Consciousness

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I just got a philosophical revelation, I get it once in a blue moon for a few precious moments before something distracts me and it goes dormant again.
It's the reason I stopped eating meat, and right now I know everything truly is going to be fine for the time being.
It's about the nature of consciousness, the fact that "I" manifested somehow in control of a powerful conscious mind capable of contemplating itself and it's surroundings abstractly. The sheer unlikelihood.. and to manifest in a time of relative peace and prosperity, with centuries of infrastructure. In the vastness of time and space, somehow I manifested here and now, as a human being. And soon I'll be distracted by petty frivolity again.

Actually, this thought is no longer fresh in my mind, so I apologize if I'm not articulating it well. I had typed up a better post when my computer decided to update without warning and shut down

Unless we're headed for a global disaster, I could imagine that a thousand years from now, somebody else will think exactly the same. This person will probably also think "I'm so glad that I wasn't born in the dark times before the singularity. I sure wouldn't want to live back in the primitive 21st century"

If we missed immortality by 200 years I'm gonna be pissed!

Well, actually I won't be around to feel pissed... damn

meh..

digitizing the brain doesnt seem that far off, depending on method of course.

But you wouldn't experience life as your digital copy. Imagine it was possible to create an identical clone of you, at your current age and with all your memory. You wouldn't suddenly see the world through four eyes and think with two brains. Instead, the clone would be completely new individual that merely happens to share your memories and think exactly like you. The same would apply to a digital copy of your mind.

again depends on the method chosen,

gradually digitizing the brain using direct single neuron itnerfaces would allow for an expansion fo the brains function much like the retraining of brain areas today.
(been tested using a genetic marker that allows the neuron to be stimulated using a particular wavelenght of light, the activity of the neuropn was measured using a simple eeg, all in mice)

in essence you would merge with the computer first, then after that has happened your biological body would be linked to an electronic and a biological brain, when your biological brain has a failure in any one area a prepared simulation would be used to replace it (as in digitally simulating the physical behavior of neurons, not a programs as such)
in the end your biological body would be at the end of its service period and can be replaced with a mechanical alternative.

the biggest barrier is our understanding of neurology and our lack of computational power, both something we are rapidly catching up with,
there is a method that is fully functional on mice today where they freeze the brain and slice it into very thin layers, they are then scanned and every single connection and neuron is simulated in a super computer.
unfortunately that does destroy the original consciousness.

anyway most of the above is only speculation untill someone actually realizes more than manipulating the minds of mice

That's kind of interesting, we could organically grow genetically perfect host bodies, and the computing power of our digitized brains could be many times more powerful than the natural human brain.
I can envision abuse though, the ruling class could be made many times more intelligent than lower classes, I wonder if we would still be tainted by the need for power rooted in our reproductive instincts?
Perhaps we could purify the human mind in the process of digitization? In doing so what would the mind become? What would it desire?

The human brain is actually computing at a much faster rate than scientists usually claim ... billions of times faster. What scientists are "measuring" is one of the brain's "outer levels" - as one goes deeper things speed up. Man's knowledge of his "thinking machine" has so far only just "scratched the surface". Not so long ago we thought that our galaxy was "The Universe". If you can't get your head around this consider that just ten years ago nobody knew anything about Epigenetics.

If traditional Genetics is compared to the financial affairs of a single individual Epigenetics is the financial affairs of the whole human race throughout history.

What ARE we gonna discover next?

Telepathy maybe? Or perhaps something "totally out of the box"?

People need to stop trying to be "know it alls" and most definitely need to closely examine the contents of their heads.

What is going in that consciousness of yours? There's a LOT you can learn by doubting your own "pet beliefs".

Nothing is sacred.

'He who follows the way of confusion is blessed indeed'

to me that largely sounds like worthless psychobabble, care to elaborate?

if you are talking about the realization that non coding dna has an impact then sure it does, but that has less to do with the brain than our biology on a whole, ie it wont change the behavior of neurons, it might change our view of them but that would only give us more possibilities.

as for billions of times faster than what scientists usually claim, where does that assumption come from,
what do you even mean by faster? no one will argue that a human can calculate anything near as fast as even your basic graph calculator (which is nothing compared to a desktop that is only a 10000th of a general use supercomputer, which in itself doesnt come near the fastest in its class and all that is only traditional computing, quantum computing and optical computing is only emerging)
true that we take care of buttloads more than simply calculating even when we concentrate, but still there are multiple ways of calculating speed, before we determine what speed is it would be impossible to even speak about faster or slower.

then comes the problem of distinct versus fuzzy logic.

also what do you mean by "outer layers of the brain"