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seems hardly worth the trouble. don't flatter yourself your brain needs to stay around - highly unlikely and very un-ecological to power up a machine to maintai

seems hardly worth the trouble. don't flatter yourself your brain needs to stay around - highly unlikely and very un-ecological to power up a machine to maintain a presence of virtualitzed shit for brains. -Just saying. Next Question?

a3n 11y ago
If we ever do get to the point of even attempting this, it won't be because the source brain is in any way special. They'll just be medical volunteers, and their best hope is complete failure, because any success will (I think) result in complete insanity.
- RevRal 11y ago
  >because any success will (I think) result in complete insanity. Why's that?
  - anonmeow 11y ago
    Because brain is a highly nonlinear system, and these are hard to model. You cannot model every metabolic process in every neuron and astrocyte, you have to take computational shortcuts and use approximations. These approximations may have severe global effects. To demonstrate the nonlinearity of these models there was an experiment http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3593.full http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3593.full where researchers excluded a single spike from the large scale brain simulation. The global state of simulation has diverged after 100 timesteps, compared to the version where this spike was present.
    - RevRal 11y ago
      I'm trying to integrate your linked paper (thank you for that) to a discussion about philosophical zombies and parallel yet alternate behavioral heuristics but I'm afraid I don't quite have the energy. Thank you for your response.
tim333 11y ago
> seems hardly worth the trouble Assuming it works well why not keep in touch with the loved ones. Funerals are so gloomy. Why not an upload party? You could make the virtual environment like the versions of heaven in the various religious books and have that stuff for real rather than make believe.
- drdeca 11y ago
  The beliefs I have would not be immitateable by such methods, even if brain uploading is achieved. It could not properly deal with the problem of my moral imperfection. Also, a computer would have only finitely many states, so it would only delay death, not prevent it, as having the same exact mental state an infinite number of times would, I think, be indistinguishable from having it only once.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    > The beliefs I have would not be immitateable by such methods, even if brain uploading is achieved. Feel free to skip it, then, but many others want the option. > It could not properly deal with the problem of my moral imperfection. Morals depend on the ability to empathize, evaluate the effects of your actions on others, and act accordingly. So, you can indeed give yourself the tools to become far more moral. > Also, a computer would have only finitely many states, so it would only delay death, not prevent it, as having the same exact mental state an infinite number of times would, I think, be indistinguishable from having it only once. There's a huge amount of theory on how fun and novelty work with enhanced cognitive ability, with many potential solutions to that problem. Beyond that, long before we deal with the finite number of interesting mental states, we'll have to deal with the heat death of the universe. Given a few billion years to work on both problems, I think we'll manage a solution. I'm far more concerned about whether we can solve mortality before the next existential threat to humanity than about whether we can solve problems like the heat death of the universe in billions of years.
    - drdeca 11y ago
      Far more moral, perhaps. Perfectly moral? I doubt it. I don't trust ourselves to be able to perfectly resolve the difficulties between being and having choice, and not making any immoral choices. Also, I'm not a consequentialist; I don't think morality is entirely determined by what impacts the choices have on others. I'm not saying that it would be bad to extend life in this way, only that it would not be the same as what I believe is after life here. And it would not be an end to death. > There's a huge amount of theory on how fun and novelty work with enhanced cognitive ability, with many potential solutions to that problem. I am not speaking of becoming merely bored. Mere entertainment is nothing much. I am speaking of one's experiences ceasing to have an after which one can distinguish from one's before. I am speaking of death, of ceasing to be * . A finite state machine must either reach the same exact state more than once (in which case it cannot distinguish whether it is the first time it has entered that state or not, as that would be part of the state), or it must halt. And if it does reach the same exact state more than once, there is no difference for it whether it reaches a state a third time or not. If its experiences map 1 to 1 with its state, then its experiences have a finite length corresponding to something not more than its total number of states. (If you don't find this convincing, I expect I could provide a more convincing argument based on secret sharing schemes.) Current understanding of physics includes the Bekenstein bound. I see no justification for your apparent belief that a problem with the Bekenstein bound will be found. If the understanding of the Bekenstein bound is correct (and I see no reason to assume that it is not), then to have an unlimited lifespan in the universe, one's volume must increase without bound. This is of course, a very slow rate of expansion, with the lower bound being something like, your radius has to be at least sqrt(log(age × K_1) + K_2), where K_1 and K_2 are some constants. I see no reason to expect that the Bekenstein bound will be broken, and not replaced with something at least similar. * rather, ceasing to be/live in the universe as it is, which I think you would consider to be what death is.
onewaystreet 11y ago
So you don't use prescription drugs of any kind or ever visit a doctor? Since it would be hypocritical of you to waste those resources on yourself.
anonmeow 11y ago
If someone can pay for these computing resources, why shouldn't he do it? Also there is no physical law that forbids cheap brain-scale computing. 1 exaflops could easily fit in less than 1 cm^3, given sufficiently advanced logic technology.

a3n 11y ago

If we ever do get to the point of even attempting this, it won't be because the source brain is in any way special. They'll just be medical volunteers, and their best hope is complete failure, because any success will (I think) result in complete insanity.

RevRal 11y ago
>because any success will (I think) result in complete insanity. Why's that?
- anonmeow 11y ago
  Because brain is a highly nonlinear system, and these are hard to model. You cannot model every metabolic process in every neuron and astrocyte, you have to take computational shortcuts and use approximations. These approximations may have severe global effects. To demonstrate the nonlinearity of these models there was an experiment http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3593.full http://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3593.full where researchers excluded a single spike from the large scale brain simulation. The global state of simulation has diverged after 100 timesteps, compared to the version where this spike was present.
  - RevRal 11y ago
    I'm trying to integrate your linked paper (thank you for that) to a discussion about philosophical zombies and parallel yet alternate behavioral heuristics but I'm afraid I don't quite have the energy. Thank you for your response.

tim333 11y ago

> seems hardly worth the trouble Assuming it works well why not keep in touch with the loved ones. Funerals are so gloomy. Why not an upload party? You could make the virtual environment like the versions of heaven in the various religious books and have that stuff for real rather than make believe.

drdeca 11y ago
The beliefs I have would not be immitateable by such methods, even if brain uploading is achieved. It could not properly deal with the problem of my moral imperfection. Also, a computer would have only finitely many states, so it would only delay death, not prevent it, as having the same exact mental state an infinite number of times would, I think, be indistinguishable from having it only once.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > The beliefs I have would not be immitateable by such methods, even if brain uploading is achieved. Feel free to skip it, then, but many others want the option. > It could not properly deal with the problem of my moral imperfection. Morals depend on the ability to empathize, evaluate the effects of your actions on others, and act accordingly. So, you can indeed give yourself the tools to become far more moral. > Also, a computer would have only finitely many states, so it would only delay death, not prevent it, as having the same exact mental state an infinite number of times would, I think, be indistinguishable from having it only once. There's a huge amount of theory on how fun and novelty work with enhanced cognitive ability, with many potential solutions to that problem. Beyond that, long before we deal with the finite number of interesting mental states, we'll have to deal with the heat death of the universe. Given a few billion years to work on both problems, I think we'll manage a solution. I'm far more concerned about whether we can solve mortality before the next existential threat to humanity than about whether we can solve problems like the heat death of the universe in billions of years.
  - drdeca 11y ago
    Far more moral, perhaps. Perfectly moral? I doubt it. I don't trust ourselves to be able to perfectly resolve the difficulties between being and having choice, and not making any immoral choices. Also, I'm not a consequentialist; I don't think morality is entirely determined by what impacts the choices have on others. I'm not saying that it would be bad to extend life in this way, only that it would not be the same as what I believe is after life here. And it would not be an end to death. > There's a huge amount of theory on how fun and novelty work with enhanced cognitive ability, with many potential solutions to that problem. I am not speaking of becoming merely bored. Mere entertainment is nothing much. I am speaking of one's experiences ceasing to have an after which one can distinguish from one's before. I am speaking of death, of ceasing to be * . A finite state machine must either reach the same exact state more than once (in which case it cannot distinguish whether it is the first time it has entered that state or not, as that would be part of the state), or it must halt. And if it does reach the same exact state more than once, there is no difference for it whether it reaches a state a third time or not. If its experiences map 1 to 1 with its state, then its experiences have a finite length corresponding to something not more than its total number of states. (If you don't find this convincing, I expect I could provide a more convincing argument based on secret sharing schemes.) Current understanding of physics includes the Bekenstein bound. I see no justification for your apparent belief that a problem with the Bekenstein bound will be found. If the understanding of the Bekenstein bound is correct (and I see no reason to assume that it is not), then to have an unlimited lifespan in the universe, one's volume must increase without bound. This is of course, a very slow rate of expansion, with the lower bound being something like, your radius has to be at least sqrt(log(age × K_1) + K_2), where K_1 and K_2 are some constants. I see no reason to expect that the Bekenstein bound will be broken, and not replaced with something at least similar. * rather, ceasing to be/live in the universe as it is, which I think you would consider to be what death is.

onewaystreet 11y ago

So you don't use prescription drugs of any kind or ever visit a doctor? Since it would be hypocritical of you to waste those resources on yourself.

anonmeow 11y ago

If someone can pay for these computing resources, why shouldn't he do it? Also there is no physical law that forbids cheap brain-scale computing. 1 exaflops could easily fit in less than 1 cm^3, given sufficiently advanced logic technology.