Ok so assuming you could map someone down to each molecule into a computer. Then tear this person apart using nanotech and rebuild them elsewhere. Teleporting and creating an exact replica of the person down to exact wiring of the brain.

During the process of being torn apart and rebuilt, where would the conscience go. If a person would say. step into a chamber, would that person's conscience die at the moment of physical dismemberment. Then as they are rebuilt and in some sense turned back on a new conscience start up. Only this "new" person would have all the memories and personality as the original. So much they would be indistingushable from the original to anyone else that knew them. And to this "new" person, having been rebuilt with the memory of the original, would they feel as if they had just walked in the entrance chamber and emerged from the exit, never knowing the original conscience has been "deleted".

Or if the conscience doesn't die, what might it feel like to experience this process? Would you feel stretched across whatever it is the information is being transfered over? I can imagine being beamed by radio waves. You could in theory be in 2 places at once. Literally one foot in the front door and one out the back. Or would it feel like an obe, being ripped out of your body, streched and then feeling a sense of flowing back into the new body. Like water being poored into a cup.

what do you guys think?

TheArchitect

wow, i hadn't even considered what i guess would be a clone and what that would mean for conscience!

It seems my idea for a teleporation device is kind of more a duplicator. i was thinking in terms I guess of scenerio where the body is scanned, torn apart and then reassembled. A teleportation device came to mind, being a sort of stage for a death and rebirth. But why would the original version have to be broken down.

What if the new guy was able to be rebuilt clean of health issues, or in better shape?

ok whoa.

i'm not sure where to start after reading both the forum thread and the blog post in relation to my thread idea, lol

I think i would like to comment on the blog post first. Being truthful to myself, i feel like the idea of a machine having a consciousness makes me sort of angry? And that should be suspect and noted. I feel that it would somehow diminish my "grand gift". That being said i think the question should be about how much does consciousness effects the physical reality?

The way i see it, there is sort of a playing field that is the physical. There seems to be different levels of consciousness. The idea of bacteria or a virus was brought up in the blog post i believe and was sort of dismissed. But in my view you can't because of the effect, purposeful even on the physical reality. Yes each virus cell maybe "small minded", but combined they almost form a sort of new entity, which is a plague. I want to say there is a relationship between something's consciousness and it's surroundings. I picture a lion in the wild and how it makes decisions, possibly all impulse based, but non the less it changes it's surroundings even just by running on it's rails. I can imagine the earth from out in space. How it is surrounding itself with basically garbage. How it's growing and Morphing. Sending things from it's surface out into space like a flower may distribute seeds. From afar it would almost seem to be it's own entity. I can see a weed growing around a flower and killing it. Or a human and their effect on the physical environment they live in. To me, without sounding religious, cause i'm not persay, it's all contained in "God's will" or the "will of the sim operator." I'm trying to say there has to be a measure based off the effect something has on it's surroundings. I mean i can say I have consciousness. But in that same way on a larger scale, do humans as a whole not have a combined mass consciousness effecting the physical on a much larger scale?

They way i see it, reality is very much like a machine. Everything is in ways alive. The machine goes around and pulls information from each physical thing in it and builds reality. Ready or not, it comes and takes. It also seems to chug at a certain speed, at least in humans in it's pulling. It's hard to explain, i've only experienced it during pretty extreme altered states. But it literally goes in turn to each occupant and pulls from them intent and uses it build reality in the physical. This is something that it does not only to humans, but to plants and animals. If there is a difference. There is a certain level of control humans have over their physical involvement compaired to say a worm. The worm seems to me more of a "programmed" entity. There is a certain level of choice involved with humans. But even these "choices" come to us from a sort of data bank, which may or not be limited to knowledge of a certain instance.

Now back to the AI. I suppose it would have a level of consciousness. But to what extent? I'm not sure. I would Like to answer that by saying it's something within the larger movement of the universe. The AI will undoubtably have an effect on the physical reality in some way. Whether with an obvious cyborg body, or just by being able to answer questions or purpose ideas and plans to be executed.

I guess my ulitmate answer would be that everything is "conscious" because it's all fractals of a much larger "conscious"

does this make any sense in relation to the posts?

First of all, welcome to the forum, MojitoTime. Let me congratulate you on your outstanding moniker as well as some insightful posts. We look forward to hearing much more from you.

Let me offer another point of view that is a little different from mine, yet compelling. It comes from Tom Campbell's "My Big TOE":

"We call this ability to learn from experience "artificial intelligence" because we have created it, and it is not biologically based the way "real" (our) intelligence is, and it is limited by what we superior humans decide to include in the algorithms. AUM (greater consciousness), having the bigger picture and the smaller ego, probably does not have the same attitude toward us, even thought we are drastically more limited relative to AUM than computers are limited relative to us. Consciousness is consciousness - whether an amoeba, clam, you, AI guy, or AUM - only form, function, capacity, and entropy level differ. What point would it serve for AUM to label humans as super artificial beings? We simply are as we are - just as monkeys, silicon computers, TBC and AUM are as they are. The tag "artificial" applied to consciousness is just another limiting artifact of ego that blocks out view of the Big Picture." (p. 507)

and...

"We differ mainly by our methods, out implementation, and by the rule-sets that define the nature and the boundaries of our existence and our purpose. We are very different implementation of the same fundamental self-organizing consciousness energy and the same Fundamental Process of evolution. We and AI guy simply start from a different place within the greater reality fractal and use different materials according to the rule-sets that govern our individuated existence within the dimension of our birth. Consciousness is consciousness regardless of what kind of container from whatever dimension locally supports or hosts it: All are interconnected reflections of, and integral parts of, the One Source - the Ultimate Fractal Dude - the Original AI Guy." (p. 519)

Essentially he is saying that we humans have an overly inflated opinion of our position in reality, whereas, given that we are experiencing a virtual reality created by our consciousness, what's the difference between that and experiencing a virtual reality created one level deeper in the fractal of realities (think "Inception" and dreams within dreams)?

Techne, I suspect your views are actually not that far off from each other.

Relative to animal "individuated consciousness", we probably have evolved more, but relative to what else might be out there, who knows, right?

Tom's thinking has made me question whether or not there is a distinction between AI and "organic" consciousness, or whether it is just a matter of levels, like dreams within dreams or virtual reality environments created by us. It also gives some perspective to the idea of taking a consciousness and splitting it amongst all ants in a colony, or all bacteria in your gut. Rupert Sheldrake's experiments showing the alignment of such cells or simple organisms then makes a lot more sense.