Probability of THS scenario - in light of the last 10 years

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Whether the model can eliminate all possibilities for decline while preserving the capacity to learn may be an interesting technical point, but it's surely not inconceivable. Changes beyond the scope of normal human brain plasticity are another subject again,

Of course, this is messily close to the Kurzwielian Singularity especially if you assume that Moore's Law continues unbounded through 2100. I think that Transhuman Space as written was wise to skirt the edges of the Singularity (Kurzwielian, Vingean, or other) and left it as a theoretical possibility in the setting's future, while game mechanically constraining informorphs to mere superhuman performance.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Processing power doesn't mean much if the program remains the same.
As to back ups that brings up the controversial topic of identity from another thread.

My reply was to the idea of Ghosts becoming obsolete due to computers getting better and always needing hardware. Better hardware means more processing power, more storage (which is irrelevant when you can already host all your memories and lots of other stuff on your box) and RAM (ditto, since you already can run the whole mind). So you can either keep upgrading your box for the low, low price of up to €500 per year, or you can keep your inefficient biobox for much more, and never get to upgrade. You don't have access to Ghost Editing Software that way either. (Below is the reply-to post.)

I suppose an Eidolon is better than a Ghost long-term, since you can probably recompile an Eidolon to a higher Complexity (for higher IQ/speed/etc.) once the time comes, but info on Eidolons seems annoyingly scarce in the primary books.

Originally Posted by Pluribus

I don't have quite so rosy an outlook on people downloading their consciousness into a machine. It's because I don't know anyone who has had a computer that lasted more than ten years of use. Either they got rid of it because it became terribly obsolete, or its circuits just stopped working.

So if you became a living machine you would be constantly replacing yourself so as not to break one become part of an "obsolete" lower class.

[Phil Masters]

Eidolons are discussed in Deep Beyond (p.120). They're AIs constructed as models of known personalities (including fictional characters), based on the best available biographical and externally observed psychological data. This is as opposed to shadows, which are based on brain scans and implanted probes.

I might consider a ghost to be me, for some useful value of "me", and I might consider a shadow to be a worthy heir for myself, preserving a good chunk of my personalities and memory. But an eidolon is just somebody else's sketch of me.

(Of course, the painful truth might be that I could protest every time an eidolon of me did something that I considered a bad caricature of my real nature, whereas a shadow could smirk and tell me that I really did behave like that...)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Eidolons are discussed in Deep Beyond (p.120). They're AIs constructed as models of known personalities (including fictional characters), based on the best available biographical and externally observed psychological data. This is as opposed to shadows, which are based on brain scans and implanted probes.

I might consider a ghost to be me, for some useful value of "me", and I might consider a shadow to be a worthy heir for myself, preserving a good chunk of my personalities and memory. But an eidolon is just somebody else's sketch of me.

(Of course, the painful truth might be that I could protest every time an eidolon of me did something that I considered a bad caricature of my real nature, whereas a shadow could smirk and tell me that I really did behave like that...)

Whether an an eidolon is you really depends on how good it is a copy of your behaviour (including some of its conscious internals). In my opinion, anyway. But that kinda belongs in the Sticky Black Hole Thread, so let's not continue this tangent.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Whether an an eidolon is you really depends on how good it is a copy of your behaviour (including some of its conscious internals). In my opinion, anyway. But that kinda belongs in the Sticky Black Hole Thread, so let's not continue this tangent.

That is a far more extreme opinion that even the one of digital copies in general from the other thread.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Whether an an eidolon is you really depends on how good it is a copy of your behaviour (including some of its conscious internals).

Umm, well, no - because an eidolon is by definition based solely on external observations of the subject personality, so it can't model the internals. At best, it can include someone's educated best guess at what they might be like.

If you have actual information on the internal processes of the subject consciousness, it's not an eidolon, by definition - it's a shadow (or a fragment, or a ghost).

(I don't think that this is sticky thread of doom material yet, because this really does seem to be a matter of definitions. Discussion of whether a ghost, fragment, shadow, or eidolon is "really you" can be taken to that thread.)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Umm, well, no - because an eidolon is by definition based solely on external observations of the subject personality, so it can't model the internals. At best, it can include someone's educated best guess at what they might be like.

Well, Ghosts are based on external observation (the brainscanning nanos that observe the brain as they disassemble it to observe the deeper parts of it). In fact, I suspect that internal observation by a biosophont of itself can never be translated into its Ghost.

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

If you have actual information on the internal processes of the subject consciousness, it's not an eidolon, by definition - it's a shadow (or a fragment, or a ghost).

I thought that an Eidolon is built with a cross-reference to a Shadow exactly to increase similarity to the biosophont version.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, Ghosts are based on external observation (the brainscanning nanos that observe the brain as they disassemble it to observe the deeper parts of it). In fact, I suspect that internal observation by a biosophont of itself can never be translated into its Ghost.

We seem to have a difference in definitions here. By "internal observation", I meant "direct observation of the internal physical structure of the brain". So ghost brainscans are as "internal" as things can get; shadows are also based on "internal" scans, albeit not as detailed. Thus, ghosts and shadows are based on knowledge of what the subject brain actually does; eidolons are best guesses based on crude phenomenological assessment of the outputs of those systems.

I assumed that this distinction was obviously rather large - it's at least the difference between a molecular-scale replica of a thing and a quick snapshot photo of the thing.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I thought that an Eidolon is built with a cross-reference to a Shadow exactly to increase similarity to the biosophont version.

That's just the GURPS game mechanics, which are even more of a crude blunt instrument. Eidolons and shadows are both digital intelligences that behave a lot like human minds in various crucial ways. The game templates are similar because both can behave much the same way for game purposes. But one is a fairly meticulous model of a "real" (in the game world) person, and the other is basically a work of fiction (even in the game world). Heck, some eidolons are explicitly based on fictional characters, or historical figures for whom the hard evidence for psychological modelling is basically non-existent.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

We seem to have a difference in definitions here. By "internal observation", I meant "direct observation of the internal physical structure of the brain". So ghost brainscans are as "internal" as things can get; shadows are also based on "internal" scans, albeit not as detailed. Thus, ghosts and shadows are based on knowledge of what the subject brain actually does; eidolons are best guesses based on crude phenomenological assessment of the outputs of those systems.

I was using internal as in 'what information the conscious mind directly gains from sensory and subconscious sources'.

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

That's just the GURPS game mechanics, which are even more of a crude blunt instrument. Eidolons and shadows are both digital intelligences that behave a lot like human minds in various crucial ways. The game templates are similar because both can behave much the same way for game purposes. But one is a fairly meticulous model of a "real" (in the game world) person, and the other is basically a work of fiction (even in the game world). Heck, some eidolons are explicitly based on fictional characters, or historical figures for whom the hard evidence for psychological modelling is basically non-existent.

I didn't mean in the way like templates, I meant in practice, it would seem logical that if you don't want to Ghost yourself, but want an Eidolon, you'll Shadow-scan and use the other people's info on you combined with the Shadow-derived info to produce the closest Eidolon. Do Eidolons have Amnesia like Shadows? If not, then such an Eidolon looks like more of a person than a Shadow.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I was using internal as in 'what information the conscious mind directly gains from sensory and subconscious sources'.

That seems curiously like the position you were arguing against over on the other thread. Perhaps we should go back there.

On the other hand, if the conscious mind has information from sensory and subconscious sources, or from any sources, that information necessarily is stored in the physical state of the brain. If you copy the brain exactly, you have copied the information; if you simulate the brain, you have simulated the information. So a ghost at least would seem to have a copy of the internal self-awareness of its original, by hypothesis.

Bill Stoddard