Evolution and Wisdom of Crowds

Burritos et al,

You lot should read The Age of Spiritual Machines. Written by a Unitarian and talks about exactly what you asked about. Essentially it's about the evolution of humans from chemical to electronic lifeforms. It's a very interesting book whether you agree with it or not. Ray Kurzweil, the author, is a good writer and his prediction about the future are interesting. The book is about 8 years old now, I think. If this sort of thing intrigues you, you ought to read it. It definitely takes a reductionist stand point about the brain and how it works, and we may have the ability to test some of his ideas in the next decade or so.

 

"***PS -- even then retrieval of a particular memory is probablistic. The same person might not remember it the same way twice."


Good point. Our memory of an event or person changes over time, depending on things like the frequency and context the memory comes up in, the specific parts of the memory recalled, the emotional states during recall, and other factors.

But yes, hypothetically, a complete replication would create a being with identical memories. But of course, it's not feasable to replicate something that big down to the atomic level, esp. since the brain is never static enough to allow this.

(And sorry for the typo samiam, I'll try to go m o r e s l ow l l l y y.)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Nov 29 2007, 10:01 AM) [snapback]545641[/snapback]</div>

Thanks tripp. I but a hold on the book in our library and my wife will pick it up for me tonite.

Never say never darwood. Our technology is on a upswing exponentially. Look at a typical x=y^2 curve. Look what we've managed to do in 100 years. I'll bet many could hardly imagine what technology will show us in say 250 years? We'll be dead but it certainly will be interesting.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(samiam @ Nov 28 2007, 06:05 PM) [snapback]545503[/snapback]</div>

Nobody has to read it if they don't want to.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Nov 28 2007, 06:34 PM) [snapback]545512[/snapback]</div>

The impossibility is independent of technology. The impossibility is grounded in the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics. You cannot determine the exact position and velocity of a sub-atomic particle. Not because you lack good enough instruments, but because particles do not have an exact position and velocity.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Nov 28 2007, 06:34 PM) [snapback]545512[/snapback]</div>

True. But to speculate about "exact copies" of people is meaningless. Saying "If we could make an exact copy of a person," is as meaningless as saying "If we could divide by zero." It really does no good to begin a philosophical conversation with a statement that actually has no meaning. (Though of course philosophers do it all the time. Maybe you've missed your calling, Burritos. You could have been a philosopher. )

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 29 2007, 11:43 AM) [snapback]545693[/snapback]</div>

Philosophizing doesn't pay the bills.

I reject your comparison to dividing something by zero, cause that's a mathematical impossibility. Who could have conceived 500 years ago of mass production of identical iphones for nothing more than communication and entertainment.

With today's technology, we have developed machines that are virtually identical, not at the molecular level of course, but enough so that it can perform virtually identically under identical variables despite the subatomic variability.

While we might not be able to fix sub-atomic particles, we can certainly fix biological structures at the molecular level(ie freezing embryos). It's not unreasonable that there could be an improvement of its precision in 100 years.

Are you saying that the predictable and yet random movement of subatomic particles lends to the hypothetical differences of our behaviors? You don't think that our behaviors are controlled by the randomness dictated by quantum mechanics?

Is it likely that the 2 hypothetical replicants would behave identically if exposed to the identical environment?
Or they diverge because of quantum variability?