So, here's a question - why is it there seems to be, at least from my perspective, so little in-universe focus on preserving continuity? You have people in, for example, scum barges, regularly resleeving, but as far as I could understand, even the "resleeve with continuity" method is... well, not truly continuous for the original consciousness, it's a Transfer-delete-repeat method over time, so the receiving host of the mind feels the continuity, but it's still a case where there isn't cross-body consciousness as it is still a simple delete of the host.
Though that might be just my reading the bits on ego bridges wrong, but by my understanding, it seems like the biocons are right on the whole suicide view on it, and places far too much premise on the conclusion of the observer instead of that of the subject.
Are there any ego bridges in cannon that utilize a co-body brain use, where both brains are in control of both bodies and think fully in sync with each other for some time before any parts of the brain in the older body is shut off? I would imagine it would take longer, but I would assume such a thing would be a better candidate for true continuity of consciousness instead of merely perceived continuity. Again, I may also have misinterpreted the source material.
I would also like to hear thoughts on the matter. As it is, I feel like I would be in this weird grey area close to biocons when it comes to consciousness, but being fully for morphological freedom and advocating for people to just rent days/weeks of tank time instead of resleeving for the morph they want, as things stand.
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Continuity
Sat, 2017-02-25 18:36
#1
Evaris
Continuity
Mon, 2017-02-27 01:54
#2
jackgraham
This is pretty much how I was
This is pretty much how I was thinking about it when I started working on EP, and my original draft for the Accelerated Future chapter in EP core took great pains to spell out that consciousness actually migrated from one place to the other seamlessly. A lot of that material got cut, and I'm now fine with that. I'm not really up for a long discussion of the topic right now, so I'll try to sum it up as succinctly as I can.
Intuitively, yeah, it seems like Star Trek transporters and EP resleeving are suicide, because you lose consciousness and then what comes out the other end is "just a copy."
The problem with this is conflating consciousness and self. Your consciousness feel like it's "you," right? That's OK; that's part of its function. But it's also not really true. Consciousness is the process that observes and prioritizes all the other stuff going on in your brain. But self-awareness and self are not the same thing. Your neural architecture, the web of memories stored in your neural net, and the body that your brain lives in are also all part of your self. Resleeving is all about taking a snapshot of this and then re-instantiating it elsewhere.
If you think deleting the physical original is suicide (which is a whole other, if closely related, topic), then maintaining consciousness through the whole thing doesn't fix the problem. You still threw out the original, even if the consciousness is fooled by the subjective experience of staying up and running the entire time. You wouldn't say you die every night when you lose consciousness and slip into sleep, right? So why would the opposite (i.e., your physical body was wiped, but you're still conscious) be true? Or if that doesn't work, consider people in comas; if they wake up, were they just reborn?
I'm not with the people who say consciousness is just an epiphenomenon, essentially an illusion that emerges from other processes in the mind. Consciousness is a real thing. But it also isn't you; it just thinks it is. Your memories are a lot more important.
—
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Mon, 2017-02-27 11:31
#3
ThatWhichNeverWas
I am an Iteration of the Pattern of Me.
I was under the impression that Ego bridges made a Consistent connection in 2 stages - Move from Morph1 to Onboard Processing, then from Onboard to Morph2.
It can help and/or be interesting to consider what Continuity actually means, and where the 'edges' of the ego are.
I always pictured it as a process where specific cells/structures of the ego are individually copied into hardware and the Morph equivalent erased/sequestered, so that during each transfer the Ego is running 'between' both substrates. This is the logical equivalent of moving through a doorway - parts are removed from one room and appear in the other, but the Individual remains intact.
Single celled organisms use Pseudopods in a similar fashion.
Another way would be to read all appropriate data and create a Fork on the hardware, then combine the sensory inputs/memory feed from both Forks.
As both are internally identical, and experience both states of being simultaneously, they are for all purposes an individual.
At that point, erasing the Morph copy is not the end of an individual but a reduction of capability.
Even ignoring these possibilities, a lack of fear is completely understandable because the new ego has [i]retroactive[/i] continuity – the new you remembers experiencing the process without continuity loss, therefore it expects to maintain continuity in the future.
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Mon, 2017-02-27 11:32
#4
Evaris
Ok, well I think this is
Ok, well I think this is still disregarding the perspective of the original point argument.
I would still say that the second person coming out of resleeving or a teleporter is "me" from both the perspective of itself and secondary observers, however it is not "me" from the original's perspective.
The difference between conscious death of a copy and something with true continuity can be looked at in terms of medical brain function - the consciousness seems to be able to persist without issue in certain cases of even immense brain damage so long as enough time is given between neuron deaths for it to re-prioritize what neurons it uses. Therefore, if two brains were able to properly co-process and able to actually act together, giving enough time then as the first brain were destroyed, the secondary brain would be able to pick up the slack for the first over time, and maintain continuity in a more true sense than the illusion of continuity presented that only gives continuity for the secondary brain.
As for the sleep argument - normal sleep isn't 100% unconsciousness, it's a state of heavily reduced consciousness. An argument for full unconsciousness can be made for general anesthesia, however... though I'm phobic of general anesthesia as well, so that's that.
Mon, 2017-02-27 13:14
#5
Trappedinwikipedia
Evaris wrote:Are there any
This is essentially how all ego bridges work. An ego bridge uses 3 "brains"
* Brain A: the Ego origin
* Brain B: the transfer virtual brain
* Brain C: the destination brain.
An ego bridge uses sophisticated brain scanning to create a virtual "slaved" copy (Brain B) which has all relevant data for the ego, and completely mimics Brain A For Forking an ego the process stops here and forks off the virtual copy into a non-slaved version.
For normal resleeving once the Brains A&B master slave system is created the ego bridge begins to simultaneously build connections into Brain C while severing the same connection in Brain A, with Brain B acting as a error-checking system for all three (I assume). The experience (and what is happening) is that awareness slowly drifts from one body to another.
If you wanted both brains A&C to be fully operating the ego before cutting any connections it would take an extra 10 minutes (so 70 minutes total). If there are connection issues they might desync brains A&C, but I don't consider this a real downside, because a connection issue during a resleeve is already very bad.
Mon, 2017-02-27 13:26
#6
Kojak
It seems to me, at least for
It seems to me, at least for the purposes of continuity as it's intuitively understood, resleeving via ego bridge satisfies most peoples' requirements, whereas egocasting does not. Which is...interesting. I wonder if there's some significant fraction of the populace in EP that is comfortable with ego bridges but refuses to egocast.
—
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Mon, 2017-02-27 14:02
#7
Tango
I think the most fascinating
I think the most fascinating question in this topic goes: What does it do to one's psyche? How would it affect you if you knew you were just a copy? I'm seeing an identity crisis epidemic in the world of EP.
Put yourself in the shoes of that freshly resleeved agent. You wake up in a new morph and you find that you have several weeks of lag. You know that the technology to alter memories and personality exists and that psycho surgery is actually pretty common. Were your mind sculpted to best serve your top secret organization and would you believe if they said they didn't do it? Is there a way to know for sure? I'd imagine the biggest killer of covert operatives in the world of EP would be paranoia as the agent loses his touch to reality.
"The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together, you cut yourself, your image keeps shifting. And you change with it. It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free."
-Max
—
- "Mom's chicken soup, maybe?"
Mon, 2017-02-27 14:22
#8
Evaris
Trappedinwikipedia wrote
This still doesn't solve the issue at hand - of having the secondary brain take over the function of the primary brain with a true link between the neurons on both sides - a physical connection between both brains that allows the secondary brain to over a period of time take over the consciousness of the primary brain, instead of being a copy - as much of a good copying process as it is, the primary consciousness is still simply being 'deleted' in the end. instead of transferring it's function on it's own.
Instead of having two copies of the ego running in two separate bodies at the same time - have both egos sync'd in a gestalt fashion in physical connection to and in control of both bodies simultaneously, then slowly cutting connections in the primary brain for the secondary brain to take over the functions of over time. I would imagine such a process would take five hours at minimum for such a transfer to work in such a way the secondary brain could collectively assume control over lost functions in the primary brain, until such a point the secondary brain has assumed all such functions. But, to me it would be worth it from an argument of continuity.
Mon, 2017-02-27 14:40
#9
MAD Crab
Evaris wrote:Ok, well I think
It's true to say that normal sleep isn't 100% cessation of brain function, but is that what you actually mean by 'consciousness?' Because for me it certainly isn't. Consciousness is that awareness of myself and my surroundings and internal monologue, my stream of consciousness. And that certainly does seem to end at night.
As for the overall question, I have a pretty simple handwave for why everybody accepts it. Most people fled earth by egocast during the fall. Whatever the philosophical considerations, after you've done it once and still felt like yourself, one would probably just shrug and go 'eh, it's not that bad.'
—
Mon, 2017-02-27 15:11
#10
Trappedinwikipedia
Evaris wrote:have both egos
That's what I described, though I think people generally don't move in this state to avoid a proprioceptive crisis.
I takes 10 minutes to map a brain, and 60 to print one to spec, and this can be parallelized. It'd take 60 mins to set up the brain sync, and either 10 more or 60 more to cut the connection, depending on how careful you want to be. I don't see how that adds up to more than 2 hours.
Mon, 2017-02-27 17:16
#11
jackgraham
I've always been amused by
I've always been amused by the fact that our game generates a ton of conversations like this, like it's a new thing in SF. Star Trek transporters do pretty much the same thing, but people don't seem as weirded out by them.
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
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Mon, 2017-02-27 19:18
#12
ORCACommander
I used to have complete faith
I used to have complete faith in the system jack, but then you had to give me an existential crisis before I had my morning coffee :P
The thing about trek transporters is that most people just think of them as a sophisticated elevator, it never crosses into their minds the original is destroyed in the process.
the problem with a gradual handing over of conciseness is that the go bridge is going to introduce a time lag in the secondary morph.
there might be an ego patch solution the bridge applies. A simple memory edit of giving you a sense of movement and migration as the new morph's senses take over
Mon, 2017-02-27 21:30
#13
SquireNed
See, I personally avoid this
See, I personally avoid this problem with loads and loads of forking.
This way, all of my consciousnesses remain alive, there is no discussion of ethics regarding the disposed forks, and I minimize the number of jurisdictions I am legally permitted to set foot in.
Win-win!
Tue, 2017-02-28 00:36
#14
kindalas
jackgraham wrote:I've always
Considering they had a whole episode dedicated to transporters accidentally creating an alpha fork of Riker you'd think that fandom would be all over the idea.
Or maybe not reading the slash side of ST fanfiction has led me to avoiding it inadvertently.
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Tue, 2017-02-28 01:35
#15
Evaris
jackgraham wrote:I've always
Believe it or not, I see ST transporters as being the same issue.
Honestly, I'm surprised more people don't have an issue with it and seem to have more of an issue with having other alpha forks about than with having the consciousness in a perfectly fine body end just so they can have a more up-to-date body with their memories, personality, and credentials. I understand the latter self is also them, but it's still also not "them" from a continuity of perceptive self.
It's a wonderful argument to be able to have from an ethics standpoint, but I personally would like a means of physical connection between both brains that lets me actually transfer to the other brain, instead of just being deleted after the copy is complete.
Anyhow, sleep is not complete unconsciousness, "consciousness"/awareness is still happening, if at an accelerated perception of time, and nearly devoid of sensory input or thought (sounds and touch are still perceived to a degree for most people, more for others.) A neuroscience major friend of mine has linked me enough bits on sleep for me to be comfortable with it on a philosophical level and be able to not equate it with for example general anesthesia.
The main problem with the ego bridge is I'm still not hearing anything suggesting that would allow for neurological process adoption.
As for the 5 hour minimum guess - it takes 20 nanoseconds for a long-term synaptic connection to form. If just 1% of the brain contains "consciousness" or at least the minimum of "consciousness" needed to assume the function of the primary brain, then it would take ~1 trillion connections, which would then take (if linearly) 5.5r hours.
This is of course if we're letting the brain to take over the function on it's own, and not cheating the system by using nanobots to accelerate the process with previously expected actions. Even then, I'd not assume it would be less than half that if we're actually trying to transfer conscious function instead of creating the illusion of it.
A suggestion of memory editing to reduce trauma by inserting a false memory of continuity would result by, if I were to find out, permanent mental scaring and a high probability of me killing whoever edited my memories of the sleeving.
So for me, I suppose I'd just end up creating forks as necessary and never resleeve as long as I could help it, and were it to become a necessity, work on finding a way around these issues. Or find out if a physical brain transplant in a medical tank (assuming the medical tank allows for nutrient and oxygen transfer through the medium, thus keeping the brain conscious during the whole thing.) would be possible, and then have the tank improve my brain structures as needed over time, so long as i'm conscious during the edits.
Tue, 2017-02-28 10:58
#16
jackgraham
I think some folks in this
I think some folks in this convo still haven't gotten over the "your consciousness is not your self" hump yet. Which, I'll admit, took me quite a while.
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Tue, 2017-02-28 11:10
#17
ThatWhichNeverWas
I am not Me, I am the amalgam of all Mes.
The reason that continuity of conciousness is preserved using the methods previously mentioned is that no information is ever erased that is part of an actual Ego, only information that has become redundant.
Regardless of it's exact nature, Conciousness is not something that has a location - it's a process which draws on data stored in specific locations. As such, you don't need to somehow wire the two Brains to act as one, you just need to change the locations the information is stored. In a resleeve, the information is all copies, but the process is the same.
There's no reason why Continuity can't be preserved during Egocasts, because there's no real difference between moving from one Substrate to another via hardline and moving via interplanetary comms. All you have to do is slow down the rate of processing for the Ego so that the transition lag is on the same relative order of magnitude as a normal transfer.
Same goes for Backups - have a fork, but have a ridiculous rate of dime dilation - one neuron firing per year or such.
So your subconscious isn't part of your conciousness?
A quick note about Star Trek – weirdly, although this is usually referred to as the Transporter problem, in Star Trek it's been shown that you actually retain continuity during the whole process: in the TNG episode 'Realm Of Fear', Barclay interacts with other entities whilst within the matter stream.
I suspect it's more that people tend to think of themselves as being largely unchanging and having a quasi-physical presence - 'I am Me, and my consciousness is in my head'.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Tue, 2017-02-28 11:21
#18
Evaris
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:The
The problem with this is we're still talking about continuity purely from the perspective of the secondary, while denying it to the primary.
Tue, 2017-02-28 13:14
#19
eaton
Quote:Honestly, I'm surprised
So. This is when I share the story about the time our campaign's AGI hacker accidentally gave the team a couple points of stress just for delivering a SITREP. Let's call them Lolo (the infomorph), Jojo (The investigator) and Shakti (the muscle).
Our heroes were farcasting straight into a hidden equipment stash stocked by a paranoid Firewall operative, and using it to infiltrate a nearby (2-3 hours by shuttle) mining facility. Lolo, Jojo, Shakti, and… six bouncer morphs on ice, hidden in this stash location, ready for sleeving. They decided to play it safe: Lolo stayed back to coordinate, While Jojo and Shakti sleeved up and went in.
Unfortunately, the two ran into tougher resistance than they expected — they got pulped by automated defenses, to put it mildly. Lolo remote-triggered the shuttle to return to base, and started the resleeving process — again — on morphs number 3 and 4. Fresh copies of Jojo and Shakti were briefed on what had taken place, and went back into the breach to try a different approach.
This time, though, while they were en route, Lolo decided that it was pretty inefficient to wait for them to die before sleeving up their replacements. So, once they arrived at the mining facility, he queued up bodies #5 and #6. When they ran into problems at the mining facility, the plan was justified! However, that meant that Jojo and Shakti woke up to the sounds of JoJo being slurped up by a disassembler swarm over the com link. With the sound of screaming in the background, Lolo cheerily explained the situation to them, and said that if they left *right now* for the mining facility, Shakti's fork would "probably be alive long enough to serve as a perfect distraction!"
WILx3 checks were rolled. Stress was accumulated. And Lolo the AGI learned some valuable lessons about just how seriously certain squishy humans take the concept of continuity. He couldn't figure out why they were so worked up about that *overlap* — it was to cover transit time! It just made sense!
A full year later, Shakti still takes stress checks when working with nanoswarms.
Wed, 2017-03-01 06:49
#20
ThatWhichNeverWas
I mean, this is what 'Moving' actually is.
I think what you're missing is that there is no primary or secondary in this setup; only one Ego is ever present.
During the process, the Ego is running partially on one substrate and partially on the other, so what's experienced (if anything is perceived at all) is the sensation of being in the new Morph increasing whilst the sensation of being in the old morph dwindles.
If you were looking at the Morphs, you would see the amount of the brain being used by the Ego in the first morph decreasing and that in the second morph increasing, but at every part of the process they act as parts of the same whole.
Even if the data in the old substrate isn't deleted and is somehow 'reassembled' into an Ego after the transfer is completed, that ego would be the new conciousness lacking continuity, not the one which was transferred.
Silly AGI. If two morphs had proved insufficient for job, would have made much more sense to just sleeve 2 copies of each at the same time and send them in as a foursome. Continuity had already been broken anyway.
I mean really, if they're that sensitive to continuity, why didn't they instance Alphas at their base and send Forks in in the first place. Survivors can be reintegrated, and if they die then continuity is preserved regardless.
...Muahahaha :P
This seems entirely reasonable.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Thu, 2017-03-02 12:11
#21
jackgraham
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote
Yes. You've got it almost perfectly, at least with respect to resleeving. Just substitute "ego" for "consciousness" in that last sentence. Consciousness != ego.
If I can try an analogy here (and it might be imperfect), it's best to think of consciousness as a sensory capability. Consciousness isn't your self; it's the sense that lets you see yourself.
That said, the subjective experience of the consciousness during resleeving does matter to its ego. This is why I'm with the people who're intuitively more freaked out by egocasting than fully conscious resleeving. Rationally, I think the consciousness is just being a baby about the whole thing, but it's hard to feel that way on a gut level, given that I've spent my whole life experiencing things through the lens of consciousness.
I tried to work out a way for people to stay conscious during egocasting the same way they do during a conscious resleeving, but even with EP-level computing tech, and especially over long distances, it didn't seem plausible. The latencies involved get pretty insane. I suppose that if you had a system of router/cyberbrains spread across the system, purpose-built to keep traveling egos conscious, it might be possible. But given the balkanization of the solar system, it seems unlikely that such a system could be built, maintained, and kept secure.
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
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Thu, 2017-03-02 13:30
#22
Evaris
jackgraham wrote:-snip-
So just tossing out a question Jack, what about outright brain transplants to new bodies for Jovians, biocons, and people like me? I would assume it would be possible to keep it conscious during transfer in a medical vat, and obviously the medvat can reattach nerve connections. I mean there would obviously be the terror from the lack of sensory or hormone input, but it would be at most a couple minutes if properly done. And then we're not even dealing in the question of continuity. Just have to ask.
Thu, 2017-03-02 17:10
#23
jackgraham
Evaris wrote:jackgraham wrote
Sure, why not? You can re-grow an entire body from just the head with a healing vat. It might take a long time, but you could probably just saw out a brain, drop it in a healing vat, and let a new body grow around it.
That uses nanotech, though, which Jovians are a tad squirrely about. The tech to do it surgically almost certainly exists, just, most people wouldn't bother with it. There's also an augmentation called a brain box that lets you put a biological brain in any synthmorph, as well as a morph that's basically an ambulatory brain in a vat.
Why bother keeping the brain conscious for the procedure, though? I'm sure you could, but it seems unnecessary.
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Thu, 2017-03-02 17:45
#24
NotActuallyTim
jackgraham wrote:
Waiiiiiiiiit a minute there. How can you be sure the brain is or isn't conscious during the procedure, and if it is, why it can't play video games while growing a new body?
These are important questions, you know.
Thu, 2017-03-02 22:43
#25
ORCACommander
not gona happen tim. when you
not gona happen tim. when you are a brain in a vat you have no mesh inserts yet
Fri, 2017-03-03 09:43
#26
ThatWhichNeverWas
The true sign of Sentience is Nausea...
[size=6]Eeeeeee Jack said I'm right![/size]
It can be both! :P
The dual meaning of the term 'consciousness' really gets awkward in these conversations:
“It's completely reasonable for a consciousness to lose consciousness, so that an unconscious consciousness may retain it's continuity of consciousness despite the interruption in the consciousness' consciousness.”
A thousand English majors just vomited into their coffee for no apparent reason.
Of topic aside: I've always thought as the Not-Subconcious part of the Mind as an Error-Correction and Antivirus system: Having a sense of self and the ability to perceive one's own actions allows one to evaluate one's own condition.
If you suddenly start acting in a way that doesn't coincide with your mental model of how you acted in the past (AKA 'Out of Character'), then something is [i]Wrong[/i].
Imo that's part of the reason the experience is so important – without the ability to reconcile it's current Experience (sensory and otherwise) with those immediately preceding it, the Ego rejects the changes as damage, injury or infection.
For a practical example see Motion Sickness, and that's just a difference between two senses, not all of them plus short-term memory.
Long range egocasting is pretty difficult - even if time dilation allows you to maintain continuity, you're still functionally unconscious (aaaagh!) for the duration.
I suppose a variant of the Brain Transplant idea could work - transfer into the smallest piece of hardware you can and use an Antimatter Courier to go 'physically' - a couple of days or weeks at high burn for transit, any you keep it cheap(ish) by only weighing grams, maybe a kilo.
Actually, this could be a Thing – small antimatter-powered drones with an guidance system and a Thermos for a passenger compartment.
Why wouldn't VatMinds have inserts! Such prejudice!
@Evaris, a bit of an aside, but have you looked at the rules for Jamming? You don't actually have to Sleeve into a morph to control it - you can stay safe and sound in your Vat, perfectly tailored to your physiological and psychological requirements, and experience the world via WiFi.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?