Thursday 29 September 2011

Consciousness fusion: consciousness upload without brain scan

One of the known possible consciousness transfers is a gradual replacement of brain regions with artificial blocks. To me a problem with this approach is that even if the regions are small, there still must be the scanning procedure to extract not only functionality but the memory as well, because the brain has memory and it is stored in its network connections. Another problem in my opinion is that all this seems very unrealistic: keeping the brain alive and properly functioning with embedded artificial circuits.

There must be a simpler procedure to transfer the consciousness into the artificial brain. Start with a conscious but fairly empty artificial brain which is associated with a body similar to human, a robot. Now connect all sensory inputs from the robot to the real brain. At the same time shut down (or force to ignore) the sensory inputs of the real body keeping the real brain alive. Attach motor functions of the real brain to the robot. The artificial body of the robot is now governed by two independent minds: the artificial and the real. The artificial mind would be quite passive because of learning, so mostly the real mind would be responsible for the behaviour of the robot. After some short time the real mind starts to associate itself with a robot – with all its sensory inputs coming from and motoric functions acting through the robots body. After longer time the memory of life experience builds up synchronously in both minds the real and the artificial; although the real mind has its own memory baggage – the life before the connection. After even longer time, the percentage of pre-connection experience decreases. It might be possible to revoke older memories like it happens with a repeating recollection which overrides the older memory, hence moving the surrogate memories of older life to the artificial mind. At some moment the old memories of the real brain can be shutdown. Once this is done the system represents two identical minds one of which is real and the other is artificial. After this, switching off the real mind will not change the conscious state because that state is the same in both minds.

The net effect of all this process is a gradual transfer of the mind from the real brain into the artificial without conscious experience being interrupted. Obviously you would loose all your real memories obtained prior to connection. Is it worth it to live forever?

Thursday 22 September 2011

Fuck Google Maps Offline III

This is to replace two previous my posts "Maps Offline with Tile Viewer (part II)" and "How to browse Google Maps offline"

A few years ago I wrote my own tile viewer for viewing Google Maps tiles. Then I created a quite elaborate system for downloading tiles from Google servers. That all failed miserably. For the viewer I did not have much time for full application development. For the downloader I found that Google cleverly fights with such smart-asses like me. All in all I figured out that the simplest solutions are often the best. And below is the way I found practical for all my needs.

You need:
0 Working Internet Explorer (IE), if you are using Unix OS run it in Virtual machine
1. iegmsas console program
2. SAS.Planet (optional if you have your own tile viewer)
3. TrueCrypt (optional if you do not intent work with Tbytes of volumes)

Starting from the bottom up.

3. TrueCrypt is a program, which easily create a virtual hard drive. This program is necessary for the cache because if you have above 10-20 Gb of tiles moving the cache around becomes impractical. Instead TrueCrypt has all your cache in one file. If you are just starting creating you cache you can ignore this point at all and worry about it later.

2. SAS.Planet is a nice but crooked program for viewing and handling tiles. Its advantage is that it is the best program that exists, quite reliable, and with impressive functionality. A big disadvantage is that it is written in Russian and English version is way not too intuitive and user friendly. [Maybe it is done intentionally.] I am using the English version. It is very satisfactory once you get used to it. This program has its own built-in downloader for different map services including Google maps. But it does not work reliably because as I mentioned above Google knows about little fuckers and tries to prevent this kind of activity.

1. iegmsas is a simple console program which reads IE cache and steals tile files from there. You can download C++ source code here http://mazonka.com/bin/iegmsas.cpp or Windows executable here http://mazonka.com/bin/iegmsas.exe

* iegmsas takes two optional arguments N and T with default values 1 and 300 as
iegmsas 1 300
N is a number to check the IE cache; 0 for infinite loop;
T is the time delay between cache cheking

* iegmsas tries to read the directory HOMEDRIVE\HOMEPATH\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
Which is correct on XP, but different on other Windows like Win7
To change the default path create a file 'iegmrip.in' and write in it a line
' C:\Documents and Settings\Davy\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\'
No quote marks. Mind 2 spaces at the front. Fix the user name and the cache path.

* iegmsas creates two directories 'cache' and 'gm' where tiles are copied. The first directory stores the tiles in the format for SAS.Planet. The second directory 'gm' stores the tiles in the format for OMTileViewer. So basically files are duplicated in these directories. The only important difference is that only 'gm' directory is checked by iegmsas before copying new tiles. So if you remove 'gm' directory iegmsas will copy all tiles from IE cache.

0. IE can be left with arrow key pressed if you press an arrow key and the press Alt or another key not releasing the arrow key. If you need a more elaborate navigation send me e-mail, and I will send you programs which make IE navigate in more complex way, for example, follow the roads.

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Believing in Strong AI

People not believing in Strong AI will exist even after the technological singularity like all those who still believe in immortal soul.

Monday 12 September 2011

Questions, questions...

There are questions which are difficult to answer. Inquiring mind trying to be consistent answers them according to its own culture, not science. The very concept of knowledge fails in such areas of cognition.

Question 1. What is the ultimate cause of everything? What is the creator of the Universe? If the beginning of the universe had a creator then who is the creator of the creator? If the creator made himself, what is the reason of such creation?

Question 2. Is there any mind in the Universe different from ours? Another mind may be different so much that interaction with it may be impossible or virtually impossible.

Question 3. Is the Universe controlled by determinism? Quantum physics tells us that quantum processes are fundamentally non deterministic for any observer. So the question is, is it non-deterministic for the Universe itself as well?

Question 4. Is there free will in a deterministic world? Assuming, that the quantum world is not needed for explanation of intelligence and consciousness, how certain laws create your own personal free will?

Question 5. How the past can be multiple? The double-slit experiment proves multiple histories ....

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Theory, reality, and a white car

I have a theory that my car is white. The facts are that my car was white when I was buying it. Yesterday it was white, and every day earlier I saw it being white. Now the prediction of my theory is that tomorrow my car will still be white, because I have a law in my theory that my car is white always. This theory is not reality, it is just a theory. Because it might happen that the car will get painted to some other colour. In that case my theory would fail. The law would be broken by reality.

My theory is that the words: theory, knowledge, memory, word, concept have one root of meaning. Every word in a language is some kind of theory with its predictive power. We use language constructs to model the reality only eventually to be able to make predictions. In situations when we can descent to greater details of the model, more precise description is possible; for example, science theories. In other cases when the model is difficult to break into composites, we invent a concept, label it with a word, and use that word in a context to pass the information about future events; for example, knowledge or thoughts. I think that my car is white. Here I pass the model of my perception of the car. You would be surprised to see me not surprised seeing that my car is not white, because I told you that I think it is white, unless I lied. Lie is another concept quite different from think. In your model of me you may assume that I may sometimes lie. So your prediction of future events consists of many theories and concepts put together. The scientific method is built in our language, which appears to be the only way to describe the reality, via models and theories even if the models and theories do not look like models and theories in their usual meaning.