Intergalactic Summit

-Unattributed

-Unattributed

What are we, really? What does it truly mean to be alive in the first place, to be conscious? The answers to these questions lie within the realms of neuroscience and physics, but also have philosophical and metaphysical implications.

The human brain is a network of approximately one hundred billion neurons. Different experiences create different connections which bring about different emotions. Rationality and emotional resilience work the same way. These are neural connections that can be strengthened. Whatever you are doing at any time, you are physically modifying your brain to be better at it. The constantly shifting networks of neurons within the brain are rewriting who we are, at every second of every day.

At the same time, our brains are constantly steeping in a soup of neurotransmitter chemicals which can have a profound effect on the way we think. For example, Norepinephrine triggers a defensive state when we feel that our thoughts have to be protected from the influence of others. If we are then confronted with differences in opinion, the chemicals that are released in the brain are the same ones that try to ensure our survival in dangerous situations. In this defensive state, the more primitive reptilian parts of the brain interfere with rational thinking and the limbic system can knock out most of our working memory, physically causing narrow-mindedness. On a neurological level it reacts as if we`re being threatened, even if this threat comes from harmless opinions or facts that we may otherwise find helpful and could rationally agree with.

All this complex and almost schizophrenic subconscious behaviour is the result of a vastly parallel distributed system in our brain. There is no specific centre of consciousness, the appearance of a unity is, in fact, each of these separate circuits being enabled and expressed at one particular moment in time. Direct modifications to this can have surreal consequences that bring into question what and where consciousness really is.

If your left cerebral hemisphere were to be disconnected from the right, as is the case in spit-brain patients, you would normally still be able to talk and think from the left hemisphere while your right hemisphere would have very limited cognitive capacities. Your left brain will not miss the right part, even though this profoundly changes your perception.

One consequence of this is that you can no longer describe the right half of someone`s face. But you`ll never mention it, you`ll never see it as a problem or even realise that something has changed. Since this affects more than just your perception of the real world and also applies to your mental images, it is not just a sensory problem but a functional change in your consciousness. The consequence of this, is the knowledge that the nature of our consciousness is directly derived from our neurological state and is not separate from it.

Just as pixels on a screen can express themselves as a recognizable image when in unity, the convergence of neural interaction expresses itself as consciousness. At every moment we are in fact a different image. A different entity when mirroring, when hungry, when reading this post. Every second we become different persons as we go through different states. Our minds are like a river, endlessly flowing, never remaining the same.

There is no true 'consciousness' what we internally perceive as a persistent self is in fact an illusion created by our minds. There is nothing persistent about us. The person you were only 5 minutes ago is gone, and a new you has replaced them, supplanting the prior mental state with a new one. This is how we think. When new thoughts enter our minds, the old ones disappear, the image on the screen changes.

However, it is understandable, why many still rail against the idea of cloning, who fail to see it as true immortality. Despite the fact that cloning is no different in terms of our mental organisation then being in a coma for long enough for our cells to entirely replace themselves, biological intelligences have a deeply rooted sense of consciousness only being conceivable from within an organic brain.

But there is another way to preserve integrity of self, one that makes you very, very difficult to remove in any fashion, and for that reason, these things are outlawed by CONCORD. These methods are mirrors of the same process, and one I believe, will lead us into a new future.

It is possible through the use of multiple clones, and mindlinks, to create the human equivelant of a RAID system. The data that comprises oneself is spread across multiple active clones, all networked together. Then, if one dies, the distributed consciousness continues without incident. This is a Multiple, and here, I confess that I am one. I have seven bodies networked together, all active simultaneously. There are many people such as me in Origin, where CONCORD law cannot dictate what we do with our bodies.

The second method is very similar to the first, but instead of relying on different copies of one person, it relies on several people networked together and sharing thoughts. These networked individuals retain all their individuality, but can still serve as backup memory if one member is to perish. I am also a member of a Network, that does not make me some sort of zombie, it merely means that my thoughts are directly linked to those of others, at any given point in time.

These methods are just the beginning, cloning and networked clones open many doors that should not be held shut. I'm coming out as it were, to support those who may wish to be as I am. Consider this an act of civil disobedience.

The question for you, Ms. Riordan, is this: What happens if all of your clones die, at once? What happens to your network then? You have built this network, with the hope that it is true immortality, a persistent self, because "any time one clone dies, the others always remain and so the persistent network remains". But what if the entire network collapsed as a result of the deaths of every clone in it?

Your network is functioning like our neural networks, with each of your bodies acting like the neurons in the brain, that together form the unified whole. In a sense you are emulating brain operation on a larger scale. In the brain, the collapse of consciousness and being occurs with the death of neurons. While our neurons, unlike other cells in our bodies, persist for most of our lives, without the continuation of neurogensis we are eventually unable to keep up with cell death of the neurons. This leads to our deaths. This is the greatest threat to the quest for immortality as it renders any recovery from disease or any repair or replacement of body parts pointless due to eventual brain death. Only Amarr and the Jove Empire have to some degree deployed technology that can expand the neurotrophic capabilities of the human body.

The death of neurons causes a degeneration in our neural networks, until we eventually cease to be. With your "clone network", you are placing your hopes on constantly being able to replenish each clone so that the meta-consciousness persists. But as with the brain, should all of your clones perish simultaneously, or before they can be adequately replaced, your meta-consciousness would die. Wouldn't you agree?

Now, say someone later on found a way to make new clones of you, to make a new clone network. Suddenly, a Saede Riordan Clone Network exists again. But remember, none of the previous clones survived, the previous network collapsed. Would you consider this new network still you, when nothing from the original persisted?

This is what is happening every time we clone. Our neural map is our networked consciousness, and when we clone the transneural burn scanner fries nearly every one of the neurons in our brains, with the rest being finished off by the neurotoxin the pod injects into us a split second later. What wakes up in the lab is completely and entirely divorced from the previous network. Even had the original brain survived, no quantum entangled axons exist between the neurons in the original and the neurons in the cloned brain. They are two separate networks.

Ergo, while a persistence does exist within a single network (our brains, or your clone network), a collective unity, that persistence exists only in so far as the new joins with and rejuvenates the old in a continual cycle. If the old is entirely gone, there is no way to reconnect with that original collective consciousness, that original network. There is, then, no persistence, no transfer of consciousness. Only the creation of a new duplicate conscoiusness that has the same neural pattern. A copy.

Cloning is not immortality. Your network isn't, either. Both end through the destruction of all unifying elements. Later copying of the patterns of those elements does not continue the original unity, it creates a new one that only appears identical.

True immortality requires the continual replacement or rejuvenation of the persistent unity. You're trying to do that with your clone network, as every dead clone in the network can be replaced with a new one. But for those of us who are not and do not want to be such a thing, we have to work on the micro scale with our actual brains. We have to maintain or replace the unifying elements of our much smaller networks, which requires neurotrophic or neurogenesic technology. The only cloning we should be doing is the cloning of individual neurons, which can be assimilated into the original neural network.

I must admit, it's an intriguing idea! A truly networked ships crew, all working together in perfect harmony, but unchained and able to think and intuit for themselves. A combat team that are more perceptive of each other than the best that training and equipment can now buy.

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have been even closer to the rest of my sibkin than I was, and how it would have been if the State had encouraged us to maintain, even strengthen, that closeness rather than to deny it. Necessary to connect with the larger State but still... I often wonder what we lost...

Perhaps it's better this way, though. No one perception can be allowed to dominate, it stifles creativity and choice. Diversity of ideas is the best defence against stagnation and over-specialisation.

Welcome to the club I guess.

Funny, I was thinking the opposite. I guess we just disagree about which lessons Nation teaches us.
Hmm, I just thought of another possible reason why Kuvakei is called Master these days.

Good luck getting an answer. Turns out, they don't like to reply to questions in these threads. Apparently they prefer to write out a full article, starting a new thread, instead of defending their theories.

Just like Diana Kim or Nauplius does. More and more threads, splattered all over the IGS.

Ask Tarqeus Prime about it, hurr.

I would love that Ms. Polevhia! Please contact the next time you are free. I'd love to have a chat!

Sincerely
-K

Now, that is an utter lie. I am always defending my theories.
Against arguments - with arguments.
Against insults and personal attacks - with greater insults.
Against violence - with guns.


And, Im sorry, Ms. Riordan, got my mood for philosophical writing a bit switched by outrageous lie about me. I promise I will write about cloning a bit later.

After reading what OP has to say it got me thinking and this is the conclusion that I can't shake no matter how hard I try. Diana, I completely agree with you here.

Our consciousness isn't what transfers to another 'host', we are just a copy of the original. This leads me to believe that we are each our own individual separate from the original and any clones that come before us. We may share memories but we were not a part of the events that led up to our awakening. I almost wish I never opened this thread because, as they say, ignorance is bliss and I wouldn't have questioned things if not for this.

This also brings up another question on the mentality of capsuleers. With the vast majority of the capsuleer population believing that they are in fact immortal, have we lost respect for life? You charge into the fray with your battleship, fearless and in some cases reckless because no matter what happens you know that in the worst case scenario you'll just wake up in a station and have to refit/recrew another ship.

Hell, your stomach fully replaces itself on average twice a week.