A mindclone is a software version of your mind. He or she is all of your thoughts, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values, and is experiencing reality from the standpoint of whatever machine their mindware is running on. Mindclones are mindfiles being used and updated by mindware that has been set to be a functionally equivalent replica of one’s mind. A mindclone is your software-based alter ego, doppelganger, or mental twin. If your body died, but you had a mindclone, you would not feel that you personally died, although the body would be missed more sorely than amputees miss their limbs.
A number of Sentient Developments readers have asked what I mean when I refer to non-human persons and the personhood spectrum. It’s a fair question, and to be honest, I have yet to see a satisfying personhood taxonomy with an attendant list of traits that fully circumscribe the personhood continuum. I consider this an incredibly important issue as we move into a ‘transhuman condition’ and as we work to give non-human animals greater moral consideration. If I ever go back to school I think this will be a likely topic for a thesis.
The conclusion of the “Battlestar Galactica” television series a couple of weeks ago left viewers with a decidedly mixed message: a superficial gloss of “ooh, the scary robots are coming!”, coupled with a more subtle—and, for me, more important—story about the implications of how we treat that which we create.
A little over 350 years ago, philosopher René Descartes was struck by a rather disturbing thought. Is it possible, he wondered, that what we think of as reality is nothing more than an elaborate hoax?
Mindware is operating system software that (a) thinks and feels the way a human mind does, and (b) sets its thinking and feeling parameters to match those discernable from a mindfile. Mindware relies upon an underlying mindfile the way Microsoft Word relies upon a textfile. When appropriate parameters are set for mindware it becomes aware of itself and a cyberconscious entity is created.
Without a doubt some of my favorite video games of all time have been those that involve simulations, including SimCity and The Sims. When I play these games I fancy myself a demigod, managing and manipulating the slew of variables made available to me; with the click of a mouse I can alter the environment and adjust the nature of the simulated inhabitants themselves.
Evolutionary intuitive ethics has the potential to explain a lot of perplexing phenomena and clarify many of the debates that have perpetuated in moral philosophy for over two and a half thousand years.
A mindfile is the sum of saved digital reflections about you. All of the stored emails, chats, texts, IMs and blogs that you write are part of your mindfile. All of the uploaded photos, slide shows and movies that involve you are part of your mindfile. Your search histories, clicked selections and online purchases, if saved, are part of your mindfile. Your digital life is your mindfile.
In today’s modern society, is a 16 or 17 year-old person still a child? Legally, yes, and most of us would still regard such high school age kids as just that—kids, not adults or “grownups.” So, I was amazed yesterday and today to learn about the highly advanced scientific research being performed by an elite group of “children” in high schools throughout New Jersey, USA.
One plank of a technoprogressive platform is “Ensuring Universal Access to Enabling Technologies.” Ultimately, we want all responsible sentient beings (excluding children, criminals, the insane, etc.) to have equal and uninhibited access to advanced tech that might enable radical life extension, brain augmentation, sensory expansion, and other “wonders” not yet even contemplated.
Humans have evolved a built-in sense of morality that gives most of us a feeling of what’s “right” and what’s “wrong” without the need for external input, whether from religious texts and teachings, or from a new humanist moral construct. We are on safe ground trusting in the general goodness of humanity and allowing secular democratic societies to determine norms without any guidance from supernatural sources nor even from a secular canon.
As previously noted, David Brin will be guest blogging on Sentient Developments this week. The first topic that David will be addressing is one that is near and dear to both of our hearts: biological uplift. To get you primed for this discussion I can recommend a number of articles, books and resources.
(With Jeanann Boyce) Legal institutions must try to avoid getting blinded by the hype and inappropriately sweeping in—and perhaps over-regulating—of both the novel and the mundane applications of this still relatively young technology. As nanotechnology progresses, and both humans and nonhumans receive therapeutic benefits and enhancements, it will be up to the policy makers, courts, and legal profession to delineate societal guidelines for regulation and privacy, as well as to determine individual culpability and responsibility.
[Warning: contains spoilers for the Battlestar Galactica episode Islanded in A Stream of Stars] In some instances, one should cling to hope and keep fighting even when that hope seems lost. At other times, it is necessary to accept defeat and loss, or abandon a goal towards which substantial resources have been dedicated. Distinguishing between these two situations is the challenging, yet crucial element.
If personhood ever becomes a basis for law, we will develop a set of rights structures for the stage between birth and personhood. Until then, we must understand personhood as a scale comprised of several traits. This scale is still being developed, but, as a concept, shows it’s usefulness over the reductionist “human species” as a category for rights. Just as our DNA doesn’t determine our identity and personality, neither should it determine our rights.
The debate over the personhood and the legal/moral status of embryos (as well as other entities) continues: Even though the ‘personhood for embryos’ amendment in Colorado was resoundingly defeated, North Dakota is next in line to attempt to create a law that would give full moral and legal status to embryos.
In its “Special Issue on Transhumanism”, the magazine Global Spiral gave guest editor Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and five other authors - Ted Peters, Katherine Hayles, Don Ihde, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, and Andrew Pickering - all participants in a Templeton Foundation-funded project on transhumanism - an opportunity to critique transhumanism’s alleged faults. This responsive second Special Issue on Transhumanism is an opportunity for ten transhumanist authors - seven of them members of the IEET community - to evaluate the criticisms and address concerns.
Abstract: After covering the basic tenets of Transhumanism, I discuss what I take to be the most important philosophical element of the transhumanist picture—its unique perspective on the nature and development of persons. Examining the enhancement issue through the vantage point of the metaphysical problem of personal identity presents a serious challenge to Transhumanism. Indeed, this is a pressing issue for any argument made for or against enhancement.
Universal mind uploading, or universal uploading for short, is the concept, by no means original to me, that the technology of mind uploading will eventually become universally adopted by all who can afford it, similar to the adoption of modern agriculture, hygiene, or living in houses.
[Warning: Contains spoilers for the Battlestar Galactica episode A Disquiet Follows My Soul] Even as Zarek and Gaeta sow the seeds of insurrection against Adama and his Cylon alliance, it is amazing how integrated the Cylons and humans have become. While it is true that a large portion of the fleet seems opposed to their alliance, it is nonetheless remarkable that Adama lets the Cylon Tigh remain as his second in command, even though Tigh is a member of a species of machines responsible for the destruction of the human race.
No, I’m not talking about Heat Death or another Ice Age. I’m talking about what could happen if mind uploading becomes universally or near-universally adopted and every mind is accelerated by a factor of several million or billion. Such an outcome seems inevitable if mind uploading is actually possible.
For those who believe that human-level AI isn’t far off and that a rosy scenario isn’t inevitable, 2009 is a somewhat sad and depressing time. Popular opinion is that AI won’t be here for centuries, but that isn’t a huge problem or issue. (In fact, it makes things easier by limiting the number of people involved in AI research, thus allowing me and my confederates to keep a closer eye on them.)
The Future of Humanity Institute, founded and run by IEET founder and chair Nick Bostrom, has just published a roadmap of the scientific research and technological innovations required to eventually completely model the human brain in software.
The IEET and the editors of the Journal of Evolution and Technology (JET) are pleased to announce the publication of two special issues of JET, one brought together by Sky Marsen with the intention of publishing a book on transhumanism, and the other a collection of papers from the IEET’s May 2006 Human Enhancement Technology and Human Rights conference at Stanford University. Together they represent the wide array of issues at play in the debate over human enhancement and our transhuman future, from the daily lived experience of pushing to maximize one’s potential, to the legal, political and philosophical arguments we will need to secure universal access to safe enhancement technologies. Enjoy!
Next May, several hundred neurologists and philosophers will gather in the resort of Varadero, Cuba, for the fifth International Symposium on the Definition of Death. At first sight, defining death might not seem like something that requires much scientific or philosophical attention. Look more closely, though, and the line between life and death is rapidly becoming increasingly fuzzy.
Martine Rothblatt has an interesting idea. Unfortunately, I don’t think her idea is going to work.
In our cybernetic and virtual world of the future, says Rothblatt, genes are not going to matter so much. Instead, we’ll be concerned about ‘bemes’— a fundamental, transmissible, unit of beingness.
Via David Chalmers’ blog,I came across this review by Jerry Fodor of a new book by Galen Strawson and others: Consciousness and Its Place in Nature: Does Physicalism Entail Panpsychism?.
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