X-Message-Number: 14171 Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 13:46:05 -0500 From: Spoering <> Subject: Reply to Scott Badger, identity Greetings, Scott Badger made the point, as I anticipated someone would, that what would the difference be, in the final analysis, between the consciousness of a person who has his/her brain scanned and uploaded into a computer versus the idea of a shared consciousness network between a bio body connected via high bandwidth to one or more computers, and the bio body was destroyed, leaving that person in the computer portion of the network. The difference is that the computers in the shared network, in the beginning, after they are connected to the brain, learn to become part of the brain by listening in on the internal brain communications and gradually become a network as they learn how the brain thinks, and collect memories, etc. This is not brain scanning but it is just giving your brain a much larger capacity which it grows into. It would take awhile for these external computers to become adept at behaving well enough to contain enough information to allow your self in the organic brain to survive total destruction with minimal loss of information. I suppose you are right about the final product being the same, but with the shared network idea it is a gradual transfer of consciousness and not abrupt, with continuity of the same consciousness throughout. As far as the self- circuit in the brain being the center of our consciousness a show stopper to this idea, the last I heard this idea is not proven yet. It has been a few years since I read "Consciousness Explained" by Dennett, but as I remember in this particular book Dennett argued that consciousness changes continually and a lot of our thinking is unconscious little "demons" that occasionally organize and 'rise' to the surface to become conscious thoughts. Even if there is a part of the brain required for conscious thought, why could this not also be simulated in a external computer, with perhaps billions of connections between the nodes of the shared network. Read the book by Paul and Cox for perhaps a better explaination of this and loads of other ideas. Again all of this is mostly personal preferences, but in the far future I do believe computer enhancement of our brains will begin as small intellect aids and later grow into full-fledged consciousness 'partners'. Kurzweil in his book also described similar ideas. Best Regards, Kevin Spoering Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14171