Creating a Digital Me

[searchingfortruth]

First of all I am a huge Battlestar Galactica fan, so I watched Caprica. I was disappointed, but the program that made the original Cylons made me think. Would it be possible to to create a Digital Double of a person using personality tests, and a lifetime's worth of journal entries?

[Bill Angel]

I think that you have raised a question germane to the field of artificial intelligence. One might take all the material you mentioned and put it into a database. So the question then becomes, if someone queried the database would they get the same answer to a question that they would get if they put the question to you directly? If the aanswer is yes then you and the program are indistinguishable.

[searchingfortruth]

I think that you have raised a question germane to the field of artificial intelligence. One might take all the material you mentioned and put it into a database. So the question then becomes, if someone queried the database would they get the same answer to a question that they would get if they put the question to you directly? If the aanswer is yes then you and the program are indistinguishable.

 

Then digital immortality is a possibility?

[Bill Angel]

Then digital immortality is a possibility?

 

It's certainly a possibility. An interesting work of science fiction that explores this issue is "Eater" by Greg Benford. It explores the possibility of consciousness surviving for billions of years as patterns in magnetic fields.

[YemSalat]

Don't want to break it for you, but we re light years away from even completely understanding how a brain works, leave lone creting a software that would simulate the processes.

And again, as was mentioned earlier it is not as much about the database of information, but more of the way to make decisions based on this information. Plus, bear in mind that not all types of information that may influence your decisions can be 'taken down' stuff like emotions are currently only available to living creatures.

[searchingfortruth]

Don't want to break it for you, but we re light years away from even completely understanding how a brain works, leave lone creting a software that would simulate the processes.

And again, as was mentioned earlier it is not as much about the database of information, but more of the way to make decisions based on this information. Plus, bear in mind that not all types of information that may influence your decisions can be 'taken down' stuff like emotions are currently only available to living creatures.

 

Responses wouldn't necessarily need emotions. Responses could be programmed by actions alone. For instance psyche evaluations could tell us how someone would react to most situations.

[YemSalat]

Responses wouldn't necessarily need emotions. Responses could be programmed by actions alone. For instance psyche evaluations could tell us how someone would react to most situations.

 

No, what I meant is that on the stage of creating the database you will not be able to apply emotions to certain entries, which may influence the future response.

[Bill Angel]

No, what I meant is that on the stage of creating the database you will not be able to apply emotions to certain entries, which may influence the future response.

In a certain sense you could. When collecting information for a database by interviewing people, the subjects could be connected to polygraphs, also known as lie detectors. Polygraphs work as indicators of the emotional state of the subject when he or she is supplying an answer to a question. So some information about emotional state could be gathered in this manner and incorporated into the database.