Human Rights, Ethics, and Artificial Intelligence: Challenges for the next 70 Years of the Universal Declaration.
Susan schneider, university of connecticut, department of philosophy.
Transcending the Brain? AI, Radical Brain Enhancement and the Nature of Consciousness.
The views expressed in this video are those of the speaker(s) at the time of recording and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.
´transcending / enhancement´ are ideas of a doubtful quality — because up to now research is not interested to investige how the brain is working.
e.g. in a ´Near-Death Experience´(NDE) we can perceive LIVE + CONSCIOUS how the brain is working. This is a DIRECT access to the working brain — but NDEs are not a topic for brain research up to now!
Let me explain the NDE in short:
A) Usually when we perceive a new stimulus (thought, situation) then our brain reactivate immediately a comparable/identical EXPERIENCE (= predictive coding/processing). This mechanism allow to react immediately and is therefore our most important mechanism for our survival.
(an EXPERIENCE is made in different amounts of the components a) fact-knowledge, b) body-reaction, c) senses-reaction, d) immune-system-reaction and e) emotions)
B) BUT when the brain can not find a comparable experience, then it will concentrate the focus of attention so strong on the processing of the strange stimulus — that we can perceive now as a conscious experience how the brain in working: This is the START of a NDE ! ! !
Our brain use two strategies C) + D)
C) our brain compares — step-to-step — the strange stimulus against experiences which are stored in the memory. These are REACTIVATED and thus accessible to our conscious perception as LIFE-REVIEW — using two strategies
C1) When memories are reactivated in hierarchical ASCENDING order — then we can perceive experiences since the 5th month of fetus-age up to the actual age in the same order as the physical senses develop: touch sense > acoustic sense > optical sense (= tunnel experience) > birth(indirect, light perception change from dull (= before birth) to bright (= after birth) ) > early social-/environmental-experiences (e.g. persons who care for a baby are recalled as a ´being of light´, from which we get unlimited love and affection) > autobiographical experiences from the 2nd year of childhood up to the actual age. === this is the Episodic Memory
C2) when experiences/memories are reactivated in hierarchical DESCENDING order then we can perceive a life-review with the autobiographical memories from the actual age, back to the 2nd-4th year of childhood === this is the Autobiographical Memory
D) sometimes the brain creates a mental simulation of the actual situation — which we can perceive as an ´Out-of-body Experience´(OBE)
(An OBE can be perceived alone or at the beginning, between or the end of a life-review C) )
E) when the brain start to process another stimulus, then the NDE is finished = END of NDE
(book-source in German language: Kinseher Richard “Auflösung großer Fragen: Was ist Bewusstsein? Was ist Zeit?” )
Prior to ´transcending/enhancement´- ideas would it be very useful to study some important mechanisms of the brain — which can be seen in ´Near-Death Experiences´(NDEs). e.g.
state dependent retrieval:
What we recall/remember depend always on two states: Our intellectual, physical and emotional abilities 1) at the moment when we perceive an experience and store it into the memory — and 2) when we recall/reactivate experiences out of the memory.
This does mean, that OLD memories are transformed/changed/altred by our actual NEW mind when we reactivate/recall it.
This mechanism can explain how our brain can use OLD memories across the complete life-span
Present tense:
All our experiences are made, stored in the memory and are reactivated in PRESENT TENSE. This does mean — to remember is not only a re-activation: it is a RE-EXPERIENCE
With methods like MEG, PET, N-IR, EEG, fMRT, electrodes — we can have only an INDIRECT access to neural activity. But with NDEs we can have a DIRECT access to the working brain — as a conscious experience (contents, strategies)
My hints on NDEs show, that it would be very useful if scientists would study how the brain is working — prior to ideas of ´transending/enhancement´.