Worm’s brain mapped and replicated digitally to control obstacle-avoiding robot.
This article is 9 years old. Here’s the OpenWorm Wikipedia page.
Edit: still haven’t mapped the brain but here’s the official site and [the github] (https://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm)
Well that sent me down an interesting but short
rabbitholewormhole, ending here. Glad to see I’m not alone in thinking most forms of consciousness copy or transfer that get discussed are actually involving murder/death of the original, even if the resulting copy believes itself to be the same entity and people around it treat it as such.I’d absolutely be one of those “I ain’t getting in that transporter” people on Star Trek unless convinced that it truly was a transfer of consciousness, not a copy and destroy.
Mind you, I’d love for that not to be the case, and would love to be convinced otherwise. It kills my enjoyment of stories that are centered around that sort of technology sometimes.
Mind uploading may potentially be accomplished by either of two methods: copy-and-upload or copy-and-delete by gradual replacement of neurons (which can be considered as a gradual destructive uploading), until the original organic brain no longer exists and a computer program emulating the brain takes control of the body.
Oddly, the bolded ship-of-Theseus kind of approach doesn’t bother me as much - maybe because it feels akin to the continuous death and replacement of individual cells, but if challenged I might have a hard time defending why this bothers me so much less than the Transporter or even Altered Carbon approach.
I was led into the Connectome page which I found quite interesting
Tractographic reconstruction of neural connections via DTI
Oh yeah that’s fascinating for sure!
The significance of the connectome stems from the realization that the structure and function of the human brain are intricately linked, through multiple levels and modes of brain connectivity. There are strong natural constraints on which neurons or neural populations can interact, or how strong or direct their interactions are. Indeed, the foundation of human cognition lies in the pattern of dynamic interactions shaped by the connectome.
You’re coming at this from a slightly askew angle. Consciousness is holographic - that is, it’s complex behavior arising in the interaction of a more complex system. There’s nothing “more” to it than what we see. The transporters from startrek, which destroy then reproduce exactly, would change nothing about your experience. You’re just a complex arrangement of atoms, and it doesnt matter where that arrangement occurs so long as it’s unique. There is no “you”, there’s just “stuff” stuck together in a way that lets it think that it can think about itself. A perfect reproduction would result in the same entity, perfectly reproduced.
A perfect reproduction would result in the same entity, perfectly reproduced.
It would, but I remain convinced that the continuity of my experience would end, same as if I died, and the entity who came out the other side would believe itself to be me, and believe itself to be unscathed, but actually exist only until the next time it got into a transporter, when the cycle would happen again.
continuity of my experience would end
why? what property is altered that would ‘end continuity’? kinda just sounds like a personal delineation… a personal preference. like being annoyed at being ‘interrupted’.
I don’t think I can defend my position very cogently or I’d argue against other interpretations more vigorously - and as I’ve said I’d love to be wrong. It’s certainly at or beyond the depth of my understanding of consciousness, but that doesn’t mean I accept that yours is necessarily more valid. (no snark intended with that comment)
When I bring it up I get challenged to articulate why I feel that way and inevitably get presented with a question like yours that I can’t answer - but generally no one gives me a “here’s why you are wrong” argument, they just give me “you can’t differentiate between what you’ve posited and a nondestructive consciousness transfer and therefore you are wrong.” I maintain that my lack of ability to articulate that difference reflects poorly on me, but doesn’t actually prove I’m wrong.
For example, I don’t think my inability to articulate a ‘property that is altered’ represents a weakness in my position, and I’m not sure a property needs to be altered for my understanding to be true.
Using (very poorly and atypically) the ship of Theseus example, I think we’d agree that if I had two absolutely identical sets of shipbuilding materials, down to the atomic level, or further, down to the state of all observable properties of that matter and the particles that make it up, (I have no idea how one would achieve such a thing), and built a ship from one set of those materials, then vaporized that ship and built another that was 100% identical using the second set of those materials, those ships would be two identical but distnict entities. I don’t think I’ve seen an argument that convinces me that the same wouldn’t be true for pulling my consciousness (ephemeral and subjective as it may be) and body through a transporter or other such destructive process.
Your argument feels like you are telling me that if I use a replicator to make two different but identical cups of earl grey hot they are actually the same cup of tea, when plainly they are not. Considering (sticking with star trek) the stories of duplicates due to being stuck in the “pattern buffer” or similar handwavium, it seems clear that the ST transporter is capable of creating multiple entities. The only difference between a normal transporter experience and one of those freaky transporter accidents seems to be whether the two entities are both alive at the same time.
COULD there be (since we’re in the realm of scifi anyway) some method of transferring consciousness that wouldn’t seem like death to me? Yes I’m sure there could. But I don’t think I’ve seen one in any popular scifi, at least not that I can think of right now.
youre not wrong in that cloning you twice would immediately create 2 distinct entities. and their consciousness/brains would immediately differentiate. so? now theres 2 of you.
i dont see the problem with there being 2 versions of you instead of the 1 that was destroyed and recreated in a transporter. its the experience that makes the differentiation, and if there is only 1 of you at a time there is no differentiation. only one of you continues experience, there you are.
and if there is only 1 of you at a time there is no differentiation. only one of you continues experience, there you are.
In my interpretation it’s a different one of me, and that matters. Granted, I don’t expect either of us are on a path that is likely to convince the other, but fundamentally that’s my objection. (see my two different ships example)
Its a huge difference. I for one like waking up after I go to sleep, if I didn’t wake up then the real “me” ceases to exist.
Similar to a transporter, you can never be truly sure its the original “you” waking up on the other side.
We see someone’s POV going through a transporter, you just see where you are, sparkles, and now you’re somewhere else. The unease probably comes from the uncertainty. The mere fact we can’t ascertain what really happens in a transporter to your consciousness is very suspect in a universe like Star Trek where we find science babble for everything.
Though, think of it for a moment. Your atoms are being torn apart and the structure is being rebuilt somewhere else. That totally just sounds like you die. I wouldn’t want to go in there either.
Your atoms are being torn apart and the structure is being rebuilt somewhere else. That totally just sounds like you die. I wouldn’t want to go in there either.
Exactly.
Again though, if the technology were actually real, I would expect that there would be a laymen-friendly version of why it wasn’t actually death that I’d be able to accept. I just haven’t seen one in all the times I’ve had this discussion.
Think of an alternative scenario, not transportation but rather duplication. The original stays where it was, but a copy gets created elsewhere. To the copy, it will seem as if it got transported there. To the original, nothing will have happened.
Now you kill the original.
The only difference is the timing of ending the original.
Ah, but it wouldn’t be a copy of the original. In a hypothetical star-trek transporter accident that results in a duplicate, there would be an instant of creation where the dupe and original would be truly identical - and then the question would be which one of those two is ‘you’? They’d be experiencing identical things, so how could you tell them apart? What would even be the point, they’re identical, there is by definition no difference between them. The differences would only come once the duplicate is exposed to different (for lack of a better term) ‘external stimuli’ than the original, like different angles of seeing the transporter room or the sensation of suddenly and rapidly growing a goatee. Your perception wouldn’t continue with the duplicate because your experience would be different than that of the duplicate’s (for example, you wouldn’t have mysteriously grown a goatee).
If you destroyed the original and then made the duplicate, it would start at that moment of total equivalence, but there would be no deviation. There’d just be one version, that was identical to the original, moving forward through time. ‘You’ would just go on continuing to be you. Consciousness isn’t a ‘thing’ - it’s not magic, its just a weird state that arises in sufficiently complex systems. You and I and everyone else in this thread aren’t special, we’re just extremely densely packed networks that have the ability to refer to themselves as an abstract concept.
It’s a similar thing to the classic “But how do I know that what I see as the color green is what you see as the color green” question. The answer is that the “color green” that we see isn’t real, ‘green’ is just a nerve impulse that hits a network. Each photoreceptor just sends a signal. If we were computers the world would be represented as an array of values, which results in the much clearer “How do I know what I see as G_101.34 is what you see as G_101.34” just isn’t quite as punchy a question.
“what property is altered”
Ummm, the part where you are a continuous object that is suddenly disassembled.
Dont be intentionally obtuse. Yes, this is a ship of thesis type problem, but there’s a very clear point when you stop being “you” - when you’re a stream of atoms. Although many versions of a teleporter don’t transmit the atoms, only the data of how they’re arranged. In that case, you are very distinctly a photocopy, as no original atoms remain.
In the case of atom transfer, you stop being you during the time you are a bundle of atoms with no consciousness. Some people believe we’re like a forever stew and if you shut it down like that and reboot it, it’s not the “same” stew anymore because it wasn’t just the emergence of the consciousness, but the specific emergence itself. Essentially You v1 died in its sleep and You v2 seamlessly took it’s place without knowing. Tho that line of thought could applied to sleeping and loss of consciousness during surgery.
All of this is to say it’s not a cut and dry answer and people claiming there’s a diffinitive, clear cut answer are incorrect. It’s a complex question that touches on the very nature of our existence and is still hotly debated. Even academics who believe we are purely chemical machines debate exactly how that works.
As an academic with a great deal of experience in this field, I can quite confidently say that it’s not a debated topic at all. At least, not among academics. We’re (somewhat predictably) called to debate it with representatives of the various religions and spiritual creeds on an almost continuous basis, though.
And it really isn’t academically debated - topics surrounding it, like the nature of the conditions leading to the formation of networks which form a ‘mind’ admittedly are debated, but the fundemental truth that a ‘mind’ is a holographic pattern arising from said network is quite a settled topic, and has been for thirty-some years now.
Ok, so what is the exact process that creates consciousness? Cus that’s what I’m saying is debated but you apparently have that answer. So what EXACTLY, down to the atomic level, is consciousness? What processes and how do they emerge into consciousness?
I’ll be waiting for your exact, undebated answer.
deleted by creator
The physical world is the hologram.
Between saccades, fnords, and confabulation, I don’t trust a single thing my senses tell me. But the one thing I know for sure is that I’m conscious.
So, knowing that only consciousness is “real”, why would I assume it can be recreated through atoms (which are a mere hallucination)?
Ah, but how do you know you’re conscious?
To quote Searle: Should I pinch myself and report the results in the Journal of Philosophy?
Alas, philosophers answer questions about the interrelation of minds, but not what a mind actually, chemically, is. They can extemporize at great length on the tendencies of a mind, the definition of consciousness, the value of thought, the many many vagaries of morality. They cannot, unfortunately, sit down and draw a picture of a mind. Many good and important questions can be answered by philosophers, but not every problem can or should be assessed with the tools they have.
You may be conscious, and you may have many long and deeply opinionated thoughts about what it means to be conscious, and how you can know that you are in fact conscious, but you cannot tell me what consciousness looks like. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t really care.
I don’t know if you’ve ever done this, but you should sometime present an engineer with the trolley problem. I’ve done this many times, and the invariable result is that they will ask endless questions to establish the parameters and present endless solutions within those parameters so that nobody has to die at all. It is, in short, a problem. Not an ontological tool for unlocking hidden understanding, which falls under the purview of your ‘philosophy’, but a practical problem. Like how you’re going to prevent some big mean mother-hubbard from tying you to the hypothetically metaphorical trolley tracks. And the solution? Is a gun. And if that don’t work, use more gun. Like this heavy caliber tripod-mounted little old number designed by me. Built, by me.
And you best hope, not pointed at you.
You’re presupposing the superiority of science. What good is knowing the chemical composition of a mind, if such chemicals are but shadows on the cave wall?
You can’t actually witness a rock, in its full objective “rock-ness”. You can only witness yourself perceiving the rock. I call this the Principle of Objective Things in Space.
Admittedly, the study of consciousness is still in its infancy, especially compared to study of the physical world. But it would be foolish to discard the entire concept when it is unavoidably fundamental. Suppose we do invent teleporters and they do erase consciousness. Doesn’t it say something about the peril of worshipping quantification over all else, that we wouldn’t even know until we had already teleported all of our bread? The entire field is babies. I am heavy ideas guy and this is my PoOTiS.
It’s not about you being copied and destroyed. It’s about of continued consciousness. You are continually being killed and replaced by neurons dying off and others replacing the function. The problem is getting the information off the neurons without copy and kill. The key would be continuous transfer of neurons over time to a more longlived replacement. So you is still you and not you thinks it’s still you. Also… It’s up for debate if that matters as you are still a copy if you do nothing. But it solves the continued consciousness problem.
Extremely old news, but still very cool.
We used to have one of these roaming around my college compaci lab, hooked up to a big red bluetooth button that would recompile the neurological structure when pressed. When we were feeling particularly nasty (or they were waxing particularly poetic), we used to challenge the humanities majors to push the button and ‘kill’ the worm.
I’m not particularly proud of the fact I made quite a few people break down completely with the implications of asking them to do that - or more sadistically, by repeatedly pressing the button and asking them why it mattered. I got punched in the face by a vegan for that one, which was fair enough tbh. Anyways, the reality of the project really isnt something most people are prepared to address.
I think it’s good that you made some people come to solid conclusions regarding their views on the matter, but I’m sure it didn’t win you many friends.
Trauma as a problem solving tool… hmm…
Never said it was the best* method lol
But you did seem to imply that it was a good method.
I hoped the not winning friends part would have prevented that
I had a former summer camp kid come up and credit me with having given them their “first existential crisis” (for explaining that when you die, “you just cease”) which I am proud of.
Damn dude, why you gotta do 'em like that? Hope someday he finds psychelics or something lol
They were actually pretty grateful, feeling it had set them up for a lot of positive realizations down the line. We play D&D now and they’re working on their masters, so I guess they weren’t too badly scarred…
How old were they at the time and how did the subject come up?
Not very satisfying answers I’m afraid, they were probably 8-10 and I have no idea how we got onto the topic since this was 15+ years ago.
But why are you proud? Or was that more tongue-in-cheek?
I don’t know why the person you’re replying to causes me so much revulsion. Probably resonates with some people I’m not in touch. Anyways, live moves on and I decided to block that person.
Life’s too short to tolerate asswholes
Yeah tbh I was trying to find the bright side of the story but I don’t think it came off that way.
Hmm seems odd to me. I personally would not have even thought anyone would have second guessed pressing the button.
Not even the vegan?
Nope there is no actual worm in the box, only magic smoke.
But how the information was presented matters, especially when people are unfamiliar with the topic.
Beware the T0.001
Oh neat, we can give Legos depression.
Can worms be depressed?
To subterranean levels.
Yes.
Neat. We’ve seen a man with a brain half eaten by a worm, and now we get to see brains made of worms.
Can we get a robot with a RFK brain? Don’t know the use, though.
RFK sweating bullets
He should feel like a proud papa. Hell, they should call it RFK jr.
Can we please never refer to RFK Jr as RFK? Honestly I’d be fine if we never mentioned him at all, but letting him take over the name of the real RFK is a fucking travesty and I will not stand for it.
Why is this post not marked NSFW(not safe for worms)?
Is this like an RFK joke or some shit?
who the hell is RFK?
I appreciate you not knowing. He’s a Kennedy that was (?) running to be president. He had a brain worm.
he had a brain worm? like literally? not just like a hyperbolic way of calling him weird?
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/09/politics/rfk-jr-parastic-worm-brain/index.html
The weirdest part? Looking for an article, I did a Google search for “rfk jr brain worm”, and for some reason, at the bottom of the page, there was a little blurb telling me that there was a link removed under the DMCA, the original content being hosted at Onlyfans.
Giggity?
yeah
That’s all very well and good and all, until it meets another worm and wants to talk. Perhaps one of the opposite gender…
Wow, that title was a rollercoaster!
