Every few days, a box pops up on my iPhone screen, reminding me that I haven't yet backed up the contents of my phone in the "cloud" -- access to which Apple so kindly provides. I haven't, and I probably won't, because doing so would just make even more data about me available to the world.
(As if I don't already spill it all, voluntarily, on Facebook!)
But as I was wandering about this morning, o'er the Wordsworthian UW campus, my mind began drifting over the concept of the "cloud," and its many implications.
One of the great unknowns of modern biological science is the meaning of "consciousness." Is there some part of the brain devoted to our being "conscious"? Almost certainly not. Most neurologists would probably guess that consciousness arises out of the complexity of the brain -- at some point, the tangle of perceptions mediated by the brain, resulting in the actions of the body, becomes so complex that the subjective sensation of "consciousness" occurs.
No one can be certain that anyone besides him or herself experiences consciousness -- everyone but myself may be an automaton. But that's a topic for another day. Assuming that bodies much like ourselves have similar subjective sensations, we can safely assume that all humans are conscious. As well as many animals. But as we go down the list of cerebral complexity, we certainly feel safe in concluding that at some point, we reach animals that are not conscious.
I doubt that a mosquito experiences subjective consciousness. Or a clam. Certainly not a paramecium. Birds? Maybe. Ravens seem to have complex behavior patterns that suggest consciousness, but a raven is too canny to ever let you know one way or the other.
Now -- let's hypothesize that a brain is an organic computer. I realize that most neurologists would question this hypothesis, but the brain at least resembles a very complex computer in the way that it receives information and "decides" how to act on it. We even refer to the increasing complexity of computers as "Artificial Intelligence." As we enable our computers to become more and more brain-like -- even human brain-like -- can we be sure that they will remain simply machines? Merely complex mosquitoes?
And if we concede that at some point a computer might begin to experience, subjectively, consciousness, we then must admit that we will have created something at least analogous to a human being.
Now a computer's contents -- such as the contents of my iPhone -- can be copied in the "cloud" (really, just in storage on some unknown entity's servers, but I like the "cloud" metaphor, because it's how we visualize such storage). And from the cloud, the contents of my computer can be copied onto another computer.
If we have not just an iPhone, but complex computers with consciousness, by uploading to the cloud we will be creating not just a clone, but a clone with a memory and a history of life experiences identical to those of the original -- up to the time that the original's contents were uploaded. If the original computer was "guilty" of harmful acts against humanity, all its clones would be equally guilty.
This post is an example of thinking out loud on paper, or at least replicating my random thoughts while wandering on paper. Or digitally. Innumerable arguments, scientific and philosophical, can be made against just about every point I've made so far. But bear with me for my concluding final observations.
If a sufficiently complicated computer has the same consciousness as a human brain, then -- in theory, at least -- a human brain also could be uploaded to the cloud. The difficulty would be one of technology, not concept.
And now, my final leap. What if our human brains are merely carbon-based computers that some master race -- or "deity" -- has created for his/their own ends? And what if the contents of our computer/brains, unbeknownst to us, are being uploaded to some celestial "cloud" on a virtually continuous basis, second by second?
The purpose of backing up a computer is to save a computer's contents as a precaution against anything happening to the original. If I'd been conscientious and had backed up my iPhone, and had then lost the iPhone or had seen it run over by a truck, what would I do? I wouldn't lament that my Great American Novel was lost, right? I'd buy a new iPhone and quickly download into it the contents stored in the cloud.
Similarly, assuming my fantastic hypothesis were to be correct -- that our brains are being backed up in a heavenly cloud -- then it would be no big deal if our bodies were run through a wood chipper. Every memory, every thought, every talent, every experience, would be preserved in the cloud. Ready for downloading into a new body at our creator's leisure.
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
--1 Corinthians 15:55
Q.E.D.
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