How human are synths?

[GnatGoSplat]

I get you, but this clone, would he be aware of what he is?

Would he not think, you would be the clone?

If one is transfered, "copied" into perfection, then who is to say which of one is you?

Would YOU know who it is?

 

Then we get to the argument of: can this copy be seen as just this, a copy?

Ethics.

Moral.

A debate with no end.

 

Some would say, the copy, no matter how perfect, is but mere a copy, and thus not prone for considering it valuable enough to be seen as a being.

Others would severely disagree.

 

What would you do?

 

Let's put this into a different light: What makes you you?

Your body, or the data you hold in your skull?

 

Once you got that figured out, the answer is quite simple.

 

I think the clone would be aware he is the clone if you told him. Would he be convinced? Probably depends on the individual. It would be like if you were cloned 100%. So now you have a twin. Your clone's reaction would be identical to what yours would be, if you were told you're the clone. Only way you'd know which is the clone, is if you came up with a way to tell later. Like a mark or something, that the clone wouldn't have.

 

The copy is just as valuable as the original, because he will still be just as human as the original, just as human as you. Like identical twins again, they do have a physical clone, but that doesn't make one have any less value than the other, or make them both only worth half.

 

What makes you you has got to be something physical, but what makes your personality what it is, is the data you hold in your skull.

 

That makes me think about how when Curie is transferred into the synth body, they had the robot body collapse and "die". Technically, that shouldn't be necessary if we're transferring just data, or software. It implies some kind of physical "cut & paste" type transfer. Just transferring data as "copy & paste", Curie the robot and Curie the synth could technically both co-exist simultaneously.

[Klipperken]

Odd that i missed that.

But I try to stay away from non-official sites.

 

As for the rest, care to be a tad more in depth about what you are saying?

Is this about the "might be in the future"?

[Jasemyne]

Already far off the beaten track it probably makes just less sense to call back to topic, I guess. Be it. At least partially it was a pleasure to read the different thoughts.

Muchas gracias.

[UhuruNUru]

Keep seeing talk of chips in Gen 3, what chips, Gen 3 have a human brain, genetically human is human.

The Gen 3's undeveloped brain is a infants brain, just like real babies, there self awareness won't suddenly appear at birth.

 

That development occurs over time until they start to question the slavery, the only mehhod the institute has to take control is a mindwipe, a process that must eventually fail. Each mindwipe lasting less and less, until the synth rebels or is killed.

[Moraelin]

You keep seeing talk of gen 3 chips, because some of us did the quests and stuff. Sorry. Even just Curie's quest has Dr Amari tell you point blank that you can't download Curie's program parts into a human brain, because it wouldn't know what to do with that program. Whereas she explicitly states that a Gen-3 is somewhere in between human and computer, and, as also shown in what happens next, CAN run the modified Mr Handy code that's Curie's AI.

 

So excuse me if between postulates based on ignorance, and what's in the actual game, I'll go with the latter. Every time.

[GnatGoSplat]

I think it's plausible that they could have something more or less similar to the human brain, but that it also contains chips. Chips in our world are normally made of silicon, but they don't have to be. They can certainly be made of living cells.

http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/10/biological-microchip-mimics-a-real-lung-it-even-breathes/

 

It would make sense that how the gen 3 synth brain works isn't going to be exactly like a human brain. Synths may be living beings like humans, but they were also designed to be programmable like a machine, so it would obviously need some differences from a human brain. The ability to function like a computer, run Mr Handy code, and reset itself upon hearing a reset code, would be some examples of that difference.

[Moraelin]

Synth components break down to plastic. Which technically speaking is organic chemistry, but is not living tissue.

[GnatGoSplat]

I'm thinking they are kind of similar to cyborgs composed of living and non-living components. Kellogg has a cybernetic implant and you could equip your character with implants in FONV. Also still in FO4 is the adamantium skeleton perk, so in the Fallout world it's not uncommon to meld living with non-living materials.

[Moraelin]

Well, yes, that's also my best guess.

[Raycheetah]

Oh man... I feel for you. Googling for any combination of "quantum" and "brain"/"consciousness"/whatever, produces mountains of pure garbage from idiots who don't actually understand either quantum physics OR psychology/neuroscience/anything even remotely related to the brain in a scientific way.

 

Probably the safest rule of thumb is that (barring having a neuroscientist and a grad-level physicist with you), anything that pretends to explain the consciousness in quantum terms is to be discarded a priori as garbage. Well, generally anything that crams quantum into anything except, say, discussing a Zener diode. If it tries to squeeze it into macro level stuff, and especially into medicine or neuro-science, chances are 99.999% that it's bunk and written by someone who doesn't understand EITHER.

 

I don't know what it is about quantum physics that attracts every single nutcase, like selling high tech data attracts the Institute :tongue:

It's because quantum physics is the closest thing in the "real world" to magic (a mysterious, fundamental force), and people like to imagine it explaining all sorts of impossible things. =^[.]~=