Biotechnological Ethics

[wolven7]

Technology advocates in the audience, what are your positions on the following: AI (as a general term encompassing many nuances); "The Singularity;" Cybernetics/Bio-Technological enhancements?

Sub-Question: Where do you draw the line? Where is your demarcation on the spectrum between, say, Reading Glasses, on the one hand, and Uploading Your Brain into a Cybernetic Body, on the other?

At what point do you stop being human? At what point are you no longer You? What makes you who you are? Is it your brain states? Is it being made of a certain combination of meat, fat, proteins, acids and enzymes?

Is the complexity of your identity reducible to Physics? Quantum Physics? String Theory? Chemistry? Where do you want to say that You are? Is the whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts?

I believe that it is. I think that there is a level of process that lends itself to identity, and that each experience of reduction, replication, and re-creation changes the product. This is why The Dixie Flatline was not the completeion of his Self, if you catch my meaning. The processes and materials through which we travel have a hand in making us who we are. This is not to say that those things which emulate those processes are not, then, thinking, knowing machines, but it is to say that they are not us. They are different from Us.

I could go off on a Farscape rant, about what happened when Crichton was doubled, and the ways their choices and behaviours shaped them, together and separately, the further they got from each other, but I won't. Not in the body of this post. I will say, however, that what makes you who and what you are is not limited to, but is heavily informed by what you experience, what you're made of, what you remember.

If I were to make the decision to transfer the only of me to an uploaded state, would that then be me? If my body died? In what ways would it not be me? What if I cloned myself a new body, and transfered, then?

Morbid thoughts, I know, but you need to think about these things. They are coming, whether or not we like them.

If i quick-clone myself, and that clone bears the marks of that process, then that clone is not me. Same name? Sure, same memories? for the most part. Not me. Will have different experiences, different reactions, a different life.

Like a twin brother, yeah?

But what if we could meet up, come back, and share memories, directly, via uplink...

This is kind of rambling, I know, and the possibilities, are dizzying, but mainly I just want to hear your thoughts on these thoughts.

So.

Comments

I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[cailement.livejournal.com]

Question, by question :)

Technology advocates in the audience, what are your positions on the following: AI (as a general term encompassing many nuances); "The Singularity;" Cybernetics/Bio-Technological enhancements?

AI is scary. I truly believe that if a logical alien entity took a good look about how we run our lives and our planet, we'd be found wanting indeed and I worry that they'd kill us all, for the universe's sake. Or Earth's sake. Whatever. I like the idea behind it, all of the good technological uses, but I've read too much sci-fi to be comfortable with the idea.

The Singularity is a new concept to me, so I don't really have much of an opinion on it. From what I've looked up, just now, it doesn't seem worth commenting on. It'll happen or it won't, not really anything to do about it or not.

Cyber-were and biotech. WANT. At the same time, I'm kinda worried about it, but not to the extent that I am about AI. I think just about everything in your body should be replaceable (think Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams). Seriously, I see no reason to not be able to replace a blind man's eyes, or a cancer survivor's breasts. Be this with bio or cyber, although I'd really want both tech to take off so that one could choose.

Sub-Question: Where do you draw the line? Where is your demarcation on the spectrum between, say, Reading Glasses, on the one hand, and Uploading Your Brain into a Cybernetic Body, on the other?

I think my only issue is the idea of a human consciousness in a cybernetic brain. I don't have a problem with directly interfacing a computer, but for some reason, the brain tissue has to remain just that, tissue, for me to consider it a human. It's like that queesy feeling I got while watching Arnold's Junior. Some things are just Not Meant To Happen. I can't explain why, really. Just a sick feeling in my stomach. Everything replacing up until the brain? I'm totally okay with.

At what point do you stop being human? At what point are you no longer You? What makes you who you are? Is it your brain states? Is it being made of a certain combination of meat, fat, proteins, acids and enzymes?

I think the consciousness, the soul, (and this is going away from tech, here) is not actually a part of the human body, so having it not in a human body is not necessarily a bad thing. What makes us human, I think, though, is our irrationality. The thought of "he's looking at my girl so I'm gonna go start shit." This is not necessarily a good thing, but I think without these irrationalities (for another example, the man who stays on the sinking battle cruiser while his men get to safety, taking out the final enemy ships, even though he will certainly die. The mother taking the bullet in the dark alley for her son. Irrational, but intrinsically human) make us human. I worry that if we went total cyber, that we'd loose a bit of this irrationality, and would therefore cease to be human.

(cut into several, for length)

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[cailement.livejournal.com]

Is the complexity of your identity reducible to Physics? Quantum Physics? String Theory? Chemistry? Where do you want to say that You are? Is the whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts?

At this point, I would like to ask, have you read Orson Scott Card's Ender Saga? I like the ideas of the philoats, of a thing that is called out of Outside to reside in a living thing (or a rock, or a chair) that intertwine with each other to make the connections between atoms and atoms to make molecules and people, people and people, people and the planet, etc. His sci-fi delved very deeply into physics, and I liked the thought that at the sub-sub atomic level, our soul resides. I also like how sub-atomic particles don't yet make sense to anyone. But that goes on into Belief again.

I will say, however, that what makes you who and what you are is not limited to, but is heavily informed by what you experience, what you're made of, what you remember.

I agree with this a Lot. It's a part of the nature vs nurture psycology argument, which I believe the resolution to the argument is "a bit of both." At the same time (some of this is taken from that survey), I think that people are capable of literally anything, not necessarily bound by their upbringing, but definatly influenced by it. Some of who you are and what you'll do is based on the genetic level, some is based on how you were raised. And then there's a third level, one not mentioned in that survey, I don't think, that is made up of Possibility--the ability of anyone, for any reason, to choose to do something different. I think that this third side of the argument is left out of the argument a bunch, and shouldn't be. God (or some other deity :P) may know our fates, but we're the ones who make them.

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[cailement.livejournal.com]

If I were to make the decision to transfer the only of me to an uploaded state, would that then be me? If my body died? In what ways would it not be me? What if I cloned myself a new body, and transfered, then?

For the electronic, I don't know. You might have the same memories and carry the same brain patterns, you may not, but the question to me would be would you still have the same soul? I don't know. We'd have to try it and see, I think.

My view on clones is also tempted by Card's philotics, that a new creature was created, and in the creation called into the ether for a soul to come and inhabit the body, and one would. I don't think it would be you. I think it would have your memories (assuming the tech was that good), maybe some of your thought patterns, but the person I know as Wolven (not Damien) would be gone, I think.

If i quick-clone myself, and that clone bears the marks of that process, then that clone is not me. Same name? Sure, same memories? for the most part. Not me. Will have different experiences, different reactions, a different life.

Like a twin brother, yeah?

Yeah, like that, or a Siamese twin that was connected at the brain, and then latter cut apart.

But what if we could meet up, come back, and share memories, directly, via uplink...

Then you'd share more memories, but still not be the same person.

Neat discussion, and interesting topics. Thanks for bringing it up :)

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Okay, try this one then: Say you were somehow able to merge, completely, with your double. Mix, share memories, experience, and re-emerge, both with Both sets of everything, equal. What then?

Again, you should read the Lucifer series... Simply brilliant.

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Read the whole Ender series, and most of the Bean Shadow series. That idea resonated pretty clearly, with me, as well.

See other comment, for notes on possibility.

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[cailement.livejournal.com]

Go read the rest of the Bean series. I just finished listening to all of the Ender books on Audio (really good performances) and Card promised another book connecting the two arches together, dealing with the Descoladores, and stuff. Wooo!

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I think the only one I missed was Shadow of the Giant.

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[cailement.livejournal.com]

It just came out not too long ago. I found it while I was over here and screamed through it. I'm still not sure if I liked it or hated it. I think I'll be able to tell when the next one comes out. It all depends on who dies in between the books . . . .

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all sure I understand what you mean, there.

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[cailement.livejournal.com]

Sorry, Shadow of the Giants. I came out not too long ago, but I didn't notice that it was out until I got here in Japan. I screamed through it, and I'm still not sure if I liked it or not. I'll have to wait and see when the next book comes out, who died and who didn't.

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people have the meat-brain issue that you mention, but what if we can build systems with sufficient fuzziness and uncertainty to allow for rationality?

Another reason everyone should be watching BSG. They deal with these questions, very handily.

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[cailement.livejournal.com]

I just *don't know.* I guess it'll just have to happen, and then I'll tell you if I'm comfortable with it or not.

I tried watching BSG, but couldn't get into it. I might have to give it another go . . .

Re: I've been holding off until I could actually give this the thought it deserves

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Should be interesting to see.