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Making a real life Ego Bridge

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Tue, 2012-05-08 18:25

Aeroz

So I was thinking about the process of transferring one's self into a new body. The real world issue I believe would be the same as the in game one. The sense of continuity and that this is still "you". With that I began thinking of a process to transfer into a new body with a few rules. 1. The brain cannot be destroyed during the emulation process 2. At no time may a consciousness be wholly separate and create two beings 3. No break in the persons awareness. At no time during the process may conscious functions be zero. The following is a process I believe will accomplish this, though it would require multiple emerging technologies. Step 1: memory is the simplest to duplicate, but also the most important. As you perceive the world that sensory input is contextualized by your memories, comprehended by your mind, then stored as new information. Thus you must first transfer them into the new body as well as the ego bridge to function as a buffer. At all times memories will be equalized between the three so the subject maintains a unified source of knowledge. Step 2: Sensory input and motor control is disconnected in the original body and accessed in the new body. The signals are sent to the original, processed, and the output sent back to the new body. This serves multiple purposes. For one it should help by establishing neural pathways in the new body. More importantly for the patient it establishes their awareness from the new perspective as to them they are now in the new body. It should be noted that because of the delay caused by the distance the impulses must travel the patient would experience severe perceived time dilution. This is actually beneficial in later processes. Step 3: The brain is emulated on the ego-bridge. This is not to a functional processing mind, merely a real-time mirror of the original consciousness for the purposes of error corrections. Like with memory it was act as a buffer to handle delay and any unexpected functions of the mind. The sensory input is still processed by the original mind at this point. Step 4: The chemical paths in the original mind are broken down and rebuilt in the new brain with the emulated one in the ego-bridge compensating for the delay and confirming that the rebuilt pathways are correct. While new chemical pathways are built constantly the slowed process of the patients mind should allow the nanomachines to over take it. Step 5: Processes of the new mind are fully reconnected and separated from the ego-bridge resulting in the patients self merely being transferred as opposed to copied. Atleast from their point of view. The memories and state of consciousness is saved on the ego-bridge for a backup. As a final scrubbing process memories in the old body are wiped. This is how I believe the process would be handled in a way that would be the most psychologically healthy. The key being the order and that the transfer of awareness and control rather than falling asleep and waking up in a new body. While preventing the existential problems of simply copying a consciousness and destroying the original when you are done. You can argue thats technically still done, but its as close to a true transfer as one can get. Now feel free to point out all the mistakes which I have made.

Tue, 2012-05-08 20:32

750

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

Not sure i see the need for point 3, unless there is something in the subconscious we worry about breaking. We shut down awareness all the time, via sleep and sedatives. As for point two, unless the original brain is destroyed after transfer, you basically have two beings on your hands. or at least two consciousnesses that claim access to the same set of memories.

Tue, 2012-05-08 21:16

Aeroz

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

750 wrote:
Not sure i see the need for point 3, unless there is something in the subconscious we worry about breaking. We shut down awareness all the time, via sleep and sedatives.

Part of it is, while asleep your brain is still functioning and there is the possibility it would generate the same issues as being aware. But being aware would have the advantage of helping your mind cope with the process. Even if consciously you accept that you are transferred that lose of consciousness can leave you with lingering doubt as to whether or not its still you in that body being aware allows them to acclimate and accept a continued existence

750 wrote:
As for point two, unless the original brain is destroyed after transfer, you basically have two beings on your hands. or at least two consciousnesses that claim access to the same set of memories.

you do not destroy the brain, the body still has it, but its processes are gradually switched over through differing methods. The chemical processes involved in higher brain functions are eventually destroyed during the process, and memory is outright deleted. It leaves the body an empty shell, but intact.

Wed, 2012-05-09 03:35

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

Aeroz wrote:
1. The brain cannot be destroyed during the emulation process 2. At no time may a consciousness be wholly separate and create two beings 3. No break in the persons awareness. At no time during the process may conscious functions be zero.

Note that these are somewhat arbitrary constraints. Of course they matter to people who hold particular views on personal identity, but there are plenty of alternative views. For example, Hans Moravec's nanodisassembly process of uploading in his book "Mind Children" has 2 and 3 but not 1 in the process of turning the person into an upload sleeved in his own remote controlled body. What you are describing is a process for transfer from one body to another with minimal stress. Looks quite doable in EP, but it is probably a premium service.

Quote:
Step 1: memory is the simplest to duplicate, but also the most important. As you perceive the world that sensory input is contextualized by your memories, comprehended by your mind, then stored as new information. Thus you must first transfer them into the new body as well as the ego bridge to function as a buffer. At all times memories will be equalized between the three so the subject maintains a unified source of knowledge.

Memory is not separate from neural connectivity or other aspects of the brain. Deep down, it is just the strength of synapses and what neurons they connect. So when duplicating this you will also duplicate most of personality, motivation, emotions etc. The only remaining part might be overall chemistry and other messiness. So once step 1 is done (and this is where I as a neuroscientist have the most complaints about feasibility - how the heck do you actually reformat a biological brain to be identical with another one?!) the other brain already contains the ego. Unless kept sedated it will wake up. All the rest of the process is a trick to make the awake ego think it has continuously moved from one body to another.

—

Wed, 2012-05-09 08:18

Smokeskin

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

Arenamontanus wrote:
and this is where I as a neuroscientist have the most complaints about feasibility - how the heck do you actually reformat a biological brain to be identical with another one?!

Awesome powers of nanofabrication, obviously ;) If our cells have the machinery to construct brains, I don't see why nanotech shouldn't be able to do it much faster. I don't see it as a problem of feasibility, more that there's a huge difference between the capabilities of an egobridge and other stuff. If you can rewire brains that easily, growing morphs should be a breeze too. It seems in EP it is quite hard to grow new stuff, but very easy to change and modify biological matter, even to the point where it seems it would actually have to rebuild from scratch and the original matter would just be feedstock.

Wed, 2012-05-09 15:38

Aeroz

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

Arenamontanus wrote:
Note that these are somewhat arbitrary constraints. Of course they matter to people who hold particular views on personal identity, but there are plenty of alternative views. For example, Hans Moravec's nanodisassembly process of uploading in his book "Mind Children" has 2 and 3 but not 1 in the process of turning the person into an upload sleeved in his own remote controlled body. What you are describing is a process for transfer from one body to another with minimal stress. Looks quite doable in EP, but it is probably a premium service.

If its the one I am thinking of, where you basically analyze the exact composition of the brain by physically slicing it apart, than I am aware of this process and honestly it will probably be the first developed. I actually placed in that rule because I found that process unsatisfactory. Plus the process was intended for people that recently died and there are alot of issues with killing the person to perform the process that would make it difficult to resleeve before death. Plus it would be a legal nightmare if you "died" potentially days before your ego was transferred.

Arenamontanus wrote:
Memory is not separate from neural connectivity or other aspects of the brain. Deep down, it is just the strength of synapses and what neurons they connect. So when duplicating this you will also duplicate most of personality, motivation, emotions etc. The only remaining part might be overall chemistry and other messiness.

allow me to to check something. Isn't there a difference between the storage of simple memorization and interconnected experiences one has with them. For example you know what a "dog" is, but your views on dogs is based on how that information is connected to other memories, emotional context of those memories, etc.

Arenamontanus wrote:
So once step 1 is done (and this is where I as a neuroscientist have the most complaints about feasibility - how the heck do you actually reformat a biological brain to be identical with another one?!)

I think one of the things EP gets wrong is the idea of a standardized brain. No two brains are exactly the same, so you'd have to have an exact duplicate in order to get the same person.

Arenamontanus wrote:
All the rest of the process is a trick to make the awake ego think it has continuously moved from one body to another.

Thats the intent. I think we underestimate the psychological issues resleeving would have. While you might tell yourself its still you, its hard to remove that lingering doubt that you are merely a copy and that can lead to some major existential depression depending on how much the person thinks about it. This would also help it becoming accepted since, as you put it while technically you can say its still just a copy that the ego will not view it as such. Thus the general population will come to view it more as a transference. Remember if you want resleeving to become a reality you have to make it palpable to the masses and, death followed by a copy taking your place, will greatly bother your average person. We want to lower the number of bioconservatives, not increase it. That means doing everything we can to make it as hard as possible to argue that your humanity is lost.

Sat, 2012-05-12 21:05

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

Smokeskin wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
and this is where I as a neuroscientist have the most complaints about feasibility - how the heck do you actually reformat a biological brain to be identical with another one?!
Awesome powers of nanofabrication, obviously ;) If our cells have the machinery to construct brains, I don't see why nanotech shouldn't be able to do it much faster. I don't see it as a problem of feasibility, more that there's a huge difference between the capabilities of an egobridge and other stuff. If you can rewire brains that easily, growing morphs should be a breeze too.

Exactly. It is the inconsistency of the technology that annoys me. To rewire a brain completely you need to shift around the 10^15 synapses (and change their strengths). The problem is that shifting them around means changing connections over fairly large distances: a team of nanomachines might be able to move a micrometer-sized synapse a bit, but neurons have branches that range from millimetres to a meter in length! We are talking thousands to a million synapse lengths. Worse, brain tissue is *crammed* with cells, there is not much free space. (check out the pictures at http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_6intro.stm and http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_8intro.stm ) To make matters worse, this is supposed to happen simultaneously for all synapses in a brain that is alive - which means the cells will be flopping around like living cells are wont to do. If we can do this, then printing biomorphs ought to be a breeze. At least culturing piles of cells and then reorganising them into morphs should be doable. (I would have solved it by making the biomorph brain a synthetic biology structure, where cells are integrated with nanoparticles allowing easy access and control, and where the tissue had a rather non-mammalian general structure that can be rewired to implement particular brains. A bit like a breadboard in electronics)

—

Sat, 2012-05-12 21:21

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

Aeroz wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
Note that these are somewhat arbitrary constraints. Of course they matter to people who hold particular views on personal identity, but there are plenty of alternative views. For example, Hans Moravec's nanodisassembly process of uploading in his book "Mind Children" has 2 and 3 but not 1 in the process of turning the person into an upload sleeved in his own remote controlled body. What you are describing is a process for transfer from one body to another with minimal stress. Looks quite doable in EP, but it is probably a premium service.
If its the one I am thinking of, where you basically analyze the exact composition of the brain by physically slicing it apart, than I am aware of this process and honestly it will probably be the first developed. I actually placed in that rule because I found that process unsatisfactory. Plus the process was intended for people that recently died and there are alot of issues with killing the person to perform the process that would make it difficult to resleeve before death.

Well, Moravec's procedure is different from slice-and-dice. http://www.ibiblio.org/jstrout/uploading/moravec.html Basically, you use fractal manipulators to scan neurons and replace them with simulations under local anaesthesia. As Moravec described the procedure it was continuous and the user conscious throughout, and it included the chance to flip between the real neurons and the simulated ones to check that the latest batch had been converted right. Not terribly easy to do in practice, I suspect.

Quote:

Arenamontanus wrote:
Memory is not separate from neural connectivity or other aspects of the brain. Deep down, it is just the strength of synapses and what neurons they connect. So when duplicating this you will also duplicate most of personality, motivation, emotions etc. The only remaining part might be overall chemistry and other messiness.
allow me to to check something. Isn't there a difference between the storage of simple memorization and interconnected experiences one has with them. For example you know what a "dog" is, but your views on dogs is based on how that information is connected to other memories, emotional context of those memories, etc.

When I learn about dogs - including the concept that there is something like dogs - synapses change in various parts of the brain. My episodic memory of meeting Fido might be stored mostly in the hippocampus, but the "whole" memory is actually dependent on neurons across the brain - many of which are involved in other dog-memories or dog-knowledge (semantic memory). My views on dogs (influenced after Fido bit me) will involve synaptic changes linking some of these dog-related networks with my emotional system (in the amygdala, among other places). Each of these synapses has no meaning on its own: they only get meaning by what networks they are in. And these networks are also dependent on other parts of the brain to get meaning. The nerve cells inside them have other functions besides handling dogs. This is why we can get associations from dogs to other things, whether they be real memories, concepts or emotions. It is a glorious mess. Very unlike normal computer data structures (but possible to simulate well on them - that was actually what I did for a Ph.D.).

Quote:
This would also help it becoming accepted since, as you put it while technically you can say its still just a copy that the ego will not view it as such. Thus the general population will come to view it more as a transference. Remember if you want resleeving to become a reality you have to make it palpable to the masses and, death followed by a copy taking your place, will greatly bother your average person. We want to lower the number of bioconservatives, not increase it. That means doing everything we can to make it as hard as possible to argue that your humanity is lost.

Of course, there are always people willing to take risks or with a weird sense of personal identity (I think I am the equivalence class of all sufficiently Arenamontanus-like processes, which even my philosophy colleagues think is odd). So they might make use of it long before most people think it is a sensible idea. In part, this is likely what has happened in Eclipse Phase. The people unwilling to upload and resleeve where mostly killed on Earth. The remaining people are the ones who were either OK with it or desperate enough to give it a try. In reality I hope we can make a nice interface that keeps people happy, but it is just as much a matter of marketing and design as philosophy and neuroscience. I suspect that the real mass breakthrough will be something like a sleek iPosthumanity that has high "usability" rather than the hard scientific breakthrough.

—

Sat, 2012-05-12 23:49

Aeroz

Re: Making a real life Ego Bridge

Arenamontanus wrote:
Well, Moravec's procedure is different from slice-and-dice. http://www.ibiblio.org/jstrout/uploading/moravec.html Basically, you use fractal manipulators to scan neurons and replace them with simulations under local anaesthesia. As Moravec described the procedure it was continuous and the user conscious throughout, and it included the chance to flip between the real neurons and the simulated ones to check that the latest batch had been converted right. Not terribly easy to do in practice, I suspect.

oh yes I have heard of that one, but I assumed at the time it was someone describing what they imagined it would be like rather than an explored method.

Arenamontanus wrote:
When I learn about dogs - including the concept that there is something like dogs - synapses change in various parts of the brain. My episodic memory of meeting Fido might be stored mostly in the hippocampus, but the "whole" memory is actually dependent on neurons across the brain - many of which are involved in other dog-memories or dog-knowledge (semantic memory). My views on dogs (influenced after Fido bit me) will involve synaptic changes linking some of these dog-related networks with my emotional system (in the amygdala, among other places). Each of these synapses has no meaning on its own: they only get meaning by what networks they are in. And these networks are also dependent on other parts of the brain to get meaning. The nerve cells inside them have other functions besides handling dogs. This is why we can get associations from dogs to other things, whether they be real memories, concepts or emotions.

appears then I understood the theory but not the practicality. If I understand you correctly there is a difference between the raw knowledge of the event and pathways that connect it to the conscious mind, but its so minor transferring it alone wouldn't do much.

Arenamontanus wrote:
It is a glorious mess. Very unlike normal computer data structures (but possible to simulate well on them - that was actually what I did for a Ph.D.).

so you are one of those working on brain emulation? ie creating a virtual brain that functions as a natural one. Did you merely work on the theory or practice? I read that they successfully emulated a part of a mouse's brain, granted at one tenth speed, though it was scanned using the slicing method.

Arenamontanus wrote:
Of course, there are always people willing to take risks or with a weird sense of personal identity (I think I am the equivalence class of all sufficiently Arenamontanus-like processes, which even my philosophy colleagues think is odd). So they might make use of it long before most people think it is a sensible idea. In part, this is likely what has happened in Eclipse Phase. The people unwilling to upload and resleeve where mostly killed on Earth. The remaining people are the ones who were either OK with it or desperate enough to give it a try. In reality I hope we can make a nice interface that keeps people happy, but it is just as much a matter of marketing and design as philosophy and neuroscience. I suspect that the real mass breakthrough will be something like a sleek iPosthumanity that has high "usability" rather than the hard scientific breakthrough.

I find those that make these breakthroughs rarely understand marketing or economics. Which is why their vision of the future is rarely accurate. Only reason I think uploading, resleeving, AR, and wetware interfaces as something that can occur is we have proof of concept and as far as direct neural interfaces have begun human testing. I still go with the rule of thumb to double any estimation. I think I might live to see immortality, but only if I live for another 60 years. Which if nanomedicines appear in the next few decades I just might. I predict that the early adopters will be those that are persistent vegetative state, and using them as proof that it works the rich with failing bodies will adopt it. Our generation will be the last one to experience a major die off. The technology will be too radical for all but transhumanists to embrace. I do think something like my ego-bridge will be required before people will change morphs easily unless we go through about 100 years and anyone alive before resleeving is dead or on atleast their second body.

Arenamontanus wrote:
To rewire a brain completely you need to shift around the 10^15 synapses (and change their strengths). The problem is that shifting them around means changing connections over fairly large distances: a team of nanomachines might be able to move a micrometer-sized synapse a bit, but neurons have branches that range from millimetres to a meter in length! We are talking thousands to a million synapse lengths. Worse, brain tissue is *crammed* with cells, there is not much free space. (check out the pictures at http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_6intro.stm and http://synapses.clm.utexas.edu/atlas/1_8intro.stm ) To make matters worse, this is supposed to happen simultaneously for all synapses in a brain that is alive - which means the cells will be flopping around like living cells are wont to do.

so you dont think we will get cortical stacks? I figured they'd be more like scanners that just take snap shots every so often. I do hope we get those, as they are to me the best method. A way to basically guarantee continued existence, with far less existential horror than back-ups Personally to me, I am a empathetic person. What I hate isn't the idea that its not me, but that I experienced the potential of non-existence. Same goes for my back-up, as that would be a me that has had a voided consciousness. So ideally I want a single unbroken perceived existence atleast as long as possible as I'm sure eventually I'd have to use a back-up

Tue, 2012-09-04 05:25

#10

mark.felmo mark.felmo's picture

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