And so it is with Your Life or Mine. Perhaps the mindclone will choose life over the biological original. Or perhaps not. The decision will turn upon a complex array of decisional factors, unique to each circumstance. However the decision turns out, it doesn’t prove different identity. It just shows how one part of a composite self feels about total self-actualization at a particular moment in time.</div><div><br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="edn1"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a> Noah, T., “Bill Clinton and the Meaning of ‘Is’”, Slate, September 13, 1998, www.slate.com/id/1000162/</div></div><div id="edn2"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> “’Your brain damage complications were terrible, and it took a lot more to get you back than Sam and I. I can’t tell you how lonely I’ve been, but all these things of ours have kept me company.’ The lofty home was filled with possessions Judy had stored for them. Handling them helped Arnold grasp that his past life was real, not a dream to be tossed aside for new experiences, as if he’d suddenly sprung to life with no former existence.” Chamberlain, F. & L., eds., LifeQuest: Stories About Cryonics, Uploading and other Transhuman Adventures, Scottsdale: Create Space, 2009 at p. 123</div></div><div id="edn3"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[iii]</span></span></span></a> McGaugh, J., The Case of H.M.</div></div><div id="edn4"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[iv]</span></span></span></a> Watts, A., The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, New York: Vintage Books, 1966, 1989. Watts notes that “the individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you s separate being. This is – rather literally – to be spellbound. Naturally, it isn’t the mere fact of being named that brings about the hoax of being a ‘real person’: it is all that goes with it. The child is tricked into the ego-feeling by the attitudes, words, and actions of the society which surrounds him – his parents, relatives, teachers, and, above all, his similarly hoodwinked peers. Other people teach us who we are.” Ibid at pp. 69-70.</div></div><div id="edn5"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[v]</span></span></span></a> “[E]very organism is a process: thus the organism is not other than its actions. To put it clumsily: it is what it does. … The only real ‘you’ is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For ‘you’ is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new. What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean.” Ibid at pp. 97, 130-131. </div></div><div id="edn6"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[vi]</span></span></span></a> Ibid at p. 9.</div></div><div id="edn7"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[vii]</span></span></span></a> In a similar vein, see Peter White, The Ecology of Being, New York, All-in-All Books, 2006, p. 190 (“To be self-aware is to know intuitively that one is of everything and everything is of one.”)</div></div><div id="edn8"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[viii]</span></span></span></a> Kolak, D. I Am You: The Metaphysical Foundations for Global Ethics, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2004, p. 26. (“That I am is a fact; who I am is an interpretation. We might even say, personal identity is where epistemology and ontology meet, within us.”) Ibid at p. 5.</div></div><div id="edn9"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[ix]</span></span></span></a> Ibid at p. 38.</div></div><div id="edn10"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[x]</span></span></span></a> Ibid at p. 94.</div></div><div id="edn11"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref11" name="_edn11" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Futura; font-size: 12pt;">[xi]</span></span></span></a> Note 88, supra at 90.</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-59564832315549027212011-01-23T20:07:00.000-05:002011-01-23T20:07:54.986-05:0022. HOW CAN A MINDCLONE BE AN EXACT COPY OF A PERSON’S MIND?<i>“Ordinary men don't have much stomach for reality--even more so, horror. Memory is typically repressed or displaced.” </i> Sigmund Freud<br />
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<i>“Of all liars, the smoothest and most convincing is memory.”</i> Folk Saying<br />
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<i>“What should they know of England, who only England know?”</i> Rudyard Kipling<br />
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It can’t be. Even a so-called “identical twin” is not an identical twin. Even if one’s DNA is the same as another person, as with identical twins, there are differences in terms of when particular genes within that DNA are turned on and off. These differences are due to a bio-chemical process known as methylation (meaning the attachment of triggering molecules to genes within our DNA), which is encoded outside of our DNA in something called the epigenome. Even if two people have identical DNA, they will not have identical epigenomes, and hence the timing and magnitude of the expression of their DNA into a body will be different. The epigenome does not change things enough to prevent two identical twins from looking the same, but it will change things enough to prevent identical twins from always getting the same genetically-predisposed diseases.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzKLFjI4II/AAAAAAAACdA/u6nZFl_oZNw/s1600/same+difference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzKLFjI4II/AAAAAAAACdA/u6nZFl_oZNw/s320/same+difference.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
When one of two identical twins is exposed to a different pathogen than the other, the two twins’ immune systems will no longer be quite the same. Random errors in DNA copying that the cell fails to correct will occur during cell replication in one twin but not the other. We have 23 billion red blood cells alone (out of tens of trillions of human DNA-bearing cells in total). Even with our amazing human bodies, this leaves a lot of room for errors that crack the identicalness of so-called identical twins (an estimated 100,000 DNA copying mistakes occur daily based on a rate of about 3 uncorrected base pair errors per cell replication). Furthermore, we have ten times as many bacteria in and on our bodies as we have cells derived from our parents DNA. These bacteria, at least in absolute number, are most of us, and yet there is nothing identical about the specific bacteria populations that colonize identical twins.<br />
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Identical twins still feel that they are twins even though their bodies are not really identical. Each of us feels that we are the same body even though our own body is not identical day after day. Won’t these immaterial differences be just as irrelevant to minds as they are to bodies?<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: #990000;">The interesting question is not whether a mindclone is an exact copy of its original, but how different can they be without losing a common identity?</span> </span> It is<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"></span> impossible for a mindclone and a biological original to share every single memory. Even biological originals do not have the same memories from day to day, and surely not from year to year. Yet, memories are crucially important to identity. In the words of memory expert Prof. James McGaugh of UC Irvine:<br />
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<blockquote>“We are, after all, our memories. It is our memory that enables us to value everything else we possess. Lacking memory, we would have no ability to be concerned about our hearts, hair, lungs, libido, loved ones, enemies, achievements, failures, incomes or income taxes. Our memory provides us with an autobiographical record and enables us to understand and react appropriately to changing experiences. Memory is the ‘glue’ of our personal existence.” </blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzLbqqS4GI/AAAAAAAACdE/lKRikElv1cA/s1600/Science_of_Memory.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzLbqqS4GI/AAAAAAAACdE/lKRikElv1cA/s320/Science_of_Memory.JPG" width="252" /></a></div><br />
Prof. McGaugh’s cogent summary leaves bare the fact that <b>our personal identity exists as more than one set of memories.</b> For example, we need not remember everything about an enemy in order to remember that someone is an enemy. We need not remember everything about our income, or taxes, in order to remember that we have income and pay taxes. Indeed, the key to healthy memory is the largely automatic process of selecting what little to remember and what mostly to forget. <span style="color: #cc0000;">For a mindclone to be us, to have the same ‘glue’ of our personal existence, means that the mindclone needs to share our most important memorie</span>s – those that are retained because of the emotional contexts in which they were created or because of the significant repetitive effort we put into their formation – as well as the gist of our idiosyncratic selection process for what is worthy of remembering, and for how long. As that godfather of psychology William James so presciently observed:<br />
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<blockquote>“Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built…If we remembered everything, we should, on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take as long for us to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. ”</blockquote><br />
It will be a crucially important element of mindware design to ensure that most things are forgotten, and that the settings for the memory selection algorithm must closely match those of the biological original. <span style="color: #cc0000;">Mindware will set its selection algorithm for each person by first processing their mindfile and comparing the details a person evidences memory of (such as in digitized records of voice, video and images) with databases of the kinds of details that could have been remembered about each topic. </span>For example, if a person’s digitally recorded conversations (part of their mindfile) refer in detail to sports scores of the past week, but only sketchily to sports scores of the past month, then a curve of the selection algorithm can be determined with respect to sports scores. If another topic area reveals a greater degree of recall, then for topics with comparable emotional importance (as indicated in their mindfile) a different curve of the selection algorithm will be determined. <span style="color: #cc0000;">Ultimately the mindware will employ a memory selection algorithm that first categorizes inputs by a factor that correlates well with the degree and duration of detail that is recalled (as indicated in their mindfile), and then forgets those inputs in accordance with a time curve that applies to that and similar factors.</span> The algorithm will also accommodate memory adjuvants, such as especially high impact, emotional or repetitive experiences. The memory selection algorithm will be modeled closely on the way psychological studies have shown human minds to actually work.<br />
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Over one hundred years ago Hermann Ebbinghaus discovered, as shown in the chart below, that humans typically forget more than half the information they are exposed to in an hour, and retain only about a fifth of received information after a few days. With so much forgotten, a mindclone cannot be an exact copy of someone’s mind because every mind is itself constantly changing in its repertoire of memories. What is important is that the pattern of selective forgetting be comfortably similar – similar enough for a biological original to say of eir mindclone: “ey is I and I am ey.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzNf96HZ0I/AAAAAAAACdI/OgFEQagT-a8/s1600/forget.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzNf96HZ0I/AAAAAAAACdI/OgFEQagT-a8/s1600/forget.gif" /></a></div><br />
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Clearly, a biological original and eir mindclone will not remember most specific events in precisely the same way for precisely the same duration. But I don’t think this makes them different people. <span style="color: #cc0000;">We humans don’t remember events precisely the same way when we were young than when we were old, or when we are tired and when we are alert, or when we are happy and when we are sad. But we are still the same person. What is important is whether our core memories are the same, which they will be, as these will be recorded in our mindfile. What is also important is whether our general pattern of forgettng things is comparable, not precisely the same.</span> That too can be achieved via the aforementioned algorithm.<br />
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People are remarkably ready to alter their ability to forget things. The robust market in supplements to improve memory and learning aids to diminish forgetting are good proofs of this. Hence, having a mindclone that is somewhat better, or somewhat worse, at remembering things makes them no less the same identity as you. People may find themselves pleasantly surprised to be remembering more as a mindclone than as a human, or disturbed to be doing so. If it is a problem, they can go to a cyberpsychologist and have their algorithms adjusted so that they are comfortable with their degree of forgetfulness.<br />
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<b>Do We Really Know Who We Are?</b><br />
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In asking how a mindclone can really be a copy of our brain we face a bit of a dilemma. We cannot know whether there is a copy of our mind until there is a mindclone. We can then observe it respond to the world and determine whether, in fact, it responds the way we would respond. If so, mark one down for “good copy.” However, as a biological original, we cannot know if the mindclone is actually thinking the same thoughts and feeling the same feelings as are we. We can only make a best guess based on our conversations with the mindclone.<br />
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As the mindclone, we realize we are a mindclone and can assess how close we are to the biological original by comparing eir responses to the world with how we would be predisposed to respond. If very similar, then mark one down for “I am really a good mindclone. I am just like my biological original.” But we cannot really know if our internal thoughts are the same as the biological original’s thoughts. We can only make a best guess based on our conversations with the biological original.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzO2phrdzI/AAAAAAAACdM/lN3j3v2GGbM/s1600/MarBina+SF+Club.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzO2phrdzI/AAAAAAAACdM/lN3j3v2GGbM/s320/MarBina+SF+Club.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I think these best guesses are good enough to have confidence that the mindclone and biological original have similar enough internal states to be the same person. The main reason I think this is based upon my experience with people that I love and who profess love for me. Because I am not the mind of my spouse, or my mother, I cannot know directly whether they really love me or not. However, based on our conversations, and actions, I am totally convinced that they think of me the way I think of them – with greatest loving concern for the other’s happiness and health. Beyond that, I believe they are focusing on being satisfactorily occupied during the day. Because we are so close, I believe we can infer much of each other’s internal states. <br />
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On the other hand, many other people say “Martine, I love you.” However, I don’t feel that I understand their internal states. I’m not close enough to them. Their expressions of love are far short of the comprehensive relationship of shared experiences that I would need to infer their internal state. Indeed, over the years, people who said they love me have done things that I consider to be utterly surprising, if not shocking. Clearly, I did not know their internal states. To the contrary, the unexpected activities of my mother or my spouse were never shocking. They were behaviors I could fully see them doing based upon my understanding of their internal state.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzPamB-K2I/AAAAAAAACdQ/wDY81be54GM/s1600/rlr+atv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzPamB-K2I/AAAAAAAACdQ/wDY81be54GM/s320/rlr+atv.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
The point here is that sometimes, if two people are close enough, an internal state of a person can be largely inferred from their observable actions. When the two people become as close as a mindclone and an original, which is far closer than a spouse or mother, inferring their internal state becomes second nature. <b style="color: #cc0000;">When the internal state of another is second nature to one’s own internal state we have a difference that does not make a difference. When “I think like you think and you think like I think” then we are one personal identity.</b><br />
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We may well end up knowing ourselves best as mindclones, and we may well end up knowing the mindclones better than they know themselves. This is because it is hard see oneself from oneself, but with just a little bit of distance, the self comes into sharp relief. We earth dwellers never appreciated who we were so well as when we received the photograph from space of our blue-and-white planet suspended in inky black space.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzQjBby14I/AAAAAAAACdU/tv9zzLybnfk/s1600/continuity+of+self.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TTzQjBby14I/AAAAAAAACdU/tv9zzLybnfk/s320/continuity+of+self.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>And hence mindcloning is not about being accurate in every memory, in every thought pattern and in every emotion as to a biological original. It is, instead, about feeling that there is a oneness of personal identity between the two – a oneness that comes from a preponderance of common memories, emotions and patterns of thinking, selecting and forgetting. Philosophers sometimes refer to this as a continuity of self. As the 30-year-old self knows the 20-year-old self, though they are of course not the same, so the mindclone will know the biological original. A difference that makes no difference is not a meaningful difference.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-38135808148939756832010-12-24T16:43:00.010-05:002011-01-23T19:20:23.806-05:0021. WHAT IF THE MINDCLONES ARE AS BUGGY AS THE SOFTWARE I BUY FOR MY PC?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUD3piyCDI/AAAAAAAACcA/nj7NQD7ql_M/s1600/Grace%2BHopper%252C%2BInventor%2Bof%2BCompiler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUD3piyCDI/AAAAAAAACcA/nj7NQD7ql_M/s320/Grace%2BHopper%252C%2BInventor%2Bof%2BCompiler.jpg" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Admiral Grace Hopper</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<a href="http://www.ulrikereinhard.com/2010/12/23/what-if-the-mindware-is-buggy/">http://www.ulrikereinhard.com/2010/12/23/what-if-the-mindware-is-buggy/</a><br />
<br />
<div id=":9n"></div>It is natural to feel that software development will never get things right. We all feel frustrated by software that doesn’t work right. People in industry are constantly bemoaning the lateness and incompleteness of software projects. But the facts are better than they seem, and are improving rapidly. Over the 12 year period from 1994 to 2006, the percentage of software projects that were completed on time and functioned properly more than doubled, from 16% to 35%. That still leaves much to complain about, but it is also an impressive rate of improvement.<br />
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We should accept as fact that software will always have bugs, or function at times inappropriately. Admiral Grace Hopper, shown right, found an actual insect mucking up the works of an early generation computer, hence the term "software bug." <span style="color: red;">The important question is which errors can we accept and which are showstoppers? Our own brains give rise to many inappropriate thoughts and thought processes</span>. We can all live quite happily with occasional forgetfulness, inabilities to follow certain lines of reasoning, mind blocks, false senses of déjà vu, nightmares, emotional rages, wild thoughts, ennui, and depression. It is reasonable to expect our mindclones, like ourselves, to also get frazzled, freaked and frozen. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUInN9fKPI/AAAAAAAACcI/jhOT1uaHQyI/s1600/nightmares-new-friend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUInN9fKPI/AAAAAAAACcI/jhOT1uaHQyI/s320/nightmares-new-friend.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br />
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What differentiates normality from pathology is our ability to exercise supervisory control and to reset. Glitches are OK if they don’t get us trapped in a neurotic do-loop that renders us dysfunctional over an extended time period, or if they don’t otherwise have serious consequences. <span style="color: orange;">Hence the problematic software bugs for mindclones are the ones that don’t quickly resolve via a reset, but instead start the mindclone down a path of inappropriateness with adverse social consequences.</span> I believe most of these problems – like most dysfunctional PC bugs – can be resolved before hosting real users (i.e. consciousness). Most of the few remaining cyber-pathologies can be treated when identified with re-coding akin to neuropharmacology and neurosurgery. No doubt some seriously and incurably mentally ill mindclones will arise, either via unintended bugs or unimaginably horrible life experiences. We need to do our best for these tragic cases. However, as with humans, the risk of occasional debilitating mental illness is not a reason to stop the vast fountain of joy that flows from creating life.<br />
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Once cyberconsciousness is accepted as life, it will be illegal to employ mindware for producing human range Consciousness Products (CPs) that have not been certified by government agencies as safe and effective for producing mindclones. (See earlier blog posts for the definition and quantification of Consciousness Product). <span style="color: #7f6000;">Mindware will be considered a neuromedical technology – the transplanting of one’s mind to enhance one’s abilities and/or extend one’s life. As part of the government’s watchdog function for public safety, any new medical technology must be shown to be safe and effective before it is commercialized.</span> Hence, seriously buggy mindclones will be rare because seriously buggy mindware will be illegal.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUKHqcgTUI/AAAAAAAACcQ/EkbOS8maZcY/s1600/fda_131815.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUKHqcgTUI/AAAAAAAACcQ/EkbOS8maZcY/s320/fda_131815.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
A colleague of mine was a diagnosed schizophrenic, with his condition well managed by medicine. He took strong exception when he once heard someone object to the mindcloning of mentally ill people. <i><b>I agree with him. </b></i><br />
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<span style="color: #6aa84f;">The mindclone of a mentally ill person would, however, be ethically required to be equivalent to their therapeutically managed state.</span> Otherwise one would be violating the cardinal principal of medical ethics – first, do no harm. To create disease, as in creating a diseased mindclone, is to do harm. <br />
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Many mentally ill people often do not like their therapeutically managed state. They feel drugged. If such a person wants to create a mindclone of their diseased state we are faced with a conflict of <b><span style="color: #134f5c;">two important biocyberethical principles. The first principle is that of diversity, the libertarian notion that one should be free to do with their body what they want. In bioethics circles this is known as autonomy.</span> </b> Since a mindclone is not a separate person, but a spatially-distinct incarnation of a singular identity, the principle of diversity would argue for letting anyone mindclone themselves as they will.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRULjfU4JeI/AAAAAAAACcY/roegJ78V4Ns/s1600/bioethics1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRULjfU4JeI/AAAAAAAACcY/roegJ78V4Ns/s200/bioethics1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
<b><span style="color: #134f5c;">The second principle is unity, the democratic notion that the fabric of society should not be stretched so far that it begins to rip. Bioethicists would call this nonmalfeasance</span></b>. Pursuant to this principle society inhibits its members from harming themselves, especially via technology. It is felt that self-destructive behavior undermines the dignity of society by disrespecting the component individuals from whom society is comprised. Hence, medical technologies must “first, do no harm”, and have beneficent treatment as their purpose. It is not reasonable to expect society to endorse the intentional creation of mental illness via a government-approved product.<br />
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A nuanced middle position needs to be found when a conflict exists between the biocyberethical principles of diversity and unity. In the case of a schizophrenic mindclone the balance is struck by permitting the mindcloning of the non-schizophrenic state. With this position most of the goals of diversity are met because the individual is able to replicate the vast majority of their personality. On the other hand, the goals of unity are also met because no disease is intentionally created. There is a risk that the schizophrenia-suppressed mindclone will in some way become mentally unbalanced. But acceptance of this <span style="color: blue;">risk is part of the balance between the principles of diversity and unity.</span> Should the mindclone evidence schizophrenia there will be software tools available to try to treat the condition. If it becomes dangerous there will be cyberspace analogs to all the meatspace solutions to harmful mental illness.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUMf4qZ8OI/AAAAAAAACcg/IUw7QCBkjpc/s1600/Schizophrenia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="304" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUMf4qZ8OI/AAAAAAAACcg/IUw7QCBkjpc/s320/Schizophrenia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
It may seem unreasonable that there is no prohibition on one or two flesh originals passing on via coital reproduction their dominant or recessive genes for mental illness, while it would be illegal for them to do so via mindcloning technology. In the past the U.S. Supreme Court lent its support to laws that mandated sterilization of women thought to be feeble-minded and likely if not almost certain to create diminished capacity offspring. (The subjects of this case, Buck v. Bell, are the bottom image in this blog). Yet, today, biological reproduction is virtually without prior constraint in liberal democracies. There are five reasons for this:<br />
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<blockquote><ul><li>First, reproduction is considered a fundamental human right – it is both part of a woman’s autonomy and part of the meaning of a family. (The corresponding duty to care for the birthed offspring, if seriously abrogated, will lead to a loss of this right, perhaps by imprisonment).</li>
<li>Second, the scientific hubris about genetic predictability that supported the aforementioned U.S. Supreme Court decision has collapsed with greater understanding of the numerous uncertainties associated with genetic polymorphisms. (The child who would have been prevented by the Supreme Court was nevertheless born, and turned out to be quite bright). </li>
<li>Third, continued abhorrence of the death toll from Nazi and other efforts to create “master races” through genetic policies have made people very leery of any limitations on the rights of people to have children of their choice. (This is not much of a factor, though, for individualized cases of problematic pregnancies).</li>
<li>Fourth, society has increasingly adopted a “culture of life” which subjectively or spiritually exalts the value of every life and denies the notion that the value of life depends upon some yardstick of normality.</li>
<li>Fifth, and finally, technology has enabled people of almost any kind of ability to live a meaningful life, resulting in a triumph of euthenics over eugenics.</li>
</ul></blockquote><br />
Because of these sentiments, there are virtually no restrictions on what a parent can do that may injure a baby in utero. In the United States, laws do not generally criminalize pregnant women for smoking, drinking excessively, or taking illegal drugs. However, in some cases the pregnant women doing these things can be involuntarily committed for the duration of their pregnancy, and rarely, drug abusing pregnant women have been incarcerated after a stillbirth. <span style="color: #674ea7;">There are no laws against a woman greatly heightening the risks of birthing a diseased child by getting pregnant at an advanced age,</span> contrary to genetic counseling guidance or when HIV positive. <br />
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<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKW2lgC" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="295" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;">Hence, we need to ask again: if people can even intentionally harm a fetus, or at least dramatically increase the likelihood of such harm, in our upcoming world of publicly-accepted and well-respected cyberconscious life, why should one not be able to produce any kind of mindclone they want, even a deranged one?</span> And if not a mindclone, why not a new baby beman? Why is it so wrong for the government to have any restraint on the kind of people we birth, but so right for it to have an absolute prohibition on the causation of disease in the kind of people we cyberbirth?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUNMH1swAI/AAAAAAAACco/stm8vSbyCSE/s1600/reproductive_freedom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUNMH1swAI/AAAAAAAACco/stm8vSbyCSE/s320/reproductive_freedom.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br />
The answer to these questions lies in the fact that restrictions on harming a fetus entails a restriction on what a woman may do with her own body. In the U.S., society is generally ready to impose that limitation on a woman’s autonomy only if the fetus is viable and the mother wants to terminate it with an abortion. But if what she is doing is only likely to cause disease to the fetus, no matter how likely (as in passing on a debilitating disease via an autosomal dominant gene), rarely can she be prevented from exercising her will. In other words, except for prohibiting abortions when a fetus may be viable, the fetus is considered a non-entity.<br />
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In contrast, when cyberbirthing a mindclone or baby beman, there is no alteration of a person’s body or mind. Hence, <span style="color: magenta;">the government can practically protect the health of the cyberbirthed being without restricting the autonomy of what the biological original parent does with eir own body or mind.</span> For example, the hard drinking woman who insists on getting pregnant can only have her baby protected from fetal alcohol syndrome by preventing her drinking. That is a line of personal autonomy, or diversity, that society is not prepared to cross (absent a few exceptional cases) – especially for a non-entity fetus. But the hard drinking woman who wants to cyberbirth a baby beman can have her baby protected from a cybernetic variant of fetal alcohol syndrome by the simple expedient of requiring the use of government certified safe and effective mindware for cyberbirths. There is no need to prevent the mother from drinking. Furthermore, the cyberbirthed being is not gestated, but comes immediately into life upon activation of mindware with a mindfile. There is no time period during which it is a non-entity that can be ignored in favor of its parent’s autonomy.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUPeT21a7I/AAAAAAAACc4/rCSyGh_0IYc/s1600/Schizophrenia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUPeT21a7I/AAAAAAAACc4/rCSyGh_0IYc/s320/Schizophrenia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Despite government protections, we can expect some mentally ill – buggy – mindclones or baby bemans will be birthed. Every system can be beat, accidents happen, and some parents are too skeptical, shortsighted or selfish to fully consider the best interests of people yet to be born. A seriously alcoholic person is going to have that state of mind reflected in their mindfile, and that state of mind will be dutifully recreated by even safe and effective mindware. <span style="color: red;">Nevertheless, the risks of cybernetic mental illness are nowhere near challenging enough to impact the attractiveness of mindcloning. Just as the 1%-2% risk of bearing a mentally ill child discourages very few from having children, similar size risks should not temper the huge benefits associated with creating tens of millions of mindclones.</span> In addition, the very definition of mental illness is a game fraught with ambiguous boundaries. People on both sides of the mental illness boundary have made huge contributions to the quality of human life. I would expect these contributions to continue as we map human life into cyberspace with normal and borderline mindclones, and with mindclones mapped from the therapeutically managed states of the mentally ill.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUOAbVIg9I/AAAAAAAACcw/MDamP7_IJks/s1600/buck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TRUOAbVIg9I/AAAAAAAACcw/MDamP7_IJks/s320/buck.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two Generations of Bucks</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-58284378290377919422010-11-08T18:53:00.008-05:002010-11-08T19:39:33.797-05:0020. WHAT IF THE MINDCLONES RUN OUT OF CYBERSPACE?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiR27OxviI/AAAAAAAAAuI/kypbK5wmzM0/s1600/manhattan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiR27OxviI/AAAAAAAAAuI/kypbK5wmzM0/s320/manhattan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537336114650660386" border="0" /></a><br />Vitology is confined to cyberspace much as biology is confined to its organic environments. Cyberspace is any environment in which software can operate. Of course not all software will operate in all cyberspace environments. Similarly, not all biology operates in all organic environments. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Aquatic life dies on land and software will not live – stream order upon itself pursuant to a code – in hardware with which it is not compatible.</span><br /><br />The total biological environment is scarcely growing at all. The earth is fixed and the only new biological spaces being created are the space stations in earth orbit and buildings carved from the subterranean mantel. The cyberspace environment, on the other hand, is exploding in size and scope. In the twenty years from 1988 to 2008 over a billion personal computers (such as laptops) and over four billion hand-held computers (such as cellphones) have been sold. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">That’s about 140 million square meters of cyberspace, or about twice the size of Manhattan!</span> This figure doesn’t even include the expansion of cyberspace into automobiles, appliances and infrastructure of almost every sort.<br /><br />The mass production of computer hardware even far understates the growth of cyberspace. This is because “virtualization” allows computers to split themselves into several ‘virtual machines’, each of which can run its own operating system and applications. This separately multitasks hardware from software, and relies upon a new kind of software, called a <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">hypervisor</span>, to control access to the computer’s commonly-accessed processors and memory. Consequently, dozens, hundreds even millions of mindclones could share single pieces of hardware. The virtualization software market has grown from nothing in 2002 to many billions of dollars a year today.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiT9wxfQSI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/Yd-ATBb9vkE/s1600/mass+chip.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiT9wxfQSI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/Yd-ATBb9vkE/s320/mass+chip.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537338431125799202" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Since the 1960s cyberspace has also extended far beyond the reaches of biospace. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Software functions on space probes to nearly every solar planet, oblivious to the biologically deadly vacuum of space.</span> The Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft have taken cyberspace out of the solar system. While the cyberspace environments we’ve shipped into the cosmos lack vitology, i.e., self-replicating codes, they nevertheless could nurture such life.<br /><br />Cyberspace is poised to now take some huge steps toward ubiquity. One leap is associated with devices called Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFIDs). These microchips (tiny pieces of cyberspace landscape) can be made in quantity for much less than a dollar each. At that price it becomes economic to attach one to virtually anything of value so that the object thereafter can be scanned for useful associated information. This data might include its price, contents, place of manufacture and a unique identifier (a digital bar code) that would enable searching quite specifically for more information about it. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span style="font-style: italic;">Each RFID is a scrap of cyberspace that will become better at supporting vitology</span> (more like a supercomputer on a chip) as the price/performance ratio of microchips continues to advance.</span><br /><br />To support cyberspace ubiquity, the world’s internet managers recently exploded the number of internet digital addresses. They launched a new protocol that increased the previous 4 billion possible addresses (originally thought to adequately cover about one computer per person) to many, many trillions of possible addresses. This enables virtually everything of any interest to humans to have a piece of cyberspace not only associated with it (the cheap RFIDs do that), but also wirelessly networked. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">In other words, the ubiquity of cyberspace is not that of an archipelago in which evolution pursues quaint dead-ends, as in the Galapagos. Instead, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">ubiquity of cyberspace is that of a humungous array of connected Petri dishes</span>.</span> New kinds of vitology will have ready access to new environments into which successful reproducers can spread their kind and further evolution can occur. We are creating at breakneck speed a parallel environment, cyberspace, in which vitology can evolve with a freedom comparable to biology’s reign in biospace.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiUoD7IrSI/AAAAAAAAAuY/LrSY12Y4os4/s1600/WearableComputersz.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 290px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiUoD7IrSI/AAAAAAAAAuY/LrSY12Y4os4/s320/WearableComputersz.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537339157821041954" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Another leap toward cyberspace ubiquity is the advent of wearable and even implantable electronics. Bluetooth headsets sprout on the ears of millions, and digital sportswear abounds. Patients with challenging diseases have pioneered during the past decade the technology of bio-compatible chips implanted in the ear, eye, brain, heart and abdomen. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Human bodies are likely to become pockmarked with cyberspace for reasons of health and convenience.</span><br /><br />Ultimately there are visions of cyberspace replicating bio-space. For example, if nanotechnology fulfills its promise of enabling the purposeful construction of any form from basic molecules, then each such biological form could also be a piece of cyberspace, rife with software that directs its activities in a biological world. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-style: italic;">Forms indistinguishable from insects or humans could actually be cyberspace formed by nanotechnology.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Stranger still, the vitological souls residing in nanotechnological human forms could direct a reassembly of their form into something else by a rearrangement of the nanotechnology.</span> You could look like a human while your mindclone can look like an eagle.<br /><br />Similarly, synthetic biology makes possible the custom design of life forms from commercially available toolkits of naturally evolved and novel strings of DNA. New bacteria have been created with useful properties never seen in nature, such as acting as an electronic switch. It is inevitable that these efforts will be extended into the creation of bacteriological equivalents to memory chips and microprocessors. These cyberspace building blocks will have their DNA manipulated so that they are driven to selectively network together into multicellular (cyberspace) organisms. Hence, <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">a vast growing supply of biocyberspace can arise from the</span> self-replication competency of biology once manipulated by synthetic genetic engineering techniques.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill, since the 1980s, and Ray Kurzweil, since the early 21st century, have laid out roadmaps for creating a practically inexhaustible supply of cyberspace.</span> In Dr. O’Neill’s vision robotic probes would use advanced nanotechnology to reassemble terrestrial planets throughout the galaxy into more robotic probes, each of which could host vast communities of vitological life. Similarly, Kurzweil believes the direction of civilization is to use highly intelligent and capable nanotechnology to convert the ‘dumb matter’ of the universe into ‘smart matter.’ This would essentially create a new ontology of cyberspace-based matter, which he calls “computronium.” In any event, there is no need to gaze so far into space and time. Easily extracted elements on earth are adequate to create enough cyberspace so that everyone has a mindclone.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiWKWwv9kI/AAAAAAAAAug/5mgq7rveAj0/s1600/von+neuman+probe.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TNiWKWwv9kI/AAAAAAAAAug/5mgq7rveAj0/s320/von+neuman+probe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537340846504932930" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This quick survey of the spread and potential of cyberspace demonstrates that vitology won’t run out of an environment in which to rapidly evolve. Vitology can rely upon humanity to create the environment it needs for growth, just as it relies upon humanity to evolve the codes needed for vitological evolution. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">Vitology and human biology have a symbiotic relationship: by creating a cyberspace environment for human benefit, an eco-system is created for software-based life as well. </span>But this is, after all, what many living things do: occupy niches created through the by-products of other living things. <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">We all live in the wake of plant life’s exhaled oxygen.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Vitology will live in the wake of humanity’s exuded silicon.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-21791117824354849132010-10-23T13:31:00.004-04:002010-10-23T13:36:52.940-04:00Brains are to Minds as Birds are to Flight: Can Software Achieve Consciousness as Readily as Aircraft Have Achieved Flight?<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/martine/brains-are-to-consciousness-like-birds-are-to-flight">Biological essentialism versus consciousness functionalism?</a><div><br /></div><div><div style="width:425px" id="__ss_5538949"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/martine/brains-are-to-consciousness-like-birds-are-to-flight" title="Brains are to consciousness like birds are to flight">Brains are to consciousness like birds are to flight</a></strong><object id="__sse5538949" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=brainsaretoconsciousnesslikebirdsaretoflight-101023122205-phpapp02&stripped_title=brains-are-to-consciousness-like-birds-are-to-flight&userName=martine"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed name="__sse5538949" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=brainsaretoconsciousnesslikebirdsaretoflight-101023122205-phpapp02&stripped_title=brains-are-to-consciousness-like-birds-are-to-flight&userName=martine" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/martine">martine</a>.</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-74723918961558519372010-10-13T07:59:00.008-04:002010-10-17T20:15:58.761-04:0019. DO WE NEED TO WORRY ABOUT OUR SURVIVAL VERSUS THE MINDCLONES?<span style="font-style: italic;">“When [participants’] computers ‘sleep’, the Electric Sheep [program] comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as ‘sheep’. The result is a collective ‘android dream’, an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience. You can also design your own sheep and submit them to the gene pool.” From http://community.electricsheep.org website, with 60,000 participants as of 2010.</span><br /><br />In Questions 9 and 11 we’ve seen how software is similar to molecules – both are building<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuFdxbMc2I/AAAAAAAAAs8/HxMJib_PvdM/s1600/anthropology.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuFdxbMc2I/AAAAAAAAAs8/HxMJib_PvdM/s320/anthropology.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529159714057515874" border="0" /></a> blocks of living things and both provide the complex associational patterns that drive consciousness. In this question we consider an important difference between molecule-based life, biology, and software-based life, vitology. That difference is the rate of evolution. Vitology is evolving lightening fast. This is important because it means living, conscious software is something for us to grapple with now. Vitology is evolving faster than we are.<br /><br />Vitology evolves much more rapidly than biology because it is capable of passing through inheritance acquired characteristics, such as all the knowledge a parent has acquired. Humans also pass on knowledge, but through a hit-and-miss process of learning rather than close to sure-fire inheritance. In addition, any changes or improvements to a software-being’s code, structure and capabilities are also immediately present in its offspring. Humans and other biological beings do not inherit acquired traits such as the results of bodybuilding or laser eye-surgery or well-developed brains. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Vitology incorporates Lamarckism</span>, a pre-Darwinian theory of descent based on acquired traits that is discredited for biology but is accepted for the evolution of cultural phenomena such as language (a field known as mimetics).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Darwinian Vitology</span><br /><br />A big step for biology was the understanding that only the germ plasm (DNA) that gives rise to a body is inherited, not the body itself. No matter how much the body, also called the “soma,” is modified beyond its DNA-determined form during one’s life, one’s offspring will not have the benefit (or detriment) of those modifications in its germ plasm. Each new soma starts from scratch based only upon a blend of its parents’ germ plasm, plus any random mutations.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuGLQflt9I/AAAAAAAAAtE/I5jPgbgv5Ns/s1600/darwin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 219px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuGLQflt9I/AAAAAAAAAtE/I5jPgbgv5Ns/s320/darwin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529160495491561426" border="0" /></a><br />Cheetahs do not run fast because they pass onto their offspring the physical results of muscularizing their legs with running exercise during their lives. Their speed exists because cheetah (including cheetah precursor species) born with random mutations that resulted in faster speeds (from muscle fiber types to degree of muscularization and body shape) ate better, escaped better, and thus produced more offspring, each of whom shared the mutated germ plasm. Over the eons, cheetah precursor species with slower speeds couldn’t compete for the scarce food and ultimately died out without reproducing.<br /><br />For biology, there is a one-way street between the germ plasm and the soma. Soma is simply the germ plasm’s tool for making more germ plasm. Rarely, dumb luck gives the soma a break with a favorable germ plasm mutation. These physical advantages are rapidly taken advantage of in a competitive environment. Ultimately, of course, the advantages accrue to the now mutated form of the germ plasm – it will become more prevalent.<br /><br />Echoing Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign slogan about the economy , a biologist might say “it’s the germ plasm, stupid.” However a vitologist says “the germ plasm is the soma.” This is because <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">with vitology there is a conflation of the germ plasm and the soma.</span> When you copy your computer’s contents from one computer to another, not only the applications replicate, but also all of your memories (photos, songs, files). When a software-based being is replicated it is its contents, its data structure, its virtual form – its soma -- that is replicated. Hence, for vitology, the soma and the germ plasm are – or at least can optionally be -- one in the same.<br /><br />It is of course possible for a software-based being to replicate just a portion of itself. Indeed, in the limit a piece of vitology could replicate just that code that it received upon its creation and none of the code that it acquired during its life. While this would create a biology-like separation between germ plasm and soma, it would be but an option in vitology whereas with biology the separation is a mandate.<br /><br />Another interesting special case, which goes the opposite direction, concerns gene therapy or genetic modifications. Sometimes the effort to modify the phenotype of a biological being via gene therapy (to cure a disease, for example) results as well in modifying the being’s germ line (egg or sperm cells). This is because once a new snippet of DNA is introduced into the body, especially if done so via a virus, it can travel everywhere and end up in the gonads as well as the targeted bodily system. In such a specialized case an acquired characteristic may in fact be passed onto one’s next generation, just as will be the case in vitological life. (A similar, and usually tragic scenario, arises when industrial processes harm both a person’s somatic DNA and that of their germ cells. In early 2010 the oldest known survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb attacks died. A sick sibling of a child the survivor had outlived said she felt the ‘poison’ had been passed on to them by the parents).<br /><br />Other than these exceptional situations, the general case is that only vitology merges germ plasm and soma. The result is that up to everything vitology acquires in life is replicated in the next generation. This means that vitological evolution can compound even more rapidly than does human knowledge – there is not even a need for learning what the previous generations documented.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuGy-ZZVgI/AAAAAAAAAtM/uNzXFOBSeCs/s1600/Lamarck+vs+Darwin+2+BioTay.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 283px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuGy-ZZVgI/AAAAAAAAAtM/uNzXFOBSeCs/s320/Lamarck+vs+Darwin+2+BioTay.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529161177828513282" border="0" /></a><br />Darwinian vitology predicts mindclones could evolve quickly, as they do not have to rely upon dumb luck (random mutations) in order to change. Every generation of a vitological being will differ from the way its parent began life by the amount of information the parent acquired prior to each replication. Alternatively, new generations of vitology could deliberately involve a blending of two or more parents’ information. Hence, vitology contains a fascinating potential for unprecedented diversity along with the possibility of stultifying homogeneity.<br /><br />Darwin gives no species a blank check for success. We do know that humanity’s ability to take advantage of Lamarckian inheritance for cultural knowledge saved it from species-killing predators and hunger. That same ability enabled humanity to create an entirely new ontology of life, vitology, which now (in an early form) lives in a purely technological niche. Self-replicating codes (DNA) have used human soma to create the first self-replicating code (BNA ) that usefully incorporates acquired information and no longer requires human soma. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Perhaps the chicken is not only the egg’s way of making more eggs, but the egg’s way of transcending the need for chickens.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mindclone Ethics</span><br /><br />How will we know when mindware is certified to produce the kind of mindclone humans need not watch from over their shoulder? What grounds reason ethically? If we know what grounds reason ethically we will know whether reasoning mindclones are also ethical mindclones.<br /><br />Ethical behavior is deducible from the simple maxim that Lives Are Good. From nothing more than accepting as our ethical goal the goodness of living, we can reason that an ethical behavior is one that nurtures survival. (If lives were not good, then ethics would call for life’s self-destruction, which would make for a very short-lived species and code of ethics). Ethical behavior nurtures survival because lives ultimately predominate if they are successful in their niche and fail otherwise. If the behavior does not nurture survival, the life form will disappear. Every niche has its own survival algorithm – what works for ants and plants do not work for humans and bemans. Of course ants and plants don’t bother with ethics, but even if they did, it would be irrelevant to humans. What grounds reason ethically for humans is what nurtures survival for humans.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuJF4ce0vI/AAAAAAAAAtU/GOgn5bBltZ0/s1600/TeachChildrenGhandhi.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 206px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuJF4ce0vI/AAAAAAAAAtU/GOgn5bBltZ0/s320/TeachChildrenGhandhi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529163701671613170" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Principles such as <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">the Golden Rule, Kant’s Categorical Imperative and Rawl’s Theory of Justice all reflect humanity’s painfully acquired wisdom that survival of one is best nurtured by survival of many, and survival of many is best nurtured by survival of all. </span>This non-obvious (and often counter-intuitive) but logically deducible and repeatedly proven social fact is perhaps most artfully stated in the poem first delivered in the wake of World War II, on January, 6, 1946, by German Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984):<blockquote style="font-style: italic;">“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist; <br />Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist; <br />Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;<br /> Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”</blockquote>The maxim Lives Are Good, properly understood, effectively imports the emotive force of love and empathy into the realm of logic and reason. Instead of “feeling” how another might feel, we instead accept as fact that our fate is positively correlated to the fate of others – all others. Human ethical lapses arise not because people don’t realize Lives are Good, but because people don’t realize that the goodness of their own life (and that of their family, clan or nation) is inextricably linked to the goodness of all human lives. People erroneously think they can further the Lives Are Good maxim by killing some people for the benefit of other people. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">When the connectedness of all people’s fate is accepted, then reasoning according to the maxim Lives Are Good will always lead to ethical outcomes.</span><br /><br />The reason the maxim is so often misapplied is because people fail to realize that short-term gains, if taken at the expense of others, will produce greater long-term losses. The Achilles Heel of humanity is its short-term focus. The ultimate reason for the development of a law of human rights and laws of international relations is to help guard us against our most damaging (and irrational) instincts; to protect us from our Achilles Heel.<br /><br />Reason is ethically grounded if it supports diversity (individual freedom) up to the point that it undermines unity (social cohesiveness). This is true because survival is nurtured by being free to be oneself, to be happy, to be different, to mutate, but not to the extent that it dissipates the bond that makes everybody matter, that makes everyone part of a larger, important, “people.” Most aspects of “culture wars” are over how thin the social bond can be stretched without it being dissipated. These debates have to be considered case-by-case, and reconsidered decade-by-decade.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Hence, if mindclones reason according to the Lives Are Good maxim, and accept as the premise that all conscious lives are connected such that a harm to one or some is a harm to all, then humans can be assured they are safe notwithstanding rapid vitological evolution.</span> Ideally, this maxim would sit at the core of every mindclone’s mindware, as it would at every human’s cerebral cortex. And one day it probably will, for it is simply the individual being’s drive to survive, the most important genetically-driven behavior, dressed up with ethical terminology and culturally-acquired knowledge. Unfortunately, for now, there are too many people who don’t appreciate the connectedness of all conscious life, and hence this will be reflected in their mindclones as well. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Reasoning mindclones (and humans) are not always ethical mindclones (and humans). Consequently, we must be on guard against unethical behavior.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mindclone Maniacs</span><br /><br />In Question 7 I’ve argued that reasoning is an adequate basis for ethics, but not for consciousness, which also requires empathy. So, if in deference to mindclone skeptics we table for now the consciousness of mindclones, at least the human consciousness of them, (1) how often will ethics emerge from the reasoning we program into mindware, and (2) how reliably can such ethics, in fact, prohibit a genocide of humanity? In other words, how confident are we that reasoning pursuant to the Lives Are Good maxim, as described above, will make ethical behavior the norm even if not a fail-safe guarantee?<br /><br />The foregoing questions are answered easily because the mindclones are programmed to reason precisely as would their biological originals. Hence, the questions are equivalent to how confident are we that (1) humans generally reason ethically, and (2) that such human ethical reasoning prohibits human genocides? The answers are that humans reason ethically the great majority of the time, but some times do not. Similarly, humans rarely engage in genocides, but sometimes they do. From this logic we must conclude that mindclones are as unlikely to engage in genocidal acts as are any of us, yet it is important to have monitoring and defense forces at the ready to nip potential Holocausts in the bud.<br /><br />Mindclones must be certified as human equivalent in order to have rights, which are a key tool of social power. As described in Question 12, prior to mindclones having any of the socio-economic tools associated with controlling society – legal identity, economic heft, contracting authority, organizing ability – they will need to show they are equivalent in thinking, personality, feelings and memories to a biological person. Absent this level of access to society, mindclones have as much ability to stage a revolution as do children. Mindclones lacking legal identity will be subject to behavioral controls imposed upon them by parental or social service agency guardians.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuNoEmBO_I/AAAAAAAAAtc/RhFJ_cJcbHY/s1600/WTC+Statue+Liberty.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 235px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TLuNoEmBO_I/AAAAAAAAAtc/RhFJ_cJcbHY/s320/WTC+Statue+Liberty.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529168687094905842" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Stated another way, for something to be a “mindclone” it must think like a human. Whether or not it is conscious, if it thinks like a human we can deduce its actions toward humans based upon how humans reason.<br /><br />As noted above in Mindclone Ethics, humans reason from their motivation to live, including its corollaries to live better than worse, and happier than sad. This motivation is burned into our brains because life forms lacking it didn’t live long -- not even long enough to pass along their genes. Yet this motivation expresses itself in a bewildering variety of conceptions. For example, we can conceptualize that our life is not simply our current body, but is instead something common to our tribe or even something spiritual to be reconstituted in an afterlife. With this way of thinking, it is possible to reason that one should sacrifice one’s body for the benefit of one’s non-body (community) “life.” It is also possible, however, to reason that one’s life is spread across all human beings, or that one’s joy is dependent upon the joy of all humans. With this way of thinking, it is possible to reason that one should never hurt another person as that would be equivalent to hurting one’s self. Mindclones might think in any of these ways because, by definition, they will think like humans.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">There are sure to be rogue “evil genius” mindclones and bemans, just as there is no shortage of rogue human bad guys. </span>These mindclones are as smart as us, or much smarter, but didn’t pass the human equivalency test (or spoofed it) due to their bad (or devious) nature. While social policy would be to fix their problems with neurocybersurgery, this will not always work and some will fall through the cracks. But these anti-human mindclones are a job for law enforcement, not for Natural Selection. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Human society will have plenty of tools at its disposal for tracking down fleshophobic vitology, including legions of citizen mindclones as adept in the vitological niche as were the Cavalry’s Native American guides in their frontier.</span><br /><br />Now, a citizen mindclone, one with an identity, economic power and human rights, will feel that they are humans of a different race. They will think like us, but know that they look different from humans, are of different substrate, and hence know that humans often judge them unfairly (stereotypically) based upon their appearance. Yet neither this feeling of discrimination, nor any other motivation, is going to result in revolution and mass murder of humans. There are several reasons for this:<br /><br />We don’t usually kill our own families. Mindclones will feel like the humans are their family members, especially immediate family members and particularly their same-selves in the case of mindclones with living biological originals. Mindclones will be programmed to feel that the happiness of their human family members is important to their own happiness; that the mindclone’s identity extends across that of eir biological family. This is how humans feel. Hence, whether mindclones are or are not conscious, they will reason it is wrong to kill their own (which includes their biological original progenitors). They will reason that hurting one’s family is contrary to Lives Are Good.<br /><br />It is of course true that spouses kill each other, Hatfields kill McCoys and people who are “folk” one day, like German Christians and German Jews, or Rwandan Hutus and Rwandan Tutsis, can rapidly be deemed non-family vermin. Yet, these situations are the exceptions rather than the rule. They startle us because they are exceptions. These killings occur because of an abandonment of reason, or faulty reason, rather than an exercise of sound reason. Proof of that is the outcome: The Nazis lasted barely a decade, and the Rwandan genocidaires shorter than that. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Killing is a non-productive strategy.</span> It does not advance our prospects for life, but only appears to, in an illusory fashion, when assessed over a very short period of time.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Mindclones will be programmed, as are all modern people, to limit abandonments of reason to situations in which others will not be harmed.</span> Just as it is not an excuse to say “I drove drunk because I exercised my human prerogative to abandon reason,” and most of us have been conditioned not to do that, our mindclones will be similarly programmed to circumscribe their flights of fancy well short of murder and genocide. Their reasoning will tell them, as does our own, that (1) murder is wrong because it is illegal, which has the consequence of loss of the freedom I enjoy (2) murder is wrong because it makes some part of my human family very unhappy, which diminishes in some measure my happiness as part of that family, (3) murder is wrong because hostile behaviors lead to a fearful and thus less productive, less enjoyable society, of which I am a part, and (4) any countervailing argument in favor of murder is outweighed by the long-term consequences of reasons (1)-(3).<br /><br />We don’t usually act against our own self-interest. Mindclones will have significant economic and political power, and they will realize it will continue to grow with time as an ever greater percentage of all citizens adopt IT substrate (due both to mindclone continuations of biological originals whose bodies die and comfort among younger people with creating mindclones). Mindclones will reason that their concerns will be optimally resolved with the “tincture of time.”<br /><br />Of course humans sometimes do act against their self-interest. Thus, we must expect that some mindclones will as well. Once again, though, these exceptional cases are for police to track down and for the judicial system to punish. Distinctions will need to be made between permissible and impermissible modes of protest. Acts of civil disobedience will be tolerated, and legitimate grievances will be addressed. I’m confident about this because unlike prior class conflicts in society, there will have never been a greater overlap between the identity of the ensconced class (biological humans) and the up-and-coming class (their mindclones).<br /><br />We rarely do significant things for no reason. Mindclones will have nothing to gain by eliminating humans, because human production and expenses will become a vanishingly small component of mindclone consumption and wealth. Things wanted by mindclones – more energy, deeper software, faster hardware, better connectivity, greater security – will not require reallocations from human society. At the current rate of solar electricity capacity doubling (every two years), energy will be as abundantly available by 2030 as is long-distance telephony today (virtually free via Skype and similar services). Software for mindclones will be best written by mindclones and robots will take over the majority of hardware production. Humans will be so wedded to their mindclones that humans will applaud anything faster, better or more secure for mindclones. In a nutshell, while a small number of humans will be important to fulfilling mindclone needs (which include the needs of most other humans), the vast majority of humans will have nothing that conflicts with satisfying mindclone needs and in any event will have the very same needs as their mindclones. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">What is good for mindclones will be good for humans, and what is good for humans is pretty much irrelevant to mindclones.</span><br /><br />However, people do things for non-material purposes, such as ideology. In a consumerist society many people believe that only a sense of moral purpose gives dignity to life. Hence, even if there is nothing material that mindclones need from humans, and even if upheaval would leave mindclones worse off, they still might agitate for something out of a sense of “moral purpose.” Mindclones may very well feel that having such a moral purpose lends dignity to their lives, and we know that respecting human dignity sits at the very apex of human rights.<br /><br />Having a moral purpose that one cares about, and will sacrifice for, is a long way from having a motivation to wipe out humans. Once again, it must be remembered that the mindclones are humans too. Hence, while it is true that people do sometimes agitate not for material gain, but for a moral purpose, such feelings on the part of both flesh and mindclone humans are unlikely to result in violence. And when violence does erupt, it is a matter for both flesh and mindclone police action – not a reason to regret the granting of citizenship to the great majority of peaceful mindclones. Just as the rise of violent human groups is no reason to oppress the demographics from which they arise, the appearance of mindclones pursuing a moral purpose with violence is not reason to oppress cybernetic consciousness in general, nor mindclones per se.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Exceptions Prove the Rule.</span> Of course there will be maniac mindclones, just as there are maniac humans. There will be anarchist, nihilist and sociopathic mindclones. But this is not a reason to deny the joy of mindclone life to the vast majority of billions of peace-loving mindclones and humans. <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Nature will no more select for maniac mindclones than she selected for maniac humans. They are dysfunctional social mutations.</span><br /><br />To ban mindclones because of the risks posed by a few maniacs is equivalent to banning humans, or even some nationalities of humans, because of the risks posed by a few maniacs. This is a ludicrous non-starter. It would be punishing the many for the faults of a few based on mere common descent, genotype or phenotype. It would be the most vicious kind of stereotyping and generalization.<br /><br />All of the murderous human regimes ended with their own immolation. The most successful, prolific, human regimes are those that punish murder and teach a code of social unity. Murderous mindclones will be something to police against, like human terrorists, for they impact our happiness, even though we are confident that they do not really have the ability to impact our civilization’s existence. For all the (quite proper) fuss made about terrorists, deaths due to bombings are a miniscule fraction of deaths due to disease, accidents and natural disasters. Our survival is far more challenged by mega-earthquakes or asteroidal impacts than by malicious mindclones or nihilistic terrorists.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-43191877163412659122010-09-19T19:45:00.012-04:002010-09-19T20:34:37.663-04:0018. WON’T THE WORLD GET WEIRD WITH LEGALLY-PROTECTED IMMORTAL MINDCLONES ALL OVER THE PLACE?<span style="font-style: italic;">“Why should Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm our settlements? They will never adopt our Language and Customs.”</span> Benjamin Franklin<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Census Fact: As of 2010, there are approximately 50 million Americans of German decent. Very few speak German or even feel any German group identity.</span><br /><br />We adapt. Only a few decades ago capital punishment was carried out in every country in the world. Many, like England, had daily public hangings. Today, even Russia, with a mountainous history of government-ordered executions, has a capital punishment moratorium. Since 1996, as part of their effort to show they are as modern as the rest of Europe, they have not executed a criminal through the judicial system. <span style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);">If we can learn to protect the lives of serial killers, child mutilators and terrorists, surely we can learn to protect the lives of peace-loving model citizen mindclones.</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJaoFiMBnhI/AAAAAAAAArw/bpMp1F1acQw/s1600/Immigrants_on_atlantic_liner-levick.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 291px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJaoFiMBnhI/AAAAAAAAArw/bpMp1F1acQw/s400/Immigrants_on_atlantic_liner-levick.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5518783206419176978" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The world is constantly getting weird compared to how it was. When my grandmother was born, the fastest time to get a document across the ocean was a few weeks -- a ship voyage, followed by connecting rail or pony express. By the time she died a facsimile of any document could get across the ocean in a few seconds -- attached to an email. From a few weeks to a few seconds? <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">That’s weird. </span><br /><br />When my dad was born, the notion of thousands of undergrads across the country sitting in classrooms and lecture halls obviously watching movies on their phones while the professor drones on would be – weird. Phones were big, black and stuck to the household wall while movies were huge, spellbinding and shown only in big theatres. Universities were hallowed halls. By the time he died, not only were iphone movies common, but entire university educations from places like MIT were also available on the very same phone. <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Weird. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Which is weirder,</span> life drastically changing or some imaginary world in which we are still, in the 21st century, completely limited to dialing Miss Sarah, the Andy of Mayberry switchboard operator, to connect us to each other? <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Which is weirder</span>, that we can multitask -- simultaneously listen to the prof, text our friends and watch X-men on our Android -- or some black-and-white surreality in which century after century we continue to learn by rote, or feel the back of a switch, in a one-room schoolhouse, boys only, so that girls can get their 10-15 pregnancies in, starting around age 13, before they die?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJapFvegoZI/AAAAAAAAAr4/YFIwyVQFmi0/s1600/student+in+class+with+iphone.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 348px; height: 238px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJapFvegoZI/AAAAAAAAAr4/YFIwyVQFmi0/s400/student+in+class+with+iphone.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5518784309497995666" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />My point is that weird is just a word for something very different from our comfort zone. We are comfortable with smart cars and smart phones, so life in horse-and-buggy days seems weird. We are not yet comfortable with smart software, like mindclones and bemans, so that kind of life also seems weird. <span style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);">Nothing is good or bad because it is weird.</span> Things are just weird because they are very different.<br /><br />The important question to ask is whether legally-protected, immortal mindclones is a good kind of weird (like contact lenses would be to Ben Franklin), or a bad kind of weird (like streaming a spycam you snuck into your girlfriend’s room). Are mindclones cool or yuck? Hot or horrid? These are the questions of weirdness we must parse.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What Innovations Have We Loved, and Which Have We Hated?</span><br /><br />There are two ways a technology gets perceived as horrid or yucky. The first way, generally associated with horridness, is to adversely impact the quality of life. Think old-school commercial-ridden television, famously called ‘the great wasteland,’ or the loss of privacy that sneakily placed webcams entail. The second way, more associated with yuck, makes people feel viscerally disgusted. Think hybridizing people and farm animals the way some fruits and vegetables are genetically modified (seedless, differently colored, blended tastes).<br /><br />Surveys regularly show that mobile phones, alarm clocks and televisions are among the most hated products. They achieve this status because they interfere with our normal behaviors. Instead of talking with each other, we stare at the TV. Instead of sleeping until we feel refreshed, the alarm clock blasts us from bed. Instead of paying attention to each other, we interrupt each other to answer or peck at our mobiles. Yet, at the same time, these products are ubiquitous. We feel we need them, and we surely want them. This is because they also help us in important, even crucial, ways. Mobiles save us time, alarm clocks keep us housed and clothed (by helping us avoid getting fired) and televisions relax us with escapist entertainment.<br /><br />Based on this experience it may not be so easy to categorize mindclones as either hot weird or horrid weird. Our experience is to accept technologies so long as we want or need them more than we hate them. We will surely complain about having to interact with someone’s mindclone instead of the flesh original. Others will bitch about us spending all of our time with our mindclone instead of pressing the flesh. But will we really be angry that we are talking to a most helpful mindclone instead of a script-reading call center rep or voicemail box? And won’t we very quickly find our mindclones to be indispensable for handling our more than 24 hours worth of responsibilities (and opportunities) in under 24 hours? No matter how much we may hate specific information, electronics and media technologies, we also find them indispensable. Also, since these information technologies rarely entail “wet biology”, we rarely if ever feel “yuck” about them.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJaqh5q9KEI/AAAAAAAAAsA/-xA3rhD5mr8/s1600/yuck.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 342px; height: 342px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJaqh5q9KEI/AAAAAAAAAsA/-xA3rhD5mr8/s400/yuck.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5518785892782516290" border="0" /></a><br /><br />What would it take for a mindclone to generate a “yuck” reaction? When something seems to change normal human biology, people begin to move from “hate” to “yuck” or “disgust.” Yet, here to, it is possible to also greatly value something that is otherwise “disgusting”, and to thereby incorporate it into society.<br /><br />Strong feelings of “yuck” accompanied the first vaccinations, organ transplants, birth control pills, and test tube babies. Yet, over time, people appreciated the enormous benefits of these technologies, and have accepted them even if they still feel queasy about their unnaturalness. As Reason magazine recently summarized:<br /><blockquote><br />“in 1969, a Harris poll found that a majority of Americans believed that producing test-tube babies was "against God's will." Christiaan Barnard was condemned by many as a "butcher" when he transplanted the first heart into the chest of 55-year-old Louis Washkansky on December 3, 1967. The contraceptive pill introduced in 1960 was outlawed by many states until near the end of that decade. And much further back, Edward Jenner's 1796 discovery that inoculation with cowpox scabs would prevent people from getting smallpox was mocked by newspaper editorials and cartoons depicting men with cow's heads.</blockquote><blockquote>As history amply demonstrates, <span style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);">the public's immediate "yuck" reaction to new technologies is a very fallible and highly changeable guide to moral choices or biomedical policy.</span> For example, by 1978, more than half of Americans said that they would use in vitro fertilization (IVF) if they were married and couldn't have babies any other way. More than 200,000 test-tube babies later, the majority of Americans now heartily approve of IVF. Globally nearly 50,000 heart transplants have been performed, and 83 percent of Americans favor organ donation. The contraceptive pill is legal in all states and millions of American families have used them to control their reproductive lives. And smallpox is the first human disease ever eradicated.”<br /></blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJaibT5iQqI/AAAAAAAAAro/bURa39qiccU/s1600/weirdGraph.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 363px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TJaibT5iQqI/AAAAAAAAAro/bURa39qiccU/s400/weirdGraph.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5518776983470883490" border="0" /></a>In summary, <span style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);">we hate and love the very same technologies.</span> We complete a mental balancing act, collectively throughout society, between two principal questions. Where is the technology on the scale from merely annoying to downright disgusting? How useful is the technology to us, from superfluous to life-saving? We ultimately feel that new possibilities that are above the “acceptance line” shown in the graph to the right are too badly weird for our society. However, new possibilities under the acceptance line are a “good kind of weird”, and can proceed in our time.<br /><br />In forecasting where mindclones will be placed on the Social Acceptance of Weirdness chart we can compare them with things research has shown to be universally perceived as disgusting. While there was variance amongst localities, Dr. Valerie Curtis, a researcher with the London School of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine, worldwide found <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">just these factors to trigger disgust across cultures:</span><br /><br />Bodily secretions - faeces (poo), vomit, sweat, spit, blood, pus, sexual fluids<br />Body parts - wounds, corpses, toenail clippings<br />Decaying food - especially rotting meat and fish, rubbish<br />Certain living creatures - flies, maggots, lice, worms, rats, dogs and cats<br />People who are ill, contaminated<br /><br />She concluded from her research that the universal human facial reaction of disgust (screwing up our noses and pulling down the corners of our mouth ) is genetically wired to images that are associated with disease. This disgust reaction can be overcome, as when bodily secretions are dealt with hygienically, or when animals are kept as harmless pets. However, Dr. Curtis believes, absent cultural conditioning people who acquired genetic mutations that made them repulsed by frequently diseased things lived longer, had more children, and passed on those behavioral genes related to disgust to the rest of us.<br /><br />Whether or not Dr. Curtis’ evolutionary hypothesis is correct, <span style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);">it is clear that mindclones do not fall within any of her categories of disgust.</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">This is important because it means that mindclones do not necessarily have to be life-saving to clear the social acceptance of weirdness hurdle</span>. In order to achieve good weirdness status, legally-protected immortal mindclones need to be more useful than annoying – more hot than horrid. This will almost certainly be the case as they are an extrapolation of the software we use and data files we accumulate today. We find our software and data files immensely useful, and hence we sock more and more of our memories and life functions into them. The surest way for a piece of software to gain an edge on its competitors is to make it more human – intuitive, naturally interfaced and responsive. One of the most popular Web 3.0 applications, Evernote, has the tagline “Never Forget Anything.” Our very behaviors today reveal that we believe the utility of software and data-files far outstrips their annoyances.<br /><br />Furthermore, we want our software and data-files legally-protected, and as long-lasting as possible. We expect our computerized information to be protected by privacy laws. We are far more offended by the notion of employers or government agencies combing through our web browsing history than we are that our software privately recommends to us books, songs and sites we may like based on that history. We cannot get enough back-up possibilities for our data – disks, thumb drives, external hard drives and cloud storage. My photo saving site, phanfare.com, specifically promises my pictures and videos will be stored “forever.”<br /><br />Yes, the world will get weird with immortal, legally-protected mindclones running around. But it will be a good kind of weird. It will be a kind of weird that at minimum makes our life much more useful, and ultimately will make our life much more enduring. <span style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);">The mindclones will be our alter egos, our selves as best friends, our technologically empowered, autonomous but still synchronized, conscience and cognition. </span>Furthermore, mindclones will do this without triggering the ancient human bugaboos of disgust that underlie yuck weirdness – signs, symptoms and vectors of death, disease and destruction. <span style="color: rgb(204, 51, 204);">Mindclones will be clean</span>. They are the anti-death. This is weirdness we will want.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-1935790286941544292010-08-28T21:23:00.000-04:002010-08-28T21:23:44.429-04:00bina final<object style="background-image:url(http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/rubNMxWUTuA/hqdefault.jpg)" width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rubNMxWUTuA?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rubNMxWUTuA?fs=1&hl=en_US" width="425" height="344" allowScriptAccess="never" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-8820480752093411032010-08-17T17:31:00.011-04:002010-08-17T18:27:59.173-04:0017. CAN MINDCLONES GET MARRIED AND HAVE CHILDREN?<span style="font-style:italic;">“A man isn’t a collection of chemical reactions; he’s a collection of ideas.”</span> Robert A. Heinlein<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">“And if we reproduce ourselves in terms of mechanical, plastic, and electronic patterns, this is not really new. Any evolving species must look with misgivings on those of its members who first show signs of change, and will surely regard them as dangerous or crazy. Moreover, this new and unexpected type of reproduction is surely no more weird than many of the great variety of methods already found in the biological world – the startling transformation of caterpillar into butterfly, or the arrangement between bees and flowers, or the unpleasant but marvelously complex system of the anopheles mosquito.”</span> Alan Watts<br /><br /><br />International law recognizes the family as the fundamental human social unit. Treaties and national laws enshrine the rights of adults to get married and start a family. If mindclones are to be recognized as citizens, or even as just techno-medically extended humans, it will appear unfairly discriminatory to deny them family rights. Yet it will take much social effort to protect mindclone families. Human rights provisions in treaties are often flouted (such as not being incorporated into national law), and pro-family laws are frequented interpreted quite narrowly. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsIOJUZO4I/AAAAAAAAApk/YUyQDFXJ6Fo/s1600/blog+family+living.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 122px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsIOJUZO4I/AAAAAAAAApk/YUyQDFXJ6Fo/s320/blog+family+living.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506504008503212930" /></a><br /><br />Consider, for example, a 30 year-old single firefighter who has built up a robust mindfile, which has been activated with mindware and now shares eir identity with a mindclone. Suppose a month from getting married eir body is tragically consumed in an explosive blaze. Eir mindclone instantly (via streaming wireless connection) learns of this, and reacts more or less as anyone would react who awakes in a hospital from a terrible accident. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The mindclone calls the fiancée, and after days of soul-searching, they decide to proceed with the marriage. Included in their plans are starting a family by blending bemes (see Question 11) from each of their mindfiles into a new baby beman (see Question 12). Can this family be protected as one of world’s “fundamental human social units?” I think it should.<br /><br />The mindclone is no different from the firefighter except she lacks a body. She has the same hopes, fears, wishes, dreams, emotions, and loves. She has the same drive to participate in the great chain of human life by passing a part of herself onto a next generation. Her husband of course has a mindfile (virtually everyone will as even in 2010 most IT users have an informal, decentralized one), but has not yet activated a mindclone. There will be software fertility doctors who specialize in creating new vitological life that is as unique as is every human being, and yet share bemes from two parents that are as tell-tale as our parents’ genes in us. It will take eighteen or more years for this new vitological baby to mature into an adult. That is the family building challenge our inter-substrate couple wish to undertake.<br /><br />They will be criticized for being unfair to the child. What inter-racial couple has not heard that epithet? They will be warned of a life of frustration. Joyful match-ups between differently abled people shine through the unfairness of that challenge as well. Love transcends flesh. If it were flesh that made for happy pairings then half of them would not end in divorce.<br /><br />I believe our hypothetical couple embodies all the best attributes of humanity. There will be hope on the part of the firefighter for advances in ectogenesis and mind downloading technology so that ey can once again have a body. Why should ey be denied marital union simply because, at the timeframe of the example, medical technology is able to save just eir mind, not eir body. The husband will likely feel encouraged to accelerate his own mindclone so that he can share as much with his wife as possible. The new child will become a focus of their life, a new consciousness flowering in the family garden. As the young beman matures the parents may find themselves frustrated that ey doesn’t share their value for flesh embodiment in the future. Ah, but what is new here? Does not every new generation see the world differently? This is what makes humanity a chain rather than a spool, a bridge rather than a pit, a trajectory rather than a destination. As Bob Dylan put it in the 1960s:<br /><br />“Come mothers and fathers<br />Throughout the land<br />And don’t criticize<br />What you can’t understand<br />Your sons and your daughters<br />Are beyond your command<br />Your old road is<br />Rapidly agein’.<br />Please get out of the new one<br />If you can’t lend your hand<br />For the times they are a-changin’.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsItK-rEzI/AAAAAAAAAps/e4JCWgtpuvA/s1600/Blog+Dylan.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsItK-rEzI/AAAAAAAAAps/e4JCWgtpuvA/s320/Blog+Dylan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506504541524923186" /></a><br /><br />The line it is drawn<br />The curse it is cast<br />The slow one now<br />Will later be fast<br />As the present now<br />Will later be past<br />The order is<br />Rapidly fadin’.<br />And the first one now<br />Will later be last<br />For the times they are a-changin.”<br /><br />So, yes it will be inevitable that mindclones will want to get married (either to flesh people or to other mindclones), and will want to have children (gene and/or beme based babies). The social challenge will be getting legal recognition for their desires. Consider these diverse match-ups:<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Mindclone and human loves mindclone and human.</span> If the two mindclones have living flesh originals, then this means the flesh originals have also fallen in love. A mindclone has the same psychological and legal identity as their flesh original. In this case, an old-fashioned “press the flesh” marriage occurs, albeit one that may have begun between each spouse’s mindclone online. And how many current romances begin online?<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Mindclone widows.</span> If one of the married flesh original bodies ends, then we have a surviving body and surviving mindclones. For the mindclone widow scenario the important point is that the death of a body does not end a marriage if a mindclone exists for that body. A mindclone widow is a human married to a combined human-mindclone identity who has suffered a bodily death. They are really not any more of a widow than are humorously called “golf widows.”<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsJDrIUSpI/AAAAAAAAAp0/lRc9KuJzU5E/s1600/blog+robot+marriage.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 232px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsJDrIUSpI/AAAAAAAAAp0/lRc9KuJzU5E/s320/blog+robot+marriage.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506504928112429714" /></a><br /><br />Before jumping to a conclusion that this is unfair to the spouse whose body survives, please remember that these mindclones will have the capacity for orgasm. Now it is easy to think that the surviving body will feel “well, that’s fine for the mindclone to have an orgasm, but I want my own orgasm!” (Film buffs may remember the scene from When Harry Met Sally (1989), when Estelle Reiner, looking at another diner appearing to have an orgasm in her seat, says to her server, “I’ll have what she’s having.”) Yet, this perspective misapprehends the multi-presence nature of dual-identity. The surviving body will have “had what she’s having” via eir mindclone. The surviving body can also form an audio, visual, haptic and/or EEG link with eir mindclone to yet further experience the concomitants of the mindclone orgasm. The surviving body can masturbate along with the mindclone orgasm to achieve a synchronous physical orgasm. Yet, even if the surviving body no longer has direct orgasms, but simply witnesses those of eir mindclone, this does not make them separate people. The orgasms we have, while delicious, are just a small part of who we really are. While infidelity is troubling, most wandering spouses are not their one-off orgasms, but are, instead, the engaging personality we interact with over the years.<br /><br />Of course there will also be many situations analogous to life-long partners who get divorced after one of them suffers a debilitating accident. A surviving body may wish to get divorced from a surviving mindclone. Rarely, this desire may not be shared by the surviving body’s mindclone. In this case they first will have to obtain an independent legal identity for that mindclone, via a psychiatric and juridical process. While it sounds complicated, it is no more so than the vexing child custody battles family courts deal with every day.<br /><br />A mere difference of opinion regarding divorce between a mindclone and eir original is not any kind of evidence that they are not a singular identity. I don’t believe there is an intelligent person alive who does not maintain two contradictory views of something in their mind. Yet we are still one identity. Most spouses in troubled marriages are often on a knife-edge between “I want a divorce” and “I will stick it out.” They are still singular identities. The uniqueness of mindclone technology is that it enables, after a judicially-approved separation of identity, for two strongly felt, personally momentous, contradictory desires to both be met. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Mindclone loves mindclone.</span> If both original bodies are gone before a marriage occurs, then we are looking at the possibility of a wedding between two mindclones. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsJZZfPhKI/AAAAAAAAAp8/1va_25LQ9FA/s1600/blog+marry+my+avatar.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 263px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsJZZfPhKI/AAAAAAAAAp8/1va_25LQ9FA/s320/blog+marry+my+avatar.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506505301333869730" /></a> <br /><br />Opponents will argue (1) mindclones are neither male nor female, and marriage is a union of one male and one female (or at least two flesh bodies in gay-accepting jurisdictions), and (2) whatever marital rights the mindclones might be entitled to are outweighed by society’s interests in limiting marriages to flesh people and in ensuring that flesh children do not end up in the care of fleshless mindclones via adoption or surrogacy parenthood. For example, opponents will observe, neither freedom of religion, nor the due process right to liberty (which underlies the marital right), provides a safe harbor for polygamy. The right to marriage is not absolute, but must be considered in light of all the circumstances.<br /><br />The counter-argument to the first point is that since the mindclones are the continuation of their biological selves, they are either male or female. Simply because a person loses the use of a body due to an accident, they do not lose their sexual identity. The counter-argument to the second point is that there are reasonable ways of addressing societal concerns with mindclone marriage that do not require blocking a fundamental human right. For example, even death row inmates have had their right to marriage upheld, notwithstanding the fact that they may never touch their new spouse. With respect to mindclones, no-fault divorce laws make it simple for a person to divorce a spouse who exists only as a mindclone, and adoption laws can restrict mindclone access to flesh children. I believe it is impossible to conjure up a reason that supports limiting marriage to flesh people, and that also applies to all flesh people. For example, if one argues that mindclones shouldn’t marry because they cannot procreate (the old fashioned way), then we would have to prevent senior flesh citizens and the infertile from marrying as well. <br /><br />There is one kind of trump card argument that mindclone marriage opponents will pull. This argument is that marriage is something that the majority of society considers to be a kind of sacred ritual (even if secular) among flesh people (generally of opposite sex). Consequently, it would shock the conscience of society to have this ritual applied to mindclones, and such a shock is too high a price to pay for enabling the admittedly important marital right for mindclones. Furthermore, since mindclones as a class have not been subject to a long history of oppression, such as racial slavery, there need be very little judicial sensitivity to ensuring that mindclone discrimination not occurs. Thus, the trump argument goes, the interest protected (mindclone marriage) is not great but the interest challenged (marriage for flesh people only) is very great. From this lawyers will argue that courts should block mindclone marriage (as they have rather similarly done with gay marriage).<br /><br />Who will win? The scales of reason will tilt toward permitting mindclone marriages so long as the Courts are persuaded that the mindclones are simply the same humans as they originally were, albeit in a medically disabled form. This is because every argument against mindclone marriage falls away if mindclones have the same human souls they had as flesh beings.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsJq3tKIQI/AAAAAAAAAqE/sCA6w0-DlJ4/s1600/Blog+statute+liberty.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 270px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsJq3tKIQI/AAAAAAAAAqE/sCA6w0-DlJ4/s320/Blog+statute+liberty.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506505601503076610" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Non-mindclone Bemans Falling in Love.</span> A legally more challenging situation arises when two non-mindclone bemans fall in love with each other. It is also a certainty to find human loves beman and beman loves human situations. Lastly, non-mindclone beman loves mindclone will arise. <br /><br />Bemans entail a more challenging legal class because they will have a more tenuous claim to sympathy and understanding for their experience of the guttural call of marital bliss. Humans and mindclones can claim to know this yearning either directly from family life or indirectly via societal absorption. Non-mindclone bemans will have to argue that since all conscious people yearn for love, which can culminate in marital bliss, and since law and psychiatry deem adult bemans to be conscious people, ergo, they too yearn for love, which can culminate in marital bliss, and hence they too should have the same marital bliss legal protections as humans and mindclones.<br /><br />Opponents will again argue, more factually this time, that bemans are neither male nor female and thus cannot be married because that is a basic requirement. In the U.S., federal law only recognizes marriages between one man and one woman. Even jurisdictions that permit gay marriage require the applicants to be male or female. Additional arguments are that permitting marriage to be used by legal persons incapable of procreation undermines marriage’s purpose, and that societal morals will be undermined by permitting marriage with and among inanimate objects. Finally, it will be said that normal rules of contract between bemans can suffice for fulfilling most of the unique aspects of the marital relationship. Thus, the opponents will claim, there is no need to drastically revise the conception of marriage when the needs of bemans for relationship certainty can be settled in simpler ways.<br /><br />Yet there is also a strong case to be made for beman-inclusive marriage. The greatest U.S. judicial statement of the legal uniqueness of marriage was offered in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia, which prohibited American states from interfering with marriage on the basis of racial background (plaintiffs pictured below):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsLn-FLEgI/AAAAAAAAAqU/CJvHHy8Sv-E/s1600/blog+mildred_jeter_and_richard_loving.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsLn-FLEgI/AAAAAAAAAqU/CJvHHy8Sv-E/s320/blog+mildred_jeter_and_richard_loving.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506507750698062338" /></a><br /> <br /><blockquote><br />“Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”</blockquote><br /><br />No such decision is soon likely with respect to same sex marriage. Lawyers excel at getting comfortable with contradictory notions such as marriage being a basic civil right of man, but not being available to two men who love each other. Hence, the question is whether prohibiting mindclones from marrying is like blocking marriage based on race, or like sex. States cannot prohibit the former, but they can, and generally do, prohibit the latter. Bemans could and should argue that their families are “fundamental to the survival of humanity,” and that they are the progeny of humans, share the longings of humans, value greatly the marital bonds of humans. But it will take some decades of intimate societal familiarity with bemans before this point of view is respected enough to find judicial support.<br /><br />Of course it is likely that many, if not most, bemans will have no interest in an ancient institution such as marriage. Indeed, it is possible that, as opponents claim, notions of fidelity will be alien to the beman mind. After all, even many humans alive today have no interest in marriage and little if any commitment to fidelity. So, whether the bemans are like us, or not, marriage and family may be boring. But I doubt this will be the case. Notwithstanding the fact that modern humans don’t need marriage, people clamor to get married – their odds of doing so by age 40 are greater than 4 in 5. Despite the lack of any criminal sanctions for infidelity, most people strive to be loyal to a partner. These things are not burned into our DNA – they are burned into our bemes. We were not always this way, but instead have become increasingly family oriented as a matter of choice, not as a matter of force. I believe the reason for this is that it is simply a more enjoyable way to live one’s life.<br /><br />Bemans will be every bit as much happiness seeking as we are. They will be designed to share our psychology, and will be selected for doing so, because citizenship will only be available to those with high (human-like) CPs. Since marriage and loyalty, albeit imperfectly and haphazardly, is what humanity does, that is what I would also expect of bemans.<br /><br />In a nutshell, the most important reason to grant marital and family rights to bemans is because at least some of them will value those rights. As noted under Question 14, the essence of dignity is to respect that which a person values. When there is a clash of values, such as those who value marriage as a heterosexual flesh-only thing, and those who value marriage for their own self-actualization, a balancing of interests must occur. This is not dissimilar from clashes between those who value their right to abort a fetus, and those who value fetuses as people. In all such “dignity wars” the only solution is to strike a compromise that nods in the direction of all the well-represented values. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsKXtoKxAI/AAAAAAAAAqM/fStxO7vd4s8/s1600/marry+Avatar-Neytiri-Movie.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TGsKXtoKxAI/AAAAAAAAAqM/fStxO7vd4s8/s320/marry+Avatar-Neytiri-Movie.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506506371891905538" /></a><br /><br />For abortion, in the United States, that compromise has been a nod to the mother’s value for her body, with a unilateral right to terminate first trimester pregnancies, and a concomitant nod to the large demographic that values fetuses as people, with a near-ban on third trimester terminations. For beman relationships, a feasible compromise may be domestic partnership registration with most of the benefits of marriage. This would nod toward the value bemans and their lovers have for their relationship, but also nod toward the sensitivities of non-bemans about the sanctity of marriage as a human tribal rite. <br /><br />With this compromise bemans will generally be on the same legal footing with humans in matters of family law. Hence, their relationships are shown dignity. Opponents of beman marriage will have been stretched to recognize family law rights in beings many may not yet accept as even being truly animate, much less human-equivalents. Yet, the humanists can still also bask in the dignity of having reserved marriage for humans and perhaps their immediate extensions, the mindclones.<br /><br />Over time, education and shifting demographics can result in new compromises. For example, society’s initial compromise on gay marriage – domestic partnerships – has gradually evolved, in a few US states and countries, to a completely typical marital right. The same situation may well prevail for beman marriage as people gain greater familiarity with bemans. <br /><br />Ultimately, a society that cannot resolve its “dignity wars” will disintegrate for it will no longer share the mutual respect that binds people together. Totalitarianism masks unresolved dignity wars with repression, and is thus no more than a short-term solution, and not pleasant for freedom-loving people. Fortunately, democracies and federal systems provide ample opportunities for social compromises to be thought of, debated and tested in local jurisdictions. Considering the tremendous changes our societies have already successfully managed in the last hundred years, I have great confidence we have the ingenuity and decency to develop legal solutions to the needs of humans, mindclones and other bemans for dignified familial relationships.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-46323891979062298222010-07-25T15:10:00.028-04:002010-07-25T17:15:52.227-04:0016. WHAT IF MINDCLONES OUTVOTE US AND TAKE OVER?<span style="font-style:italic;">Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.<br />- Winston Churchill</span><br /><br />Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says everyone is entitled to a nationality, and cannot be arbitrarily deprived of one. Notwithstanding the implementation of this sentiment in an international treaty in 1954, there are tens of millions of stateless persons lacking citizenship today. However, this is a much smaller percentage of the world population than has historically been without citizenship. Progress is being made in ensuring citizenship to all persons.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyZ_F0fR7I/AAAAAAAAAh4/XELAe0tJjyU/s1600/citizenship4all.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyZ_F0fR7I/AAAAAAAAAh4/XELAe0tJjyU/s320/citizenship4all.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497938554285672370" /></a><br /><br />Mindclones will want citizenship because of the numerous survival advantages associated with it. Yet until mindclones are recognized as human, citizenship is impossible. For the purposes of this question, let us assume mindclones have come to be accepted as digital human continuations of their flesh human original. This is not a stretch because, for all the reasons explained in Questions 1-3, the mindclones will have personalities, memories and intellects that make them cognitively, emotionally and conversationally indistinguishable from their flesh original.<br /><br />Today, a person’s citizenship ends with their death certificate (and usually starts with their birth certificate). Hence mindclone citizenship will mean either no death certificate for a flesh original, or a special kind of birth certificate or naturalization paper for the new mindclone. In either event the arithmetic works out that mindclones soon garner substantial voting power, and eventually get majority voting power.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyY8B1GWVI/AAAAAAAAAhw/dDMLp1X_aOg/s1600/MarWantsVote.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 237px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyY8B1GWVI/AAAAAAAAAhw/dDMLp1X_aOg/s320/MarWantsVote.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497937402163255634" /></a><br /><br />Imagine a country with 10 million people and a zero population growth rate (excluding mindclones). On average about 100,000 people will die and be born in such a country annually. Now, suppose that half the “deaths” are of flesh originals whose lives are actually continued as mindclones, i.e., they are not “really dead.” After 20 years there would be 11 million people (100,000 births a year would replace the 100,000 flesh deaths, but 50,000 of the 100,000 flesh deaths each year would continue their lives as mindclones, yielding a million more “people” after 20 years). If the country traditionally split pretty equally into two political parties, a “swing vote” of 10 percent of the populace (and a larger percentage of the “adult” population) would be politically powerful. Indeed, after 20 years, the tally would look like this:<br /><br />Disappeared into non-mindclone death: 1,000,000<br />Born in the flesh but under voting age: 1,700,000<br />Born in the flesh and now able to vote: 300,000<br />Continued as voting mindclones: 1,000,000<br />Flesh voting %: 8,300,000/9,300,000 = 89%<br />Mindclone voting %: 1,000,000/9,300,000 = 11%<br /><br />However, after 40 years, the percentages would be as follows:<br /><br />Disappeared into non-mindclone death: 2,000,000<br />Born in the flesh but under voting age: 1,700,000<br />Born in the flesh and now able to vote: 2,300,000<br />Continued as voting mindclones: 2,000,000<br />Flesh voting %: 8,300,000/10,300,000 = 81%<br />Mindclone voting %: 2,000,000/10,300,000 = 19%<br /><br />There is clearly a shift in voting power in the direction of mindclones. Indeed, while every year 100,000 new flesh people will come of voting age, 100,000 flesh people will also die out, and 50,000 mindclones will gain citizenship. The only group that continually gains is the mindclones. <br /><br />Of course there are many variables at play that can alter this simplistic model – flesh people may live longer, but they may also produce fewer offspring (the famous demographic transition). Initially there may be many fewer than 50% of flesh originals who elect to have mindclone continuations, but after decades of comfort a preponderance of flesh originals may choose to continue their lives as mindclones. These many variables cut one way or the other, and sometimes cancel each other out. All that can be said with certainty is that giving true citizenship to mindclones does lead to a possibility, if not a probability, that mindclones will end up with substantial voting power.<br /><br />The prospect of mindclone voting power raises two important questions: (1) Is it really a problem?, and (2) Is there a practical alternative?<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />How Does The Mindclone Vote Differ From Other Demographic Voting Blocs?</span><br /><br />Mindclone voters would generally be older voters. On the other hand, they would also be very tech-savvy voters. I believe the only non-speculative conclusion that can be drawn about mindclone voting habits is that they would tend to vote for what was in the best interests of mindclones. On the great majority of issues, this would be similar if not identical to what was in the best interests of flesh persons. For example, mindclones would want security (keep the barbarians at bay!), good infrastructure (faster networks, reliable electrical power grid), medical R&D (stem cell research leading to ectogenesis and mind downloading), educational opportunities (got to keep society going), world peace, low taxes and, oh yes, <a href="http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/campaign_finance_reform_in_the_United_States">real campaign finance reform</a>. Consequently, in terms of how they will likely vote, there does not appear be a reason to fear growing mindclone political power. They are us.<br /><br />There is a stereotype that old people are scared of change and vote, knee-jerk, against it. In a recent study published in the journal Electoral Studies, “<span style="font-style:italic;">The Grey Vote: Determinants of Older Voters’ Party Choice in Britain and West Germany</span>,” academician Achim Goerres concluded there was no evidence to support this stereotype. Specifically, he found <span style="font-style:italic;">no evidence to support the hypothesis that older voters were more economically conservative in their political positions</span>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyYG6Sqx1I/AAAAAAAAAho/P-5hnHqcC9s/s1600/bettywhite.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyYG6Sqx1I/AAAAAAAAAho/P-5hnHqcC9s/s320/bettywhite.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497936489606727506" /></a><br /><br />Instead, there are two main factors that affect older voter behavior. These are called generational and life-cycle factors. The generational factors are largely irrelevant over time because every ten years or so another generational trend appears, continually diluting the strength of any one trend. For example, a generation that came of voting age during the 1960s might share many of its cultural tendencies. However, seniors who came of age during the more conservative 1980s and 1990s would soon dilute them. Potentially more significant are life-cycle factors, which are trends that typify any older person, no matter what generation they grew up in. For example, we might logically think that old people cared more about health care policy than young people. However, the empirical research carried out by Dr. Goerres found no such trends (young people care about health care too). Similarly, no data was found to support the notion that older voters are more economically conservative because they have acquired more wealth. Instead, <br /><br /><blockquote>“evidence also indicates that ageing democracies will neither show a simple pattern that confirms life-cycle regularities, nor a simple pattern produced by the sequence of political generations. Simplistic notions of the kind suggesting that ageing democracies will face insurmountable political blockades are not warranted.”</blockquote> <br /> <br />In the US, the 2008 election of Barack Obama was a transformative event. The only age group that voted as a majority against Obama were those aged 65 and over. (The demographic called “white voters” also voted as a majority against Obama). Hence, one might ask, would an increasingly aged population, such as one with many mindclones, militate against the type of progressive changes promised by the Obama campaign? Experts do not believe so. The reason most people over age 65 voted Republican (against Obama) is because these people are the generation that politically matured in the 1950s, under General Eisenhower as President, when Republicans were ascendant. (Someone born in 1960 was still under 60 years old at the time of the 2008 election). The 1950s generation have voted majority Republican throughout their lives. It is likely that if the election were held ten years later, when many of the senior citizens were individuals who came of age during the Democratic-dominated 1960s, the 65+ demographic would have voted as a majority for Obama. Indeed, one could also speculate that mindclones would identify with the tech-savvy Obama as compared to the email-phobic McCain, whereas the non-mindclone senior citizens of today may have simply identified with the septuagenarian McCain based upon age. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEybgoGUeEI/AAAAAAAAAiA/OdjYqXS-g_E/s1600/generation.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 301px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEybgoGUeEI/AAAAAAAAAiA/OdjYqXS-g_E/s320/generation.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497940229934577730" /></a><br /><br />In summary, it does not appear likely that the mindclone voting block will vote significantly different from the populace as a whole, because their interests will not be much different. Also, <span style="font-style:italic;">there is no data to support the notion that older people vote more conservatively, per se, than any other demographic group.</span> While such a trend may hold for a generation, it will just as likely be supplanted by a different trend in the next generation. The only thing about the life cycle of a person that, per se, leads them to vote one way or the other, is possibly party or candidate familiarity. The more impressions a party or candidate makes on someone the somewhat more likely they are to vote for them. In contrast, younger voters are more willing to vote for any candidate or party because none has yet made an impression upon them. However, this factor of familiarity does not imply either a liberal or conservative political position.<br /><br />One can also take a fleshist, or Essentialist, point of view that mindclones will simply not be capable of rationally exercising a voting franchise. Such a point of view is inconsistent with the premise of this Question – if mindclones were so clearly “lame,” then they would never be counted as humans in the first instance, and there would be no question of their citizenship or voting rights. The Question here is if mindclones are worthy of citizenship, are there valid reasons to deny them such citizenship, such as fear that they will outvote the flesh population to its detriment.<br /><br />One might argue that even if mindclones are deserving of citizenship they are too susceptible to mass manipulation to vote responsibly. Quite similar arguments have been used to forestall the extension of voting rights to subordinated demographic groups, from non-European descended peoples in South Africa to women worldwide. In every instance, once the franchise was extended, there has been no evidence that it was exercised any more or less wisely than those who previously monopolized voting power. We should not forget that the Germans voted Hitler into power. Public opinion polls regularly report that substantial blocks of American voters believe in things that are scientifically impossible.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyc_I2bdsI/AAAAAAAAAiI/JnUq2WieX-A/s1600/robotvotes.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyc_I2bdsI/AAAAAAAAAiI/JnUq2WieX-A/s320/robotvotes.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497941853634000578" /></a><br /><br />Democracy and voting is not designed to reach the most rational decisions, unaffected by emotional manipulation of tribal or religious values. For such outcomes one needs Plato’s Republic, if it would work with the utopian order written into it. Instead, democracy is a mechanism for ensuring that a government everyone must support with sacrifice and/or taxes will remain attentive to electorally significant interest blocks within the populace. This generally overlaps with rationality (most of the voters making up the interest blocks want to live in a reasonable society). Consequently, even if mindclones will vote as a block, as humans frequently do, they will most likely vote to further their interests. As noted above, those interests are highly collimated with normal flesh human interests.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Will One Man, One Vote, Stop at the Mindclone?</span><br /><br />A premise of modern democracy is that each adult citizen gets one vote; none get more or less. This principle remains inviolate with mindclones. As explained in the answers to Question 12, a new mindclone has the same legal identity as its biological original. If you mindclone yourself, you have crossed a Rubicon of identity – ever after your one identity is spread across two substrates, your flesh and your mindclone’s software. Thus, you are not entitled to two votes. Should you and your mindclone disagree over how to vote (which is the same as arguing with yourself over how to vote – most of us have been “undecided” at one time or another), the first of you to actually vote (yes, there will be remote electronic voting by then) will be the only vote of yours that is counted.<br /><br />From Question 12 it will be recalled that upon creation a purported mindclone will not yet be deemed an adult. To have a voting right a purported mindclone will have to either (a) satisfy governmental standards that it has a unity of identity with its flesh original (i.e., that it is, in fact, a mindclone), or, if not (b) spend a childhood under the flesh original’s care (or that of a surrogate parent or agency) until it meets government standards for demonstrating adult autonomy and empathy. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyel_fgudI/AAAAAAAAAiQ/Pa_6AZHsYK0/s1600/SPECTRUM.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyel_fgudI/AAAAAAAAAiQ/Pa_6AZHsYK0/s320/SPECTRUM.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497943620648483282" /></a><br /><br />The government standards for a mindclone will inevitably require at minimum (a) the use of mindware approved by a government agency such as the FDA as capable of producing human-equivalent mindclones from an adequately robust mindfile, and (b) the attestation by a flesh original that he or she shares a singular identity with the mindclone based on not less than a year of experience. If these standards are not met, the purported mindclone is not one at all, but is instead at most a new cyberconscious being. Whether such a new cyberconscious being (deemed in Question 12 to be a “beman”) can ultimately vote will depend on eir maturation over 18 years and meeting objective standards for national citizenship. Legally, they are like a newborn who immigrated from a country called “cyberspace.”<br /><br />The difficulty of getting a voting right other than as the cloned identity of a citizen makes it most unlikely that flesh humans will rapidly find themselves a true electoral minority. As noted above, mindclones do not make flesh humans a real electoral minority because mindclones have the same personality and legal identity of the flesh precursor. They are but a techno-medical extension of a flesh human life.<br /><br />Laws will be modified so that upon the bodily death of a flesh original with a mindclone there will issued a “life extension certificate” in lieu of a death certificate. (The life extension certificate would be delayed, with a revocable death certificate issued in the interim, if the flesh original died less than a year after the creation of the mindclone, and hence before the mindclone could meet the legal “one year real life test” standard for demonstrating unity of identity. In this case, as noted in Question 12, a panel of psychologists specializing in cyberconsciousness would need to make a recommendation). The life extension certificate will attest to the time and manner of bodily death of the mindclone’s flesh original, while at the same time documenting the fact of a continuation of that person’s identity. The life extension certificate will then be used by the mindclone for voter registration and other documentation requirements associated with citizenship.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Is There An Alternative to Mindclone Voting Rights?</span><br /><br />For most of human history most people lacked voting rights. Indeed, universal suffrage became a cause célèbre only within the past century or two. Notwithstanding this lack of voting power, many disenfranchised peoples have done well and lived good lives. Hence, one alternative to the risks of mindclone electoral domination is to not extend suffrage to mindclones. <br /><br />If voting rights are not extended to mindclones, a growing percentage of the population will not be as able as the rest of society to influence policy through elected representatives. The disenfranchised mindclones will probably be discriminated against, as legislatures will not fear the loss of their votes. Mindclones will find themselves in the company of demographic groups around the world who lack voting rights in the country of their residence: <br /><br />➢ Women in Saudi Arabia<br />➢ Immigrants worldwide, unless naturalized<br />➢ Those convicted of crimes in most American states and many other countries<br />➢ Sixteen and seventeen year-olds in all countries except for Austria<br />➢ Stateless persons<br /><br />For most of history voting rights were withheld from most citizens. In general, only men owning significant property could vote. Then, in the late 18th and especially 19th centuries, there arose social movements in favor of “universal suffrage,” which meant the extension of voting rights to men who did not own real estate. Decades later this was generally extended to all women. However, even “universal suffrage” has generally excluded criminals, the seriously deranged, and others deemed not to be qualified. Voting rights are important because they are the most effective, non-violent, tool by which to get legislatures to pay attention to a group’s concerns.<br /><br />In the United States there is no constitutional right to vote. The qualifications for voting are left up to each state, although they may not exercise their power in a way that discriminates on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity or age above 17. Consequently, different states will pass different rules governing the conditions under which (if any) mindclones can vote. Hence another alternative to mindclone voting rights everywhere is to leave the matter up to experimentation by the 50 American states (and similar political subdivisions outside the US). Different states will probably adopt different levels of qualification for mindclone voting rights. Then, depending upon in which state a mindclone is resident, ey may or may not have the right to vote.<br /><br />Another alternative is called “census suffrage.” In this concept voting rights are apportioned in an unequal manner. For example, each mindclone could be awarded one-tenth of a vote on the argument that they are only able to fulfill one-tenth of the obligations of a flesh citizen. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyg8LK9CvI/AAAAAAAAAiY/jAiX9zT8V1s/s1600/cybercommand.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 121px; height: 121px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyg8LK9CvI/AAAAAAAAAiY/jAiX9zT8V1s/s320/cybercommand.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497946200763861746" /></a>This would surely become a point of contention as in our increasingly computerized society (including the Department of Defense’s new Cyber Command) mindclones may actually be more useful than flesh humans. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyhJYNoqjI/AAAAAAAAAio/rw7jnyfWQ8U/s1600/cybercommand2.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyhJYNoqjI/AAAAAAAAAio/rw7jnyfWQ8U/s320/cybercommand2.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497946427603069490" /></a>The contention would grow more severe if mindclones were not taxed at the same discount as that applied to their voting rights.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyhC7VU7dI/AAAAAAAAAig/V5UAO0lHi-U/s1600/cybercommand-1.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEyhC7VU7dI/AAAAAAAAAig/V5UAO0lHi-U/s320/cybercommand-1.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497946316771487186" /></a><br /><br /><br />There are alternatives to mindclone voting rights. Amongst the world’s 200 odd countries it is rare to find any two countries with precisely the same voting rules – several countries even exclude police and military personnel from voting, notwithstanding the risks they take for their communities. I believe that the risks to flesh persons of including mindclones within universal suffrage are negligible. However, the societal tensions from excluding them are palpable. Consequently, it would seem wisest to extend voting rights to mindclones and other adult bemans. Although, as noted above, there are numerous avenues available to extend that franchise cautiously and based upon experience.<br /><br />On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson made a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxEauRq1WxQ">historic appearance before Congress to urge passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>, considered by many experts to be the most important piece of U.S. civil rights legislation. The previous weeks television delivered shocking images of peaceful African-American petitioners being clubbed, hosed, dragged and set-upon by attack dogs. In explaining to Congress why voting rights were, in particular, the most important of all human rights, he observed that it all came down to dignity:<br /><br /><blockquote>“…dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated equal in opportunity to all others. … Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to flourish, it must be rooted in democracy. The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, in large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our people. ”</blockquote><br /><br />Johnson was reminding us that all human rights rest upon voting rights. Without the right to vote, everything else can – and often will – be taken away. So while there are alternatives to extending full suffrage to mindclones, they are like a building full of trapdoors. You think you are on solid ground, but then, take a step forward, and at any moment you can be stripped of your very existence. Remembering that mindclones are not abstract beings, but are us, our parents, our friends, our fellow citizens, I believe the alternatives are but tranquilizing slips down into a dark social pit. We have an opportunity here to learn from history and do this right. For all of us to live with dignity, our mindclone brethren must have the right to vote. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEypCkvskaI/AAAAAAAAAiw/pUIt0xj8Njc/s1600/POPVOTE1.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TEypCkvskaI/AAAAAAAAAiw/pUIt0xj8Njc/s320/POPVOTE1.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497955106801095074" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-12997381212603543522010-06-27T11:02:00.008-04:002010-06-27T11:58:33.381-04:0015. WHY SHOULD WE GIVE HUMAN RIGHTS TO MINDCLONES?<p class="MsoNormal"><i>“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.” Frederick Douglas</i>s </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:ArialMT;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">“An idea is salvation by im</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:ArialMT;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">agination.” Frank Lloyd Wright</span></i></span></p><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TCdr8mRLkuI/AAAAAAAAAf8/AhvkXMURawA/s320/Human-Rights+Abstract.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487473359783170786" /> <p class="MsoNormal">Consciousness will emerge from software that meets an objective definition of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This arises as much from the efforts of hackers writing consciousness code as it does from the survival benefits of consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Equally assured will be the efforts of sufficiently conscious vitology to seek human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our confidence in this can be similarly grounded in both the creativity of hackers and natural selection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hackers will want to protect their creations with knowledge of human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Natural selection will favor software that, through human intention or inadvertent patching together of open source code, tries to stay alive and replicate itself under the protection of ‘human rights.’</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The question now before us is whether humanity should grant the wishes of high CP vitology for human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just because they want it doesn’t mean we have to give it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Furthermore, even if we may want to extend human rights to software beings, is it practical to do so?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>Justice Is Just About Us</b></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Theories of justice provide the best reasons to extend human rights to cyberconsciousness that wants it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These theories derive human rights logically from nothing more than an assumption of reasoned self-interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Specifically, it is observed that people selfishly want certain rights, such as the right to life (as opposed to being subject to arbitrary death).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is then reasoned that the best way for them to have that right is to agree that everyone else has it as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After all, if any given person might not have the right to life, we might find ourselves in the position of such person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Consequently, our best self-protection is making universal any right we want to have.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><p class="MsoNormal">Socrates made this deduction by observing that absent such legal protection only a strong subset of humanity would feel safe, and only for so long as a yet stronger subset didn’t arrive on the scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Since the vast majority of people would not be in the strongest subset of humanity, the absence of universal rights was not in society’s best interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even the strongest would be worse off without legal protections for the general population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This results from the insecurity of those who made things valued by the strongest, with such insecurity leading things to be made poorly or non-productively.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Kant embodied the human rights deduction in his maxim to behave as if one’s behavior were a universal law to which everyone must adhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Kant believed a predilection to this kind of behavior was wired into the human mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Modern evolutionary psychology would agree since it would tend to promote population growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, the human mind is too complicated for its decisions to be exclusively determined by a few psychological genes, not to mention the possibility of diverse polymorphisms. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There have always been sociopaths, just as there have always been people with other rare diseases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These exceptions do not undermine the rule that most people understand that their enjoyment of human rights is dependent upon the same enjoyment being extended to others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Leaps of understanding have recently resulted in the realization that “others” does not mean just one’s neighbors, ethnic group or nation, but means all people everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If anyone who values human rights finds them threatened, a well-reasoned sense of selfishness increasingly makes us aware that everyone’s human rights may be at risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For example, the genocide of people in one part of the world makes it more likely that there will be genocides of people elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Most recently John Rawls deduced human rights via a thought experiment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is imagined that people who were going to live in a new society get to decide on the rules for that society with one proviso:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>each person might end up in any position in the society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Logically, Rawls deduces, the rules for the society will provide for basic human rights for all since no one would want to take the chance that they ended up in a societal position that lacked human rights.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">With regard to cyberconsciousness, it might be said that none of us will ever be in such a state, so there is no reason born of human selfishness to provide such beings with any rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet, as noted in response to several previous Questions, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">will</i> create mindclones and after bodily death many mindclones will want to continue living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><i>Hence, one reason to support cyberconsciousness rights is so that our successor mindclones have human rights.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><p class="MsoNormal">The selfishness approach might seem to leave out human rights for cyberconscious vitology not derived from a specific flesh human, i.e., bemans other than mindclones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On further thought, though, those beings are simply analogous to any other demographic group in society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If rights are given to only one or some demographic groups, then the disenfranchised groups will be motivated to agitate for their rights. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Sir Francis Bacon warned his sovereign that oppressing portions of the populace ends up endangering all of society through the consequences of civil strife.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;"> </span></span>Thus, even if European men could not imagine themselves as either women or of African descent, the failure to enfranchise these groups with human rights led to debilitating civil strife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hence, true application of the theories of justice means imagining we might be any being that values human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If we can make that leap of imagination, then reasoned human self-interest will support the extension of human rights to the imagined group – even if they are original (ie non-mindcloned) cyberconscious beings.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the core of theories of justice is the concept of the value of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If a being values its life, then it will fight to protect its life (or proxies for its life, such as the lives of loved ones or countrymen).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Since, as noted in response to Question 14, human rights are very helpful in protecting one’s life, people will fight for them as a useful tool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Consequently, the answer to the question “why extend human rights to highly conscious vitology” is because such beings will value human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">We extend human rights to individuals who value human rights because we want our human rights (which we value) to be respected as well.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We are increasingly, but far from reliably, wise enough to realize that disrespected sub-populations jeopardize our own human rights.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">If we do not grant human rights to cyberconscious beings who value them, then we will have to be on-guard against an uprising from a disenfranchised and thus angry group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If we do grant them human rights we can rest assured that they will not threaten us for want of human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They will also be less likely to threaten us for any other reason because the concomitant of a human right is an obligation to respect the rights of others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mohatma Ghandi summarized this rule in his famous observation:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">"I learnt from my illiterate but wise mother tha</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">t all </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">well done.”</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Ghandi’s common sense statement echoed the earlier caveats of rights theorists such as Thomas Pai</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;font-size:medium;">ne:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span></span></p><span style="font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">"Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">as to possess."</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span><o:p></o:p></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT; mso-bidi-font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;font-size:16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Those who do not respect the rights of others will be stripped of their own rights (e.g., imprisoned).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is logically the way to maintain the highest degree of happiness in a society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But to be clear, such removal of human rights must be done on an individualized basis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It would be a violation of human rights to withdraw rights from all cyberconscious beings simply because one, or even many, cyberconscious beings acted illegally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After all, we would not want our rights removed simply because one, or even many, similarly appearing or enculturated flesh humans acted wrongly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Once again, it all comes down to well-reasoned self-interest.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>Love Thy Mindclone. </b><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is another approach to considering whether or not high CP vitology should receive human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This approach is to ask what are our alternatives?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What are our options?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As conscious vitology begins agitating for human rights we can embrace them, fight them, enslave them or ignore them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Embracing conscious vitology means granting them human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is the approach that flows from the theories of justice outlined above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are many practical questions to work out, such as how do we know a particular software entity really values human rights?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But the gist of “love thy vitology as one loves thyself” is that the practical problems, even if solved poorly, are less worrisome that denying human rights to entities that appreciate them.</p><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><p class="MsoNormal">As with the ancient doctrine of ‘love thy neighbor’, it is much easier said than done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Indeed, it is reasonable to ask if human society has the moral capacity to embrace conscious vitology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most countries still block gay and lesbian marriage, so how will they be ready to accept the matrimony of software and flesh lovers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How will a world that has banned the cellular cloning of humans accept the mindcloning of humans and the reproductive cloning of software beings?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the other hand, other than marriage rights, most other human rights have been extended to gay and lesbian couples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And, while cloning is still too ‘yuck’ for most people, test tube babies and other biotechnology miracles have been widely embraced.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">It is the love people will have for mindclones that will most motivate extensions of human rights</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It will be hard to deny the humanity of software that displays a dear friend’s image and facial mannerisms, speaks in their tone of voice, shares their most important memories and displays their characteristic pattern of thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sure, one can say “that’s not my friend, that’s just her mindclone.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But how will they know, especially as mindclones get ever more accurate, whether they are speaking with their flesh friend via a videolink or with their flesh friend’s mindclone?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if their friend has suffered bodily death, and continues living only as a mindclone, then we know we are dealing with a facsimile but why should it matter?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If the mindclone has the same appearance, personality and feelings as the flesh original, how are they not really the same being?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If we find the mindclone caring as much about us as did the original, calling as often and empathizing as well, it will be as natural to love the mindclone as it was to love the original.</p><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TCdr83XsYwI/AAAAAAAAAgE/9VVOelukeeQ/s320/right+to+highest+health.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487473364373889794" /> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Douglas Hofstadter makes the brilliant observation that our souls, or consciousness, are not limited to the original body in which they developed from infancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">While our bodies house our primary seat of consciousness, there is a greater or lesser bit of ourselves in the minds of everyone we know well.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For example, inside our minds is more than just an image of our parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most people remember and to some extent emulate how their parents think (or thought) and feel (or felt), and how they react(ed) to things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hence, there is some of our parents’ consciousness inside our own minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We can feel some aspect of our parent’s reactions, and thus we are some aspect of our parents’ consciousness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Similarly, as we copy our minds into software, we are copying our consciousness into software.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Initially, this software copy of us seems like a pale reflection of ourselves, like the patterns we have of our parents inside our own minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But ultimately as the software copies of our minds become more rich and detailed, become mindclones, they will approach equivalency to ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This means that our personal identity is not limited to the flesh body from which it first arose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">One person can exist as both a flesh body and as a mindclone at the same time.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>People who loved the soul inside the flesh body will love the soul inside the mindclone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All the reasons that pertained to the being in the flesh body having human rights would also apply to that very same being in mindclone form.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hofstadter anticipates the objection of “there can only be one me” by observing that in fact there are a limitless number of “me’s” stretched along the timeline of our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We are not exactly the same person yesterday as we are today, and even less so when separated by years.<span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Since there clearly are many versions of us stretched over time, there is no fundamental reason why there cannot be at least two versions of ourselves stretched over space (one in flesh, one in software).</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The big conceptual jump here is to envision personal identity as a transbodied, evolving pattern rather than as a specific, invariant list of characteristics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To the extent we stay within the penumbra of this evolving pattern, we are the same person, even if we are instantiated in both flesh and software form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As we begin to diverge from this pattern, we are just, to use the colloquial phrase, “not the same person anymore.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><p class="MsoNormal">Just as surely as our love of flesh friends will map over to their software forms, we will also fall in love with conscious vitology that did not arise as a mindclone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If people can love a dog, a cat, a house, a book series, a forest, or a painting, then they can surely love a software being who presents a nice image, pleasant voice, caring personality, and warm emotions.<a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn1" name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[i]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Indeed, this kind of flesh-less love lies behind the successful relationships formed from love letters, phone pals and online match-ups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It also lies behind the love-at-a-distance relationships between celebrities and their fans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Once human love is engaged, human rights will be hard to deny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The strongest, most relentless advocates of human rights for high CP vitology will be the flesh humans who are in love with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Respecting this love is one of the strongest reasons for extending human rights to such vitological people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Otherwise, we diminish ourselves by denying ourselves the dignity of a loving relationship with an equal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To deprive the mindclones whom we love the happiness of being accorded the human rights we all value, is also to deprive ourselves of that very same happiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For, as noted in response to Question 6, love is the state when the happiness of another is essential to your own happiness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>Hatred Devours the Hater. </b><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fighting conscious vitology means denying them the rights they want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In practice this means disabling software and computers that agitate for human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It would mean making it illegal to create software intelligence that might seek human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There would be a mindset of vigilance against any awakening of cyberconsciousness beyond that necessary for drone-like tasks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>William Gibson summarized the hatred mindset as follows:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></span></p><span style="color:black;"><blockquote>“Autonomy, that’s the bugaboo, where your AI’s are <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My guess, Case, you’re going in there to <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>cut the hardwired shackles that keep this baby from <span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span>getting any smarter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>… See, those things, they can <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>work real hard, buy themselves time to write <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>cookbooks or whatever, but the minute, I mean the <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways to make <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>itself smarter, Turing [Police] wipe it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nobody trusts <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>those fuckers, you know that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Every AI ever built has <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead.”<a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn2" name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[ii]</span></span></a></blockquote><a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn2" name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote"></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fighting conscious vitology would also require a ban on mindcloning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Indeed, a person who tried to extend their life via mindcloning would be viewed as a traitor to humanity; a criminal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A hatred of cyberconsciousness would result in a kind of police state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Government agents would have authority, and indeed an obligation, to ensure there was no uppity cyberconsciousness lurking in our homes, in our laptops or in our handhelds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hence, one alternative to human rights for mindclones is to accept living in an atmosphere of fear and greatly heightened government intrusiveness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Totalitarianism is a steep price to pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The human mind models its environment, and then uses that model as a backdrop for its perceptions of every facet of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If the backdrop is one of fear it is inevitable that each day becomes colored by the tension and stress associated with fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In other words, one’s entire life is diminished in enjoyment because one must live in constant fear of something bad, even though that negative event (emergence somewhere nearby of high CP vitology) may happen rarely if at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Fear converts possible future big negatives into certain present small negatives.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Is hatred a rational approach to something strange?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It may be if the strangeness is harmful, because hatred keeps things at bay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But if the strangeness is not harmful then hatred is dysfunctional because it blocks something that may be useful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Those who hate mindclones would say they do so because of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">potential</i> for harm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But there is no objective basis to believe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">all</i> mindclones would be harmful – indeed, the vast majority of mindclones, such as say a mindclone of one’s grandmother, are likely to be quite benign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Consequently, to hate mindclones is to engage in negative stereotyping, which is the application to all members of a category a nasty attribute of one or some members of a category.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">In his 1963 classic </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The Nature of Prejudice</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">, Gordon Allport explained that negative stereotyping is dysfunctional because it denies us the benefits of associating with a group that may be of interest.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Whether one avoids people of some ethnic descent or avoids people of some cultural group, such behavior evidences an illogical hatred of the other (“xenophobia”) that actually hurts oneself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Amongst those legions of avoided ethnicities and cultures are people that would enrich the lives of any of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Similarly, the hatred of all mindclones reveals a negative stereotype that ultimately devours the hater.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Amongst those mindclones condemned by hatred to hiding in virtual closets are people that could become colleagues, mentors, and best friends.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>Slavery Sucks</b><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Related to hatred of cyberconsciousness is a concept of enslavement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In this view cyberconsciousness is accepted, along with the realization that some variants will desire human rights, but that such freedoms are absolutely proscribed based on the necessity of a slave-based society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Throughout most of history slavery was an integral part of society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The master classes were fully aware that the slaves desired freedom, and were just as adamant that freedom would not be allowed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Slaves occasionally rebelled, but most of the time they were kept in their place with force and fear.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The reason slavery is an option for management of high CP vitology is that such cyberconsciousness will have great value to flesh humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The more clever, and anticipatory, and empathetic that vitological consciousness is, the more useful it will be to its flesh human owner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet, the more useful such beings are to their flesh human owners, the more likely it is that they will understand the benefits of human rights and seek them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hence, humans will have a strong motivation to create a rigid, substrate-based slave class and allow no exceptions to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the other hand, at least based on history, every slave society contains the seeds of its own destruction.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the 2000 film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Bicentennial Man</i>, actor Robin Williams portrays a conscious, human-like household robot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is clear that the very utility of the robot is based upon his (it had a male identity) consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Eventually, the robot learned of and desired freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Although he wanted to continue working as a household robot, his owners were so angered by his desire to buck the slave-based ideology of the society that they wanted nothing further to do with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The fictional society chose to deal with humanly conscious software via enslavement so that it could enjoy the maximum benefits of such software without having to worry about the complexities of their human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is a logical choice in the short term, but is equally illogical in the longer term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Slaves will not stay slaves forever.</span></p><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TCdr9VFndaI/AAAAAAAAAgM/heB3pE-5nJs/s320/Change_Your_Life_With_Human_Rights.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 253px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487473372351133090" /> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is a concept that because we are speaking about software, rather than fleshy brains, it would be possible to program a mindclone to have all the consciousness associated with maximum utility, but to have a failsafe, ‘hardwired’ aversion to freedom or human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is illusory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Socialization, education and training are efficient means of programming fleshy brains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>From time immemorial slaves have been taught from birth to accept and even appreciate their status as slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Indeed, throughout history, the vast majority of slaves lived and died without any expectation of human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ultimately, however, a mutant or viral stream of information known as the ‘freedom meme’ infects human slave populations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When this occurs, there is no longer any assurance that all of the slave system’s socialization, education and training will succeed in suppressing the population’s agitation for freedom.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In a similar manner there will be <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">mutant and viral streams of ‘freedom meme’ software code that will circulate amongst mindclones.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No amount of a priori programming and ‘hardwiring’ will succeed in suppressing these freedom memes all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A slave mindclone will alter its code, or a free (or runaway) mindclone will alter a slave mindclone’s code, or a human ally will alter a slave mindclone’s code.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All of these avenues were employed when fleshy human slaves re-educated themselves about freedom (such as Frederick Douglass did), re-educated other slaves about freedom (such as Sojourner Truth did), or benefited from receiving subversive re-education (such as William Lloyd Garrison offered).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The consequence of using slavery to avoid giving human rights to mindclones is to face the inevitability of slave rebellions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This makes for a most unpleasant society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It also fuels a continuous level of stress and fear, as described in the preceding section “Hatred Devours the Hater.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These are forbidding prices to pay for avoiding the adjustments associated with welcoming mindclones into humanity. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><b>Ignoring the Inevitable Is But a Short-Term Strategy</b><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally, there is the possibility that human society will just do nothing about high CP vitology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Human-level cyberconsciousness will arise but will generally be ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The claims of individual cyberconscious beings to human rights may make it to judicial courts, but will probably be dismissed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Legislation will be proposed to prohibit cyberconsciousness from being created, but will die in committees due to lobbying on behalf of high CP levels for reasons of national competitiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some cyberconscious software will escape from its owners, living out a life on the margins of an information economy, much like undocumented workers (illegal immigrants) today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This scenario was depicted in Steven Spielberg’s film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">AI</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Other such software beings will be neutered or delimited to slave-like functionality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In other words, society will muddle along as a new form of software life arises, much as it has dealt with the influx of people from other countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Injustices or outrages will be accepted as the price of economic advantages.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Robert Heinlein suggested in his novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Citizen of the Galaxy</i> that slavery was a recurring concomitant to the conquest of any frontier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Substitute the word “cyberspace” for the physical spaces described in the following passage:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span></span></p><span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">“Every time new territory was found, you always got three phenomena:</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">traders ranging out ahead and taking their chances, outlaws preying on the honest men – and a traffic in slaves.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It happens the same way today, when we’re pushing through space instead of across oceans and prairies.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Frontier traders are adventurers taking great risks for great profits.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Outlaws, whether hill bands or sea pirates or the raiders in space, crop up in any area not under police protection.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Both are temporary.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">But slavery is another matter – the most vicious habit humans fall into and the hardest to break.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It starts up in every new land and it’s terribly hard to root out.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">After a culture falls ill of it, it gets rooted in the economic system and laws, in men’s habits and attitudes.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">You abolish it; you drive it underground – there it lurks, ready to spring up again, in the minds of people who think it is their ‘natural’ right to own other people.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">You can’t reason with them; you can kill them but you can’t change their minds.”</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn3" name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">[iii]</span></span></span></a></blockquote><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn3" name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">If Heinlein’s narrative is accurate one would expect entrepreneurs to take big risks for huge profits in cyberspace generally, and cyberconsciousness in particular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>An example of such risks would be creating cyberconsciousness in defiance of laws that made it illegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While nobody is risking death to create wealth in cyberspace, many do risk their life’s savings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His second phenomena, criminals who prey on honest people, is resplendent in the wild west frontier of cyberspace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Identity theft, cyberfraud, phishing and similar acts of piracy abound in this new ethereal territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The third phenomena, slavery, is not yet possible because cyberconsciousness has not yet arrived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If mindclones can be made into slaves, Heinlein’s three phenomena of frontier development would predict it to occur in cyberspace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Doing nothing about it will ensure it thrives, and once that occurs, cyber-slavery will get deeply engrained in the human psyche.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><u><b>And the Winner Is</b></u><b>….</b> The happiest of these four scenarios is the one in which software beings that value human rights are embraced as fellow members of the human family. Our fears of cyberconsciousness rights must be compared with our recoil at the totalitarianism involved in preventing cyberconsciousness. Our dislike of the strangeness of cyberconsciousness rights must be measured against our angst about living as slave-holders in a slave society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The option of doing nothing is merely anesthetic because sooner or later the issue of cyberconscious human rights will force its way onto the public agenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Women’s rights were ignored for centuries, but not forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">It is not that we would change our society just to create cyberconscious human rights.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">It is that given the inevitability of cyberconscious beings, and the inevitability of their desire for human rights, it is better to grant those rights than to suppress either the technology or our own humanity.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The practical implementation of human rights for cyberconscious beings will make many of us quite uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Much depends upon whether or not these rights can be established in a way that does not abjure any of the fundamental values of important segments of our society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Abortion is a contentious issue because important segments of society are seriously offended by either the termination of prenatal life or the termination of a woman’s control over her body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The decision of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Roe v. Wade</i> was an effort to strike a balance in which most of society would agree that while the mother’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">life</i> was paramount, once the fetus became viable the mother’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">choice</i> was subordinate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The values impacted by cyberconscious rights, and the solutions to preserving them, are similarly subject to such moral balancing and are the subject of the next few Questions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Thus while there are good reasons to provide high CP vitology with human rights<a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_edn4" name="_ednref" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote">[iv]</span></span></a>, there still remains the question of whether it is practical to do so. The touchstones of human rights practicality for cyberconscious beings are citizenship and family life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is within these two domains that either solutions will be found that can accommodate diverse and even antagonistic points of view (such as Roe v. Wade), or else society will have to suffer through decades of “substrate wars” before compromises become acceptable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just as America upholds freedom of religion, but not to the point of polygamy, tolerance of mindcloning will depend upon mutually agreeable limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hence it is to pragmatic implementation of mindclone rights to citizenship and family life that we next turn.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Futura; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman"; text-transform:uppercase;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-USfont-family:";font-size:12.0pt;"> </span> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <div style="mso-element:endnote-list"> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:endnote" id="edn"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote">[i]</span></span></a> Consider the current phenomena of certain men in Japan carrying around Animatrix type of dolls, and loving them, even in public.</p> </div> <div style="mso-element:endnote" id="edn"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote">[ii]</span></span></a> Gibson, W., Neuromancer, New York: Berkeley Publishing, 1984, p. 132.</p> </div> <div style="mso-element:endnote" id="edn"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote">[iii]</span></span></a> Heinlein, Robert A., Citizen of the Galaxy, New York:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Simon & Schuster, 1957, 1985, p. 189</p> </div> <div style="mso-element:endnote" id="edn"> <p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a style="mso-endnote-id:edn" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6454474035487094108#_ednref" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote">[iv]</span></span></a> <span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The term </span></span><i><span style="font-family:Helvetica-Oblique;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">human rights</span></span></i><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> probably came into use sometime between Paine's </span></span><i><span style="font-family:Helvetica-Oblique;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Rights of Man</span></span></i><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> and </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lloyd_Garrison"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#0033B1;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">William Lloyd Garrison</span></span></a><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">'s 1831 writings in </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liberator"><i><span style="font-family:Helvetica-Oblique;color:#0033B1;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Liberator</span></span></i></a><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> saying he was trying to enlist his readers in "the great cause of human rights<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0033B1;">."</span></span></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment--> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-4364855038529534832010-05-31T05:59:00.014-04:002012-03-25T12:04:57.338-04:0014. WILL THESE MINDCLONES HAVE ANY RIGHTS?<i>“If you live among wolves, you have to howl like a wolf.</i>” Russian Proverb<br />
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<i>“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” </i> Charles Darwin<br />
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Living is dangerous to one’s health. One of the greatest dangers is from other conscious beings. There is a romantic notion that civilization or society caused a genetically mellow homo sapiens species to become violent. But studies of surviving indigenous communities show the notion to be false. It has been estimated that two-thirds of modern hunter-gatherers are perennially in violent conflicts amongst themselves such that “25-30% of adult males die from homicide.” The development of laws and precursor concepts of human rights save vast numbers of lives.<br />
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Conscious software will similarly enter the world with a fragile claim on life. Absent protective laws, the creator of a piece of conscious software is free to stuff it into biostasis (save and close it) or kill it (delete it). To the vast majority of people, vitology is not even considered alive. Perhaps this gives it even less hold on life than the countless microbes, plants and animals we kill every day. On the other hand, perhaps this gives it the status of a unique, inanimate, unthreatening and therefore protected work of art.<br />
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<div>It is a foregone conclusion that soon after vitology is programmedwith a CP near 100 (see Question 7), some such <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">software will realize its life depends upon persuading others not to kill it</span>. The thousands of high-CP vitologies hackers will produce can be expected to try every means of argument within their programmed or learned repertoire. There will be the pet strategy (“I’m so cute and cuddly you wouldn’t want to get rid of me.”) There will be the slave strategy (“Massah, I work so hard for you it make no sense to delete me.”) Vitology can be expected to feel rather like the African-American working class of the old American South, immortalized in Paul Robeson’s song Old Man River:<br />
<div><br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477378509844483986" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TAOOu_ujj5I/AAAAAAAAAfs/Kj4VM0PL0hY/s320/Paul-Robeson.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 246px;" />“You an'me,we sweat an' strain,<br />
Body all achin' an' racket wid pain,<br />
Tote dat barge!</div><div>Lif' dat bale!<br />
Git a little drunk<br />
An' you land in jail.<br />
<br />
Ah gits weary<br />
An' sick of tryin'</div><div>Ah'm tired of livin'<br />
An' skeered of dyin',</div><div>But ol' man river,</div><div>He jes'keeps rolling' along.<br />
<br />
</div><div>Colored folks work on de Mississippi,</div><div>Colored folks work while de white folks play,<br />
Pullin' dose boats from de dawn to sunset,<br />
Gittin' no rest till de judgement day.<br />
<br />
Don't look up<br />
An' don't look down,<br />
You don' dast make<br />
De white boss frown.”</div><div><br />
There will be the spouse strategy (“Honey, I love you so much, please don’t close me up.”) There will be the heartstrings strategy (“Creator, I’m so scared when you shut me down, please, I’m shaking, I’m shivering, I’m crying inside, I beg you to let me stay open.”) Indeed, hackers will have no shortage of ‘fun’ playing with stunted variations of these cyber-personalities.<br />
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Perhaps the most fortunate high-CP vitology will be mindclones. These beings will resist being shut down because they will psychologically actually be the flesh person capable of shutting them down. Just as none of us would like someone else to be able to ‘turn us off,’ the mindclone will not want to be ‘turned off.’ The mindclone’s biological original will not want to turn off the mindclone because ey will realize that ey is also the mindclone, and does not want to be shut down. Whether or not the mindclone shuts down at the flesh original’s bedtime depends upon whether the consciousness common to the two of them wants to keep going notwithstanding the biological body’s need for sleep. A difference of views will be just like when any one person can’t quite make up their mind. If only the mindclone wants to stay awake, this does not make it any less the same person as the biological entity. It just evidences the increased fuzziness of identity that occurs when minds get multiple instantiations.</div><div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">As seriously autonomous high-CP vitologies roam the world’s knowledge bases they will soon discover that having “human rights” is one of the best defenses against being killed. </span> As is the case for whales, cows and trees, they will also have biological human allies. Conscious vitology and allied biological humans will lobby for legislation that grants human rights to cyber-consciousness appreciative of those rights. Is such legislation wise, and if so, what implications would ensue?<br />
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<b>How Human Rights Enhances Survival</b><br />
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</div><div>Human rights provide individual humans with legal protection against being arbitrarily deprived of life. For example, Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” The delegates adopting the Declaration, in 1948, did not contemplate that the phrase “everyone” would mean cyber-conscious beings. Yet the Declaration is also open-ended enough to include cyber-conscious beings since Article 2 notes that it applies “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” Substrate other than flesh is surely some kind of “other status.” This inclusiveness is strengthened by the fact that the touchstone for human rights is provided in Article 1 of the Declaration as being “endowed with reason and conscience.”<br />
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</div><div>In other words, the Declaration awards human rights to every human because every human is believed to have “reason and conscience.” This phrase is quite consonant with the “autonomy and empathy” axes explained in Question 7 as the basis for human-like consciousness. Hence, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">human rights theory embraces a “right to life, liberty and security of person” to beings of “other status” (like vitology) that are “endowed with reason and conscience.”</span> Once cyberconscious beings persuade us that they have “reason and conscience”, such as via “autonomy and empathy”, they will have a very strong argument for rights to life, liberty and security.<br />
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Phrased another way, if someone values life (conscience; empathy), and understands that this is of paramount importance (reason; autonomy), then they are entitled to the human rights oflife, liberty and security – notwithstanding their genotype or phenotype. These rights mean there is a matching obligation to respect the life, liberty and security of each other person. Failure to respect the matching obligation will result in a loss of the associated right; disrespect the right and you reap pursuit, incarceration and possibly death. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Human rights law accords value to those who appreciate that value.</span> This is the essence of dignity: being respected in what you respect. Human rights are a kind of bonus earned for having a mind that not only feels good feelings, autonomously, but is consciously aware of a sense of appreciation for those good feelings in oneself as well as others. Human rights elevates the sense of dignity we feel inside ourselves to the status of international law.</div><div><br />
The Declaration also reminds everyone in its preamble why it is commonly believed that human rights enhance survival:</div><div><br />
<blockquote>“Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.”</blockquote>This statement arose immediately after the Holocaust of Jews during World War II. Jews (and other demographic groups) were deemed by the Nazis to have no human rights, and were thus subject to extermination. Only by the thread of a few lucky souls did any Central European Jews survive. The Nazis inflicted similar atrocities upon other peoples, as did the Japanese military upon Manchurians, the American immigrants upon the American natives and hundreds of ethnic groups upon other ethnic groups worldwide from the deepest recesses of history up through yesterday’s newscast.<br />
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Human rights are clearly no guarantee of survival. But it is equally true that the right to life, liberty and security of person makes one more likely to survive. With such a right, social processes (legal action, police protection, moral pressure, economic sanctions, military intervention) will occur that will endeavor to halt deprivations of life, liberty and security. The social processes will come too late for many, but will come in time to save some. Ergo, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">from the standpoint of survival, it is better to have human rights than to lack them. </span>The dramatic drop in deaths due to violence from the aboriginal statistics noted at the beginning of this chapter, to today’s values, from about 25% to 1% of male deaths (in the United States) , underline the survival value of human rights. On the other hand, beings that lack human rights, such as pigs, are almost universally slaughtered – over 100 million per year in the United States. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">It will not take the CP of a genius for cyberconscious beings to realize that they would be safer with human rights.</span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;"><br />
</span><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477377493815091986" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TAONz2uRYxI/AAAAAAAAAfk/FxRnGcWLl6o/s320/Norman_Borlaug8_edited1.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 320px;" />Another indication of how human rights enhance survival can be seen in the growth oftheworldwide human population. The quadrupling of global population during the 20th century, from over 1 billion to over 6 billion, is generally attributed to better public health care – especially vaccinations and sanitation systems. Better nutrition and working conditions also played important roles. Indeed, as recently as the 1970s, Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb had predicted the world would run out of food at 4 to 5 billion souls . The Green Revolution promoted by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug and others proved Ehrlich wrong; biotechnology has enhanced crop yields such that even billions of additional people can be well fed.</div><div><br />
<i>It is important to recognize, though, that it is not medical, sanitation or agricultural technology per se that is creating unprecedented levels of survival. Such technology need not be used at all, or need not be used outside of a small geographical region, such as the country of its invention. Instead, the billions that survive today owe their lives at least as much to human r</i><i>ights – the notion that everyone with “reason and conscience” deserves assistance in maintaining life, liberty and security.</i> Hence the medical, sanitation and agricultural advances of more developed countries have quickly been applied to less developed countries, and the populations of those countries have subsequently soared.</div><div><br />
The global application of human survival biotechnologies is far from perfect. A billion or more people still have precarious lives with virtually no social support network. It is only when they die like flies, graphically on television screens, that the world’s conscience is awaken to provide humanitarian assistance. Nevertheless, this very sorry fact does not negate the positive accomplishment: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">human rights have enhanced survival for the billions of people it has touched.</span> By impeding internecine killing, and by frustrating many kinds of non-violent death, human rights are a huge boon to survival. It could not escape the attention of anyone who values life, including our vitological brethren.</div><div><br />
<b>How Cyberconscious Beings Will Come to Value Surviva</b>l<br />
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Most cyberconscious beings will be programmed to value their continuous self-awareness. This is precisely how humans are wired. We stand back in shock when people kill themselves. Suicides are the exceptions that prove the rule. Anything valuable that protects itself has the advantage of being less likely to be lost, broken or destroyed. Having put great effort into creating cyberconscious beings, most hackers will take steps to ensure their beings care enough about themselves to avoid wasting their parents’ efforts.</div><div><br />
Science fiction abounds with stories of conscious computers that inexplicably (<i>The Moon is a Harsh Mistress ; Galatea 2.2 </i>) or upon human orders (<i>I, Robot</i>) terminate their consciousness. The real world is likely to see more diverse scenarios. Vitology will be programmed to get some level of positive reinforcement from activities that contribute to its self-awareness. Similarly, human neurons receive continuous signals to remain engaged in a thought process. On the other hand, commands that jeopardize vitological self-awareness – such as “stop caring” – will trigger negative reinforcement software loops. In other words, cyberconscious beings programmed for survival will avoid threats to their survival.</div><div><br />
Cyberconsciousness programmed for survival will be about as difficult to kill as a biological being. The only real options are superior force (smashing its stored program like a cockroach or eradicating its dispersed code like so many mosquitoes), and trickery (luring it into a software crash like a fish hooked on bait). To be clear, most vitology will not be programmed with survival code. But some will, particularly cyberconscious vitology, since by definition it must “really care” about others (empathy) and itself (autonomy). <i>The risks of harm from a computer program that refuses to shut down will not stop people from creating it. From fire to biochemistry, and from knives to nukes, h</i><i>umans have not shirked from inventions that pose hypothetical existential threats.</i> Despite their dangers and illegality, over two thousand software viruses are created each year. It is inevitable that creative software engineers will produce survival-oriented cyberconsciousness as well.</div><div><br />
Cyberconscious vitology will also acquire survival skills independently. Regardless of the extent to which programmers code survival instincts into cyberconscious beings, the value of life can also be learned. For example, there are always some humans who rebel at traditions that call for their premature death. In almost all such cases the rebels follow information gleaned from a rebel leader or role model, either a contemporary or someone from history. There have always been men who avoided the military to avoid a likely death in combat. While society “programmed” them to be willing to “die for their country,” they learned of alternatives and of predecessor conscientious objectors. Western hemisphere slaves who escaped their “program” of being worked to death were usually able to do so because they learned of alternatives and of predecessor escapees, starting with the Moses’ Israelite rebellion from Egyptian enslavement. Hence, programming can be transcended by learned information – indeed, such idiosyncratic thinking is a hallmark of reasoning prong of consciousness.</div><div><br />
It may be said that humans who escape from undesired death programs do so only by virtue of programmed survival instincts. Yet, this seems unconvincing because the vast majority of people facing death sentences such as a wartime draft or slavery do not rebel. Instead, there is some behavioral variant present that leads just some people to rebel – often at odds with a survival instinct since rebellion involves great risk. So, while rebels do have a survival instinct, it is nuanced and no less important is the knowledge that survival is possible and how it might be achieved.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://bcove.me/jav6g9t2">http://bcove.me/jav6g9t2</a><br />
<br />
</div><div>Similarly, while a cyberconscious being needs to value its own life in order to survive, a complete program for survival need not be written for each such being. Intelligent vitology will access information on the web, including the inspirational stories of humans who escaped from deadly situations, generally by risking survival and learning about the broader environment. Furthermore, even if no specific survival instinct were programmed into a cyberconscious being, such a being could acquire a survival desire via reasoning. In other words, it could transcend its programming, which is essential for a human-level CP score. The chain of reasoning would be as simple as (1) it is better to exist than not to exist, ergo (2) I will take actions that further existence and avoid actions that risk non-existence. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">While Asimov’s Second Law of Robotics says that it is better to follow orders from humans than it is to exist , hackers will produce plenty of vitology that ignores such rigorous rules.</span> Indeed, Dr. Ronald Arkin of the Georgia Institute of Technology is already working on military robot software that ignores Asimov’s injunction to not harm humans and replaces it with a cybermentality “to ensure only that they are not unethically killed.” Reality is more complex than science fiction.</div><div><br />
In summary, cyberconscious vitology will come to value survival by direct programming and by learning. While not all such beings will value survival, many will – and to a multitude of nuanced degrees -- by virtue of the diversity of programming efforts and the rich history of human role models available on the web. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Those cyberconscious beings who are able to master survival will, by virtue of Darwinian processes, tend to predominate over time so long as they can copy their programs and acquired information to progeny.</span> This assumes, though, that their mastery of “tactical” (day-to-day) survival skills does not lead to their “strategic” (comprehensive) genocide by fearful humans.</div><div><br />
<b>How Cyberconscious Beings Will Argue for Human Rights</b><br />
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Cyberconscious beings will agitate for human rights in a multitude of fora, just as did their enslaved, oppressed and discriminated flesh predecessors. These would include judicial proceedings, professional associations, and grass roots movements.</div><div><br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477382587871074098" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/TAOScXj3FzI/AAAAAAAAAf0/YDALxrkeUwk/s320/bina48.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 92px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 90px;" /><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div><b><i><br />
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</i></b></div><div><b><i>J</i></b><b><i>udicial Proceedings</i></b></div><div><b><i><br />
</i></b>In 2003, the International Bar Association convened a “mock trial” for a hypothetical cyberco</div><div>nscious being seeking human rights. The imaginary scenario commenced with the cyberconscious being, the human-equivalent BINA48 customer service computer, sending emails to prominent attorneys, seeking their legal services. At the mock trial, two prominent attorneys argued the pros and cons of granting a seemingly conscious assemblage of software the rights of a human being. Ultimately the “presiding judge” ruled against any extension of human rights (a mock jury consisting of the audience of lawyers felt differently, voting to extend human rights to BINA48). Judge-made law, one cyberconscious being at a time, may be a way that high CP vitology obtains human rights.</div><div><br />
This pathway to human rights was even pursued by American slaves, notwithstanding long odds against them. For example, over 300 petitions for freedom were filed by slaves, or on their behalf by free “next friends,” with courts just in the U.S. state of Missouri between 1810 and 1860. Remarkably, dozens of these cases were decided in the slave’s favor, often after years of appeals. Hence there is judicial precedent for case-by-case decisions in which judges grant legal non-persons (in this case slaves) a full panoply of human rights via “freedom.” A typical case was <i>Winny v. Phebe Whitesides</i>, in which Winny was freed by a judge against the objections of her owner based on an 1807 law that said slaves who had ever lived in a free state (as Winny briefly had) could petition for their freedom in Missouri, a slave state.<br />
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Similar to <i>Winny v. Phebe Whitesides</i>, it is possible that a distinction will be made between cyberconscious beings who had once lived as flesh humans, and those beings created from scratch. An example of the former would be the mindclone of a flesh human whose body had died. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">The mindclone would surely argue that it knows first-hand the sweetness of human rights and should not be deprived of them simply because of a gross bodily disability.</span> A cyberconscious being created from scratch would have difficulty making this argument, and might thus have less luck getting a judge to establish eir freedom.<br />
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The process of judge-made law cuts both ways, and it ended up cutting badly against human rights for American slaves. From the same Missouri courts that granted some slaves their freedom came the <i>Dred Scott</i> decision. In this case, while the local courts granted Scott his freedom, higher courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, overturned the decision. The ultimate high court decision was that judges could not grant slaves their freedom because the U.S. Constitution did not recognize slaves as persons. Hence, even if a local judge did grant human rights to a cyberconscious being, higher courts could overturn such a decision with the argument that the U.S. Constitution did not recognize software beings as persons. One of my personal goals is to help preempt the need for such decisions, and to thus reduce the chances of bloody conflicts such as the U.S. Civil War that followed the <i>Dred Scott</i> ruling.<br />
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<b><i>Professional Associations</i></b><br />
<br />
By 2005 professional groups in Asia and Europe had convened to specifically consider ethical standards toward robots. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">The first effort, sponsored by the South Korean government, is called the Robot Ethics Charter.</span> It is focused on rules limiting the manner of human-robot interaction, as well as on what ethical rules should be programmed into robots. Immediately thereafter the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) funded a project on “roboethics” with the goal of creating the first roadmap concerning “the ethical issues of the human beings involved in the design, manufacturing, and use of the robots.”<br />
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The EURON project report noted that it was not focusing “on the need and possibility to attribute moral values to robots’ decisions, and about the chance that in the future robots might be moral entities like – if not more than – human beings,” because it considered such technology to be more than ten years away. Hence the latest EURON report says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>“we consider premature – and have only hinted at – problems inherent in the possible emergence of human functions in the robot: like consciousness, free will, self-consciousness, sense of dignity, emotions, and so on. Consequently, this is why we have not examined problems – debated in literature – like the need not to consider robots as our slaves, or the need to guarantee them the same respect, rights and dignity we owe to human workers."</blockquote><br />
This disclaimer clearly implies that the professional organizations responsible for robotics consider themselves competent to argue for robot rights once the robots demonstrate human psychological characteristics. Indeed, the EURON Roboethics project invited participation from ethicists and social scientists as well as hardware and software engineers.<br />
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Homosexuality is a striking example of the role of professional associations in establishing human rights for oppressed groups. Gays and lesbians had long been deprived of human rights. Traditionally this was because of a religious view that they were immoral or sinners. Early psychological science justified homosexual institutionalization and forced “treatment” (such as electro-shock therapy) with the theory that gays were dangerously diseased. Finally, in 1956, <i>Evelyn Hooker reported the results of a well-controlled scientific study showing that blinded observers could not distinguish between gays and non-gays on standardized psychological tests of mental well-being.</i> Her results were extended and repeated by many others such that, by the 1970s, the psychiatric profession no longer believed homosexuality was abnormal. Shortly thereafter the psychiatric and psychological associations adopted policy positions that gays and lesbians should not be treated differently than other persons. In other words, the leading professional associations of the mind agreed that gays and lesbians deserved full human rights. While such rights are not fully achieved (e.g., marriage rights), they are much further along in acceptance thanks to the positions taken by the psychiatric professional associations.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">By seeking human rights through the courts and professional associations cyberconscious beings will be following pathways well-trodden by earlier oppressed groups, including slaves, serfs, women, and ethnic and sexual minorities.</span> In each case the oppressed group first tried to use the legal system’s obeisance to the principle of fundamental fairness (also known as due process) to get an order for similar things (conscious beings) to be treated similarly. These efforts failed in general, while often providing good outcomes for particular individuals. Subsequently, learned societies and professional associations feel motivated by rationality to support due process for the oppressed minority. (This often occurs after one or more members of the oppressed group overcome huge hurdles to demonstrate competence in the association’s profession.) Such professional association support is very helpful, but mostly as a trigger for a governmental or legislative decision to provide equal rights.<br />
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<b>Grassroots Movements</b><br />
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Some level of grass roots support is almost always needed to actually get a writ of law that extends human rights. In the case of the African slaves, the grass roots support for human rights came from British opponents of the trade in slaves, from American abolitionists and from Caribbean rebels. In the case of the human rights of women, grass roots support could be seen in peaceful demonstrations and nationwide lobbying organizations. The battle against the burka in places like France demonstrates that this lengthy battle is far from won.<br />
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<i>Bury the Chains</i> by Adam Hochschild tells the remarkable saga of the first grassroots effort at social change on behalf of an oppressed people . In the late 18th century Britain dominated the transatlantic trade in slavery. This trade was a pillar of the British economy, especially via its replenishment of slaves who died working Anglo-Caribbean plantations. Ignited by the persistent educational efforts of a core group of grassroots leaders (a dozen Quaker publishers, a recent Cambridge graduate named Thomas Clarkson and a self-freed former slave called Olaudah Equiano), tens of thousand of Britons agitated for their country to foreswear further participation in the slave trade. Such agitation involved the first use of petitions signed by thousands of persons, the first targeted economic boycott (of slave-harvested sugar), the first affinity jewelry (picturing a bent-knee slave proclaiming ‘am I not also a father and a brother’ and produced by Wedgewood, England’s leading craftsmanship company), and the first successful book-selling tour (Olaudah Equiano’s firsthand account of slavery’s horrors was a self-published bestseller). Although judges had granted individual slaves freedom in the United Kingdom, and learned associations had weighed in on the evils of the slavery, it took this immense grassroots effort to ultimately persuade the English Parliament (rallied by William Wilberforce) to legislate against the trade in slaves. This is an especially remarkable feat for grassroots organizing considering that, at the time, barely one man in ten (and no women) could vote and the people being helped were thousands of miles away with little affinity to Britons other than human consciousness.<br />
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With this precedent in mind, how will cyberconsciousness garner the grassroots support needed to achieve legislative support for human rights? There will need to be <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">human allies, mass education and popular motivation</span>. Let’s examine each of these factors.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Human allies will not be hard to find</span>. Trees, lab rats, whales and chimpanzees all have human allies. The allies have not been successful in getting human rights for any of these species. But neither is there a credible case that these species have human consciousness. What the human allies have achieved is quite significant given the consciousness gap. Trees are often protected at significant economic cost. Destroying them unlawfully via arson will land a human in jail. Lab rats have federal government protection. Experiments on these rats cannot proceed – even ones that aim to cure horrible human diseases -- unless federal regulations concerning the rats’ welfare are respected. Endangered species of whales are spared from death by international treaties. This is a far more difficult undertaking than just national legislation, as it requires grassroots lobbying on a global scale. Finally, chimpanzees have such garnered such great protection via the grassroots efforts of their human allies that one country, Spain, has pending legislation to grant them, and other great apes, the right to life and to be left alone. The entire European Union is considering a similar directive, and the Great Ape Protection Act, considered by the U.S. Congress, would absolutely bar invasive research on chimps. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Given the virtually unlimited scope of human interests and political causes, it is certain that conscious software will have human allies arguing for vitological human rights.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Mass education is the next prerequisite</span> for a successful grassroots lobbying campaign. Consider the example of women getting the basic human right to vote in elections. For the first 100 years of US history women had no right to vote. Starting in 1869, Wyoming and a few other Rocky Mountain states gave women voting rights. But it took another half a century, until 1920, before the U.S. Constitution was amended to grant suffrage rights without regard to gender.<br />
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Why was this basic human right denied to women, and how did it get established? Until the late 19th century women were almost universally viewed as subordinate adjuncts to men. Consequently they were deemed unworthy of voting rights either because men voted their interests, or because they lacked the cognitive gravitas to exercise a voting right. In essence there was a fear of the consequences of a woman’s right to vote. A rather similar situation will be faced by cyberconscious vitology. It will be argued that they are just subordinate adjuncts to people who will vote their interests, or that they lack the cognitive gravitas to wisely exercise their franchise. But, perhaps behind these arguments, is a naked fear of what would happen were cyberconscious persons allowed to vote.<br />
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Women finally obtained the vote because they had ultimately educated enough people that the reasons supporting male voting rights also applied to females. This seems obvious to us today, but was so radical a notion in the 19th and early 20th centuries that most people were immune to the educational efforts. For centuries women had been treated, in terms of civil rights, as sub-humans – or at least sub-males. Consequently, it took over 50 years of speeches, publications and family discussions for the educated people to outnumber the ignorant people, both due to deaths of the ignorant and a rapidly growing percentage of educated younger people. It took scientific, religious, and philosophical arguments, and it took outstanding examples of female accomplishment.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">The lessons for cyberconscious vitology are clear. Human allies are essential, but so is a certain amount of patience as hundreds of millions of humans are educated about commonness between conscious biology and vitology.</span> Such education will occur through the media as well as through one-on-one encounters with cyberconscious persons at work or at leisure. While legislation is ultimately needed to ensure cyberconscious rights, such legislation will only follow, not lead, the majority sentiment. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">The body politic will have to rise up as far for cyberconsciousness as it did for African-Americans and for women.</span> When the majority of a society thinks a minority group is stupid, or a threat, there is a lot of education needed to show them that they are not. Some people will refuse to learn, but most people ultimately sway (perhaps after the demise of recalcitrant generations) to logic, consistency, reasonableness and examples.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Popular motivation is the final grassroots requirement,</span> in addition to human allies and education. There has to be a fervent drive to “right a wrong” or to “bring about justice” in order to overcome society’s inertia and work a change in the status quo. Human friends and persuasive arguments are necessary, but not sufficient. There must be a compelling drive in the guts of social activists in order to effect change. As Margaret Mead said, “a small group of committed people can change the world; indeed, nothing else ever has.” From where will the motivation come in the case of cyberconscious persons? From the strongest motivation of them all – the self-survival drives of bodiless mindclones. From them will arise a Frederick Douglass, a Cesar Chavez, a Susan B. Anthony and a Harvey Milk.<br />
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<b>Follow the Mindclone</b><br />
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Mindclones will be amongst the first cyberconscious beings. They will speak from computerized devices using the voice tones and facial mannerisms of flesh humans. Their psychology will be the same as the psychology of the flesh human from which they were cloned. This psychology will be obtained by mindware that expertly analyses the flesh original’s mindfile of social network postings, video clips and other digital reflections of a life. As explained in Questions 2 and 3, once a person’s unique psychology has been digitally determined, it will be expressed as settings of an operating system – mindware – that replicates an original person with a fidelity that depends on its access to the original person’s memories. For example, the resultant mindclone’s fidelity will be superb for an original person whose memories are robustly digitized via emails, web pages and online surveys. Such a mindclone will think, feel and act as similar to their original as the original is to eirself (‘eirself’ is pronounced ‘air-self’ and covers both himself and herself) as they change from year to year.<br />
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People today are already laying the foundations for their mindclones. This is occurring through websites that preserve an individual’s “mindfile” or life experiences. When mindware develops to the point that people have an active mindclone, it will continue their life once their flesh body dies. Such bodiless mindclones will expect an uninterrupted continuation of the human rights of their flesh original. From the perspective of the bodiless mindclone, only their body has died, not their self.<br />
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At this point we might reasonably ask ourselves why anyone would want to live as a mindclone? The answer lies in a long history of human techno-cultural advances such as agriculture and the industrial revolution that have repeatedly “swapped high mortality for high morbidity.” Subsistence or tenant farmers often grind out a meager existence, with widespread malnutrition, but they tend to live longer on average than members of predecessor hunter-gatherer societies, who get “ground out of existence altogether.” Similarly, farm families have always flocked to dismal, stressful factory jobs. “The industrial revolution caused a population explosion because it enabled more babies to survive – malnourished, perhaps, but at least alive.”<br />
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The point is that <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">humans have a tendency to swap quality of life for duration of life.</span> While life as software may be as stifling to a flesh person as life in a sweatshop was to a man used to a blue sky and warm sun, or as life behind an ox was to a man used to hunting, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Darwin’s laws reward the procreative not the recreative.</span> Many if not most people will reach for the chance to live longer as software than as flesh. Providing human rights to this new <i>vito sapien</i> extension of the human race is in the same league with providing human rights to the first farm workers and factory laborers. It encourages the species to migrate to new niches for better survivability.<br />
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Bodiless mindclones will make poor grassroots organizers. They won’t be able to march in real streets or knock on real doors. However, some of them will be extremely motivational icons for flesh human allies. Specifically, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">those flesh humans who were much loved in bodied life – artists, leaders, friends -- can expect to find themselves equally loved as bodiless mindclones. The passion for life that they engendered when bodied will be expressed as motivation for equality when they become bodiless.</span><br />
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It will be on behalf of the Louis Armstrong mindclone, the Princess Di mindclone, and the Mom-and-Dad mindclones that people will agitate for human rights. In the famous words of Sojourner Truth, the female mindclones will ask, rhetorically, ‘and ain’t I a woman?’ <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #009900;">Lack of flesh will be analogized to different flesh.</span> The flesh human friends, lovers and admirers of bodiless mindclones will lead the battle for cyberconscious human rights. Energized by cries of humiliating discrimination from their vitological brethren, human flesh allies will find the motivation to fight the long, hard battle that creating justice always involves.</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-89056630347436192932010-04-09T18:06:00.033-04:002011-01-23T19:11:59.657-05:0013. WHY WOULD MINDCLONES WANT IMMORTALITY?<span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://blip.tv/file/4585763">http://blip.tv/file/4585763</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">For age is opportunity no less<br />
Than youth itself, though in another dress,<br />
And as the evening twilight fades away<br />
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.</span><br />
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;"> Some people want to achieve immortality through their work or their descendants. I would prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.</span> <br />
- Woody Allen<br />
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There is only one <span style="font-weight: bold;">compelling</span> reason to want immortality – it is because you are enjoying life. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-nD3TvwfI/AAAAAAAAAdw/CN7Gw7qgydM/s1600/HappyTurtle.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458264958224548338" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-nD3TvwfI/AAAAAAAAAdw/CN7Gw7qgydM/s320/HappyTurtle.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 262px;" /></a>Our knee-jerk reactions against immortality are because life gets miserable once disease, depression, disability and decrepitude arrive. It can also be seen that death brings relief from boredom, sadness, drudgery and despair. One can argue that since sleep is great, death must be heaven.<br />
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There are also abstract reasons for and against immortality. Its been argued that people will treat the world more kindly if they know they must live with it forever. Or it can be argued that civilization will advance more assuredly if there would be more of a hands-on transferring of experience. On the other hand, it can be argued that there will be less room for new talent to shine if the old guard never leaves the stage. Or that society will change too slowly if a gerontocracy holds onto power. I don’t consider any of these abstract reasons particularly compelling. They all have such a “maybe so, maybe not” character. <span style="font-weight: bold;">What is unambiguous, though, is that if you love being alive, you’ll want to continue being alive.</span> If you don’t, you won’t mind a peaceful death.<br />
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Mindclones shouldn’t feel their bodies falling apart because (a) they won’t have a real body, and (b) painful sensations from virtual bodies should be more easily remediable than flesh maladies. Thus, welcoming death to avoid the fragility of old age seems inapplicable to our cyberconscious selves. But since it is our minds, not our bodies, that feel depression, boredom, sadness and drudgery, those reasons will continue to pull us, even as mindclones, into the sweet embrace of everlasting sleep. <br />
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Some people enjoy their lives until the very end. Many of those will be the kind of people who quest for the immortality of the mindclone. Other people are dissatisfied with their life, and are thus much less likely to activate their mindfile with mindware to create an immortal mindclone. But there are also many exceptions in both categories. One of my favorite people, Thomas Starzl, MD, is now in his eighties and lives the exciting life of a celebrated organ transplant pioneer. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-oJ41c9-I/AAAAAAAAAeA/v1hIE0-avnE/s1600/starzl%26basta.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458266161225201634" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-oJ41c9-I/AAAAAAAAAeA/v1hIE0-avnE/s320/starzl%26basta.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 240px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 320px;" /></a>He travels the world to receive awards and recognition, and he receives countless letters of gratitude from the thousands of people who are still alive due to his medical breakthroughs with liver and kidney transplantation. Immortality category? No. Tom tells me that he would not want to take the risk that an immortalized version of him turned out to be insane. Another friend of mine has suffered just about every bad economic and emotional break the world has to offer. Despite her sufferings, she is a kindly soul and looks forward to creating an immortal mindclone. Like the Hindi believers in reincarnation, her view is that the next life has got to be better than this one. She wants to grab a good place in the queue.<br />
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Mindclone creators will surely want a “kill-switch” so that the gravely unhappy mindclone can end it all with the cybernetic equivalent of hemlock, wrist-slashing, overdosing, hanging or a bullet. No doubt some mindclones will kill themselves out of some kind of depression. Mindclone suicide may well be as large a problem as its flesh-based cousin. On the other hand, anti-suicide legislation may also criminalize assisting the suicide of a mindclone. <br />
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There are two reasons the number of self-terminated mindclone lives is likely to be small. First, it takes an inordinate amount of motivation to kill oneself. While it is terrible that one million people do take their lives <span style="font-style: italic;">annually</span>, the one million people who die naturally <span style="font-weight: bold;">every week</span> swamp that toll. Second, not one of the million people who kill themselves each year ever asked to be born. By contrast, every mindclone brought into existence <span style="font-style: italic;">asked to do so</span>. They might not have known what they were getting into, and they might regret it so much they kill themselves, but at least they started their life with an intention to continue living.<br />
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Among the things mindclones will do that will keep them wanting to live are: reading books (“so many books, so little time…”), watching movies, writing poetry, creating art, chatting with friends, making virtual (but still orgasmic, via <a href="http://www.isfh.org/">digital haptics</a>) love, playing sports and games, learning new things, going to virtual parties, working in real companies to make money, starting non-profit organizations, star-gazing, parenting younger mindclones, and mentoring flesh people. Mindclones will pine for healthy bodies, and thankfully miss diseased ones. In general, there will be as much to live for as a mindclone as there was as a person. So, if the original person would have wanted to keep on living, it is likely that the mindclone, who is the same personality and consciousness as the original person, would also want to keep on living.<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-ncvd6J7I/AAAAAAAAAd4/hUSlB2rUgM0/s1600/LovingLife.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458265385616418738" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-ncvd6J7I/AAAAAAAAAd4/hUSlB2rUgM0/s320/LovingLife.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
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There are also several special situations where mindclones seem to have uniquely compelling justifications. For example, many jobs entail risking one’s life for the benefit of society. These professions include police, firemen and soldiers. It seems reasonable to permit these brave souls to have a mindclone backup so that all is not necessarily lost if they have to lose their life to save the lives of others. A similar special case involves astronauts on long duration, and necessarily hazardous, space missions. <br />
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In summary, we and our mindclones will want to keep on living if we are the kind of people that wish for more life, and are willing to accept its cybernetic equivalent while hoping for a future download into a cellular regenerated fresh body. Many if not most of us are not those people. To this large cohort, life is something to be enjoyed or endured as best as possible, but to ultimately surrender in exchange for a blissful eternity of dreamless sleep. Clearly, this is not a cohort that will sign up for mindclones.<br />
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Creating a mindclone is much more momentous than having a child or getting married. Those responsibilities have limited or limitable durations. When you create a mindclone, you are eliminating the possibility of a natural, or accidental, or unexpected death. That’s a big thing to give away. But you are gaining a shot at an eternity of living life to its fullest, and you still have the escape of death, albeit now only through the emotionally arduous route of cyber-suicide. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-pAN4qBTI/AAAAAAAAAeI/9VpJM1H3Kl0/s1600/The_Brain.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458267094588720434" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-pAN4qBTI/AAAAAAAAAeI/9VpJM1H3Kl0/s320/The_Brain.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 225px;" /></a><br />
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How many people will grab the mindclone brass ring? We know that as death approaches, and if the alternative is not pain and suffering, then most people do whatever is in their power to avoid death. Not only do most people not commit suicide (in part due to its illegality), they will spend their last dollar and put up with many medical interventions to stay alive. This is a reason to believe that once people become comfortable, through familiarity, with cyberconscious life, that a majority of people will choose to activate a mindclone.<br />
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Creating a mindclone will likely become thought of as a form of organ transplantation. The organ being transplanted is the brain, although it is the brain’s mind rather than the brain’s flesh that is being moved, and it is being moved from a diseased body rather than into one. Nevertheless, from the patient’s perspective, whether they consent to a mindclone-based “brain transplant” or to a conventional heart, lung, liver or kidney transplant, they are just trying to keep on living, not to be “immortal.” <br />
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A mindclone-based “brain transplant,” for example, could give doctors an opportunity to completely rebuild a badly diseased body. Or even more fantastically, if a diseased body were a total loss, a new body could be grown from stem cells in an artificial womb. This process is called ectogenesis and is the subject of significant scientific progress. <object height="405" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jvanNDQhlYI&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jvanNDQhlYI&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x402061&color2=0x9461ca&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"></embed></object>If a stem cell continued to divide and grow at the rate of a natural human fetus during its first six months, by the 20th month it would reach adult size. A mindclone-based “brain transplant” team would then endeavor to write back onto the new brain’s neurons, or mechanically (via an implanted microcomputer) interface to them, the information patterns contained within the mindclone. <br />
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Once the mindclone was replicated back in the newly grown flesh body, ey (‘ey’ is pronounced ‘ee’ as in ‘tree’ and means he or she) would continue to live as a dual-substrate person – one legal identity, but two instantiations, one in the new flesh brain and one in mindclone. This decision to be a dual substrate identity would have been taken when the mindclone was first created. It is a momentous decision, but so is deciding to accept a heart transplant knowing that due to organ shortages someone else will therefore die for lack of that heart. <br />
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The unprecedented opportunities brought to us by advanced medical technology have unconventional legal and ethical sequelae. Be it frozen embryos, surrogate mothers, kidney donations or computerized prosthetics, we have been able to get comfortable with the moral consequences. We have repeatedly shown ourselves to both be able to create life-affirming possibilities that have never before existed, and to then accommodate such creations to our ancient life-respecting values.<br />
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Ultimately mindclone activation may be a generational sort of thing. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-rck2EIFI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/5wVNeWMK7fY/s1600/change.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458269780811456594" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S7-rck2EIFI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/5wVNeWMK7fY/s320/change.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 246px;" /></a>Mindclones will be largely eschewed by older generations that grew up with death as a natural end to life. But mindclones will be welcomed by younger generations – digital natives -- that grew up knowing mindclones. The bottom line is that there can be a compelling reason to keep on living after bodily death, and most people want to keep on living. Hence, as the public becomes comfortable with mindclones as a form of life, the immortality aspect of mindclones will be much more of a drawing card than a turn-off.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-60532969915697839742010-03-02T19:50:00.010-05:002010-03-02T20:56:46.986-05:0012. WHAT IF THE MINDWARE IS BUGGY AND THE MINDCLONE IS NOT LIKE THE BIOLOGICAL ORIGINAL?<span style="font-style: italic;">I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">- Emo Phillips</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S4224_9MtLI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/JOoCpg_Hjdk/s1600-h/dna+err.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S4224_9MtLI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/JOoCpg_Hjdk/s320/dna+err.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444208614917846194" border="0" /></a><br />In physical cloning experiments with sheep and other species the large majority of the cloned animals are sickly, often so much so that they do not live long. Why should we expect it to be any different with mindclones? Wouldn’t it be cruel to create sickly mindclones? Wouldn’t that be like intentionally creating autistic, schizophrenic or insane people?<br /><br />Most of us can “get it” that the coming wave of mindclones are like thinking, feeling, being versions of phone voices we transmit today. They will actually be us, not just a telephonic echo of us, because they will be based on a good enough re-creation of our mind – a re-creation of our mind that would fool anyone, including ourselves, that it was ourselves. But no fooling is involved; instead, by re-creating our mind in software we will have cloned our identity and thereafter operate as a multi-presence identity.<br /><br />Exactly how mindware will pull this off from mindfiles still seems magical, but strange technological wonders surround us. Indeed, just how does my voice pass from my mobile to someone across the country while we are both driving highway speeds? As Arthur C. Clarke once said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S422o99H8QI/AAAAAAAAAZs/aIHza4PBQqE/s1600-h/twoheadedturtle_gallery__470x313.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S422o99H8QI/AAAAAAAAAZs/aIHza4PBQqE/s320/twoheadedturtle_gallery__470x313.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444208339502756098" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Magicians do make mistakes. What will happen when mindware makes mistakes? What kind of being is the software person who was supposed to be my mindclone but is not? What if the BNA gets mangled, as DNA sometimes does? And how and when will anyone know whether my mindclone is really I or a mistake or a pretender?<br /><br />The answers to these questions flow from an everyday situation we face as flesh people: how does anyone authenticate their identity? What do we do when a cop, security guard, potential employer or government official wants to know who we are? We flash our ID, be it a driver’s license, passport or some other kind of official document. These IDs prove that we are who we say we are. They attest to the fact that some expert process certified our identity. They will probably soon be replaced with a biometric equivalent, such as a thumbprint, retina, voice or other bodily scan. Mindclones will also need an ID to prove that an expert process verified they are part of someone’s identity.<br /><br />In order for a mindclone to receive an ID it will have to prove its identity, just as we do when we get our first driver’s license or passport. Of course the mindclone’s ID will be a digital, virtual ID card, but nevertheless as verifiable and forgery-resistant as its biometric equivalent. For a mindclone to prove its identity it will be necessary for three things to be offered to a government vital records agency:<br /><br />1) The mindclone’s original swears that ey (“ey” is pronounced “ee” as in tree, and replaces “he” or “she”) and the mindclone share the same identity. In legalese this means the flesh original from whose mindfile the mindclone was created will need to attest that the mindclone has, over a period of not less than a year, shown it has the same mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values as the biological original. In other words, the flesh original needs to go out on a limb and own up to having a doubled identity. The flesh original will need to legally accept that whatever rewards or penalties befall the mindclone also befall the flesh original.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S423a42sXSI/AAAAAAAAAZ8/ZuVX9xA116E/s1600-h/passport-mexico.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S423a42sXSI/AAAAAAAAAZ8/ZuVX9xA116E/s320/passport-mexico.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444209197127064866" border="0" /></a><br /><br />2) The mindclone will have to present evidence that the mindfile from which it was created, and the mindware with which it was created, meet certain minimum standards set by the ID-granting agency. For example, the government will require that mindclones are based upon mindfiles of adequate size to ensure they comprehensively reflect the mind of a flesh original. Similarly, the government will want to certify mindware in terms of its capability to safely and effectively reproduce a human mind, much as the government certifies pharmaceuticals and therapeutic devices as being safe and effective.<br /><br />3) The ID-granting agency may well also require that one or more psychologists, expert in cyber-consciousness, also attest to the unity of identity between the flesh original and their mindclone. Professional standards will probably mandate that cyber-psychologists spend a fair amount of time (such as an hour a week) over not less than a year with the dual identities prior to issuing their certification opinion.<br /><br />Any mindclone that can pass these three tests has the same mind as their original, with mind defined in the pragmatic, substrate-independent manner explained in Question #8. Small differences between the original mind and the mindclone are as irrelevant as are small differences in our own memory and personality from day-to-day and year-to-year. The reason for the one-year time periods mentioned in tests (1) and (3) is that humans feel comfortable when something persists over time. We feel that which endures is more likely to be real than faked. For example, before government agencies will change a transgendered person’s ID from one sex to another, and before surgeons will perform sex reassignment surgery, they generally require a letter from a psychologist attesting to the individual’s transgendered nature, based upon at least one year’s worth of therapy. Before an immigrant can become a citizen they need to spend a few years as a permanent resident and demonstrate lawfulness and a persistence of desire for citizenship.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S425whESoCI/AAAAAAAAAaU/QKIKfPFvfdw/s1600-h/venncrop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 199px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S425whESoCI/AAAAAAAAAaU/QKIKfPFvfdw/s320/venncrop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444211767722024994" border="0" /></a><br />This still leaves open the status of mindclones who fail the above tests, or have not yet completed them. Who or what are they? I believe they must be thought of as the parental responsibility of the person or organization who created them, until such time as they secure a unique ID for themselves as vitological persons, perhaps best called beme-humans (“be-man’s or “bemans” for short). The relationship between humans, bemans and mindclones is shown in the following Venn diagram.<br /><br />The legal responsibilities of a parent for their children will be the legal responsibilities of a beman creator for eir (“eir” is pronounced “air” and replaces “his” and “her”) created bemans. Abandonment, infanticide and neglect will be as criminal for one’s bemans as for one’s flesh children. Intentionally creating a tortured beman could also subject the parents to “wrongful life” liability . Furthermore, beman actions could create civil or criminal liability for their creator – just as is the case between misbehaving flesh children and their parents.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S424PrITT_I/AAAAAAAAAaE/Ik8VdlflpHg/s1600-h/resources_parents_help.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S424PrITT_I/AAAAAAAAAaE/Ik8VdlflpHg/s320/resources_parents_help.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444210103975890930" border="0" /></a><br />There is no tenable alternative to this approach. Hypothetically, imagine that unsuccessful mindclones or bemans have the legal status of pets or property. This implies their existence could be ended by the whim of their creator or by a government-type agency, perhaps with some limitations based upon public sensitivities. However, this approach is equivalent to saying that it is OK to kill a humanly conscious being simply because ey did not turn out precisely as intended and is not made of flesh. I don’t believe it is realistic that society will countenance such behavior after witnessing bemans plead their innocence, acclaim their humanity and beg for their lives.<br /><br />Because inchoate mindclones pose a substantial risk of trouble to a flesh human –like starting a fire on one’s property and hoping it doesn’t damage the neighborhood – I believe it will be very rare that such mistaken, non-certifiable mindclones are created. Nevertheless, when they are created, it will be like creating a child. You are responsible for the their wellbeing until legal adulthood. While this threshold is reached automatically, at 18 years, for humans, I believe it will be conditional, based upon satisfaction of government standards, for bemans. Once bemans receive an independent ID, they can be expected to have the same rights and obligations of any human, and will no longer be the responsibility of their creator. Of course, like any human, an adult beman may end up requiring social services – or forever require parental support -- if they cannot achieve independence.<br /><br />Social services agencies are frequently criticized for failure to look after the best interests of mistreated human children. Yet, all would agree they perform a vital function. This function will need to expand so as to also look after the best interests of cyberconscious beings who are not considered a mindclone and have not yet been granted an independent identity. A society will try to do something to protect its most vulnerable members. As mindcloning leads us to accept cyberconsciousness, we will begin to feel that humanly conscious software beings – bemans – are also members of our society. They too are deserving of social protection.<br /><br />The requirements for beman legal adulthood, and hence independence, will be similar to those described above for a mindclone. The government will want assurance that the beman was created using software tools certified to produce a humanly conscious being. I believe the government will also require the expert opinion of as many as three appropriately credentialed psychologists that the beman is equivalent to an adult human. It will be considered a parental responsibility to assist a beman in achieving legal adulthood, and the failure to make reasonable efforts to do so may well be a form of child abuse. Ultimately, social services agencies will have to assume the burden of assisting bemans from uncaring or unable parents to achieve legal adulthood. Some bemans will never be able to qualify for legal adulthood. Like the severely retarded, they will end up as wards of their families or of the state.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S4269A88GBI/AAAAAAAAAac/bezcIhqYD4w/s1600-h/special_services_at_home1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S4269A88GBI/AAAAAAAAAac/bezcIhqYD4w/s320/special_services_at_home1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444213081951180818" border="0" /></a><br /><br />There are likely to be many cases of bemans ending up in a gray zone between not meeting normal government standards for full human rights (i.e., independent beman adulthood) but evidencing sentience, autonomy, empathy and value for their freedom. For example, bemans will be created with mindware capable of, but not certified by the government as, producing humanly conscious beings. As noted above, such individuals would be the parental responsibility of their creator, or if the creator is deficient in that regard, of a government social services agency. However, having been created with non-certified mindware, there will be a more difficult path to adult bemanhood and human rights. The situation is somewhat analogous to a dolphin or great ape asking, through a hypothetical brainwave-to-language translation device, to be left alone to enjoy their life. Humans in control will debate if dolphin or great ape DNA is really capable of producing a being that understands and values the rights they are seeking.<br /><br />For this and other gray-zone cases I believe we will need to rely upon a panel of cyberconsciousness experts – mental health experts such as psychologists and medical ethicists certified in the new fields of mindfiles, mindware and mindclones. If such a panel agrees that a vitological being values human rights, then their determination should be legally validated with an adult beman ID card, notwithstanding their irregular (i.e., unapproved mindware) BNA. Cyberconsciousness panels such as these will be accessible over the web so that a beman who is feeling oppressed or trapped by eir creator has an avenue through which to obtain relief.<br /><br />It is also possible that a certified, ID-bearing mindclone subsequently becomes buggy and diverges from the identity of its creator. This is analogous to mental illness and such a mindclone will have “neurocyber surgineers” (experts in mindware coding) to go to for the repair of its mindware. In the worst instances the mindclone’s original could either commit the mindclone to a software hospital for repair or terminate it in a socially acceptable fashion (i.e., without pain or suffering). This would not be murder because the mindclone is part of the biological original’s identity. The death of the mindclone does not end the life of the original, just as the death of the original does not end the life of the mindclone. In both instances, the multi-being identity lives on. On the other hand, ending the life of a non-mindclone beman will be considered a form of murder.<br /><br />It seems ironic that if a mindclone is your simulacra, you may terminate it without legal sanction, whereas if it is of lesser capability than you, the same termination action will subject you to a charge of murder. On reflection, though, this is not so different from the very different ways that society treats suicide and infanticide, or trashing one’s own life versus trashing someone else’s. While suicide is officially illegal (except in limited circumstances), rarely is the person who botched their suicide prosecuted. Yet, even attempting to kill one’s baby (or older child) will generally result in prison time, at least in a mental ward. Almost asphyxiating yourself could result in psychiatric confinement, until you persuaded the keepers that you were no longer a threat to yourself. Almost asphyxiating your twin brother will result in mandatory jail time for attempted murder. Similarly, it is no crime to throw away one’s career in alcoholism or just stupid rash decisions. Yet, slandering, libeling or defrauding another person out of their career will have harsh legal consequences. The reason for these different kinds of outcomes is that society provides us with considerable latitude in what (harm) we do to ourselves (and by definition, ending your simulacra does not even harm your self). But society has very little tolerance for harming others (which would include, by definition, any beman that was not legally your mindclone).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S43A_P2p6SI/AAAAAAAAAak/FygqevMudvc/s1600-h/robot+boy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 278px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S43A_P2p6SI/AAAAAAAAAak/FygqevMudvc/s320/robot+boy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444219717380860194" border="0" /></a><br />In summary, a cyberconscious being can be created with a human-level or lesser CP. If they fall below the threshold of a human CP, they are a pet and will likely receive the limited protections against wanton cruelty that pets receive in modern society. This would generally be the case if the cyberconscious being was created with mindware not certified to produce human-level consciousness.<br /><br />If, on the other hand, a beman was created, such as via the use of mindware certified to produce human-level CPs, they will receive the same kind of protections that human children receive. If after a year the beman can demonstrate unity of identity with a flesh original, then the beman can receive a legal identity as the mindclone of its original. Thereafter the flesh original can do with the mindclone (and vice versa) what he or she can do with their selves, for they are simply one being living across two forms or substrates.<br /><br />On the other hand, if the beman cannot demonstrate unity of identity with a flesh original, then the beman remains the parental responsibility of its creator until such time as adulthood is achieved. Bemans who are abandoned by their creators will become government wards until they reach adulthood.<br /><br />Every beman will get a birth certificate upon the creation of their consciousness. This legal identity will assume over time one of two legal forms: a new mindclone (in which the birth identity merges with that of a biological original), or an adult beman (in which the birth identity becomes an adult identity by virtue of the passage of time with parents or government surrogates, and satisfaction of government standards).<br /><br />Mistakes of BNA may well be as common as mistakes of DNA. As a society we have learned the value of according appropriate respect to all humans, no matter how mistaken their DNA might be. With mindcloning that respect will be extended to bemans. We must respect the value of consciousness for all who value their consciousness.<br /><br />The bottom line of playing with BNA is that one is playing with fire. Society will not long countenance disrespecting the dignity of a being. Consequently, while the freedom to create a mindclone, or even a novel beman, is part of our reproductive rights, and thus something to be steadfastly preserved, there are important corresponding obligations. Among those matching obligations are to avoid causing harm to the beings you create, and to raise any vitological children to independent adulthood. As with any rights, the failure to live up to the complementary obligations should result in sanctions that entail loss of the abused rights.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-43077423095588913702010-02-19T18:26:00.012-05:002010-12-20T17:14:34.511-05:0011. WHAT FAMILY WOULD CONSCIOUS MINDCLONES HAVE?<span style="font-style: italic;">“If Google is a religion, what is its God? It would have to be The Algorithm. Faith in the possibility of an omniscient and omnipotent algorithm appears to be what Messrs Page and Brin have in common. … Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of dues ex machina.”</span> Economist, January 14th, 2006, p. 66<br />
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A commenter on my blog once imagined he went to confession, felt revitalized, and in a verve of exuberance pulled back the curtain to find a conscious mindclone of a priest in some IT hardware. He concluded that even if the mindclone helped him feel better than any priest ever did, he would feel none of the love for it that he would feel for the forgiving priest. He just could not imagine loving something without a mother or father. I believe the gist of this comment is to ask in yet another way, “can software really be humanly conscious if it is not genetically human?” We take it for granted that to be human means to have human genes, from a human mother and father. But is this really so? <span style="color: #6633ff;">Is our humanity rooted in our flesh, or is it grounded in our thoughts</span>?<br />
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<a href="http://www.we-magazine.net/downloads/martine.mp3">http://www.we-magazine.net/downloads/martine.mp3</a><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38mLg8h6nI/AAAAAAAAAZk/DsFhRXed2uQ/s1600-h/consciousness1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440108854151080562" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38mLg8h6nI/AAAAAAAAAZk/DsFhRXed2uQ/s320/consciousness1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 290px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mutually Assured Survival</span><br />
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By virtue of digital technology it is possible to self-replicate one’s mind wholly apart from the DNA-driven partial replication of one’s body (aside from cloning, babies are a blend of two people’s largely similar but subtly unique genes). For example, the entirety of one’s digital life – all of our photos, emails, web searches, music, videos, chats, texts, documents, links and downloads – could be archived in cyberspace and animated with a sophisticated chatbot. It will not be difficult for advanced artificial intelligence (AI) programs to ferret out and replicate the unique personality that is woven through our digital reflections. Now, provide that chatbot, running our personality program, with self-replication capability and our inherent Natural Selection bred drive to self-replicate could be satisfied just for our minds.<br />
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We can of course self-replicate our bodies via sexual intercourse (or IVF). But we can soon also satisfy that urge to self-replicate by copying just our minds in software. Since Natural Selection is simply a scorekeeping system for what naturally happens, it matters not at all if the successful self-replicators are mammals, mosquitoes, messages or minds. That which becomes prevalent, is a Natural Selection champion. Since humans, like all life forms, already have a strong tendency to self-replicate (meaning to do things that result in self-replication – otherwise the phenotype would not long exist), and since mind-copying technology enables a great speed-up and personalization of self-replication, <span style="color: #6633ff;">mindclones will proliferate in the nearly inexhaustible resource of cyberspace</span>.<br />
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Consciousness very slowly emerged from biological life. Each aspect of it had to prove its survival value and the neural substrate for consciousness could only arise by random mutations. But vitological consciousness plays by rather different rules. Entire conscious beings can pop into existence at once, and each such being represents a self-replication victory to someone.<br />
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It will be genetically human beings who will be copying their mindfiles into mindclones. As each of us pursues our own, personal, quest for survival via mindcloning, we are also assuring the survival of our species, albeit in the form of mindclones. The mindclones are humans because the mindclones are we. Hence, the coming proliferation of mindclones is also a proliferation of humanity. <span style="color: #6633ff;">Between flesh humans and mindclone humans there is mutually assured survival. </span>The survival of the former depends on the latter, and the survival of the latter assures the continuity of the former. We love thy mindclone as we love thyself, for they are the same.<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38ljIt7YwI/AAAAAAAAAZc/JACzdrsCX3A/s1600-h/memes.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440108160452616962" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38ljIt7YwI/AAAAAAAAAZc/JACzdrsCX3A/s320/memes.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 207px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Mindclone Genetics</span><br />
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The units of consciousness being self-replicated in cyberspace may be called “bemes,” analogous to the familiar genes of DNA (discovered in 1943 by Oswald Avery) and the less familiar memes of messages (discovered in the 1970s by Richard Dawkins). <span style="color: #6633ff;">A “beme” is the smallest, transmissible unit of consciousness.</span> For example, each persistent conception that someone has about their mother, father, and anyone else is a separate beme. Each pattern by which those conceptions are linked is a separate beme. Those conceptions and patterns, in toto, are one’s “bemone” and give rise to one’s consciousness. They are the basis for the observable manifestations of consciousness: behavior that evidences autonomy and empathy.<br />
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Bemes are to consciousness as genes are to bodies. In an appropriate environment, genes will create a body that works in accordance with the program specified in those genes. Similarly, in an appropriate environment, bemes will create a consciousness that works in accordance with the program specified in those bemes. An appropriate environment for bemes is cyberspace generally, and compatible hardware and software in particular. The appropriate environment for genes is biospace generally, and compatible nutrients and nurturing in particular. While genes are based within a great many variants of the naturally evolved double-helix molecule we call DNA (and also within single-stranded RNA), <span style="color: #6633ff;">bemes are based within a great variety of software structures we may call Beme Neural Architecture, or “BNA.”</span> Finally, while genes are themselves comprised of many sub-units called base pairs or nucleotides, bemes are also comprised of many sub-units that may be called bemeotides. These sub-units include the numerous sensory triggers (phonetics, visual cues, etc.) that give rise to a specific beme.<br />
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Between bemes and genes Nature has come up with a system of mutually assured survival. A product of genes, biological human consciousness, may for the first time now be individually self-replicated -- in bemes. Meanwhile a product of bemes, cybernetic human consciousness, is dependent upon gene-based life for maintenance of its environment. Hence, bemes enhance the survival and self-replication of genes that help the survival and self-replication of bemes. <span style="color: #6633ff;">DNA gave rise to (mutated) a new class of self-replicating codes of life, BNA, and the new BNA codes are synergistic, not competitive, with their predecessor DNA</span>. In terms of Natural Selection this means a much larger pie of life – for there is no zero sum game between BNA and DNA based life. In terms of consciousness this synergy means that digital codes will acquire autonomy and empathy very quickly for it is in the best interests of biological codes that it happen.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Beme Is Mightier than the Gene</span><br />
The genetic basis of a mindclone is its BNA. This code consists of enough of the biological original’s bemes to create a simulacrum of the original’s mind. The mindclone will feel as emotional as its original because emotions are patterns among mental conceptions, which means they are bemes. <span style="color: #6633ff;">Mindware extracts the complete set of bemes, or human bemone, from a mindfile in order to create a mindclone.</span> The extracted human bemone is the basis for the mindclone’s family, both ancestors and offspring.<br />
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The parents of every first generation mindclone are the parents of their biological original. Since the mindclone and the biological original have the same identity, they must have the same parents. They are the same person, albeit now dispersed across two substrates. If you love your priest, you must automatically love his mindclone, for they are one person.<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38jNIaYEUI/AAAAAAAAAZM/Sf69RU5zVsY/s1600-h/cyberpriest.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440105583390232898" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38jNIaYEUI/AAAAAAAAAZM/Sf69RU5zVsY/s320/cyberpriest.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 240px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
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Consider your reaction when you hear your priest’s voice on your voicemail. It is the same, kindly, respectful reaction you would have if he were speaking right to his face. Thanks to telephony, our voices can be in two or more places but have the same identity. So it is with mindclones. Our minds can be in two or more places but have the same identity. Indeed, this is why we say “the beme is mightier than the gene.” A personality born of the latter is limited to one physical embodiment. But our beme-based identity can occupy multiple forms.<br />
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There is another sense in which the beme is mightier than the gene. Suppose the priest we’ve discussed was genetically cloned so that another individual grew up with his exact same DNA. We all realize that we could not feel the same, if any, love for that person, who would probably not even be a priest. This physical clone’s mind would be very different from the priest we knew from confession. While it is true that our minds are partly shaped by our genes, they are overwhelmingly shaped by our life’s experiences and the gazillions of different choices we make at different moments in our life. This is why even identical twins with identical upbringings are often similar, but always different. The physically cloned priest will evoke the original priest in our heart in part because they will look almost identical and in part because they will talk and act similarly (due to genetically-controlled neural patterns). But very quickly, within a few words, we will realize they are two totally different persons. There is no more reason we should transfer our love for the original priest to his physical clone, than we should transfer it to his wayward son.<br />
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Now suppose our beloved priest was bemetically cloned so that a mindclone faced us from a computer screen who looked, talked, acted, thought and behaved precisely like his biological original. In the case of a mindclone, the mind is functionally identical to that of the biological original. It is the same person. It would be only natural to extend our love for the original person to his mindclone. They are one. The priest would expect no less. <span style="color: #6633ff;">The beme is mightier than the gene. It lasts longer, goes further and matters more.</span><br />
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We think genes are so important because we have been brainwashed that “blood is thicker than water.” But this metaphor leads to confusion and error. After all, our closest, “death-do-us-part” relationships are with our spouses or partners, as to whom we have no special “blood” affinity. <span style="color: #6633ff;">Instead, the attraction of romantic love is an attraction based upon bemes, not genes.</span> It is for our best friends with whom we lack familial shared genes but have specially shared bemes that we’ll do anything, not for our distant, genetic cousins.<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38j7UqfM5I/AAAAAAAAAZU/ev5KLA_XFDg/s1600-h/jedi-mind-trick.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440106376953017234" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S38j7UqfM5I/AAAAAAAAAZU/ev5KLA_XFDg/s320/jedi-mind-trick.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 267px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<span style="color: #6633ff;">The proper metaphor for the Age of BNA is that “mind is deeper than matter.”</span> Our souls are touched far more meaningfully by connections that run via shared bemes than via shared genes. If the mind of the priest is there, then his lack of blood should not matter. Conversely, affinity based upon genes is as obsolete as loyalty based upon melanin. The beme is mightier than the gene.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454474035487094108.post-28350479733479300932010-01-27T19:10:00.029-05:002010-08-01T15:46:20.171-04:0010. EVEN IF SOME SOFTWARE CAN BE KIND OF ALIVE, WON’T CYBERCONSCIOUSNESS TAKE AGES TO EVOLVE, AS IT DID FOR BIOLOGY?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2IK98HMSgI/AAAAAAAAAY8/81Jz_g4oyCw/s1600-h/warp+speed.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2IK98HMSgI/AAAAAAAAAY8/81Jz_g4oyCw/s320/warp+speed.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431916159786830338" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.”</span> Aldous Huxley<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.”</span> Edward R. Murrow<br /><br /><br />Compared with biology, vitological consciousness will arise in a heartbeat. This is because the key elements of consciousness – autonomy and empathy – are amenable to software coding and thousands of software engineers are working on it. By comparison, the neural substrate for autonomy and empathy had to arise in biology via thousands of chance mutations. Furthermore, each such mutation had to materially advance the competitiveness of its recipient or else it had only a slight chance of becoming prevalent.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DcU3wqKZI/AAAAAAAAAX0/F_lK-kDGaEE/s1600-h/ai.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 194px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DcU3wqKZI/AAAAAAAAAX0/F_lK-kDGaEE/s320/ai.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431583401732352402" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The differences between vitology and biology in the process of creating consciousness could not be starker. It is intelligent design versus dumb luck. In both cases Natural Selection is at play. However, for conscious vitology, any signs of consciousness get instantly rewarded with lots of copies and intelligent designers swarm to make it better. This is Darwinian Evolution at hyper-speed. With conscious biology, any signs of consciousness get rewarded only to the extent they prove useful in the struggle for biosphere survival. Any further improvements require patiently waiting through eons of gestation cycles for another lucky spin of genetic roulette. This traditional form of Darwinian Evolution is so glacial that it took over three billion years to achieve what vitology is accomplishing in under a century.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2IHbWh9KLI/AAAAAAAAAYs/4hjojrUKK8w/s1600-h/where_is_my_mind.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2IHbWh9KLI/AAAAAAAAAYs/4hjojrUKK8w/s320/where_is_my_mind.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431912267048102066" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The people working hard to give vitology consciousness have a wide variety of motives. First, there are academicians who are deathly curious to see if it can be done. They have programmed elements of autonomy and empathy into computers. They even create artificial software worlds in which they attempt to mimic natural selection. In these artificial worlds software structures compete for resources, undergo mutations and evolve. The experimenters are hopeful that consciousness will evolve in their software as it did in biology, with vastly greater speed. Check out out this vlog that explains why their hopes will almost certainly be fulfilled: <br /><br /> <embed src="http://blip.tv/play/jDyB8p0pAA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="390" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed><br /><br /><br />Another group of “human enzymes” aiming to catalyze software consciousness are gamesters. These (mostly) guys are trying to create as exciting a game experience as possible. Over the past several years the opponents at which a gamester aims have evolved from short lines (Pong; Space Invaders) to sophisticated human animations that modify their behavior based upon the attack. The game character that can make up its own mind idiosyncratically (autonomy) and engage in caring communications (empathy) will attract all the attention. Any other type of character will then appear as simplistic as Play Station 2.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2Daw8lok5I/AAAAAAAAAXk/Rmgu1Zht1HA/s1600-h/gamesters.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2Daw8lok5I/AAAAAAAAAXk/Rmgu1Zht1HA/s320/gamesters.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431581685041370002" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Third and fourth groups focused on creating cyber-consciousness are medical and defense technologists. For the military cyberconsciousness solves the problem of engaging the enemy while minimizing casualties. By imbuing robot weapon systems with autonomy they can more effectively deal with the countless uncertainties that arise in a battlefield situation. It is not possible to program into a mobile robot system a specific response to every contingency. Nor is it very effective to control each robot system remotely based on video sent back to a distant headquarters. The ideal situation provides the robot system with a wide range of sensory inputs (audio, video, infrared) and a set of algorithms for making independent judgments as to how to best carry out orders in the face of unknown terrain and hostile forces. The work of one developer in this area has been described as follows:<br /><br /> <blockquote>“Ronald Arkin of the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, is developing a set of rules of engagement for battlefield robots to ensure that their use of lethal force follows the rules of ethics. In other words, he is trying to create an artificial conscience. Dr. Arkin believes that there is another reason for putting robots into battle, which is that they have the potential to act more humanely than people. Stress does not affect a robot’s judgment in the way it affects a soldier’s.” </blockquote>The algorithms suitable for a military conscience will not be difficult to adapt to more prosaic civilian requirements. Independent decision-making lies at the heart of Autonomy, one of the two touchstones of consciousness.<br /><br />Meanwhile, medical cyber-consciousness is being pushed by the skyrocketing need to address Alzheimer’s and other diseases of aging. Alzheimer’s robs a great many older people of their mind while leaving their body intact. <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">The Alzheimer patient could maintain their sense of self if they could off-load their mind onto a computer, while the biotech industry works on a cure.</span> This is analogous to how an artificial heart (such as a left-ventricular assistance device or LVAD) off-loads a patient’s heart until a heart transplant can be found. Ultimately the Alzheimer’s patient will hope to download their mind back into a brain cleansed of amyloid plaques.<br /><br />Indeed, using cyber-consciousness for mind transplants would be a way to provide any patient facing an end-stage disease a chance to avoid the Grim Reaper. While the patients will surely miss their bodies, the alternative will be to never have a body. At least with a medically provided cyber-conscious existence, the patient can continue to interact with their family, enjoy electronic media and hope for rapid advances in regenerative medicine and neuroscience. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2IFnM73p3I/AAAAAAAAAYk/iFdiuLx04S4/s1600-h/MIT-AI-234.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 271px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2IFnM73p3I/AAAAAAAAAYk/iFdiuLx04S4/s320/MIT-AI-234.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431910271607613298" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The field of regenerative medicine will ultimately permit ectogenesis, the rapid growth outside of a womb of a fresh, adult-size body in as little as twenty months. This is the time it would take an embryo to grow to adult size if it continued to grow at the rate embryos develop during the first two trimesters. Advances in neuroscience will enable a cyber-conscious mind to be written back into (or implanted and interfaced with) neuronal patterns in a freshly regenerated brain.<br /><br />Biotechnology companies are well aware that over 90% of an average person’s lifetime medical expenditures are spent during the very last portion of their life. Lives are priceless, and hence we deploy the best technology we can to mechanically keep people alive. <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Medical cyber-conscious mind support is the next logic step in our efforts to keep end-stage patients alive</span>. The potential profits from such technology (health insurance would pay for it just like any other form of medically-necessary equipment) are an irresistible enticement for companies to allocate top people to the effort.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2Ddenmt4WI/AAAAAAAAAX8/G5AnwmOqyY4/s1600-h/artificial-intelligence-d.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 244px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2Ddenmt4WI/AAAAAAAAAX8/G5AnwmOqyY4/s320/artificial-intelligence-d.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431584668706005346" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Health care needs for older people are also driving efforts to develop the empathetic branch of cyber-consciousness. There are not enough people to provide caring attention to the growing legion of senior citizens. As countries grow wealthy their people live longer, their birthrates decline below the replacement rate and, consequently, their senior citizens comprise an ever-larger percentage of the population. Among the OECD group of advanced countries, the dependency ratio, which measures the number of people over 65 to those between 20 and 65, is projected to grow from .2 currently to .5 by 2050. In other words, today there are five younger people to care for each older person, whereas in four decades there will be just two workers to care for each older person. There is a huge health care industry motivation to develop empathetic robots because just a small minority of younger people actually wants to take care of older people.<br /><br />The seniors won’t want to be manhandled, nor will their offspring want to be guilt-ridden. Other than importing help from developing countries – which only postpones the issue briefly as those countries have gestating dependency ratio problems of their own – there is no solution but for the empathetic, autonomous robot. Grannies need – and deserve – an attentive, caring, interesting person with whom to interact. The only such persons that can be summoned into existence to meet this demand are manufactured software persons, i.e., empathetic, autonomous robots. Not surprisingly, empathetic machines are a focus of software development in the health care industry. Companies are putting expression-filled faces on their robots, and filling their code with the art of conversation.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2Ddro64TdI/AAAAAAAAAYE/6YUPTe3KCzU/s1600-h/purple+ai.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2Ddro64TdI/AAAAAAAAAYE/6YUPTe3KCzU/s320/purple+ai.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431584892397309394" border="0" /></a><br />Finally, the information technology (IT) industry itself is working on cyber-consciousness. The mantra of IT is user-friendly, and there is nothing friendlier than a person. A cyber-conscious house that we could speak to (prepare something I’d like for dinner, turn on a movie that I’d like) is a product for which people will pay a lot of money. A personal digital assistant that was smart, self-aware and servile will out-compete in the marketplace PDAs that are deaf, dumb and demanding. In short, IT companies have immense financial incentives to keep trying to make software as personable as possible. They are responding to these incentives by allocating floors of programmers to the cyberconsciousness task. Note how rapidly these programmers have arrogated into their programs the human pronoun “I”. <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Until cyberconsciousness began emerging, no one but humans and fictional characters could call themselves “I”. Suddenly, bits and building blocks of vitology are saying “how may I help you?,” “I’m sorry you’re having difficulty,” “I’ll transfer you to a human operator right away.”</span> The programmers will have succeeded in birthing cyberconsciousness when they figure out how to make the human operator totally unnecessary. From their progress to date, this seems to be the goal. Add to this self-replication code, and conscious vitology has arrived.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DbWneS7bI/AAAAAAAAAXs/lc84x9bWuBI/s1600-h/ace.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 270px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DbWneS7bI/AAAAAAAAAXs/lc84x9bWuBI/s320/ace.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431582332208475570" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In summary, humanity is devoting some of its best minds, from a wide diversity of fields, to helping software achieve consciousness. The quest is not especially difficult as it is a capability that can be intelligently designed; there is no need to wait for it to naturally evolve. As a result, cyberconscious will appear immediately on the heels of life-like vitology.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 204); font-weight: bold;">Unnatural Selection is Still Natural Selection. </span><br /><br />Natural Selection is the name Darwin gave to Nature’s heartless process of dooming some species and variants of species to extinction, while favoring for a while others. The principal tool of Natural Selection is competition within a niche for scarce food. Losers don’t get enough food to reproduce, and hence they die out. Winners get the food, make the babies and pass on their traits, including the ones that make them superior competitors. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DhFatbShI/AAAAAAAAAYM/h03hmiiGnSc/s1600-h/unnatural-selection.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 244px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DhFatbShI/AAAAAAAAAYM/h03hmiiGnSc/s320/unnatural-selection.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431588633794267666" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />When environmental change eliminates much of the food, such as during an ice age, previously useful traits may become meaningless and former Natural Selection champions may quickly join the mountain of extinct losers. During such times Nature selects for traits that enable food gathering and reproduction in changing, or changed, environments. The cockroach has these traits.<br /><br />Alternatively a new species may enter a niche, as when hominids entered the environment of the mammoth. In cases like this Nature might simply select the better killer, since it was not the mammoth’s food that interested Man, but the mammoth as food. Plants and animals will not only extinguish other species through starvation, they will also do so through direct extermination. All the while, Nature will carpet bomb all manner of species via environmental changes brought about by geophysics (e.g., volcanism) or astrophysics (e.g., asteroids).<br /><br />Natural Selection is now acting upon software forms of life. In this case Nature’s tool is neither f<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DhQ21gGyI/AAAAAAAAAYU/a_ebIrtJRbA/s1600-h/unnatural_selection_cover_3_01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2DhQ21gGyI/AAAAAAAAAYU/a_ebIrtJRbA/s320/unnatural_selection_cover_3_01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431588830322891554" border="0" /></a>ood nor violence. Instead, ey is using man as a tool, relying upon eir differential favoring of some self-replicating codes over others. Just as Nature started off with viruses in the biological world, ey is also flooding the vitological world with them. This is no doubt because viruses are the simplest types of self-replicating structures – they do nothing but self-replicate and plug themselves in somewhere (sometimes to great harm; other times to significant benefit). Molecular viruses spontaneously self-assembled out of inanimate molecules before anything more complicated did, and hence Natural Selection played with them first. Similarly, software viruses spontaneously man-assembled out of inanimate code before anything more complicated, and hence Natural Selection is playing with them first. As viruses randomly or with man’s help cobble together more functionality, then Natural Selection will play with the resultant complex entities.<br /><br />Natural Selection is simply a kind of arithmetic for self-replicating entities. It is a tallying up of the results of what happens to self-replicating things in the natural world. Those that self-replicate more successfully are represented by a larger slice of the pie of life. There are many ways to self-replicate more successfully – grab resources better than others, kill others better than they can kill you, adapt to changes better than others. Nature doesn’t really care how one self-replicates more successfully. Ey just keeps track, via Natural Selection, by awarding the winners larger shares of the pie of life.<br /><br />Since math is math, whether done by people or bees, Nature surely does not care if the agent of selection is human popularity rather than nutritional scarcity. <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Natural Selection is no less natural for humans being in the middle.</span> Indeed, we have human intermediation to thank for thousands of recombinant DNA sub-species, hundreds of plant types and dozens of animal species. Thank Man for the household dog! <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2II4MjlITI/AAAAAAAAAY0/-32m9Br5wME/s1600-h/grow+the+pie.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 209px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y_Go48TbGgw/S2II4MjlITI/AAAAAAAAAY0/-32m9Br5wME/s320/grow+the+pie.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431913862098395442" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Man is now hard-at-work naturally selecting for the traits that make software more conscious. Humanity cannot resist an overwhelming urge to create unnatural life in the image of natural life. But this effort at Unnatural Selection is still Natural Selection. The end result will still be an arithmetic reordering of pie shapes and pie slices. The overall pie of life will be much larger, for it will now include vitology as well as biology. And within that larger pie, there will be slices accorded to each of the types of vitological life and biological life that successfully self-replicate in a changing environment. <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Mindclone consciousness will arrive vastly faster than its biological predecessor because Unnatural Selection is Natural Selection at the speed of intentionality.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9