Sci-fi yes, but it would solove the “2 mind” problem.

I’d imagine that it will require something like nanobots.. Something fully programmable, controllable, networked, and which can communicate directly with brain cells, in the same way that they communicated with other brain cells. With a very large number of brain-cell-imitating nanobots we might be able to use a gradual process of replacing individual cells, or at least tiny groups of cells, and have the nanobots take on those cells’ functions. This process would have to ensure that the communication between cells in the brain, remain relatively uninterrupted, even as they’re being replaced by nanobots. At least if you want the original consciousness to be the one experiencing the transfer.
Eventually this process leaves you with a more manipulatable brain, which you can then use to perform a similar transfer process, into a Simulated construct or replacement body.

Only problem I see, is that it will take quite a while before we have the technology and the knowledge to accomplish such a hugely complex task. I can only hope I manage to live long enough. lol

Entonces, tenemos todo en nuestro interior.
¡Por supuesto! Tenemos que vivir. Tenemos que sobrevivir.

Of course metaphore transfer is possible because t is NOT demonstrably impossible.

The brain is one path to intelligence. There are many forms of it in nature as all lfe is intelligence, in that it is survival by problem solving.
Reverse engineering the brain is only a mapping science and that is dependent on availabe computer processing.

There are many ways to describe something: one is ‘what do it do, rather than what is it?

Also there is the advance formula:

we are building increasingly intelligent systems.

They are helping build still more intelligent systems.

At some point consummate recursion will be a fact and accelerated denoument here!

It’s great ibm are so orienteering.

Our large aim is the relief of suffering and death.

To what extent, if any, do the properties of the substrate influence thought processes and decisions?

Look at RAM vs a HD, and Deep Blue vs Garry Kasparov.

The simple case is trivial: Two computers solve a math problem with one solution, and each computer is identical except computer A uses a RAM disk and computer B uses a magnetic hard disk drive. Both computers arrive at the same solution, but computer A gets the solution sooner.

But the complex case is very different from the simple case. There are many more things to think about besides math problems with only one solution. And a sufficiently intelligent, sentient, self-aware SIM would want to know as much as possible about the properties of its substrate, in order to devise the most effective strategies for solving problems–especially fuzzy problems with no clear right or wrong solution (if a solution exists).

Think about Deep Blue vs Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov. Kasparov, by his own estimation, considered about one move per second, vs a computer that considered 200 million moves per second. Deep Blue’s advantage was brute force speed. Kasparov’s advantage was a wealth of experience and honed intuition. Regardless of who won or lost, and regardless of whether another match was played with a faster supercomputer, the point is that Deep Blue and Kasparov each had a very different problem solving strategy as a direct result of the properties of their respective substrate.

At times, Deep Blue made an error that was obvious to Kasparov, and vice versa.

Does it matter how a thought is represented? Is a bit stored with electric charge identical to a bit stored with magnetic polarization? Well, they can be transferred losslessly from one substrate to the other, so that counts for something. But given identical starting conditions, given an intelligent, sentient, self-aware sentient mind with full knowledge of the properties of its substrate, and given a fuzzy, non-discrete problem to solve, will the two otherwise identical minds (except for their substrates with different properties) with identical initial conditions arrive at the same conclusion?

Does it matter how a thought is expressed and experienced? Think about the same mathematical idea expressed algebraically and geometrically. It’s the same mathematical idea, but it’s expressed and experienced very differently algebraically vs geometrically, and that causes us to think about the idea very differently. In some situations, an elegant geometric expression can have an analogous algebraic expression that is a garbled mess, and vice versa.

In fuzzy, real-world situations that do not have only one discrete solution, I contend that the properties of a substrate do influence the best choice for a problem-solving strategy–even when starting conditions are otherwise identical.

To what extent will substrate choice for our SIMs alter the course of human history?

I hope I’m around to find out!

Ryan Flanders
9-22-2011