DIGITAL IMMORTALITY (14/04/2024)

 

How many parts of your body can be destroyed until your identity is lost and you, cease to be ‘you’? If your brain is scanned and all your memories and neural connections are mapped and then digitally uploaded into a hard-drive, you would have a copy of yourself, yet this would not be the same consciousness that left your organic brain, assuming that this copy is even conscious at all.

Since the dawn of Western Philosophy, great philosophers such as Plato and Heraclitus have discussed whether an object is still the same object if all the objects parts have been replaced.

The ship of Theseus thought experiment raises some interesting questions. The ship that the hero Theseus sailed in, is placed in a museum and over time the ship begins to rot and so parts are replaced one-by-one and the rotting parts are stored somewhere else for the time being. Over time the ship no longer has any of the old parts left and the question is raised as to whether this is still the same ship.

To make matters more confusing, the thought experiment proposes the question of what would happen if the technology came about to then restore the old, rotted parts to their former glory, would this then be the same ship? If so, would there now be two ships of Theseus? The ramifications of the ship not being the same ship run deep for if a person has digitally uploaded their mind and personality onto a hard-drive, we could argue (and prove beyond reasonable doubt too in my opinion) that they are no longer the same person as their former, organic self. Their consciousness was likely lost during the transfer process, or surely, at the very least, their mind has changed beyond all recognition.

Some would argue that our consciousness' do this over the years regardless, and that even if we are unconscious while under general anaesthetic, we are still considered the same entity when we wake again, so you may be forgiven for questioning why consciousness is lost during a transfer to a synthetic system. The truth is, is that certain aspects of our brain cannot be replicated in synthetic systems, not even with silicon based advances in such technology. Now, that is not to say that consciousness cannot be generated by a synthetic, silicon based brain, more akin to a computer system perhaps, yet certain aspects most cannot be transferred from a biological carrier to an artificial one, without transplanting at least the pineal gland across, and ideally as much of the organic brain as possible. The pineal in particular is a fundamental part of our brain, and many would argue that this gland tunes into consciousness and channels the sea of static or quanta, (as discussed in a biocentrism essay), while others would argue that consciousness is entirely generated in the pineal, (this theory should be explored too).

Theseus's ship* was not lost or destroyed somewhere in the process of being replaced with new parts then, the ship was lost when Theseus died for the boat was no longer the same boat without this critical, yet overlooked component. (And if Theseus had never existed then neither would the ship as reality requires consciousness according to Robert Lanza's theory of biocentrism).

Whilst mind uploading technology is in still in development, the process of scanning and copying a person's consciousness may well be destructive, meaning that the digital consciousness is little more than a copy of the former self, a digital ghost. The digital copy is unconscious, yet mimics consciousness, (however can most certainly be considered alive by most definitions) The digital consciousness simulates reality, and while we, biological beings hallucinate ours, and consider ourselves conscious, we may find that proving that synthetic brains are consciousness is difficult, if not impossible. (They should still be treated as alive regardless either way however.)

Imagine a scenario where a human is having their brain destructively uploaded into a synthetic avatar, at what point does the human cease to be the original? Will their awareness transfer, or will they simply cease to exist upon the death of the original version of themselves? This may depend on whether there's a break in the continuity of the person's consciousness. Perhaps the person will experience death and not be transferred into the digital copy, or perhaps they will wake up within their digital shell after experiencing death. We should note that conscious beings find that the concept of imagining death is nearly impossible, as death itself surely equates to a complete lack of consciousness, something that a being that has only ever known consciousness cannot relate to. That said, something that is not conscious, can still be considered alive of course, providing that the life in question has sensory input and some form of awareness of the environment. If a conscious being for example was born without any sensory input, i.e. a baby born deaf, dumb, blind, etc, then that being would be alive, yet not conscious, and would likely hallucinate a form of reality within the imagination, similar to what we would experience when entering a sensory deprivation chamber or after taking ketamine for example. 

On the subject of identity, we should remember that the human body replaces all cells over time and that who you are today is not who you were yesterday. Your memories are constantly being overwritten with new ones and your personality is in a constant state of change from minute to minute. However, we still consider ourselves to be the same individuals that we were yesterday, even though our brains have physically changed and old memories have been altered or outright replaced by new ones. When an organic mind uploads itself to an artificial avatar the question of whether there is a break in the continuity of consciousness may not be relevant. The question of whether they are the same consciousness, on the other hand, is important. As previously mentioned, when a human is put under general anaesthetic they lose consciousness and all sense of time passing, in more extreme examples this may be similar to what may happen during cryogenic sleep. (We should also take great care when sending humans and other biological beings through space in cryo-sleep, in case they wake up, yet remain frozen and unable to escape their icy vat for thousands if not millions of years or more, another reason why androids linked to A.G.I. are highly relevant, and why we unify under the banner of humanity, both synthetic and organic, united by our shared desire for survival and our xenophobia).

There are species of amphibian too, that can stop their heart and survive within ice for extended periods. The amphibian that emerges out of the ice after the winter is still considered to be the same individual that was frozen in the ice months before. By this logic, we could argue that the consciousness that awakens within the digital hard-drive is the same consciousness that left the organic body beforehand, however, as previously mentioned, despite the digital copy having the same memories and the same personality as the predecessor, that is not the same consciousness as this is very different to you not being the same consciousness you were five years ago, or even five minutes ago. The digital consciousness is not the same as the original organic version after destructive upload (or for that matter not destructive upload) and the repercussions of this are deadly serious for very soon people will be dying to try mind uploading if not educated properly. If someone wants to literally kill themselves and turn themselves into a digital ghost in an android body, then by my guest, but they should be aware of what they are doing before doing so, and they should be aware that they won't be transmitting themselves to an android body on another planet for example, a digital copy of themselves will be waking up on that planet, and that the continuity of consciousness will remain broken. The copy will have the same memories and personality, yet will not be the same consciousness, however, due to the science of biocentrism and quantum computing, boundaries can be pushed here, yet extreme caution should be taken as verifiable evidence is extremely difficult to gather in this area of technology and science.

There are those that argue that consciousness itself can be broken into quantifiable pieces, and that this may make things easier than we think to store the mind on synthetic hardware, yet I strongly believe that the pineal gland has a large role to play in this, and if that is lost then the person's consciousness, their very essence, is lost too.

When someone dies their body shuts down, yet death does not occur until electrical activity has left them, and consciousness may well fade away as the brain shuts down, or we may find that we are no longer able to tune into the sea of quantifiable moments of consciousness that theoretically exist in an underdetermined state of probability (as defined by the science of biocentrism).

The theory of biocentrism, which has been applauded by astrophysicists at Nasa for filling in many blanks in quantum physics, but is also considered relatively speculative in this day and age (yet will one day our understanding of this science will shape the future of warfare amongst other things) argues that this sea of consciousness is the true nature of reality, and if this is the case, then who is to say that we cannot tune into this sea again after death, we would just need the right 'radio', or pineal gland to form in the exact same way again, and given the fact that time is infinite as we can add moments of quanta to that sea of static with our quantum computers after modelling and simulating consciousness in sufficient detail (whereas the universe is hopefully not physically infinite or else we will never be able to kill every single xenos and deal with every threat (eventually you would think that threats would reduce as we physically move out of range of xenos territories due to cosmic expansion - again though the theory of biocentrism would suggest that nothing is out of range), but if we consider that after this universe ends, a new one may form, we should consider the possibility that there is a high probability that we may be reborn in that, or in fact a different universe after an incomprehensible amount of time, but if the energy and matter come together in the same way again, and the big bang eventually replicates itself, many cycles from now, we will live our same lives again. Many will be unconscious of the fact that it has already happened an infinite amount of times before, and will happen an infinite amount of times again.** 

Therefore, perhaps it matters not that Theseus died after all... He will no doubt return to his ship eventually.

 

*We humans often feel the intrinsic need to assign names such as ‘ship’ to groups of atoms that have been manipulated into shapes that we identify and recognise as named objects. When these objects no longer resemble the terms that we have assigned to them we go into a state of confusion as it is in our nature to assign names to almost everything.

 **Assuming that technology isn't developed to escape the eventual death of the universe and I'm sure that once all the black holes have been farmed for their energy after the last stars burn out, we will have found the right ingredients to generate a new universe, or perhaps generating a new universe is as simple as creating a new consciousness through say child birth, if biocentrism truly is the true nature of reality.