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University Receives $5 Million Grant To Study Immortality
Hugh Pickens writes "Humans have pondered their mortality for millennia. Now the University of California at Riverside reports that it has received a $5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation that will fund research on aspects of immortality, including near-death experiences and the impact of belief in an afterlife on human behavior. 'People have been thinking about immortality throughout history. We have a deep human need to figure out what happens to us after death,' says John Martin Fischer, the principal investigator of The Immortality Project. 'No one has taken a comprehensive and sustained look at immortality that brings together the science, theology and philosophy.' Fischer says he going to investigate two different kinds of immortality. One is the possibility of living forever without dying. The main questions there are whether it's technologically plausible or feasible for us, either by biological enhancement such as those described by Ray Kurzweil, or by some combination of biological enhancement and uploading our minds onto computers in the future. Second would be to investigate the full range of questions about Judeo, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other Asian religions' conceptions of the afterlife to see if they're theologically and philosophically consistent. 'We'll look at near death experiences both in western cultures and throughout the world and really look at what they're all about and ask the question — do they indicate something about an afterlife or are they kind of just illusions that we're hardwired into?'"
. Imagine you have a computer that is so powerful and has such a comprehensive decision tree that it can simulate what we perceive as conscious behavior to a level indistinguishable from a natural human being. Is it conscious? Does it matter?
This is a common mixup between intelligence and consciousness (something-that-experiences). If we took away all your thoughts, decisions-making ability and intelligence yet left your perception alone, you would be experiencing sights and sounds just as before, you just wouldn't be intelligent, you wouldn't have any thoughts about it and you wouldn't be making any decisions. You would still be just as conscious as before you just wouldn't be able to tell anyone about it or even be able to want to tell anyone about it. You'd seem as conscious as a rock to the outside world and that's why we don't even really know if a rock is conscious. The point of AI isn't to create conscious computers, it's to create smart computers so your point is completely valid - AI has nothing to do with consciousness. The reason consciousness is interesting is that it seems to be mediated by the brain so that it is somehow related to the physical world. Yet physics has no concept of consciousness (an "observer" in Quantum Mechanics need not be conscious so there is no relation there) so there is new physics to discover there and we have not even the slightest clue as to how that physics works. So consciousness is very much important just not in relation to AI.
You assume consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. That is a bit like assuming what is shown on a TV screen is generated in there. A good first assumption, but not more than an assumption. The currents state of scientific research is that it is completely unknown what consciousness is and what intelligence is. Both can be described by their effects, but to speculate on where they reside and whether they are generated there is very much premature at this time.
So, no, we do not understand that "the brain is a biological computer". Actually we do understand that human minds can do things that computers cannot do, and that is currently fundamental, i.e. not a question of the power of the computer, but a lack of any implementable theory that could make a computer do these things. I have been following the state of AI research for quite some time (and know some people in it personally), and this is what comes out when you ask people on the side or actually read the papers. Nobody knows how strong/true AI could be built, yet every healthy human being has strong/true Intelligence. (Never mind the BS some researchers publicly say to get funding.) This is actually a rather strong indicator that either the brain is far more than a "computer" or that intelligence and consciousness are not generated solely/fully by the brain.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yeah, usually decomposition, and depending on the humidity levels, mummification. But you won't be around to experience any of that, being dead. You'll have exactly the same point of view as you had before you were conceived. You remember all that stuff from the beginning of the universe until you were born? No. Well that's exactly what will happen after you die, until the end of the universe...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Not necessarily.
Necessarily. Having been dead for quite a few minutes myself, but being lucky enough to have been reanimated, I can assure you absolutely nothing happens. No white lights. No angels. Nothing. But then again who are you going to believe - me, who is not trying to sell you anything, or the guys/gals who want you to a) buy their book or b) donate money to their church?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
And maybe all that means is that consciousness is a flawed idea. We can't explain it, we can't observe it in others (but we assume they have it). The fact that we can't even describe what it is except using circular reasoning should be a big clue that perhaps it isn't anything at all.