To address that further, in my opinion when humans are born they are not "persons" until they actually develop self awareness which happens around the age of 1 years old but the ability to fully process or retain information occurs at about 3 or 4 years and continues developing into adulthood. Imagine a blank recurrent neural network made up of one hundred billion neurons with very basic feedback mechanisms(emotions) connected to the body of a child. It would likely act very similar to a real child and have the same level of progression. Eventually it would become a real person with complex thoughts and feelings.

Not to mention that the components of a human's neural network are very change-able at this stage. If a human isn't exposed to any language before age 2, it is far less likely that they will be able to develop linguistic ability later, because the relevant neurons wither from lack of use while other neural structures grow more complex. Exposure to things changes the way that the brain is structured, and have a huge impact on how the brain works and how a person thinks for their entire lives. I think that society's impact on the brains of its members is very interesting, especially given that those members go on to affect that society later in life.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1303827407' post='4803069']
To address that further, in my opinion when humans are born they are not "persons" until they actually develop self awareness which happens around the age of 1 years old but the ability to fully process or retain information occurs at about 3 or 4 years and continues developing into adulthood. Imagine a blank recurrent neural network made up of one hundred billion neurons with very basic feedback mechanisms(emotions) connected to the body of a child. It would likely act very similar to a real child and have the same level of progression. Eventually it would become a real person with complex thoughts and feelings.

Not to mention that the components of a human's neural network are very change-able at this stage. If a human isn't exposed to any language before age 2, it is far less likely that they will be able to develop linguistic ability later, because the relevant neurons wither from lack of use while other neural structures grow more complex. Exposure to things changes the way that the brain is structured, and have a huge impact on how the brain works and how a person thinks for their entire lives. I think that society's impact on the brains of its members is very interesting, especially given that those members go on to affect that society later in life.
[/quote]

I think adult minds are not as changeable because we develop a level of tolerance to emotions and sensations. As a child I remember feelings and sensations being far more intense. Without the intense emotions we have as children there is less feedback from doing things wrong or right to rewire neural pathways.

I always subscribe to the idea that if a complex system already exists physically, then it is possible to recreate that system artificially. The real challenge is not about synthesising the material itself on the low level, it's more to do with the organisation and the underlying structure of the system, which can be vast in complexity. For instance, we seem to have a good grasp on how brain cells operate and interact with each other locally. We can even replicate/emulate a bunch of neurons in various ways, such as through simulation. However, as soon as you look at things on a grander scale, things get blurry real quick.

As for the storage of the state of all the atoms in your body, there is one thing that prevents it from being done, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You can't know everything about the state of an atom at once, and so can't store it exactly in a computer.

Although some claim that the brain may be using quantum mechanical processes of some sort, this is highly speculative. For all that we know, the brain is basically an electrochemical system. It operates on scales where the uncertainty principle doesn't really come into play. Just as using a logic analyzer on an electronic circuit, you could determine the exact brain state at time t, if you had the technology to simultaneously measure the electrical states and the connectivity of all neurons. While currently technically out of reach, there's nothing physically impossible about it, just as there is nothing physically impossible in measuring the exact electrical state of a CPU.You don't need to know the exact location and properties of each atom for that.

Edit: if the brain really operated on quantum mechanical principles, then this would have some very interesting consequences for the whole self-awareness duplication paradox (who is 'me' if I copy myself). By reading and transferring the Qu state of the original mind to the clone, you would automatically destroy the original information, thus avoiding the paradox.

[quote name='Khaiy' timestamp='1303825408' post='4803054']
As for the storage of the state of all the atoms in your body, there is one thing that prevents it from being done, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You can't know everything about the state of an atom at once, and so can't store it exactly in a computer.

Although some claim that the brain may be using quantum mechanical processes of some sort, this is highly speculative. For all that we know, the brain is basically an electrochemical system. It operates on scales where the uncertainty principle doesn't really come into play. Just as using a logic analyzer on an electronic circuit, you could determine the exact brain state at time t, if you had the technology to simultaneously measure the electrical states and the connectivity of all neurons. While currently technically out of reach, there's nothing physically impossible about it, just as there is nothing physically impossible in measuring the exact electrical state of a CPU.You don't need to know the exact location and properties of each atom for that.

Edit: if the brain really operated on quantum mechanical principles, then this would have some very interesting consequences for the whole self-awareness duplication paradox (who is 'me' if I copy myself). By reading and transferring the Qu state of the original mind to the clone, you would automatically destroy the original information, thus avoiding the paradox.
[/quote]

The 'who is me' problem you imply is the ultimate problem, which causes me to give up on thinking about these problems. Ignorance is bliss.

I guess it's unscientific to talk about the soul since no one else here has mentioned it, but I personally like to think that's the only thing that can define who a person is. Otherwise we are just meat-bag automatons.



I always find it annoying when someone pulls out the "uncertainty principle" to stop a hypothetical argument from progressing further. Ok, you are smart, but ever heard of "thinking outside the box".

Otherwise we are just meat-bag automatons.

Can of worms here... but what's wrong with that description?

[quote name='GMuser' timestamp='1303892324' post='4803447']Otherwise we are just meat-bag automatons.

Can of worms here... but what's wrong with that description?
[/quote]
EDIT: blabla I'm not drunk, but I talk non sense, and I can't just delete the post.

[quote name='Khaiy' timestamp='1303825408' post='4803054']
As for the storage of the state of all the atoms in your body, there is one thing that prevents it from being done, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You can't know everything about the state of an atom at once, and so can't store it exactly in a computer.

Although some claim that the brain may be using quantum mechanical processes of some sort, this is highly speculative. For all that we know, the brain is basically an electrochemical system. It operates on scales where the uncertainty principle doesn't really come into play. Just as using a logic analyzer on an electronic circuit, you could determine the exact brain state at time t, if you had the technology to simultaneously measure the electrical states and the connectivity of all neurons. While currently technically out of reach, there's nothing physically impossible about it, just as there is nothing physically impossible in measuring the exact electrical state of a CPU.You don't need to know the exact location and properties of each atom for that.

Edit: if the brain really operated on quantum mechanical principles, then this would have some very interesting consequences for the whole self-awareness duplication paradox (who is 'me' if I copy myself). By reading and transferring the Qu state of the original mind to the clone, you would automatically destroy the original information, thus avoiding the paradox.
[/quote]

I was only referring to the uncertainty principle on the subject of disassembling matter and reassembling it in another time or place. The position and movement of electrons may not matter for the operation of a brain, but it damn well matters in combining trillions of atoms together to be just like a previous construct successfully. It's off-topic to the thread, but was a direct response to a post above.

And to GMuser, the thread is about "Why can't we do... yet", which is technical, not hypothetical. The uncertainty principle is a great example of why we can't do matter transportation because it's physically inherent to the problem. If the subject in question were "What would the implications be if we could transport matter", I would agree with you. But it's not-- it's "Why can't it be done". And it should have (and has had) no impact on the actual topic of the thread, since it was an aside which was in turn a response to an aside, and conversation has progressed.

Russians tried this with dogs way back (amputating heads and attaching iron lungs to it):