George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 4 December 2019.]

OK, let’s try something different this week.  This being the Christmas season and all, it’s time to think about our souls and eternal life.  Well, on second thought, maybe we should back off on all that divisive spiritual stuff, and just take the secular humanist look at immortality which, since the sci-fi novels of the 1950s, has focused on ‘uploading’ the contents of your brain into some super-computer, or a phantasmagorical robot, or cyborg which then in principle can live forever.

The first step here is to create an appropriate receptacle for your uploaded mind. That is, we should first develop a machine that can be conscious.  Now consciousness has been a bit hard to define, but most researchers and philosophers have settled on the ability to subjectively sense oneself as a separate being capable of various states of mind – happiness, anger, greed – and also as an agent that perceives and interacts with its environment.  It’s not hard to see that consciousness could reside in any kind of sufficiently complex computing environment ranging from a stationary machine, or the internet, to a humanoid robot, or even an interstellar gaseous cloud.

So, as do many of today’s computer and neuro scientists, let’s assume that we’ve made great progress in understanding the structure and workings of our brain.  At that time, we’ll have the technology to scan the human brain down to the level of its 86 billion neurons which make over 100 trillion interconnections with each other, and even be able to replicate the type and strength of each such synaptic connection.  Such a nifty state of affairs would let you get into a brain scanner, make a faithful digital copy of your noggin, and pour that into an appropriate substrate, which then instantly becomes aware of itself, having all your memories, beliefs, fears, loves, and wants.  At this point there would be a Bio-you and a new simulated or Sim-you.

Today there is an active community of scientists, engineers, and philosophers who wrestle with the problems that come with a conscious machine, and then proceed toward the inevitable goal for humans to achieve secular immortality through the so-called upload process.  One of the latest essays on this whole concept was authored this year by the internationally recognized neuroscientist Michael Graziano in his Rethinking Consciousness – A Scientific THEORY of SUBJECTIVE Experience (2019).  There he describes his theory of consciousness and all the technological precursors required to make a conscious machine.  He concludes by diving into brain uploading and immortality.

But there he stumbles by pointing out that when you upload to make a Sim-you, there remains the Bio-you.  Now there are two conscious critters, and the Bio-you sees itself as different from the Sim-you, and still knows it will eventually die.  So that’s not much progress toward immortality from the Bio-you perspective.  That leads Dr Graziano to advise his readers and the scientific community that it is really impossible for the conscious Bio-you to achieve immortality, no matter how faithfully that consciousness with all of its attendant trappings are captured and uploaded to create an effectively immortal Sim-you, one that can be upgraded from time to time so it never deteriorates with age.

The solution to achieving immortality, that Graziano and this school of deep thinkers miss, involves what might be called the ‘two-consciousness problem’.  Whenever a consciousness bifurcates, or splits into two identical sentient beings, the Bio-you or progenitor consciousness continues on to experience whatever fate it had in store before the uploading occurred.  The strong conclusion for achieving immortality is the requirement that it must be subjectively experienced by all agents involved in the process.  You can’t leave anyone out.

But not to worry, the solution is fairly straightforward – in the process, simply do not create another separate being that is concurrently conscious.  To immortalize the Bio-you, replace the bio-brain’s parts bit by piece with more capable sim-components.  And during each such upgrade, carry on a self-awareness conversation with the person or brain being immortalized.  This process ensures that at every stage the subject feels and affirms a continuity of self.  In this manner you avoid the ‘two-consciousness problem’.  Now there are never two separate conscious critters – one going into a virtual eternity, while the other is left behind to suffer its mortality.  There will only be the Bio-you who enters the process in which you smoothly morph into the immortal Sim-you.

Then the only remaining problem is what you are going to do with all the time you have left.  Graziano has some dark thoughts about that.  Now, are you sure you still want to go through with this?

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum]  The careful reader at this point will tell us of a third alternative that avoids the ‘two consciousness problem’.  In this uploading process the Bio-you’s brain is sacrificed to capture the fine detail necessary to make its Sim-you.  This means that the physical Bio-you effectively dies while being immortalized.  Many authors describing such a process miss the critical subjective question – will the Bio-you really want to subject himself to such immortalizing?

Consider the alternative in the following scenario.  You get diagnosed with a dreaded disease that means you’ll probably die sometime in the near future.  The Sim-you technology exists to make an exact flesh/blood copy of you that has your uploaded brain.  You sign up to have it done so as to spare your family and friends the sorrow and hassle of your premature departure.  You ask to meet your Sim-you before you depart, to assure yourself that your family will not know the difference.  In due course you are led to a meeting room, and there wait for the Sim-you as you hold the little vial of quick-acting poison that you are to take right after the interview.

In walks the Sim-you who looks exactly like you, and is equally surprised to see his Bio-you.  After some conversation during which you both greet and vet each other, you find yourself saying good-bye to the Sim-you and wishing him a good life with your family and in your stead.  (How your Sim-you will manage his ability to outlive everyone, you leave for him to figure out.)  And now you’re alone in the room fingering the vial of poison which you are to take, because no way would you want your family to know that they are dealing with the Sim-you, and that the Bio-you has gone to the great beyond.  So ask yourself as you contemplate the poison – by doing this have I really achieved immortality?

Finally, to review the scenario in which your bio-brain must be sacrificed (i.e. destructive scanning) in order to build the Sim-you, consider the same question as you lie down on the gurney and they release a calmative drug into your IV.  Will I, the real ME now here on the gurney, be the same one in the Sim-me that stands up to contemplate the world when the upload process is done?  I know the Sim-me will have this memory of its Bio-me questioning such a continuity of consciousness before being wheeled into the ‘upload room’.  And it’s clear that for the Sim-me the experience will definitely feel like there has been a continuity of consciousness, and that the immortalizing process has been successful.  But that will be then, and this is now as your Bio-me begins to feel the calmative that somehow does not make the burning question go away – will that really be ME who wakes up when the uploading is completed?