For there to be change, there must be both an ‘entity’ of change and an entity being changed ~ which is a contradiction when described in words…
Things to draw from potential futures:
With surgery; anyone could be transformed into anyone else, in terms of appearances.
Conscious transferral from one body to another yields self-as-third-party position to two given bodies during transferral.
If either or all of the above are true; there exists self, probably portable and transportable, similar to information transferral, and non-self, the copying and transforming aspect of our being. The two concepts are in opposition, but if we visualise a 3D model of a human, with software by which you can change the size and shape, and add/remove data. If you know skyrim you’ll know what i mean, when there is an entity that you can change to have any form [the player].
So now we have a society of individuals.
Instead of e.g. feminism; a female is a you that’s in a female shaped body. You don’t want to be considered in a lesser way than another individual with a male type body. Rinse and repeat for all -isms.
Instead of putting old people out to pasture - so to speak; they are you but in a different shaped body. One which can be modifed to stay 25 yrs old for as long as you live.
Instead of beheading people; they are you, but have a different role, character.
Many people will experience the full range of pain and suffering. Reduce this until zero.
Be beneficial and only that; the world has enough pains and ills, it is better to not add to that. Do not add to the problems stopping the world entire from being beneficial, and from developing beyond need and want. Ultimately we are not of the nation but of the world and the nation.
How would this work? Would they swap brains or would consciousness be transferred via an ethereal device?
My view is that consciousness is distinct from the brain and that if the brain is removed consciousness goes on in some form or manner. Thus an ethereal device would be needed if consciousness is intended to be switched into another person’s personality. But if the personality is to be retained, the brain itself would have to be transplanted. Now that I’m thinking about it, I believe consciousness has an ethereal memory, because if it did not, once the consciousness were to be transferred via the ethereal device, the two characters would be none the wiser, believing a lifetime of memories that never happened to them were their own. So we dig into another thought - perhaps the memories themselves cause the experience of consciousness to occur, and by merely transferring consciousness, a lifetime of time is experienced living out the entire past of the new host?
Surgery is not the right approach, the right approach is genetic manipulation.
How would a computer swap ethereal consciousness? At most it could serve as a hub to link to consciousnesses, but I don’t think it could swap them or upload them, and I wouldn’t want it to because getting stuck in a computer would suck.
Like image editing; crop one part and add/replace it with another, until the original has been completely replaced. Once earthlings can do that, they will be able to deduce the changing values denoting consciousness, as shown on e.g. MRI machines. Then it becomes a matter of pruning the method until you get to the core procedure, where my guess is that there will be a non-mechanistic nature to it.
For example by using remote cameras over their eyes, people can do the alien hand thing, and also make themselves think they are located differently/spatially. Ergo the perception can transcend the instrumentation by kind of leaping from a perspective held mostly in the donor, and that [perspective] of the replacer brain/device. The consciousness remains intact throughout the whole process, and is measurably in the reciprocal brain/device, prior to termination of original brain/device.
Computers wont be needed except for the complex surgery done by extremely accurate robotic devices [made of diamond/carbon with lazer3D additive continual weld technology].
It may be the case that some or all of the information is not transferred by request. This shows us that mostly it is not the physical information which is the thingness of consciousness.
There is a matrix of instrumentation and information, to wit the consciousness is held. If you replace some of that with a suitable equivalent, then the mind will use it, ~ given the correct connectivity. So now we may envision masses of instruments and changing simple collections, then clone and replace en masse. I think the trick will be in how fast those machines can work, i am imagining that once you can mimic the highly skilled human, you can then double it’s speed etc until you got a machine which can build or connect at thousands of times faster than a human.
…and who knows what they will be dabbling with [editing] in there! lol
Not necessarily. The rate of change of computers compared to the rate of change of , if we may call the mind’ , would be an interesting calculation. I bet, that super computers will excell the brain by a wide margin. (Because the overwhelming memory capacity of the former to the latter). But I wasn’t aiming at that. The linkage of one with the other, the cybernetic mind of the cyberg will mimic individualism existentially, with variance states of conscious activity. This may be also conceived as variant selectivity connections, corresponding to differing areas of brain activity. I think progress in this area will be phenomenal, and will in some way lead to Trixie’s content ion, of DNA manipulation, except in a mechanical process, and not through intrinsic biochemical intercession.
Your belief assumes that consciousness is inherently generated, and not a passive localized entity.
Your belief suggests that cloning someone and then killing the source material 1000 miles away would pass on consciousness. I believe that is not going to happen because emperical evidence on OBE’s suggests that consciousness is a passive localized entity.
My ‘belief’ is in the fact that if consciousness was at root localized, then we would be able to say what it is just by looking at the physics. You’ve seen images of neurons and can envision electrical signals passing through them, but you don’t see any mental qualia in them. I think the consciousness is informed by physical information, but if it is not in said info, then the localisation is not its root.
That argument of yours is like a house of cards built on water. Because outside observers cannot see qualia does not indicate lack of locality of consciousness. Your theory doesnt hold water because all brains function within basically the same parameters. So if consciousness was not local youd be picking up the thoughts of other brains on a daily basis.
The instrumentation is local, the brain is a bit like a highly advanced camcorder/computer [/monitor [is where?]. If you kept cutting off pieces of one brain and connected a replacement artificial construct, the consciousness would move gradually and completely over to the recipient. The donor could be connected back up to each segment being replaced, and then you would have your former self being alive again. So which one would be you?
Lets say you kept the pieces of the old brain alive separately for a while, prior to putting them together. Would not the consciousness be in the active artificial brain? [while the old one is ‘sleeping’]
If the consciousness is local and particular to the physics of the brain, then you wont be able to e.g. Grow new organic parts and gradually replace all the old one’s, would you?!
When I construct something, it is made of black diamond! [hmpf to your house of cards on water ]
No, think of consciousness like a bubble. It would remain in the host brain until it suddenly migrated into a new host.
So if you did it gradually, it would remain in the host brain, until it was moved into the new brain.
Otherwise you have some kind of mystical pseudo scientific phenomenon of an all pervading consciousness that only chooses certain brains to read and migrates itself by some ethereal mechanism.
It would be using increasing amounts of the recipient brain/synth. At some point it would be using the eyes, then nose, then mouth of recipient, along with their corresponding parts of the brain. Surely there would come a time when the consciousness has skipped into the new brain? That’s the thing about consciousness, all we know is that it moves all over the brain collecting info. So keep it moving then gradually it will move from one brain to another.
Where it can do that, then it is transcendent and not purely local.
Well there would be a transplant procedure.
Though god knows what would happen if you divide and mix 3 or more brains lol.