Consciousness of Machines and Upload of Our Mind
Giuseppe Roncoroni
July 19, 2023 DOI: 10.1201/9781003432944-12 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the science-fiction dream of immortality through mind transfer to machines collapses, because it depends on automata being conscious, a condition the author contends cannot be met. The author also claims that the metaphysics of nature, the myth of a world excluding the observer, was already dead in philosophy and dies again in quantum mechanics. |
Abstract
Most men hold themselves in high regard and care about staying alive. Someone is intent on interrupting the decay of the organism, on counterfeiting the genes that preside over old age and death, but leaves the threat of disease and accidents intact. Artificial intelligence prophesies the advent of an automaton that will imitate man’s behavior in such a precise way as not to distinguish one from the other. Materialism requires that every function of the mind, including consciousness and personal identity, derive from the physics of the brain. Materialism is ready to obtain consciousness in automata and, by copying brain data, to transfer the mind into an automaton. The metaphysics of nature, the myth of a world that excludes the observer, was already dead in the context of philosophy but dies again in the context of quantum mechanics. The science fiction of immortality collapses as the consciousness of automata was a condition for the transfer of the mind.