A new Transformation idea-- any opinions?

[Brianna 1365 Gamma]

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[Brianna 1365 Gamma]

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[Stephaniebot]

I would definitely like that sort of transformation process, but that will surprise no one here I suspect!

[General]

I like your idea Brianna. It definately has more realism than the typical nanites or "magic" approaches. It is actually very similar to a concept used in the Halo series for Cortana and other AI's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortana

In that universe AI's are either "dumb", which is a mechanically programmed AI that would be considered non-sapient, or "smart". The smart ones are created from taking an image from a person's brain (which normally kills them). The AI doesn't necessarily have knowledge of its former life, but it seems to provide the skeleton to program a function. And the AI appears to retain certain subconscious traits of the doner brain. The down side is that after about 7 years the AI's "think themselves to death" by effectively filling up their storage capacity.

The idea is definately worthy of a few stories. Why would the person choose to be transformed? How much of 'themselves' would they retain? Would they have a limited lifespan as an AI or be effectively immortal? Could one scan create more than one AI 'copy'?

[Steamboy]

I think its almost impossible to copy every synapse in a given moment, because each brain have been developed different and certain functions could be in different areas, so assigning fixed areas to each function is risky. Also science really don't know how exactly memories are stored in the brain.

Probably the most realistic technology could be to read directly the signals in each axon in the brain stem, processed digitally on a supercomputer to control a "prosthethic body" or industrial processes (welcome to XXIII century slavery ); but a life support device will be needed, for blood pumping, gas interchange, drug secretion and filtering.

Or going far in the future, injected nanomachines that gradually replace every neuron, so in the end the brain will be fully inorganic, ready to be transferred to a fully robotic body.

[Korby]

I like the idea generally. I'd certainly be interested in stories based on the concept.

The Dyson Institute stories (which, by the way, I've begun uploading to the Wiki, plug plug) posit a somewhat similar process, with the difference being that the process is entirely nondestructive to the original brain (and is in fact easily reversible).

Is it realistic or feasible? Obviously not at our present level of technology, or even at the level of technology that permits fully-functional and/or artificially intelligent androids. But I don't think that's too much of a barrier to writing a story. In science fictional terms, it's not really any more outlandish than faster-than-light travel or teleportation. Probably the biggest risk is that any overly-detailed explanation of how such a process might work may come to seem dated in the future. On the other hand, a certain amount of handwaving with a little plausible-seeming technobabble can go a long way toward covering that.

I say roll with it. It's a good idea and I'd love to see what you do with it.

[Brianna 1365 Gamma]

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[petey]

I guess this is a good time to analyze why you would transform somone with the 'nanite' means.
1) You're doing it remotely, away from big equipment
2) You want to talk about the physical transformation and the gradual progression of it.
3) Transformation stories are often about change, and the change is muted when you have two bodies before the process and the exact same two bodies afterward.
4) You think making a human-sized, fully autonomous robot is going to require nano-scale manufacturing anyway, might as well use the raw material available.
5)You're lazy and hand-wavey anyway

None of these things are so vital to a transformation story that a mind transfer is out of the question. It happens in a handful of stories already. I can't remmeber the name, I know it's on mcstories, but a woman thinks she's been transformed into a special-projects robot, gets pissed, then finds out she has only been copied when her human self walks in. I think her brain was operating the robot at a point in the story.


One of these days I'm going to finish my story about a world with technology for one-brain, four-copy robotization. Sell two copies as slaves to recoup the costs, keep two to double your work productivity Don't ask why only four, I can place whatever limit I want that serves the story :p I know it's not the tale you want to spin, but it raises issues I'd been thinking of addressing.

[rabiator]

The idea is not completely new, in Poul Anderson's "Harvest Of Stars" science fiction series from the 90s such technology is available. But the technology for scanning the brain still is Clarke's Law material .

I think the other parts of the technology are more realistic, so if you can suspend your disbelief about the brain scan, an otherwise credible transformation story could play in the not too distant future. Say until 2040-2050 to develop the robotic brain and a few other things still missing. Like plastic skin with a sensor network to give the robo-person a sense of touch.

When I write it, I intend to make it a one scan, one copy deal and then the copy can be copied with a certain loss of the original human's thoughts. They'd act and remember the same things but certain amounts of the unconscious would be lost with each download; the first generally doesn't lose anything significant.

Sorry but I think you got this one backwards:
The first download will be the most problematic one, and having the biological brain die as a side effect seeps completely plausible.
After that, copying from computer to computer should be flawless unless the old unit is damaged. After all, backups of computer data is something that today's technology has mastered nicely.

[Brianna 1365 Gamma]

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[droid_boy]

I used to really be a fan of this idea, having wanted to be turned into a robot for a long time. The problem was I stopped believing in the concept of a soul or any anima motrix behind life; so while I don't doubt we could eventually get to the stage of creating a perfect copy, it will never actually be me. And that kinda sucks. Some other sucker is going to be having a wicked time living forever and palling around with febots while I'm dead. Best I could ever hope for would be a cyborg, I guess, with as much of the unsavoury organic parts stripped off.

[dieur]

Hi,

While I don't share droid_boy's disbelief in a soul, I agree with the problem in concept. The way I look at it is, suppose your being scanned and transferred and the person in charge pauses the process... has to answer the phone. Ignoring for a moment how long the brain can be kept 'on hold' while it's being scanned, would you, however briefly, feel like you were in both bodies (or memtal frameworks or whathaveyou) at the same time? That seems unreasonable, considering there is no contact between the two different calculation structures.

Whether there's a soul or not, there's some kind of awareness that you have sitting in your chair reading this that is quite distinct from (allowing that there were some) this amazing (and/gy)noid that inspires your desire for a change. If so, why should there not be a difference in awareness between you sitting on the hospital bed (waiting for the doctor to get off the %#@% phone), and what would otherwise be your new mental host? How does its sharing of memories in any way "move" you along, even if the original was destroyed in the process?

The best and most similar condition I know that can be used to explore the issue is that of people who have had their corpus callosum cut, their brain cut down the middle, as they used to do for severe epileptics. I watched this interesting video about that... apparently the differnet halves can hold different viewpoints

hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DCSJdhy3-0

I have a running internal monitor, so if I were to ever find myself in a similar condition (perish the thought), could different parts of me hold different views?? Would it differ depending on how I asked myself? Or would my sense of self follow only one of the two halves???

[droid_boy]

As I see it there is a really fundamental problem with any attempt to transfer a soul (assuming such a thing even exists). If we choose to believe there is this something-I-know-not-what called a soul, it must be incorporeal and separate from the body, in other words, we must be dualists. Body and mind are on the one side, soul on the other. This is necessarily so if we want to attribute the common characteristics to the soul such as immortality.

The problem is that such a metaphysical entity is by its very nature beyond the material realm and not susceptible to transfer by technological means. We may think of the brain/mind as the material store of data, while the soul is the spark that makes it work. So while it might be possible to scan all the data and create a double, this double would lack that defining human characteristic in the form of a soul and would just represent a hollow programmed shell. This is assuming a soul even exists.

If we choose to be strict materialists about things (as I am), then while technology might advance to the stage where even an instantaneous and complete brain-state scan could take place, the result would be no more "me" than a clone would...we would be different instances of the same hardware/software.

Or at least that's what I think. Man, six years of philosophy study has really killed my ability to suspend disbelief...

[Outsider]

Huh?

Suppose I'm typing something here. The same idea appears, first, as an nonverbal thought, then in an imagined voice, then in typing, then in text on my machine, then in text on your machine, etc. ... The same idea moves between formats (nonverbal and verbal), media (imagined sound, typing, written text), locations (here, there), hardware (my brain, my computer, your computer), etc.

I think you are equivocating between two definitions of "incorporeal and separate from the [body, medium, etc.]."

A story is "incorporeal and separate from the medium" in that it can be expressed using other material and other media. It is not necessarily "incorporeal and separate from the [medium]" in that it cannot necessarily exist without some medium ...

A conversion, as in transfer, involves copying the mind from one medium to another medium, not copying it from one medium to an absence of media. As far as I'm concerned the only problems concern:

1. flaws in the transfer process.

2. editing during/after the transfer process. I may allude to the ship of Theseus problem in my first story.

3. some questions about duplication. If we create two of someone, the will have different experiences, develop different attitudes, etc. so that we may usually consider them two people, yet we may occasionally need to consider them one person.

... Suppose you have a married couple and you duplicate one or both partners?

[Stephaniebot]

Of course a lot depends whether you go down the copy route, or the transfer route of course. I know which I would prefer to go down (the latter of course) but that is definitely the riskier, though obviously it does cancel out problems related to concern 3.

1. flaws in the transfer process.
If you are simply copying a mind and this problem arose then you just delete and start again. Agreed, if the problems should only arise post checks then its a slightly different matter, but surely you only need to fit an 'obedience chip' to the Android and recall it.
A flaw in the transfer process would be a whole different ball game of course, because you couldnt have a second try, the original mind no longer exists, other than in the android! But assuming its not a total disaster in transfer, then I assume you are talking a small number of 'memories' that havent transferred correctly, and thats it? I think it then comes down to a contractual thing that transferee's have to sign to say that in such event, 'standard default settings' will be used instead to 'top up' your personality.
And lets face it, if it goes totally wrong, you're dead!

2. editing during/after the transfer process.
Well there are some of us who would actually enjoy that, at least in the control sense! But yes, this could be a tricky field to get round, especially in the very early days of the transfer process before reputations have been built up by the people carrying out the work.
Copying, I cant see the point of edits unless you want the copy to be 'better' in some ways than the original, in whatever way is desired by the party. She might want her copy to be bisexual say, or even lesbian, where she is very straight just to see what it looks like? And all sorts of benefits, cooking skills, medical knowledge, all sorts of things could be added to the copy as a benefit if so desired.
But at the same time, it could be beneficial especially in a transfer situation. Suppose someone (cant think who!) has had a bad time emotionally in their life, well when they get transferred those problems could be edited out making their new life even better?
Agreed, equally 'other things' not so beneficial could be changed without you knowing it, but unless things lay dormant for a period then I think it might get noticed, and those people would very quickly go out of business, leaving only reputable transferers to carry on. Unless they did a very good job of course!
But with me at least, if someone wants to make me their totally obedient, controlled robot, then you expect me to object!

3. some questions about duplication

With the transfer process this problem wouldnt arise, your mind has been transferred, old body would therefore be dead.
Copying though would cause all sorts of fun with this, what is your relation to your copied android body for starters in all matters romantic. After all, some people love themselves so much that...
This would clearly need heavy regulation, but I cant get into thinking about it, as the transfer process is the one I'd want to go down of preference anyway.

[fection]

I'm not usually interested in tranformation, but the idea of prolonging my life through transfer to a more durable medium has always appealed, so I'll pipe up.
I can see a problem with the idea proposed. To 'scan' the brain it seems to me we'd need to know the exact movements and locations of the particles within the mind. I'm no scientist, but I've read a little about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which says that the more certain you are of an electron's position, the less certain you can be of its direction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
This is not a matter of the current equipment or 'viewing' means that we're using. It's a weird characteristic of particles' movements being described as probabilities. To me, this seems to make the notion of recording a consciousness to an outside device impossible.
By capturing just the particles' locations, you would end up with a visual discription of that brain in a moment of time - like a photograph. But a photograph is not the actual moment described on its 2D surface.
You would also need the directions of the particles to set the copy into living motion.
All this assumes you're building an artificial brain that operates in an extremely similar way to the human brain. If not, then I suspect you'd end up with an entirely different entity altogether and who's to say how you'd re-interpret the recorded details of the brain to work in the different 'format'?
I'm not saying AIs won't happen, but I don't think they'll come about as copies of ourselves.

[dale coba]

Fection,

We needn't consider the problem of scanning a mind below the scale of the neuron. As long as we can record the dendritic connections, and as far as we correctly understand the properties of neurons, the AI that resulted would have a mind with the same propensities and abilities as the original.

The mind comes down to dendrite networks, and the dendrites exist at a scale far larger than the quantum world. Those networks operate on the basis of molecular kinetics. As part of a copy body created instantaneously, any molecule would immediately assume appropriate chemical kinetics for its current location and temperature. Throw together the right pieces, and the sub-atoms can be in any of the possible indeterminant states, without that altering the firing behavior of the neurons.

The sub-atomic particle mechanics take care of themselves.

- Dale Coba

[Brianna 1365 Gamma]

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[Stephaniebot]

Well agreed, as I say the transfer is my favoured route as well.
But the poster was aking about both routes, so I answered accordingly.

[tehgaffer]

Here is how I would suppose it should work.

1. Produce a true AI. While the exact solution to doing so remains a mystery, I think a good step in the right direction would be to model the most elementary learning, thought, and emotional processes, as sub-processes linked under one top-level "Ego" program. It must first be proven whether a structure like this can work, by attempting to create a genuine personality within that structure. Until that can be done there is no reason to suppose it is possible to translate a human mind into that format.

2. Map each AI function to the corresponding part of the human brain responsible for the same kind of cognitive activity. For best results it would probably be necessary for a long series of PET scan sessions to produce a personalized map.

3. Develop a system for meaningfully translating back and forth, on a real-time basis, between brain signals and computer memory/processing cycles. Use the map from step 2 to generate an AI perfectly synchronized with the organic mind. Highly invasive brain surgery is almost certainly necessary here.

4. If the link in step 3 works correctly, you should become increasingly confused as to where you actually are; if linked correctly to the computer you should not just have an AI operating in sync with your own mind, but using the AI as a redundant extension of your own mind, as new thoughts might originate from either side of the link. The idea being that you have at this point, two brains, neither of which can be technically defined as 'primary'.

5. Now for the scary part. Begin disabling the organic brain in as small increments as possible, as slowly as necessary. If everything up to this point were to work, you should still have one complete brain working, with the minor detail that it's not the one you started with.

Assuming that the first step of real AI is accomplished, it should be possible to test some of the theories behind the later steps by attempting to use a similar technique to upgrade an AI to new hardware - generate a synchronized copy on the new machine, linking each subprocess individually, then shut down the original step by step.

Now would be a good time for a timeskip montage.

[FembotsInCharge3]

I used to really be a fan of this idea, having wanted to be turned into a robot for a long time. The problem was I stopped believing in the concept of a soul or any anima motrix behind life; so while I don't doubt we could eventually get to the stage of creating a perfect copy, it will never actually be me.

True. The theoretical possibility of the process being performed without killing the original would be proof enough of that.

And that kinda sucks. Some other sucker is going to be having a wicked time living forever and palling around with febots while I'm dead. Best I could ever hope for would be a cyborg, I guess, with as much of the unsavoury organic parts stripped off.

The trouble here is that you still don't get very close. The brain and body are not distinct, the former is an integral part of the later and the status of one feeds into the status of the other. If you start replacing huge swaths of the body with machinery, the brain will change. There's no way to know what the eventual cyborg-you would be like, he/it might very well find fembots boring.

[stelarfox]

I really like that idea, in fact I RP a lot about it.

I think the only backdraw, is that is one way only.
but if the tecnology was here I would try, so I never again go ill, or have a headache, or be tired.

in fact I do not believe in soul, at least not as it's only for an organic, if I had soul and with this process I think it will be inside the robot body as well.

So I sais it's a very good idea.