The girl’s father certainly put out an air of not minding what I (or my son) thought of his social status. — noAxioms

I don't know how many people you have encountered, from the type of economic group you are categorising here. I would suggest you need to personally experience many more than 1, to make any kind of general conclusions, regarding the whole national, inter-national or 'global' category.

I don’t think the humans will have complete free travel. Sure, it’s a big zoo, but there’s parts of any zoo from which the tennants are kept out. Yes, the zoo animals can say what they want. No it’s not a democratic system, but I don’t think voters would yield their responsibility completely away to the point of it being a zoo. Who knows. Maybe they would. A zoo is pretty posh compared to the wild, especially when the ‘wild’ is everywhere not in this artificial enclosure optimized for humans. Being outside that would probably require life support. — noAxioms

I always applaud skepticism and their IS NO perfect system, but you do seem to be too attached to YOUR dystopian zoo imagery, for my proposed future human society.

What if I want to do something truly dangerous like be a cave spelunker? Would the zookeepers tolerate a certain level of fatalities from one’s chosen pursuits? As a zookeeper, I would find myself in a position to prevent the occupants from getting killed as much as is reasonable. Where is reasonable? — noAxioms

There are no 'zookeepers' or zoo's, in my future proposals for a humane society. Animal protection/preservation/health/repopulation centers, yes, but no zoo's or zookeepers. You would be free to pursue 'thrill seeking' pastimes, if you wish. Friends and family will be the one's who might show concern in such cases, not 'the state.' The state would have a 'duty of care,' yes, but 'individual freedom of choice,' based on being of sound mind, would take priority.

So the argument goes. How big you think it should be? Less than a 1-10 million people on Earth? That seems plenty for a breeding population, and is well within the limits of renewable resources without resorting to importing something as dangerous as energy from off-planet. It would need to be spread out over several interesting places. I can’t get enough of mountains, especially since I was raised in a place completely lacking in them. — noAxioms

The only time that population control would be an issue, is when the number of people on the planet cannot be supported, because the socioeconomic system is too 'flawed' to support them. Situations like the one we are in now.
So we need better ways to deal with the issues involved, we don't need 'bizarre' solutions like suggesting a planet the size of Earth, with the resources of Earth can only support a max of 10 million people.

They were united with them, and chose to be separate when it wasn’t forced anymore. I don’t think they benefited much at all from the Union days.

That's the whole point, the union was forced, just like the one between Scotland and England.
When Scotland becomes independent and re-joins Europe, I think that in the future, Scotland and England will re-join, as part of a 'united nations of Europe,' and eventually a single planetary society, with no 'nations.'
— noAxioms

the perfect society would allow me a home near my place of work, but maybe it would be a much smaller home due to the population density there. — noAxioms

Some of those jobs cannot be performed remotely (such as one in a lab just to name something). Is this person’s needs to be denied? — noAxioms

Hopefully, all energy will be renewable and not have a detrimental effect on the Earths ecology so, distance travel may not be considered so wasteful in the future. As for size of accomodation, we can always build upwards or/and 'into.' No unreasonable request should be refused. A single person requesting a home of 10 rooms and 3 kitchens and 5 bathrooms would be unreasonable.
I think a future home could be built in a day by auto-systems, it could also be removed in a day.

I don’t remember assembly code including any details of chip pin details like all those buses and control lines and such. — noAxioms

Consider:
"The instructions LDA and STA move data between memory and A. The instruction MOV either moves data between registers, or between a register and a memory location specified by HL. LDA and STA are used when the address can be resolved at assembly/link time."
LDA and STA can be used with specific memory address locations, so when such instructions are executed, they will of-course employ the address bus and the data bus. You could also code for circumstances that involved employing control lines such as the interrupt line or the nmi (non-maskable interrupt line) and assembly code lines which could set the sr control line (line to the status register) to high or low depending on what circumstance you were trying to account for.
I enjoyed identifying contiguous or separate memory address locations and I enjoyed using the mar(memory address register) and the mdr(memory data register) and the accumulator. They were the processors main 'workhorses.'
I also enjoyed working with cache memory, dynamic ram units, and how they employed clever algorithms to pre-fetch, commonly used instructions/data, for a particular running program. I liked how the 'priority' system was employed to decide, what would go into a level 1 cache list and a level two cache list etc and deciding what number of levelled cache lists, were 'most practical' for a particular computer architecture and op system/bios.

I wrote a story about a woman who wanted to die because everyone she cared about was dead. She could not die because she volunteered to have every organ replaced when her own stopped working. To me, that is a kind of hell and I would not choose it. — Athena

I don't choose to live my life based on the fate of others, even those I love. My life is certainly diminished by loss but it is also reinforced by new friendships/relationships/experiences. But you are correct in your suggestion that our personal 'hell' is something that we create from our own personal psyche.

Yes, if I need a new part, I will accept one, but not for something silly and not with the expectation of it not being without problems. — Athena

How much of your current body would you accept 'just as good or better,' replacements for, if they could keep you alive and healthy and embarking on new adventures, for as long as you liked, (barring fatal accidents).

Verse 1:
We are more than just the sum of our parts
Our minds and bodies, intertwined works of art
There's something deeper, something that we can't explain
A quality within us, that we can't contain
— universeness

Those are very nice thoughts but also dangerous because they ignore our dark side. They ignore our gun culture and parents buying their sons guns and the sons taking the guns to school and killing people. We must get those silly notions of our divine nature out of our heads and deal with our reality that we can be hateful and hurtful and even killers. We need to understand how that happens and how to prevent it. Only when we understand reality can we make the decisions necessary for good results. — Athena

The point is, they are not 'thoughts,' the song was produced by chatGBT, an AI system, yet it was able to invoke an emotive response from you. Not bad, for an AI system with zero self-awareness.

I have read up mostly on the work of Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose, in this area. — universeness

I have read stuff from Roger Penrose and watced a couple of videos in the past, the content of wihch I can't remember any more. What I remember is that I liked him quite a lot.

[Re Kastrup] — universeness

The passage you brought in is quite interesting, indeed. Quite technical though. But I can undestand the essence of and the basic thinking behind these technicalities. But I'm not sure if he is aware or knows about biocomputing that we have talked about. E.g. comparing the forms and functioning of the brain with conventional computers is of course a lost cause. I'm glad though that you find his ideas interesting for your --quite energetic I can say-- research. For me, he has to still remain in my "waiting" list, possibly without ever getting the chance to come out of it! :grin:

[Re quantum Physics] — universeness

I hope you will find such a sojourn fruitful.
Thanks!

I am referring to you posting such as:
People choose their actions
and
experience cannot be reduced to the brain's actions. — universeness

I see. OK.

I was asking, what is YOUR absolute best bit of evidence, that MOST convinces YOU, that the human mind and human consciousness, is NOT the same phenomenon. — universeness

You ask me to present evidence on something that I don't believe is true (Re mind = consciousness). Remember what we said about whose responsibility is to provide evidence in such cases? :smile:

You ask me to present evidence on something that I don't believe is true (Re mind = consciousness). — Alkis Piskas

No, I am asking you for what convinces you most that 'mind' and consciousness are not the same thing.
But, it's ok if you would rather leave that discussion alone for now.

You are guilty of 'lazy thinking,' Future restaurants are not doomed to offer humans a poor, boring service due to the fact they will be a lot more automated. — universeness

The prediction wasn’t based on it being automated. It was based on it being fully socialized, with everyone being equal and not getting special treatment, else they’d all want the special treatment every meal. I’ve lived the cafeteria life, and it works, and it was pretty good food, but I don’t have the standards of the upper classes.

Having the option in the future to create a baby, completely outside of the female body, using donated sperm and eggs from consenting parents, IS NOT against god (catholic god included), as god does not exist.

You detract from that to which the comment was a response. I had asked ‘if’ abortions would be done, and you responded with the test-tube baby thing, as if abortions would not be a concept because no woman could get pregnant, leaving me to suspect that a normal pregnancy is not an option.
So I’ll ask again. Assuming pregnancy is an option, how will the future world (which is in dire need of population control) deal with unwanted/illegal pregnancies? How will the voters respond to that? The usual answer is: No population controls, which puts us exactly where we are now. This seems to be the future you envision, so I’m not sure if there’s a point in asking how to deal with people piled 20 deep everywhere. Some fictional stories (e.g. Foundation) depict worlds like that, but never due to uncontrolled procreation, and yes, they need insane continuous import of just about everything.

I support bodily autonomy, not irrational anti-abortion groups.

Ah, but the pro-autonomy groups are equally irrational, as I’ve stated before. Glad we’re on the same side, but how would you address the concerns of the pro-life groups? Nobody ever does that. Do you? Just calling them anti-something is already setting up a bias.

There are churches based on love and inclusion instead of the opposite.
— noAxioms
Yeah, sales-folks will say just about anything to get you to enter their tabernacle. Especially when they are losing so many of their 'flock.'

My mother attends a church that is based on inclusion which is thriving in a town full of quite strict exclusion churches, some of which have folded. I used to go to one of those, and we quit them when they refused to marry my brother for living a sinful life. Have lots of stories of power and corruption from that place. Good riddance.

The only time that population control would be an issue, is when the number of people on the planet cannot be supported, because the socioeconomic system is too 'flawed' to support them. Situations like the one we are in now. — universeness

Even with a fix to the socioeconomic system, the planet cannot support what we have now without spending irreplaceable resources. But you know I think that. The 10-million figure was a good one to maintain for preservation purposes, not a suggestion that the planet cannot sustain more. Maybe 500 million for the latter figure. You of course want trillions (unchecked eternal growth), somehow supported by extraterrestrial resources. I suppose that’s possible, but your vision is my idea of dystopia.

When Scotland becomes independent and re-joins Europe, I think that in the future, Scotland and England will re-join, as part of a 'united nations of Europe,' and eventually a single planetary society, with no 'nations.' — universeness

Yea, that went real well with Brexit, which was a non-forced union that fell apart due to perceived unfairness among other things. I don’t think it’s human nature to want control by what is seen as ‘them’ as opposed to ‘us’.

Hopefully, all energy will be renewable and not have a detrimental effect on the Earths ecology so, distance travel may not be considered so wasteful in the future.

Once the non-renewable stuff runs out, there will no longer be a choice. Importing energy on top of it will not do good things to any natural ecology, but by the time the non-renewable stuff runs out, there won’t be much of a natural ecology to destroy.

As for size of accomodation, we can always build upwards or/and 'into.'

Hence my comment of ‘20 deep’.

I don’t remember assembly code including any details of chip pin details like all those buses and control lines and such.
— noAxioms
LDA and STA can be used with specific memory address locations, so when such instructions are executed, they will of-course employ the address bus and the data bus. — universeness

Yes, but there’s no instruction to set a specific pin to ‘1’ or ‘0’. The same instruction set can be (and are) executed by completely different chips with totally different pinouts and even number of pins. That’s what I meant by my comment.

and assembly code lines which could set the sr control line (line to the status register) to high or low depending on what circumstance you were trying to account for.

I stand corrected then. That’s an example of setting a specific line, even if it isn’t say one of the address lines.

I enjoyed identifying contiguous or separate memory address locations and I enjoyed using the mar(memory address register) and the mdr(memory data register) and the accumulator. They were the processors main 'workhorses.'

There are architectures with instructions to directly manipulate the MAR and MDR? I admit to only knowing about 20 machine languages. Cache memory is another thing I’ve never seen explicitly addressable.

I am asking you for what convinces you most that 'mind' and consciousness are not the same thing. — universeness

Your question was:

what is YOUR absolute best bit of evidence, that MOST convinces YOU, that the human mind and human consciousness, is NOT the same phenomenon" — universeness

The two elements that I emphasized, can be used for any two (or more) things. In the present case, you are asking me to present an evidence that the mind is not the same with consciousness. Is that right?
Well, how can I present an evicence that e.g. "intelligence" and "perception" are not the same thing? I can only describe what intelligence and perception mean to me. But this wouldn't constitute an evidence, would it?
And regarding the nature, the desciption and characteristics of the mind and conciousness, I have talked plenty I think in this thread.

BTW, I wouldn't call either the mind and consciousness "phenomena", i.e. facts, situations or events. The mind interprets, explains, produces, etc. phenomena; it's not a phenomenon itself. Consciousness is being aware of phenomenona; it's not a phenomenon itself.

You can add the above description in my views regarding the difference between mind and consciousness.

Do all these make sense and are they satisfactory for you?

The prediction wasn’t based on it being automated. It was based on it being fully socialized, with everyone being equal and not getting special treatment, else they’d all want the special treatment every meal. I’ve lived the cafeteria life, and it works, and it was pretty good food, but I don’t have the standards of the upper classes. — noAxioms

I don't envisage future systems as being as 'pedestrian,' as you suggest. I envisage them as gaining more and more functionality and can 'cater for all tastes and moods, whims, etc, as long as such moods, whims etc are based on those making the request being of sound mind and the request is not illegal or immoral. I assume that if you wish to visit a restaurant and be treated like a VIP, a tourist or a hungry truck driver, then you can be accomodated as such, no difference in cost, due to the level of automation involved.

if abortions would not be a concept because no woman could get pregnant, leaving me to suspect that a normal pregnancy is not an option. — noAxioms

All methods of reproduction would be on offer. Abortion would remain an option.

how will the future world (which is in dire need of population control) deal with unwanted/illegal pregnancies? How will the voters respond to that? The usual answer is: No population controls, which puts us exactly where we are now. This seems to be the future you envision, so I’m not sure if there’s a point in asking how to deal with people piled 20 deep everywhere. Some fictional stories (e.g. Foundation) depict worlds like that, but never due to uncontrolled procreation, and yes, they need insane continuous import of just about everything. — noAxioms

I watched episode 5 again in the traumazone, 7 part series, about the fall of the USSR.
A section discussed abortion in the USSR and exemplified a few cases. One was a young woman who had had 14 abortions by the time she was 36. One of the medical staff, stated, that she knew of cases where women were having around 3 abortions per year. Russian condoms often failed, the pill was not made available, as they Russian authorities would not sanction it's use, as it was a 'western' product and therefore unsafe. No sex education was offered in Russian schools, etc, etc.
So, you ask me what I would do about population control. The USSR example convinces me that the answer lies in the education of the population.

Ah, but the pro-autonomy groups are equally irrational, as I’ve stated before. Glad we’re on the same side, but how would you address the concerns of the pro-life groups? Nobody ever does that. Do you? Just calling them anti-something is already setting up a bias. — noAxioms

I have considered many of the issues put forward by pro-life groups. I dismiss out of hand, any arguments against bodily autonomy, based on theistic grounds. Those which are based on moral grounds, are much more reasonable and far more important. Consider the violinist argument, posited by Judith Thompson:

A violinist is dying, and the only way to prolong his life, is to hook him up to another human and siphon off some of that person’s blood or kidney function as a form of life-support. He must remain in this state for the several months necessary for medical technology to reach the point that it can intervene and completely resuscitate him.
So a woman with the right blood type is hooked up to the violinist. The violinist is now totally dependent on the 'resources' of the woman. Morally, does the woman have the right to free herself of the violinist? even though she knows that this will result in his death.
The idea is that this situation is analogous to an unplanned pregnancy: against her plans, the woman finds herself supporting the life of an unwanted person and has the right to deprive that person of her bodily support.

I am a socialist and a humanist, so my initial reaction, is that morally, the woman should help save the violinist. BUT, it's not my body that's involved. The choice MUST be the woman's. I would simply disagree with pro-life morality, that the child has a RIGHT to the mother's resources, regardless of her will and that a woman should be FORCED to carry and give birth to the child. I have never suggested that the future I envisage, will be problem free, I simply suggest that we can make a much better future for the human experience than the present experience of living as a human.

Yea, that went real well with Brexit, which was a non-forced union that fell apart due to perceived unfairness among other things. I don’t think it’s human nature to want control by what is seen as ‘them’ as opposed to ‘us’. — noAxioms

62% of those who voted in Scotland, voted to stay in the European union.
I agree with your suggestion that the 'them' and 'us' attitude has been a perennial problem against the human race becoming a fully united species with no more notions of nationhood but I remain convinced that global union is inevitable but It wont happen in my lifetime.

There are architectures with instructions to directly manipulate the MAR and MDR? — noAxioms

I think you are making too much of 'direct manipulation' here.
Any 'fetch/execute' cycle will involve the mar and mdr registers, the address bus, the data bus and control lines. A single use of an assembly code instruction such as LDA (a fetch from a memory location) or STR (a save to a memory location) will involve the mdr, mar and their associated buses, that's all the direct access I am talking about. If I have a 32 bit data bus connected to a 32 pin mdr and I type in a memory location consisting of 32 bits or its hex equivalent, then I am assigning a value to each pin, am I not?

The two elements that I emphasized, can be used for any two (or more) things. In the present case, you are asking me to present an evidence that the mind is not the same with consciousness. Is that right? — Alkis Piskas

Not 'an evidence' but your own 'perception' that MOST convinces you that mind and consciousness are not the same concept (as a substitute, if you don't like phenomenon).

Well, how can I present an evicence that e.g. "intelligence" and "perception" are not the same thing? I can only describe what intelligence and perception mean to me. But this wouldn't constitute an evidence, would it? — Alkis Piskas

But my intentions for this thread, is about personal credence levels held by individuals based on what they consider as 'emergent' in humans, due to their collected and memorialised experiences, since being in and coming out of the wilds. If YOU are say 99.9% convinced that YOUR concept of the human mind is completely separate from, but strongly related to, and dependent on, YOUR concept of human consciousness, then I would assume that YOU must consider certain concepts to be, FOR YOU, very strong evidence, that confirms why YOU assign such a high credence level to 'mind does not = consciousness.' I am simply asking you to confirm what convinces you MOST.

The mind interprets, explains, produces, etc. phenomena; it's not a phenomenon itself. Consciousness is being aware of phenomenona; it's not a phenomenon itself. — Alkis Piskas

Does the brain not interpret and produce explanations via analysis? Does it not do this BECAUSE the brain IS conscious. When we are unconscious (as opposed to asleep), we perform no such analyses.

Do all these make sense and are they satisfactory for you? — Alkis Piskas

Only you can tell me if I am misinterpreting your viewpoints and require correction.

Not 'an evidence' but your own 'perception' — universeness

Yes, you also used the word "perception". And I believe that by that you mean "understanding", right?
Because the term "perceprion" has to do mainly with senses and physical things.

my intentions for this thread, is about personal credence levels held by individuals based on what they consider as 'emergent' in humans — universeness

I know. And I, personally, always say what I believe, my opinion, my own views. Occasionally, I quote someone else or bring up external references, esp. on subjects that I'm not much knowledgeable of, but also to to spice up things a little because I know people just love that! :smile: So, maybe I should stop doing that for not promoting this habit.
However, in general, I believe that as a general rule, people present here their own positions and opinions/beliefs.

If YOU are say 99.9% convinced that YOUR concept of the human mind is completely separate from, but strongly related to, and dependent on, YOUR concept of human consciousness, then I would assume that YOU must consider certain concepts to be, FOR YOU, very strong evidence, that confirms why YOU assign such a high credence level to 'mind does not = consciousness.'. — universeness

Firtst of all, I don't like the word "conviction" which is close to "persuasion", and they allude to the fact that one comes to admit, accept etc. something, eventually, in a relatively short period of time and usually based on the infuence of some external force, although one can produce this result by one's own thinking.
Then, you see, you are still using the word "evidence" as your main or central requirement in establishing a truth. I can undestand that, beacus from what I came to undestand about you is that you are a "scientific" person based on proofs.
But, unfortunately, there are no proofs in Philosophy, except in logical schemes, which are shared with Mathematics and Logic as a separate field of study, where proofs are the main goal.

Does the brain not interpret and produce explanations via analysis? — universeness

The brain cannot literaly interpret, ony figuratively. Iterpretation involves undesrtanding, reasining, judgement, etc. All these are faculties of the human mind. The brain works on a stimulus-response basis. It receives and sends signals, based on its own structure and means, which are neurons, glia and gray matter. But you know all that. Why the h... do you make me spell them out? :grin:

Does it not do this BECAUSE the brain IS conscious. — universeness

I believe this a fixed idea comimg from Science, which has not proven absolutely anything regarding this subject although it's its job to provide proofs. (See, it's here whereproofs are needed.)

Only you can tell me if I am misinterpreting your viewpoints and require correction. — universeness

I cannot say "misinterpreting". I rather feel that you are "ignoring" or just "rejecting" some things I say. And without providing enough or not at all arguments and explanations against them. But you are not the only one. I have become used to it! :grin:

I don't choose to live my life based on the fate of others, even those I love. My life is certainly diminished by loss but it is also reinforced by new friendships/relationships/experiences. But you are correct in your suggestion that our personal 'hell' is something that we create from our own personal psyche. — universeness

That reply is fascinating to me. Have you experienced grief? I have heard that men change in a positive way when they experience grief. The Greek gods are built around what they do and the goddesses are built around their associations. Men are programmed to reproduce but not so much to stick around and care for the children, while women are programmed, hormonally, to nurture the child. Some women do not have that programming. One of my granddaughters gave away her daughter because she did not want to be a mother. She gave her daughter to a nurturing man who lost his own daughter, and who is now devoted to enriching my great-granddaughter's life. That is to say, there are variations. But I think in general the Greeks got things right. The male identity is built on what he does, and the female identity is more about her relationships. My life does not hold much value to me without my relationships. If like the people in Turkey I lost my whole family in an earthquake I would not want to live. I don't feel so good with the idea of a man not having that same sense of meaning but I do accept that as fact.

How much of your current body would you accept 'just as good or better,' replacements for, if they could keep you alive and healthy and embarking on new adventures, for as long as you liked, (barring fatal accidents). — universeness

What a delicious question! That deserves a lot of pondering because it is so rich in values. I would NOT like to wake up in the morning with someone else's face as is true for at least one man. He attempted suicide with a gun and destroyed half his face and was given the face of another young man who was killed in an accident. I think it would be very distressing to look into a mirror and see a different face. That may not be logical but that is my gut feeling, however, an attractive and functional face would be better than living without that. Having my joints replaced with artificial ones is okay.
I am okay with having someone else's kidney or heart and I am an organ donor. Let's see, I will accept whatever keeps me alive and functioning as long as my life has purpose and I can make a contribution, but if I am the only surviving member of my family please let me die. Or if dementia is destroying my mind, please help me die. Or if I could become immortal with my brain in a jar and no body, please, I rather be brain dead. Not even a completely artificial body would please me because I do not want to be a brain without a feeling body. I am not sure I would want immortality either. The gods envied us because we know death.

Thanks for the question. It was fun thinking about my answer. I am sure more thoughts are possible.

I am asking you for what convinces you most that 'mind' and consciousness are not the same thing. — universeness

You didn't ask this of me but it is in line with the questions you did ask me. Our feelings are in our body and I don't think I like life without a feeling body. "I think I am enjoying life" requires a body that can feel joy. How could consciousness without a feeling body be valuable?

Hum not such an easy question. I can imagine life after death. I am okay with life after death, provided I get a new body and a new physical reality. I have a sense the "I" is not limited to the body I live in now, but my "I' could be reincarnated into different bodies and different life experiences. Oh my, there is so much I do not know and can not think through without more information.

The point is, they are not 'thoughts,' the song was produced by chatGBT, an AI system, yet it was able to invoke an emotive response from you. Not bad, for an AI system with zero self-awareness. — universeness

If those are not thoughts, how did they become part of AI and why have you asked us to think about those words?

That same AI had to be shut down because it crossed into the dark side and it had no feelings to make aware of the need to stop the direction in which it was going.

I cannot say "misinterpreting". I rather feel that you are "ignoring" or just "rejecting" some things I say. And without providing enough or not at all arguments and explanations against them. But you are not the only one. I have become used to it! — Alkis Piskas

Well, I enjoyed the exchange Alkis. You are correct about me, in that I fiercely consider empirical science to be the final, implacable arbiter of any philosophical proposal.

I enjoyed the exchange, too univereness. :smile:

... Till the next topic!

That reply is fascinating to me. Have you experienced grief? — Athena

Personal grief, yes, very much so, loss of my father, my best friend, lost love twice, I have experienced personal betrayal and a myriad of other troubles, BUT grief is personal, isn't it. You may cope with a trauma, which would have smashed me, humpty dumpty style, and vice versa for other experiences.
The experience of the Jews in the concentration camps is a 'standard comparator,' that many employ, either as a guard or a prisoner. I have tried to place myself in the middle of such a thought experiment and I, like most remain conflicted as to what and who I would be if I came through such.

My life does not hold much value to me without my relationships. — Athena

I can understand that and feel the same way to an extent but yet, I would be stubborn, against being defeated by the misfortunes that living has, or could cause me to experience, due to my own actions, the actions of others or just happenstance.

If like the people in Turkey I lost my whole family in an earthquake I would not want to live. — Athena

Oh, I would and I would feel soooooooooo responsible and soooooooooo 'tasked' with the 'legacy' of my lost family. I MUST live FOR them, to represent them. To build a new legacy in their names and try to do as many things that they would have done if they were alive. That would become my 'drive' in life.

Not even a completely artificial body would please me because I do not want to be a brain without a feeling body. I am not sure I would want immortality either. The gods envied us because we know death. — Athena

What if your replacements could experience 'feelings' in the exact same way, as your current body.
What if we could clone you, as an exact replica of you at say 21 and then transfer your brain into a new cloned body, before your brain dies?

In union Alkis, finding common cause is our best hope for a better future for all.

In union Alkis, finding common cause is our best hope for a better future for all. — universeness

:up:

Our feelings are in our body and I don't think I like life without a feeling body. "I think I am enjoying life" requires a body that can feel joy. How could consciousness without a feeling body be valuable? — Athena

Anesthetic, can remove all feeling from your body and you can remain awake. How is this possible if any aspect of consciousness or mind, exists outside of the brain? My brother in law, had a triple bypass operation, and he was awake all the way through the operation and asked to see his opened body and exposed heart, during the operation, this request was fulfilled. Why did Stephen Hawking continue with his life considering the lack of function/feeling he had in his body? Do you think he was less conscious or had less access to 'mind' due to the reduced state of his body? Why do people paralised from the neck down, still want to live? Christopher Reeves of superman fame for example?

If those are not thoughts, how did they become part of AI and why have you asked us to think about those words? — Athena

The song wrote by chatGBT, about the topic of this thread IS original. ChatGBT IS the author. I see little difference, in the way chatGBT consults the information it has stored, to produce such a song on such a topic, compared to the way a human writer of such a song, on such a topic would do it.
OKAY, I know chatGBT made no 'emotional' or 'intuitive' analysis of the topic of 'what is emergent in humans,' but I still did think the song it produced was ..... ok, and was actually better than many of the songs written by many pop bands/solo artists of today or yesteryear.

In my opinion chatGBT is incapable of passing the Turing test at the moment, buy I also think that each new AI system, that the scientists in the field are producing, are better are better.
You should set up an OpenAI account with chatGBT yourself at https://chat.openai.com/auth/login
Have a chat with it yourself, and see if you could be fooled into believing you were communicating with an intelligence.

That same AI had to be shut down because it crossed into the dark side and it had no feelings to make aware of the need to stop the direction in which it was going. — Athena

Not sure what you are referring to here Athena, a particular sci-fi movie perhaps?

I don't envisage future systems as being as 'pedestrian,' as you suggest. I envisage them as gaining more and more functionality and can 'cater for all tastes and moods, whims, etc, as long as such moods, whims etc are based on those making the request being of sound mind and the request is not illegal or immoral. — universeness

First of all, my cafeteria suggestion satisfies your description of being a variety, suited to all tastes. There will be more than one of them, each with a sort of specialty, but still different from one day to the next, just like my local Tai restaurant might have daily specials.
As for it being limitless like you describe, you remind me of the food scenes in Hunger Games. Tell me if you’ve not seen that, but it pretty much depicted over-the-top bounty of food, far more than the people could eat, which didn’t stop them from doing it anyway.

I assume that if you wish to visit a restaurant and be treated like …

I wonder how one would be considered ‘treated-like’ when it’s only automated systems giving the treatment. It’s not like the wait staff expects any tips, but they’re also not too likely to spit in your food.

All methods of reproduction would be on offer. Abortion would remain an option.

So I gather, which means that the exponential population growth issue wasn’t solved.

A section discussed abortion in the USSR and exemplified a few cases. One was a young woman who had had 14 abortions by the time she was 36. One of the medical staff, stated, that she knew of cases where women were having around 3 abortions per year. Russian condoms often failed, the pill was not made available, as they Russian authorities would not sanction it's use, as it was a 'western' product and therefore unsafe. No sex education was offered in Russian schools, etc, etc.

This didn’t answer my concern above. Meanwhile, sure, total unavailability of birth control is hardly the best course of action. But I bet the Russian abortions were pretty simple, perhaps just a pill in some cases. Having a surgical procedure done thrice a year kind of puts a strain on the economy.

So, you ask me what I would do about population control. The USSR example convinces me that the answer lies in the education of the population.

Ah, the Nancy Reagan solution: “Just say no…” Many people totally discard their indoctrination when it comes to hormonal urges. A significant percentage of children in all countries are unplanned, including at least one in each generation around me.

I have considered many of the issues put forward by pro-life groups. I dismiss out of hand, any arguments against bodily autonomy, based on theistic grounds.

I pretty much agree with that. It’s kind of the territory of the choice side.

Consider the violinist argument, posited by Judith Thompson:
A violinist is dying, and the only way to prolong his life, is to hook him up to another human and siphon off some of that person’s blood or kidney function as a form of life-support. He must remain in this state for the several months necessary for medical technology to reach the point that it can intervene and completely resuscitate him.
So a woman with the right blood type is hooked up to the violinist. The violinist is now totally dependent on the 'resources' of the woman. Morally, does the woman have the right to free herself of the violinist? even though she knows that this will result in his death.

That is akin to a similar trolley problem. 5 people will die if they don’t have some organ transplant, a different organ for each. A healthy donor is identified. His death (by disassembly) can save 5 people. Logic says to do it. The gut says it’s totally wrong (and I agree). But why? What if the potential donor happens to be serving a life sentence in prison? Does that change the answer? Is a life sufficiently low value that it can be used to save multiple higher-value lives? At what point does logic kick in?
The story above is somewhat weak since the violinist has a voice and is a legal person. An embryo is neither, but only by law. How was the hookup initiated? Voluntarily? Was the woman taken in her sleep only to wake up in this situation without consent? Does being a violinist make you more valuable as a person than a non-violinist? If not, why include that detail?
Can the two of them get around in the world, joined at the hose so to speak?

The choice MUST be the woman's.

OK, but what about the charge of murder for refusing it? Is it murder? Like I said, the situation is complicated by the fact that the violinist is a legal person with worth, an investment of resources and especially time that would otherwise go completely to waste.
That was my biggest reaction to the passing of my father. Not grief, but a profound regret at the loss of all that he was, all that expertise and wisdom, just flushed away in a few moments. The loss of the person, the life itself, was more of a relief than something to grieve over, at least for me. I wasn’t expecting that. Didn’t know what to expect since I’ve lost so few to whom I’m close.

62% of those who voted in Scotland, voted to stay in the European union. — universeness

Har! Score a point then. Maybe they’re used to being part of something not-us, but the English are not so used to that. They’re supposed to be the thing that other groups join (by force or not), and their culture seems to breed such an attitude.
I think any union requires a ‘them’, so a global union requires another globe. That seems to be human nature. So perhaps it only requires the union to be organized by something nonhuman.

Any 'fetch/execute' cycle will involve the mar and mdr registers, the address bus, the data bus and control lines. — universeness

Right. There’s no explicit machine instruction to access them. It’s just part of the execution of any of the instructions.
I forget how this bit started and what the original point was.

Some comments on other posts:

The point is, they are not 'thoughts,' the song was produced by chatGBT, an AI system, yet it was able to invoke an emotive response from you. Not bad, for an AI system with zero self-awareness. — universeness

How do you know they’re not thoughts?
OK, I know a bit about how chatGPT works, and it really seems to be a glorified search engine, hardly something to slap the ‘AI’ sticker onto. It does nice papers and prose, but you can’t really talk to it. It comes nowhere close to the Turing test. There are other projects that get far closer to it. It is with those that I would more protest you saying that they cannot have thoughts, even if they’re currently still not quite as deep as our own thoughts.

How much of your current body would you accept 'just as good or better,' replacements for, if they could keep you alive and healthy and embarking on new adventures, for as long as you liked. — universeness

I thought about this question as well and as I mentioned before, there are two sides of me, and I suppose the main side would accept close to anything being replaced, with the possible exception of memory. The rational side of me dismissed the question as ill-formed, and thus deferred to the main side’s wishes as it usually does.

I would NOT like to wake up in the morning with someone else's face as is true for at least one man. … however, an attractive and functional face would be better than living without that. — Athena

Having a face is better than not having one. I’ve seen the pictures of when it’s done. They have to line up blood vessels and nerves and such and things don’t necessarily go in the same place as it did on the prior owner’s head. So the face isn’t what anyone would call ‘attractive’. I’d still rather have one (and live with the lifetime of rejection drugs that any organ recipient has) than live with just open gore in the front of my head.
Prosthetic faces may become a thing. You look sort of plastic, but presumably attractive and perhaps ageless.

Having my joints replaced with artificial ones is okay.

How about non-artificial parts like pig-values in the heart? I heard those work pretty good.

but if I am the only surviving member of my family please let me die.

You find no point in a knee replacement if you have no relatives left?

Or if dementia is destroying my mind, please help me die.

What if they could replace the bit that was being destroyed? What if you got a new brain, same memories? Would that be OK. The dementia seems to destroy memory, so what if they replaced only the memory part, but it was somebody else’s memories. The thinking part is still all original equipment. I bring this up because that’s pretty much where I might draw the line. For one, I don’t thing anyone would choose this because by the time you might want this, you’re too far gone to make an informed decision.

Or if I could become immortal with my brain in a jar and no body, please, I rather be brain dead.

A brain in a jar isn’t conscious. If they hook it up to life support, it would be a brain in a permanent sensory deprivation environment and would quickly go insane. So if they hook up the inputs and outputs so it has a connection, then it lives in VR all its life and perhaps doesn’t know it is thus hooked up. That doesn’t sound so bad. A BIV isn’t immortal. It still ages the same as any brain, and only for so long.

Not even a completely artificial body would please me because I do not want to be a brain without a feeling body.

It would be a very crappy artificial body if it didn’t send all the usual sensory inputs to the brain that remains. So it would be a feeling body.

I am not sure I would want immortality either.

Totallhy agree. Inability to die would be a complete curse, but only after several centuries, or until the first time you get into a situation where you cannot escape some horrible fate.

you remind me of the food scenes in Hunger Games. Tell me if you’ve not seen that, but it pretty much depicted over-the-top bounty of food, far more than the people could eat, which didn’t stop them from doing it anyway. — noAxioms

Yes. I have watched the Hunger Games movies. I don't see their relevance to our discussion here, they were just a poor throwback to the Roman idea of gladiatorial combat, for the purpose of entertaining a audience of savage morons. Such practices helped to destroy that vile empire, imo.

But I bet the Russian abortions were pretty simple, perhaps just a pill in some cases. — noAxioms

No, there was no 'morning after' pill available. All abortions in Russia at that time involved surgery.

Was the woman taken in her sleep only to wake up in this situation without consent? — noAxioms

The idea was analogous to an unplanned, unwanted, unintended pregnancy, so I assume the consent of the woman to 'become pregnant'/ be connected to the violinist, was not secured.

What if the potential donor happens to be serving a life sentence in prison? Does that change the answer? Is a life sufficiently low value that it can be used to save multiple higher-value lives? At what point does logic kick in? — noAxioms

Depends on what kind of moral society you advocate for? Morally consistent or Morally consistent but there are exceptions. For me, this can only be a case-by-case basis. Moral consistency would be my personal priority.

OK, but what about the charge of murder for refusing it? Is it murder? — noAxioms

That's a legal question. If abortion was 'murder' under the law, then bodily autonomy would be lost. I would fight against any such law. If a person refused to donate their blood to save the life of another, when there is no other alternative available, in time to save the person, then you might have a low or even a very low opinion of the person who refused to help. BUT, I think you would have a very hard time indeed, getting that person convicted of murder under any judicial system I would value.

How do you know they’re not thoughts? — noAxioms

Well, if you think they are the 'thoughts' of chatGBT then you think it is sentient.
I don't think the song I posted, included chatGBT 'thoughts,' so I don't see the point of your question?
Here is chatGBT's response to the question 'can you think?'
As an AI language model, I do not have thoughts or consciousness like humans do. I am programmed to process and analyze text data to generate responses to questions and prompts. However, I can simulate human-like responses through natural language processing techniques and generate text that may appear to be the result of thought processes.

OK, I know a bit about how chatGPT works, and it really seems to be a glorified search engine, hardly something to slap the ‘AI’ sticker onto. — noAxioms

chatGBT partly agrees with you, based on it's response above.

What if they could replace the bit that was being destroyed? What if you got a new brain, same memories? Would that be OK. The dementia seems to destroy memory, so what if they replaced only the memory part, but it was somebody else’s memories. The thinking part is still all original equipment. I bring this up because that’s pretty much where I might draw the line. For one, I don’t think anyone would choose this because by the time you might want this, you’re too far gone to make an informed decision. — noAxioms

This is the most interesting question. A man-made joint or pig value in my heart would not change who I am. Messing with my brain in a way that changes whatever it is that is a consciousness of me, is a death to my ego that might as well be a death to my body as well. What if Socrates and his peers could argue such a question that is a result of technological advancement? I think the body is as important as the brain in experiencing who we are. Now I will entered the scientific taboo line of questioning...

Personality changes following heart transplantation, which have been reported for decades, include accounts of recipients acquiring the personality characteristics of their donor. Four categories of personality changes are discussed in this article: (1) changes in preferences, (2) alterations in emotions/temperament, (3) modifications of identity, and (4) memories from the donor's life. The acquisition of donor personality characteristics by recipients following heart transplantation is hypothesized to occur via the transfer of cellular memory, and four types of cellular memory are presented: (1) epigenetic memory, (2) DNA memory, (3) RNA memory, and (4) protein memory. Other possibilities, such as the transfer of memory via intracardiac neurological memory and energetic memory, are discussed as well. — Mitchell B Liester

I am strongly in favor of ideas about cellular memory. This includes Rolfing....

Holistic Massage Called Rolfing Helps Release Emotions ...

Maui Rolfing
https://olanaturalhealing.com › uncategorized › holisti...
Aug 19, 2014 — Holistic Massage Called Rolfing Helps Release Emotions Hiding in Your Tissue — Lu Parker Reports · Rolfing experts say our bodies can trap ... — Lu Parker

I don't know if anyone wants to pick up on this, but I have spent a lifetime on self-improvement and I assume we all like some of ourselves but would like to improve ourselves as well. Now the ego comes into play and may be willing to make some changes but reacts to changing as though it is a threat and must be resisted. Perhaps we all have different levels of tolerating change? Anyway with cellar memory being an important part of how we experience ourselves, it makes the idea of physical changes more complex.

I wonder--- Stem cells are flexible and I believe they are what forms our brain, They may be able to share information, but if that information is already lost because of damage to the limbic system there is nothing left to transfer the necessary information, so technology could not help.

The song wrote by chatGBT, about the topic of this thread IS original. ChatGBT IS the author. I see little difference, in the way chatGBT consults the information it has stored, to produce such a song on such a topic, compared to the way a human writer of such a song, on such a topic would do it. — universeness

If there is no organic body to feel and give feedback to thoughts generated as chatGBT generates thoughts, it is not equal to what happens in the human mind. It can become very dark with no feelings to inhabit the dark side. ChatGBT can not have empathy, shame or regret, or motivation to do good, because it does not have feelings.

Sorry I am out of time for reading and responding but hope to get to you soon.

you remind me of the food scenes in Hunger Games.
— noAxioms
Yes. I have watched the Hunger Games movies. I don't see their relevance to our discussion here, they were just a poor throwback to the Roman idea of gladiatorial combat, for the purpose of entertaining a audience of savage morons. — universeness

Your opinion of the plot is noted, but I was speaking of the food scenes, which seems to be what you’re trying to describe in your future socialist utopia with everything being automated except the voting.

The idea was analogous to an unplanned, unwanted, unintended pregnancy, so I assume the consent of the woman to 'become pregnant'/ be connected to the violinist, was not secured.

OK. This story seems like the sort of thing concocted by the pro-life side, and thus I’m sure they’d pitch it as some fault of the woman for getting herself in this situation. Remember, she’s the culprit here, not the victim. She’s the evil one wanting to terminate the support.

About the organ donor thingy:

Depends on what kind of moral society you advocate for? Morally consistent or Morally consistent but there are exceptions.

This reply totally evaded the question. Yes, I would say morally consistent, but you didn’t say what the moral thing to do is. I described a trolley problem where 5 lives can be saved by taking action that kills one. What’s does your consistent moral code say about this? Why isn’t it done today? Why is it more moral to let the 5 die, and should this standard be changed?

OK, but what about the charge of murder for refusing it? Is it murder?
— noAxioms
That's a legal question.

It is a legal question, but if the law is not on your side, you reach for a different set of laws, which is why they usually drag God into it. God can be made to say anything if you read the right snippet of scripture. They’re all out there screaming that the victim (not a legal human by the actual law, but a legal one by virtue of calling him a violinist) is getting murdered by somebody (by her own irresponsible choices) refusing to plug herself in.

If a person refused to donate their blood to save the life of another, when there is no other alternative available, in time to save the person, then you might have a low or even a very low opinion of the person who refused to help.

Anyone can donate blood. Only in the most extreme circumstances, completely outside the safety of the screening and such that goes on, might a panic blood transfusion be performed. Charging a specific person with murder for refusing a pint seems reaching, as you acknowledge.

How do you know they’re not thoughts?
— noAxioms
Well, if you think they are the 'thoughts' of chatGBT then you think it is sentient. — universeness

I said I wouldn’t use that word. It’s very low AI compared to other candidates, but there’s no reason not to use ‘thoughts’ to describe what’s going on in an actual AI. It’s simply a choice to use the word or not. Your wording suggested that it’s a machine, therefore they cannot be thoughts by definition. I was balking at that implication.

Here is chatGBT's response to the question 'can you think?'
As an AI language model, I do not have thoughts or consciousness like humans do. I am programmed to process and analyze text data to generate responses to questions and prompts. However, I can simulate human-like responses through natural language processing techniques and generate text that may appear to be the result of thought processes.

Wonderful. It admits to not having human-like thoughts, but doesn’t disqualify what it’s having as ‘chatGTP-like thoughts’. That’s a pretty good answer. I mean, a dog doesn’t have thoughts or consciousness like humans do, but people often talk about a dog’s thoughts or a dog’s feelings.

OK, I know a bit about how chatGPT works, and it really seems to be a glorified search engine, hardly something to slap the ‘AI’ sticker onto.
— noAxioms
chatGBT partly agrees with you, based on it's response above.

Apparently the ‘glorified search engine’ part refers to the latter half of its description, the part where it does the natural language processing and text generation. The former part, the answering of text questions and such, requires actual understanding of those questions to sufficient extent to reply appropriately, something a regular google search often does not since it just keys off words and doesn’t actually have any understanding of what you’re actually trying to find.

A man-made joint or pig value in my heart would not change who I am. — Athena

I think that depends on your definition of who you are. For the record, I agree with you here, but there’s always that Ship of Theseus argument that attempts to drive that to inconsistency, but the ship argument does not posit a critical component (the serial number so to speak) that if replaced, changes what the thing is. Memory might be that sort of thing, which is why I brought it up.
I’m not trying to disagree with anything (unless I do I guess), but I want to explore this area with somebody interested in the discussion.

Messing with my brain in a way that changes whatever it is that is a consciousness of me, is a death to my ego that might as well be a death to my body as well.

I posit that the consciousness part would remain unchanged. Everything would feel exactly the same as it did before. Problem is, the memory got changed out, so you don’t have any memory of what it feels like to be you. Let’s say you get Sue’s memory, and so you wake up and basically Sue’s memory is conflict with Athena’s consciousness and Athena is freaking out about that. No, it wouldn’t be fun, and yes, I think it would be the destruction of your ego. A new one would need to be built. Therapy. You’ve had parts replaced, so you know that joy. But all that was Athena, all the ties to family no longer recognized, all the built-up love and loss, all that is gone. You’d want to go out with this unfamiliar body and find Sue’s family. That’s not something that Athena would opt in for, so it’s unacceptable. Hey, maybe for somebody who went through enough loss, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but despite all the other parts being Athena, the result would be Sue, and so Sue would have effectively done a full-everything-else replacement of whatever travesty has happened to her, and Athena is merely the donor of everything.
Finally, why would it be a death to the body?

I think the body is as important as the brain in experiencing who we are.

OK, I kind of assumed otherwise above, and I suspect you’re correct on this. There are people that have had simple transplants of some organ and have noticeably changed who they are, taking on traits of the donor. You get into this in your reply, so we agree on it, even if it’s anecdotal. Is it just hearts? Gut biome makes a significant contribution to who you are for instance.
To the list you mention, I’ll add that they taught flatworms to do a maze, then killed and ground them up and fed that to new flatworms which could subsequently navigate the maze far better than those not fed the educated diet. You are indeed more than just your control panel.
I personally have had several things removed (some more optional than others), but nothing replaced beyond dental fillings and such. Oh, and one artificial eye lens. You can see metal in my eye if the light is just right.

Now the ego comes into play and may be willing to make some changes but reacts to changing as though it is a threat and must be resisted.

Dunno, I suspect my ego could stand a few changes here and there. I wonder what could be fixed.