Self identity - resurrection

Within the framework of a “technological singularity” where minds will be modified, neural networks and our own neurons manipulated, emotions engineered, an interesting paradox will be self identity.

Self identity of a human is based on an informational structure composed of two parts: 1) the memories of a person’s life, his personality and many other “software” attributes and 2) the direct physical sensations and sense organ inputs associated with the software structure and perceived by the person in a given exact point in space time.

The software can easily be reproduced on silicon in the future. But the exact sensations where the identity of an individual is continuous is much more tricky. I imagine what really defines our self is the fact that we are in a given point in time and a given geographical location in space perceiving sensations. This, associated with the software of our memories, gives us the feeling of being a single unique self - individual. But the truth is probably that our self identity dies and is reborn every instant of our life and our mind smoothes it out to feel as if we are one and the same.

So then can we be resurrected from death in the year 3,000 ? Would we be the exact same person if the software in our mind is exactly replicated and we are within a point of space-time perceiving a sensation ? I think it possible.

There is a combinational barrier, in that the system would have to replicate our exact software, this may be hard given the huge number of combinations. But then if it could be done we could be resurrected since each of us is only a moment of sensations in a given point of space time.
These kinds of experiments will greatly modify our view of ourselves and the universe.

Interesting ideas weird Duck. So then an individual really doesn’t exist. We are simply a sequence of isolated events, isolated moments and within each moment we think we are one and the same person. But we are nothing, just a quirk event in a millisecond that thinks it is a person.

I kind of agree, we die each moment and are reborned each moment… could make sense. Then we will be alive again in 3,298 right ? It is a strange thing trying to figure out what self - identity is, what death is as related to the self. How many selves can there be ? Machines that merge trillions of selves, or living trillions of events that happened in a lifetime all at the same time for long periods… mindboggling!

What distnguishes what I feel from what another person feels ? Why don’t I feel and experience what another person is feeling and experiencing at this moment ? What identifies the self, its identity, the self feeling itself ?

These are questions that will be faced when we begin manipulating our minds, our mental structures and psychologies. We probably are only instantaneous events perceiving a flow of sensory information that is tied up and mixed up with our mental pyschology-software-memories. Now if we can crack this structure, we can become either immortal or be anyone who has ever been and anyone who could ever be. We can resurrect people from the dead. We could be multiple people or an infinite number of different people all at the same time. We could live trillions of parallel instants of 1,000 year long lives. But would I feel this ? I in this moment ? And then how ? very odd problems…

So the self-identity is only our software, memories etc. The connection of this block of information to a flow of sensory information gives us the feeling of being alive, ourselves and a unique identity. But if you connect the software to another different block of sensory information or into another person’s space-time or another person’s geography you still perceive yourself as an identity, a continous identity. But you would be in a completely different context.

A bit like being connected to the guy across the street, but only his sensory information. You are still you, the sensory information is something mechanical and anonymous. So given that we are our software, if this software is recreated in the future, we will be resurrected from the dead once this is connected to any flow of sensory information. Could you say, hey I was alive once and now I am alive again, I remember my life.

It also makes me wonder about a person who forgets who he was or remembers a completely different life. The former person is dead but the new one is alive again. Or do we die and reborn every moment ? We are an instant of sensory perceptions tied into a software block that identifies ourselves. The manipulation of this will bring untold new worlds…

The combinational barrier is the only limit. Since the neural networks in our mind is fixed, the possible different combinations of neural networks is very large. Like all the movies imaginable on a DVD are 2 to the 5 billionth since it is all the combinations of bits on a 5 gb DVD. So the neural networks are even much larger. But then again our mind and neurons change constantly, maybe we are simply a good approximation of a single person in the form of a multitude of similar persons, since our own self dies every moment and is reborn with slight variations every moment.

Well, would “you” feel the world all over again when you are resurrected ? First I think the concept of “you” is vague, it isn’t a precise point in space-time, it is a mixture of your present state with all the millions of sensory informations and all your memories-ideas-feelings etc. So you really can’t pinpoint a precise “you”. Furthermore the self identity is constantly dying and being reborn, a constant “new creation”. The “you” of last night is not the “you” at this moment reading.

So what is resurrected is a kind of copy of yourself, just like you are presently a copy of the “you” of an hour ago. But if you really wanted to feel the world all over again ? Well you would have to enter the world of “contradictory items” where you are trillions of people at the same time but you only feel yourself. Kind of like god who can be exactly everybody but isn’t. So a contradictory universe allows eternal life, the self is eternal and not…

From a technological point of view, the creation of MegaBrains that can feel trillions of lives and be everyone who has ever been and could be is conceivable. The Technological Singularity would look like a toy compared to this…

So if self-identity is a software structure I can manipulate it as I want. So I can invent a memory and say I was once dead and now alive. So I resurrect an imaginary person but it really doesn’t matter if the person was real since all our perception of reality is a software structure, an information, and as such has its reality based only on information. I can also self program my memories and say I travelled through time or anything else.

Lets imagine we have a brain - mind and a simulator of reality attached to this mind. So we simulate a given lifetime of a given person. Another different simulation will simulate another person’s life. Now the set of all possible simulations, all the possible combinations of signals would represent all possible lives and experiences conceivable. All possible persons, universes and experiences that are even imaginable.

Now if this simulator works at very high speed and is able to execute all the possibilities in a finite time, then after exploring all of the “state space”, all of the combinations, it would return back and resurrect the life of person that previously lived. So you would have an eternal return of your life, but even if you have already lived this life an infinite number of times and will live it again an infinite number of times, THE FACT THAT YOU CAN’T REMEMBER IT SINCE YOUR MEMORIES AND MENTAL CONFIGURATION IS ALWAYS THE SAME, means that living it once or an infinite number of times is equivalent. A case where one is equal to infinity.

Of course this justifies inventing false memories since there is a life where those memories actually occured and therefore are real. The simulator itself could be in a universe where the laws of physics are different and allows an infinite speed computer, AND WE MAY ACTUALLY REALLY BE LIVING IN THIS SIMULATOR WITHIN A UNIVERSE THAT HAS OTHER LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Or our own universe may evolve up to the point of creating this simulator - mind machine in the future (or already has and we are in it) by using quantum computers etc. Even if the universe is an open universe, the universe would last forever and the quantum exploration of all of the state space would make it possible. But we would never notice…

Expanding on this, we can imagine that the mind could be any kind at all and the signals could be any kind at all. This takes care of all of the possible different kinds of minds and brains and all possible ways we can manipulate them. But what we really need is a finite number of distinct meaningful experiences, no matter what the mind or signals are.

If the number of meaningful experiences is limited (although huge by our standards) then the mind - simulator just needs to cycle through all of the combinations once. There is no need to cycle over again since one lifetime (experience) or an infinite number of the same lifetime are equivalent and you would never notice the difference. Instead of travelling within a physical space you would be travelling in a much larger space of combinations. Each combination is a different lifetime - experience. The question is is the “state space”, “combinational space” infinite or finite ? It is probably finite but very large (10^10)^10 … (maybe trillions of times). There are probably only a finite number of meaningful different experiences conceivable. Of course most of these are way beyond anything we can imagine. If it is infinite, then who knows…

I’m not sure if I’m following all of this, but I thought of one thing:

In the future, regardless of how much a singularity is a xerox copy of my brain, “I” will still be dead. By that I mean, I don’t see myself as being “resurrected” if my brain patterns are brought back to life in the furture; when I live this life and die, there is no coming back.

The future-brain-pattern-copy may have a feeling of coming-into-being, but that is wholey separate from me and my life (even though the future-brain-pattern-copy may have been copied from my brain).

Does that make sense? :smiley:

No, it will really be you! After all the “you” of yesterday died and the new “you” of today has been resurrected. The you of today is simply a copy of the you of yesterday, not even a perfect copy because in 24 hours there are so many subtle changes in your mind - memory etc.

Actually the “you” of this very second you are reading is a different “you” from a second ago. We die constantly and are resurrected constantly. We are constantly being copied to another person in a slightly different point in space - time. That is the whole problem of self - identity, it is nowhere to be found, it is only a transient experience that we have each millisecond. So yes it would really be you that is resurrected.

As far as meaningful experiences are concerned, I think they are only a few million and anyways a person would always have to erase his memory and experience to re experience a new life - experience, just like a baby, otherwise he would get bored. So you can live even millions of years as long as you erase your knowledge (even partially) and start over.

In a sense this justifies creating false memories and complete false lives and complete delusions, since there is a you where what you invent is true, and even if it isn’t the experience is what counts and is the only thing we really measure. Invent your own life.

With the present design of our mind and how it is connected to emotions - memory - sentiment - pain/pleasure. But there will be radically modified minds where all these things and many others will be modified, there will be millions of new sense organs/emotions and pain/pleasure are only 2 of trillions of other sensations etc. In this case there is a much higher number of different valid experiences than just a few million like you think. For humans as we, probably yes, but not for modified minds.

That is an elegant way to understand self identity. Imagine simply that you are copied moment to moment. So for an instant you don’t exist and then the next you exist again, a perfect copy, actually not even a perfect copy but just a copy.
Extrapolate our existence to 10^-40 seconds. Now if we disappear for that time and then reappear again, it would be like a copy of all our atoms etc. But our self identity is preseved, at least our subjective experience of it.

In fact self identity is just the subjective feeling of being the same person we were a moment ago. So if we really just popped out of nowhere for a moment then went to sleep for a million years and then popped up again, the flow of time would seem continuous and we wouldn’t even know that we are living in discrete intervals of millions of years. It is just the momentary experience that identifies ourselves. And correctly, if we invent memories and invent lives, they are actually just as real as the ones we think we have. The memories are just information structures and relationships in the mind, they can be manipulated at will.

So imagine that you were resurrected a moment ago, so you would think you weren’t but in reality you were so you wouldn’t even notice. In fact you are not the same person you were an hour ago, you are a new resurrected person, a copy, only your subjective experience and the memories and information relationships in your mind are identical to that previous now dead person. This is also again another variant of the hidden layers theories.

Another way around self identity is “complete total resurrection” where by this I mean the resurrection of every moment of every life conceivable (therefore even yours and mine) simultaneously in a way that the item living this experience feels every moment of every life at the same time over and over again. So you have a complete experience that is a superset of every persons life, all the possible combinations of lives imaginable but constantly at the same time. But then it really wouldn’t be a given person resurrected but a different system. But in this case you could kind of remember a life. Seems like the idea of god who is exactly everyone and is living all lives over and over again.

In theory god enjoys himself forever. In the meantime the poor souls in hell are suffering forever. But god is all knowing so he should know how each soul is feeling in every moment. Not a nominal knowledge but a real concrete knowledge in the sense that he feels exactly what each soul is feeling. All the physical pain of each soul otherwise there would be something he really doesn’t know. So he enjoys himself and all those in paradise and feels also all humanity’s lives and all the souls in hell. So he is feeling both pain and pleasure at the same time. A high technology trick…

OK, I have a question then:

Can the xerox-copy-me be xerox copied into multiple locations at the same time?

I’m trying to understand if the “singularity” is a machine like A.I. or if the xerox copy can go into another human, a brain pan, or what.

Thanks!

Yes of course. Even in every point of space time. Your experience of this will be different from your experience of just 1 you resurrected in a certain configuration of space time. But it would be you. It all boils down to the exact experience you have at a certain moment in space time. In that moment you are not the you of a minute ago, that you can be considered dead and you are a copy of that you. You are not experiencing what you experienced a minute ago so then it is a slightly different you always. That is why total resurrection would be closer since all moments are lived simultaneously and over and over again. Like you living the moment of a minute ago over and over and also the next moment plus a second etc. Of course it is hard to imagine, but we are in the remote future.

The singularity will be a combination of mass energy such that all the possible universes and simulations of universes and simulations of all minds and experiences can cycle over and over again.

In truth you will just need a good mind connected to a machine that furnishes the signals to the sense organs, this probably in silicon or whatever. This simple machine goes fast and so all the combinations can cycle through fast.

where have I heard this before? Not kidding at all I know I have.

It is an interesting train. For if we have the ultimate control of self we become not just linear we become spatial and aware of all, Like water in a fish bowl becoming sentient if dumped out that sentient water will spread and sentience of water will grow.

Why would a person want to be resurrected anyways ? to have a better life ? to have more pleasure forever ? to know how many different kinds of life are possible ? I really don’t think it matters, any life a person had, good or bad is equivalent, a fluke, many would say who cares, I lived end, of story.

So there are many better lives, millions of modified minds, millions of experiences. So what, I think the whole idea really doesn’t make sense. Whatever you lived is OK anyways, it doesn’t change anything. All lives and experiences are equivalent.

OK. I agree that nothing is exactly the same one second to the next.
And I am not sure about a singularity that can simulate every combination possible of minds and experiences in every possible combination of universes in every possible combinations of combinations of combinations, etc. That seems a little unattainable.

But as to my question, it sounds like you are saying that my xerox copy can be used a hundred different times with a hundred different machines at the same time.

If this is true, then are they all “me”?

The reason I ask this is because I think there is an inherent component to the definition of “you” or “me” that implies just one individual person (or machine).

I can see how we can create Me #1, Me #2, Me #3, etc., with “Me” referring to the copy of myself that was being used and the number referring to the uniqueness of each. As we have agreed, nothing is the same one second to the next; not even a singular object. So how can any of the “Mes” be the same? One second after they are resurrected, they are different from the identity that they were a second ago. How can an identity that isn’t the same as it used to be a second ago be the same as the other duplicate identities? Not only are they not the same when compared to each other, they are not the same when compared to themselves individually moment to moment, yes?

So, I’m still thinking that even if I am copied and “resurrected” into a machine, that I am Me #1 and the resurrection is Me #2, which makes us different.

But I’m still open to discussion on the topic! It sounds like we may be working on a new definition of the word “me”!

Me is only the momentary experience you have as that me. It is only defined for you in that point of space - time. A pure Me doesn’t exist. All the copies have distinct experiences but they only feel their local self. So me doesn’t mean much. Self identity is vague anyways.

Why keep on living anyway ? Why do you want to live another day ? there is no answer, you live and that is it. You make up reasons, more money, more fun more anything, but it really doesn’t matter. All lives are equivalent, a fluke, a sequence of random events more or less. Some are lucky some unlucky, who cares it ends anyways.

The idea of a life being a combination that repeats over and over solves the problem of eternity. At which cycle is you present life ? since each life is a perfect copy of the previous, you can’t distinguish, therefore one life is equal to an infinite number of the same lives. Like trigonemetric functions the sin of an angle is equal to 2piek*sin a where k can be any number. It is always the same.