Computers can achieve consciousness, despite their simplicity compared to brains, just as aircraft can achieve flight, despite their simplicity compared to birds.

1. Brains are to Minds as
Birds are to Flight:
Can Software Achieve Consciousness As
Readily As Aircraft Have Achieved Flight?
Transvision 2010
2010 October 22
Martine Rothblatt
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Greater Shearwater, N Mayer

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When a famous scientist states something
is possible, he is almost certainly right.
When he states that something is
impossible, he is probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke

5. Why Don’t Famous Scientists Like
Cyberconsciousness?
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Brains Are Very, Very Complex

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COMPUTERS ARE VERY, VERY SIMPLE

8. ERGO…
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≠

9. BUT…
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≠

10. AND STILL WE FLY!
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11. So What Gives?
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Over-Reaction Against Spooky Cartesian
Dualism Led to Erroneous Thinking That
the Mind MUST Be Embodied in Biology

12. For Sure the Mind Must Be Embodied
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But Software and
Hardware Will Do
As Well as
Wetware and
Fleshware

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But the Brain Is Vastly
More Complex!

14. And Birds Are Way More Complex
Than Airplanes, Jets & Other Aircraft
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Shearwater Gesture, Mayer

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Top Planes Have ≈ 6 Million Parts

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Top Birds Have Over
100 Billion Parts
(Eukaryotic Cells)

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Yet We Fly Pretty
Darn High, Far &
Well

18. Don’t Have to Replicate a Bird to Fly;
Don’t Have to Copy a Brain to Be Conscious
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Shearwater Sketchbook, N Mayer

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As Birds and Jets Differ,
So Will Brains &
Cyberconscious Minds
NO EGGS,
WORMS
OR DOG
PROBLEMS

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FasterMindsMean
FreerThoughts

21. CAN IT BE DONE?
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It’s Clear That Mindfiles Need Not
Even Approach 100%
• Normal People Remember Only a Small Percent of
What They Experience
• Mannerisms, Personality, Feelings, Beliefs, Attitudes
& Values Are
– Not infinitely variable and unique
– Finite sets that repeat across people
– Minor variations not material
– Recollections & combinations create uniqueness
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Fascinating Mindfile Facts:
Estimated Number of…
An adult’s short term
memory
Up to 7 items for 3 - 20
seconds
Recognizable faces Several hundred
Personality sub-types Few dozen
Universal facial
expressions
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Adult’s thoughts
retained per day
7% - 13%
Emotions Few dozen
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One Hour a Day of Mindfile Deposits
Is Enough
• 5 Years to Complete
100,000 Bainbridges
• 5 Years to Upload,
Label & Emotion-Code
100K Photos
• 2000 Hours of You on
Video! (In 5 Yrs)
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25. The Lifenaut & CyBeRev Projects
:
Download
PersonalityMD from
Google Marketplace

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Revival Via Mindware
• Software that enables
equivalent
functionality to a mind
from which mindfiles
were abstracted
• “Auto-tunes” based on
processing of
mindfiles
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So What Makes Us Unique?
• The formula for the number
of unique personality
frameworks available to
mindware, known as a
“repeating combination”,
would be ST, where S = the
number of possible
personality trait scores and
T = the number of possible
personality traits. For our
example, ST = 2015 =
328,080,401,001.
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Antecedents of Mindware
• Gameware Avatars
• Autonomous Cars
• Social Chatbots
• AI Engines
– E.g. Novamente
• Neuro-Electronic
Mapping
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29. FROM MINDFILES TO MINDWARE TO
MINDCLONES

30. Bina48
•The First MindClone Begins
•Located in Bristol, VT USA
•As Seen in
www.lifenaut.com

31. BUT IS CYBERCONSCIOUSNESS ALIVE?
• The expression of a code that enables self-
replication and maintenance against disorder
– SCHRODINGER
• Something that savors reality, contributes to
better enjoyment of reality, a fresh lens on the
wonder of creation -- GALILEO
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“Downloading is Pretty Fucking Far
From Suicide”
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Mindloading Trusts That Our Bodies
Are But a Canvas
“The naked fear of
sleeving [is just]
paranoid essentialism
with its back to the
wall.”
Morgan, Richard. Altered Carbon. Victor Gollancz Ltd., 2002, p.164.
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34. IMPLICATIONS – 4TH DOMAIN OF LIFE
N Mayer at mayer@gmavt.net

35. IMPLICATIONS: Techno-Immortality
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36. IMPLICATIONS – EVOLVED IDENTITIES
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37. THE OBJECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
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CONSCIOUSNESS,
> Continuum of abilities
> When healthy
> To be autonomous
> & empathetic
> As determined by
othersJuries do this for brain intent;
Psychologists can do this for
mindclone consciousness
A Turing

38. Biological Essentialists v. Functionalists
Gerald Edelman
• “One illusion I hope to
dispel is the notion that our
brains are computers and
that consciousness could
emerge from computation.”
Second Nature, Yale
University Press, 2006, p. 9
Today’s Presentation
• Whether brains are computers
is not determinative of
whether consciousness can
emerge from computation
• Birds are not planes but
airflight emerges from jets
• Autonomy and empathy,
semantics and subjectivity,
arise from value-weighted
pattern associations,
regardless of substrate
• Consciousness is what
consciousness does
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39. Conclusion
• The Terasem Hypothesis says that
consciousness will arise from sufficiently
advanced mindware applied to sufficiently
detailed mindfiles.
• It is a falsifiable hypothesis as per Popper
• Let the testing proceed
• I think the odds are in its favor
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