4 ms·

> "There’s no guarantee that this ‘being’ would be the same one who first entered into the cryogenic process, either. As de Grey says, the question remains of “

> "There’s no guarantee that this ‘being’ would be the same one who first entered into the cryogenic process, either. As de Grey says, the question remains of “whether scanning the brain and uploading it into a different substrate is revival at all, or if you’d be creating a new individual with the same characteristics.” I think this is probably a bit misleading. I can't imagine de Grey being anything other than reductionist in his views about the mind, so I can only imagine his interpretation of this question to be as follows: "has the scanning process captured all the relevant information about the person's mind?" Have you created a new person (by missing out some information from the original's physical instantiation), one who is perhaps very similar to the original, but where some details are different because the scan was not of high enough fidelity? Of course, it's still unknown whether it's even possible to extract sufficient detail from the brain; if by unhappy chance it turns out that some of the quantum details of the brain's state are important to the mind, then it's possible we may simply never be able to copy a person. Let us hope that is not the case.

stcredzero 11y ago
if by unhappy chance it turns out that some of the quantum details of the brain's state are important to the mind, then it's possible we may simply never be able to copy a person. I should think that such a circumstance would mean we wouldn't be able to copy a consciousness while being able to copy the mind. Of course, this would bring in to question exactly what person would mean.
sliverstorm 11y ago
This is like the thought experiment around teleportation. What if the way to teleport was to make a copy of you at the new location, and then disintegrate the old you. What has happened here, esp. wrt. consciousness? Is the copy really you? Is the old you OK with being disintegrated? What if the old you escapes, are there now two of you, and what does that mean? etc.
- EGreg 11y ago
  Start Trek: the Next Generation explored exactly this scenario. https://youtu.be/geMGo2P94j4 https://youtu.be/geMGo2P94j4
  - thwarted 11y ago
    This episode has one of my most memorable Riker lines: If he had gotten off the planet instead of me, don't you think he would have made the same choices that I made? I always felt this line showed how disconnected Riker was about the situation. As if there actually were two of him on the planet before the transporter accident, and it was left to random chance which one of those two it was that left and which one stayed.
    - EGreg 11y ago
      I think Riker here was saying, you're getting into a relationship with someone who didn't put his career ahead of you back then, but he might do it in the future.
- reinhardt 11y ago
  You may enjoy this comic: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1
  - naivepiano 11y ago
    Great comic! Thanks!
T-A 11y ago
So if I manage to create a perfect copy of you, you have no objection to me shooting you - the original one - in the head afterwards? After all, you - the perfect copy - will still be alive and well. If that prospect makes you a little uncomfortable, you are intuiting the problem of "pattern identity" vs "continuity identity".
- jobigoud 11y ago
  If you make a perfect copy, the identity has branched. There are now two distinct entities (with continuity) that are starting to diverge, why would any of them accept to be shot?
  - tfm 11y ago
    ... not to mention, each of them might feel some small measure of empathy for the other! What if one did this regularly? Would battle-hardened cloners become insensitive to "retirement" of their doppelgangers, or as the last survivor of the series of slayings would they start to feel hunted? Really feels at least a few centuries too early to even gauge whether it is possible to substantially capture (let alone reproduce) the state of a brain. Sure would be disappointing if it turned out you could get 90% of the functionality with a ten-state DFA featuring frowning and pooping, but it would make cryonics a whole lot easier. "Just leave me enough brainstem to get home."
  - FeepingCreature 11y ago
    I mean, I'd do it, because it's physically equivalent to losing a few seconds of memory. But I take it I am unusual in this.
- Smaug123 11y ago
  I would object, obviously. It would be murder of a human. You have duplicated me; that doesn't give you the right to kill one of me. The original remains sentient, and I would quite possibly care for it more than I would care for other family. Analogy: impregnating a woman and (eventually) causing her to give birth - that is, "duplicating" her, although the copy is actually not very like her - doesn't give you the right to kill her. I'm fine with teleportation, if that's what you mean, but I go into that with the intention of the death of one of the copies. It's effective suicide, not externally-imposed murder.
Razengan 11y ago
> if by unhappy chance it turns out that some of the quantum details of the brain's state are important to the mind, then it's possible we may simply never be able to copy a person. Let us hope that is not the case. I would hope that that is indeed the case... For people who are into anime, there is a very nice one about this issue called Kaiba [1] that envisions a future where everyone is freely able to modify their memories and swap them across bodies. [1] http://myanimelist.net/anime/3701/Kaiba http://myanimelist.net/anime/3701/Kaiba

stcredzero 11y ago

if by unhappy chance it turns out that some of the quantum details of the brain's state are important to the mind, then it's possible we may simply never be able to copy a person. I should think that such a circumstance would mean we wouldn't be able to copy a consciousness while being able to copy the mind. Of course, this would bring in to question exactly what person would mean.

sliverstorm 11y ago

This is like the thought experiment around teleportation. What if the way to teleport was to make a copy of you at the new location, and then disintegrate the old you. What has happened here, esp. wrt. consciousness? Is the copy really you? Is the old you OK with being disintegrated? What if the old you escapes, are there now two of you, and what does that mean? etc.

EGreg 11y ago
Start Trek: the Next Generation explored exactly this scenario. https://youtu.be/geMGo2P94j4 https://youtu.be/geMGo2P94j4
- thwarted 11y ago
  This episode has one of my most memorable Riker lines: If he had gotten off the planet instead of me, don't you think he would have made the same choices that I made? I always felt this line showed how disconnected Riker was about the situation. As if there actually were two of him on the planet before the transporter accident, and it was left to random chance which one of those two it was that left and which one stayed.
  - EGreg 11y ago
    I think Riker here was saying, you're getting into a relationship with someone who didn't put his career ahead of you back then, but he might do it in the future.
reinhardt 11y ago
You may enjoy this comic: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1
- naivepiano 11y ago
  Great comic! Thanks!

T-A 11y ago

So if I manage to create a perfect copy of you, you have no objection to me shooting you - the original one - in the head afterwards? After all, you - the perfect copy - will still be alive and well. If that prospect makes you a little uncomfortable, you are intuiting the problem of "pattern identity" vs "continuity identity".

jobigoud 11y ago
If you make a perfect copy, the identity has branched. There are now two distinct entities (with continuity) that are starting to diverge, why would any of them accept to be shot?
- tfm 11y ago
  ... not to mention, each of them might feel some small measure of empathy for the other! What if one did this regularly? Would battle-hardened cloners become insensitive to "retirement" of their doppelgangers, or as the last survivor of the series of slayings would they start to feel hunted? Really feels at least a few centuries too early to even gauge whether it is possible to substantially capture (let alone reproduce) the state of a brain. Sure would be disappointing if it turned out you could get 90% of the functionality with a ten-state DFA featuring frowning and pooping, but it would make cryonics a whole lot easier. "Just leave me enough brainstem to get home."
- FeepingCreature 11y ago
  I mean, I'd do it, because it's physically equivalent to losing a few seconds of memory. But I take it I am unusual in this.
Smaug123 11y ago
I would object, obviously. It would be murder of a human. You have duplicated me; that doesn't give you the right to kill one of me. The original remains sentient, and I would quite possibly care for it more than I would care for other family. Analogy: impregnating a woman and (eventually) causing her to give birth - that is, "duplicating" her, although the copy is actually not very like her - doesn't give you the right to kill her. I'm fine with teleportation, if that's what you mean, but I go into that with the intention of the death of one of the copies. It's effective suicide, not externally-imposed murder.

Razengan 11y ago

> if by unhappy chance it turns out that some of the quantum details of the brain's state are important to the mind, then it's possible we may simply never be able to copy a person. Let us hope that is not the case. I would hope that that is indeed the case... For people who are into anime, there is a very nice one about this issue called Kaiba [1] that envisions a future where everyone is freely able to modify their memories and swap them across bodies. [1] http://myanimelist.net/anime/3701/Kaiba http://myanimelist.net/anime/3701/Kaiba