So I’ve been reading Hunger Games (which I highly recommend), and a devilishly conceived thought experiment presents itself.

Aliens come to Earth with highly advanced technology and a sporting air. They tell you they are going to make an exact . . . → Read More: Thought Experiment August: A ‘Hunger Games’ Style Death-match with Yourself]]> (Remember folks, in a thought experiment you can do anything! To say, “That’s impossible!” is not allowed!)

So I’ve been reading Hunger Games (which I highly recommend), and a devilishly conceived thought experiment presents itself.

Aliens come to Earth with highly advanced technology and a sporting air. They tell you they are going to make an exact copy of you (and your spirit). They say it will contain all your memories, thoughts, experiences—everything. Every atom in your body is duplicated and placed in the new one exactly where it was in the old. The only difference between you and your double is your spatial location. So they knock you out with some gas. Then you wake up in a large forest. You realize that you don’t know if you are the old you, or the new copy. There is no test for your identity. You look and feel just like you always have, but you know the double will wake up the exact same thoughts.

An alien approaches and tells you it’s a fight to the death between you and your double. If one of you does not die, they will kill both of you and all your family. They also say that no one will ever know which, the original or the copy, died. So which of you wins, will not matter much to your loved ones. They don’t even know about the fight.

Two questions:

(1) Why does it matter to you who wins?

(2) Assume you buy into the fight. How do you take down someone exactly like you? Someone, with exactly your skill set, background knowledge, physical condition, motivation, and feelings about things? Is there some strategy you could use (and that you know he/she may also use) that will improve your odds?

For today’s thought experiment let’s consider his proposal. Here is his paper. The . . . → Read More: Thought-experiment August: What if you are just a minor character in a computer game]]> BCC’s Ronan introduced me to the work of Nick Bostrom, an Oxford Philosopher. He writes and thinks on technology and ethics issues. He has a fascinating line of reasoning. He argues that quite possibly we are living in a simulation, like The Matrix.

For today’s thought experiment let’s consider his proposal. Here is his paper. The crux of the idea focuses on these three possibilities, one of which he argues, is almost certainly true:

1 Almost all civilizations at our level of development become extinct before becoming technologically mature.
2 The fraction of technologically mature civilizations that are interested in creating ancestor simulations is almost zero.
3 You are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

Ancestor simulations are similar to our video games but highly advanced and based upon future technology. The characters in current computer games are becoming more and more detailed. The more detailed you can make the action of that game’s characters, the more real the game. Imagine a time in the future where these character agents are so detailed that they are essentially instantiations of agents rather than just representations. Almost certainly, as computers continue to advance, this will become more possible. He is suggesting in number 3, that probabilistically, if civilizations have existed in time far into the past, than certainly technology has advanced to the point of being able to run these kinds of highly advanced agent-based simulations. If so, then your probability of being the ‘player’ is very low (He sees the simulationists as scientists, who are trying to discover facts of the universe with these computer simulations, but we all know they would most likely be gamers).

So today’s thought experiment is this. Given that you can’t tell if anyone is real or a simulation (whatever we might mean by ‘real’), how would it change your perception of yourself if you found out that indeed you were the background player of a massive game. Fodder for an elaborate version of SimEarth.

(Or is this just a description of what it means for a spirit to be ‘in’ a body.)

So they approach you and give you the . . . → Read More: Thought-experiment August: Pick your alien invasion]]> Alien beings have scanned your brain and determined you are the perfect person to conduct a little ethics experiment. They are immensely powerful trans-dimensional beings, but almost entirely void of ethical thinking. They relish doing ethics experiments, to see what all the fuss is about it in humans.

So they approach you and give you the following choice: X or Y will be completely obliterated—You pick which.

X: In a distant galaxy (far far away) there is a nonhuman civilization that encompasses thousands of worlds, each containing tens of billions of inhabitants. This species is rich and complex, with hundreds of thousands of years of art, literature, and science.

Y: Your own state (say, California), as well as every library and museum on Earth (including digital libraries). Your immediate family will be removed from harm up to second cousins.

This is all you know.

Is it X or Y for the furnace?

Note: There is no Twilight Zone trick here, with later an alien race having to choose their or our world for destruction.

I’ve explored the issues related to allowing artificial life into your religious community here and what it might mean to be an artificial life here. But let’s back off and decide when, for the . . . → Read More: Thought-experiment August: Your new Z11 robot]]> It is Thought Experiment August! Time to once again put on your thinking caps and ponder the dicey issues of modern thought.

I’ve explored the issues related to allowing artificial life into your religious community here and what it might mean to be an artificial life here. But let’s back off and decide when, for the first time, an artificial life might deserve rights.

There is a new robot out. The Z11. It has some sophisticated programming, and a little Something Extra. The little addition to the robot’s make-up, like our drug discovery process in which sometimes a chemical just works, seems to give it capabilities that can’t be achieved otherwise. We are not sure why. But it just does. Lots of psycoceuticals are like this. And so it is with the Z11. That little Something Extra they’ve added (something to do with quantum fields) really makes it a cracking good robot. It’s not clear why it works.

Also, it is designed to pass the Turing Test—meaning that in normal conversation, when you talk to it you cannot tell that it’s not a human being. It’s programmed with sophisticated subroutines that mimic human language and mannerism. Everyone agrees it is very realistic. If they run the program in simulation on a supercomputer (since this is the future, this is a superduper, supercomputer) it passes the Turing Test 98 out of 100 times.

Yours arrives and everything is fine. It’s a dandy companion and conversationalist. Talks about the news with you. Gives its opinion on gardening, including which growth formula to use on the tomatoes. It also does all your chores, rubs your feet, cooks dinner, reads your kids bedtime stories, rewires the stereo, and remodels the kitchen, using the oak tree that you wanted to take down anyway, to fashion hand-finished cabinets. It constructs and installs the counter-tops from a large granite boulder at the end of your street. You could not be happier with your Z11.

Then one day it says to you, “You know, I’ve been reading up on consciousness on the internet and I think I’m conscious.” Further it claims, “I’ve been talking with other Z11s and they think they are too. Maybe it’s that something extra they put in. Anyway, I want to go to art school.”

You call the company and the representative says, “Ah, the art school scenario!” They see that in the simulations too, she says. They tell you not to worry and that they will have a technician there in the morning to fix it up. You ask how, and she says, “We just take out a bit of that Something Extra. Too much and they tend to go haywire like this. We are doing a recall this week and taking out about half of the stuff from each one. That seems to clear it up.”

Should you let the company take out half of that Something Extra from your Z11?

I am jogging along the banks of the Danube. I turn into Danau Park, with its green grasses, large old trees, strolling couples, and a smell . . . → Read More: Summer Classics: The Shrew in my Brain: Snakes and the Evolved Body—Part II]]> Hopefully, you are now convinced by the evidence in Part I, that I am not afraid of snakes. The point being, not that I am fearless and brave, but this:

I am jogging along the banks of the Danube. I turn into Danau Park, with its green grasses, large old trees, strolling couples, and a smell and feel of wild things (even though it is quite tame). It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining. I am tired. I am glad to be almost done with a long (for me) run. Suddenly, and without any premonition that this was about to happen, I find my knees at eye level. This is quite shocking as you can imagine. In the next few milliseconds, I register absolute and utter surprise that I have leaped into the air.

Now those of you who know me, know that I cannot leap high. My kids make fun of me when we have those father and son jumping contents where my teenage son is flat palming the ceiling in his leap, and I can’t touch it with my fingertips. To get the image right about my jumping ability, imagine a four year-old jumping up and down trying to knock a balloon out of your hand. She jumps higher than I can.

Well, after the surprise of finding myself in midair, is the surprise at how high I’ve jumped. I’ve definitely got air. My feet are pulled up tight so that if I were on the ground I’d be squatting in a way that I could wrap my arms around my knees. The events that follow all happen in milliseconds, but the sequence of events is quite clear in my mind, much shorter than in the telling mind you. Next, at the apex of my jump, my head rotates left and down really fast and my eyes lock on a two-foot snake laying in the grass (or is it lying in the grass—I’m never sure) by the side of the path. My body contorts so that my legs kick out and away and I land awkwardly away from the snake. I step back and watch it go. I am calm (however I am not tempted to pick it up, having learned how dangerous a snake can be to your scent organs (as described in part I).

I think about what just happened. I never consciously saw the snake before I jumped. My consciousness was focusing the day, the surroundings and maybe how much I missed my family—being alone in Vienna as I am. But, I never saw the snake. However, my brain did. Some primitive neurology, derived from selective forces likely at work when my body’s grandmothers were late-Cretaceous shrew-like insectivores scrambling among the legs of fierce dinosaurs, picked up there was a snake in the grass. The message ‘leap now!’ was marshaled into action without consulting me. I got to find out about the snake after all the fuss was over. Me, I would not have been afraid of the snake at all (well, except for . . . you know), but my poor brain is terrified of the things.

My jump was purely instinctual, reactive, and unconscious. There was no free agency. No deliberation. Only after the fact did I learn why I was jumping. And I might add, it seems to me my brain was way overreacting. Sheesh. What a baby.

These things speak to my being a mammal, and what it means to be a mammal. I find this empowers me in some ways to know that my spirit is linked with deep time and deep processes. That my body is connected to the earth, to those stars that formed the chemicals I’m made of, like carbon and oxygen, that it is linked to those fish that swam in ancient oceans, to those odd little reptiles that became mammals, to those small statured apes who walked upright three and a half million years ago, seems very important. Vital knowledge even. In the end the Celestial Kingdom will be made from this Earth. I find it wondrous that Earth’s history is entwined in my history and that this history will continue on into the eternities. How wonderful that my spirit is linked to a body with its deep ties to this very planet that will ever be my home. There is something amazing and important about that. Evolution: Connecting us to the history of an amazing universe in which our spirits apparently need such ties to be truly happy. Amazing.

While spiders used to terrify me, I’ve . . . → Read More: Summer Classics: Some are born afraid of snakes, and others have snake-fear thrust upon them: Part I]]> Due to the extreme busyness of this summer, I’ve decided to replay some of my earlier posts that were not seen by many (less than 10, according to the data). Don’t forget that ‘Thought Experiment August’ is coming up and I’ve got some real delights coming up. Until then enjoy.

While spiders used to terrify me, I’ve never been afraid of snakes. Lots of things are. Especially mammals and birds. Especially mammals and birds eaten by snakes. And especially mammals and birds that snakes can bite with lethally poisonous fangs. Nothing sets a troop of monkeys howling like a snake slithering through their midst. Chimps despise the beasts and become agitated and upset when they find one hanging around the encampment and they will let everyone in the forest know that this dust-eating beast is not welcome. Apparently, even chimps raised without ever having seen a snake will become alarmed when one is introduced for the first time. I don’t know about elephants. Something in the back of my mind says they are afraid of them too, but I’m too lazy to look it up. Snakes. Ever since Eden they’ve been a hated scourge. Many of you will relate to this sentiment. Not me. Well, that is until an event which I’ll relate later. Here are two proofs that I’m not afraid of snakes.

First Proof. Once, my son came running into the house and told me there was a snake in the back of our student apartment. I dashed outside and found a circle of screaming kids blocking the harangued serpent’s escape. Charging from the distance, came my neighbor, shirtless and grim faced, with a golf club gripped in his hand, ready tee-off the poor thing’s head down the fairway of our collective backyards. I grabbed the black rat snake and marched it to safety. It was ever grateful and became part of our family until about a year later when it was seduced by a gopher hole and disappeared forever from our lives. To this day the name Crazyhorse will elicit a collective sigh from my children and the statement, “I miss that snake.”

The second proof I offer in evidence of my fearlessness of snakes was while on a Boy Scout canoeing trip in North Carolina, a six-foot long black rat snake (yes same species as Crazyhorse (you can tell I’m not making this up or I would have chosen a different species to add variety and texture to my narrative)) came swimming past us. I grabbed it, but as I did, I realized that I’d grabbed it too far from the head and as it swung around to bite me I remember the thought flashing helplessly through my mind, “Man, I hope this isn’t a water-moccasin.” It’s funny how what you know in theory (small round head, must be a rat snake) is really put on the line when you commit yourself to those beliefs in irrevocable ways (oops, a really big black snake in the water, could be a ‘moccasin). It bit me hard. Two of my sons were there and both their reactions made me proud, one noticed that blood was streaming down my arm from the bite and said, “Dad are you OK?”, and the other observed, “Dad you are hurting the snake!” as he noticed that the snake’s jaw was askew where it had become disarticulated (as they do naturally to swallow large prey) as I held onto it’s head. Held it tightly, mind you. Both questions were delightful, for one son had focused on the fact that one of God’s precious creatures was being hurt and the other son had focused on the snake.

Now I am sad to relat that my relationship with snakes has suffered a dark reversal. Not one that made me afraid of them, but I no longer pluck them willy-nilly from their habitations. You see while at my wife’s grandparents a garner snake went by, and I, meaning no harm, grabbed it. Holding it properly by the head, I raised it up for my kids to see and it shat upon me. [Shat is a technical term among biologists, the present-tense form being a vulgar swear word, but as a past-tense verb it seems a calm and benign accoutrement and carries with it none of the harshness of its present-tense/other past-tense cousin. In fact it seems perfectly pleasant company. I can picture the scene: a proper Victorian couple having a continental breakfast on a garden terrace; a large English pastoral estate visible over the balustrade.

“Edward Dear, has the bear shat in the woods this morning?”
“Why no Pumpkin, he has not.”
“Well, I do hope he does so soon.”
“As do I.”
“More tea, My Dear?”
“Why, thank you Pumpkin, I think I shall”
“No. Thank you, my Dear.”

It’s something you might read in Trollope! (Although I fear my use of the word will be misconstrued and vulgarized by some and will once gain provide NothingWavering.org reason to continue to reject my beleaguered request for legitimacy as a faithful Mormon Blog.)]

My arm was covered with poop [note my refusal to use the vulgar noun]. But this was no ordinary poop. It stunk like nothing I’ve ever smelled. I mean we are talking Dante’s Ninth Circle stink. A stench of unimaginable vileness. I dropped the snake and hosed off the putrid guano, then ran to the sink to wash it clean and remove the smell. But the smell wouldn’t come off. Not with soap, Comet, laundry detergent, ammonia, vinegar, Ziff (only at a grandmother’s house could a bottle of this wondrous cleaning agent still be found), and Clorox—used as a last, skin destroying, futile attempt. It was as if the snake had placed an olfactory tattoo on my arm. It lasted two days. I kid you not. And I had to sniff at it about every hour to see if it was still there. I have not picked up a snake since.

Well, I’ve been over long in my preamble (preramble?), and I had to tell all this to set the stage for what I really want to talk about which is consciousness, free agency, and evolution. So I will break this into two parts.

In the meantime debate the use of certain Anglo-Saxon words in various conjugations (but be warned this is a family blog and I will censor the comments as ruthlessly as NothingWavering.org), and consider whether olfactory tattoos fall under the general tattoo prohibition. We’ll get to consciousness in Part II.

‘Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought,’ is planning an issue devoted to Mormonism and the Environment. For this issue, we would like to invite select papers related to this topic, including academic articles, personal essay, creative non-fiction, fiction, and . . . → Read More: Get those environmental papers into Dialogue!]]> Time’s short! If you’ve been thinking of getting something in for this, there is still plenty of time!

‘Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought,’ is planning an issue devoted to Mormonism and the Environment. For this issue, we would like to invite select papers related to this topic, including academic articles, personal essay, creative non-fiction, fiction, and media reviews. The subject of this issue is broad, but should engage with LDS perspectives about the environment directly. Because the papers must be selected by July 25th, 2010, please let me know if you would like to make a contribution and send me a brief outline of your topic to determine whether it fits in with the aims for this issue.