wfz said:
I'm aware that our brains never shut down, and I'm also aware that our brains also show more activity during parts of our sleep than it does while we're awake, but would our brain not shut down if we were in some sort of cryogenic sleep? What would theoretically (or literally?) happen to our brains if we were in such a state? If our brains stay active, do we dream or are otherwise aware of our being alive? If so... could we technically live forever in that sleep? |
My conciousness shuts down every night, I don't believe a little discontinuity in the movement of every atom will matter.
Conciousness tends to lag out now and then too. Never been driving and suddenly wondering how you have already ended up 10 minutes later with no recollection of the journey in between?
I don't know exactly what conciousness is, but I do believe it is closely tied to the brain.
And I think philosofists will be shaken much more then religious people once we're able to make a real thinking AI, that can be copied, saved and restored. Simulating a human mind is much further off as is recording the state of a human mind. But I don't think we need to go all the way down to the atomic or quantum level to make a copy. I believe the mind is part of the software, not part of the hardware.
I agree on the part that the 2 minds will instantly diverge from each other since they can never have the exact same input. Simply letting each person know who is the copy and who is the original will make a huge difference in their internal state. And who knows maybe some random number generator does play a part in certain decision making. Resorting to coin flipping and asking the magic 8 ball is a common practice after all.