4 ms·

I never got the brain upload style of immortality. I desire myself to live eternally, not a simulacrum or copy. What you're describing is a fancy way of creatin

by pugio 10y ago

I never got the brain upload style of immortality. I desire myself to live eternally, not a simulacrum or copy. What you're describing is a fancy way of creating, and then torturing, an AI.

kasparsklavins 10y ago
Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
techdragon 10y ago
The Ship of Theseus would like to be so certain. At what point are you not you? Bionic organs? limbs? New bones, artificial blood? Neuro-prosthetic interfaces or implants? "Biologically integrated coprocessors"? I'm Genuinely curious where you choose to draw the line since it's not often discussed from a personal standpoint it's usually just the philosophical arguments that get discussed in what I've read.
- runeks 10y ago
  I am my experience of the world, so to speak. Creating an exact copy of me wouldn't make me experience the world from two different perspectives at the same time. It would just create a new human being that, allegedly, would be a "copy" of me (or so people would say). To me, it would just be another person walking around. There wouldn't be any essential difference between this person and an adult child of mine.
  - the8472 10y ago
    But today's you has diverged from yesterday's you just as much as tomorrow's copy would have diverged from today's original. At the moment of copying - assuming a sufficiently high fidelity - they would be practically identical. The differentiation would only happen over time. So if you kill the original - maybe because the procedure is destructive or because it's a consciousness-saving emergency measure - the "copy" would have a pretty good claim to be a continuation of you.
  - plokiju 10y ago
    But why is "your experience of the world" tied to your current physical body? I think that the brain is just a machine that creates the illusion of a consciousness. If you turn the machine off, copy the all the data into new hardware, and turn it back on, it will start back where it left off, and the "you" inside won't know the difference. You might not even notice it happened
  - pugio 10y ago
    Agreed. Responding to the replies, regarding the fidelity of a copy: Yes, the copy would have a great claim to being you. Assuming the physiology of the copy is also (nearly) identical (behavior and personality is not a pure function of the brain), the world at large would also identify it as you. But I'm not interested in legacy style immortality. I don't care at all if a separate version of me continues to exist – I want to be continuous with the physical substrate I now occupy. In other words, we are all Ship's of Theseus, and that's fine, but a perfect replica of the Ship breaks my internal narrative of continuity. To distinguish: If a form of "immortality" supports the possibility of another copy of me existing simultaneously with the current incarnation, then it is not the immortality I'd desire. Responding to the parent, I would much prefer slowly replacing my neural hardware with circuitry to wholesale scanning and instantiation in another substrate. Summarize: Identity is (partially) a function of substrate. Change the substrate in a discontinuous fashion, and identity itself becomes discontinuous. I call that discontinuity (one form of) "Death".
plokiju 10y ago
That begs the question of what are "you". I personally believe that I am just the data contained in my brain, and it can be copied and transferred around, but where ever it ends up would still be me.
- arethuza 10y ago
  I occasionally wonder if the "me" that goes to sleep is really the same "me" that wakes up or whether it is another instance of me restored from a backup.
- te_chris 10y ago
  There's a lot of recent psychology research that suggests you're very wrong and that your body and physical experience is fundamental to our existence as beings.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    That's trivially invalidated by observing that there are people without various limbs and/or other body parts that are nevertheless happily alive and considered to exist as beings. The physical body - and the physical environment we live in - are just variables that can be gradually altered. Even if the brain is optimized towards a particular environment, it doesn't mean it won't handle a different one.
    - pugio 10y ago
      It is not trivial, nor invalidated. They do exists as beings, yes, but different beings than the ones who possessed (or would have possessed) those limbs. The question is not one of necessary conditions for "being-hood", it is one of identity via continuity.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Identity via continuity sounds like the Ship of Theseus problem[0], and it doesn't seem like any kind of a roadblock for anything. As for being a different being, I personally wouldn't mind. I'm not the same being I was yesterday, or last year, anyway. For instance, over the past few years, I have many parts of my teeth removed and replaced with artificial components. I do not feel worse because of that. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
metaphorm 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...

by pugio 10y ago

I never got the brain upload style of immortality. I desire myself to live eternally, not a simulacrum or copy. What you're describing is a fancy way of creating, and then torturing, an AI.

kasparsklavins 10y ago

Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

techdragon 10y ago

The Ship of Theseus would like to be so certain. At what point are you not you? Bionic organs? limbs? New bones, artificial blood? Neuro-prosthetic interfaces or implants? "Biologically integrated coprocessors"? I'm Genuinely curious where you choose to draw the line since it's not often discussed from a personal standpoint it's usually just the philosophical arguments that get discussed in what I've read.

runeks 10y ago
I am my experience of the world, so to speak. Creating an exact copy of me wouldn't make me experience the world from two different perspectives at the same time. It would just create a new human being that, allegedly, would be a "copy" of me (or so people would say). To me, it would just be another person walking around. There wouldn't be any essential difference between this person and an adult child of mine.
- the8472 10y ago
  But today's you has diverged from yesterday's you just as much as tomorrow's copy would have diverged from today's original. At the moment of copying - assuming a sufficiently high fidelity - they would be practically identical. The differentiation would only happen over time. So if you kill the original - maybe because the procedure is destructive or because it's a consciousness-saving emergency measure - the "copy" would have a pretty good claim to be a continuation of you.
- plokiju 10y ago
  But why is "your experience of the world" tied to your current physical body? I think that the brain is just a machine that creates the illusion of a consciousness. If you turn the machine off, copy the all the data into new hardware, and turn it back on, it will start back where it left off, and the "you" inside won't know the difference. You might not even notice it happened
- pugio 10y ago
  Agreed. Responding to the replies, regarding the fidelity of a copy: Yes, the copy would have a great claim to being you. Assuming the physiology of the copy is also (nearly) identical (behavior and personality is not a pure function of the brain), the world at large would also identify it as you. But I'm not interested in legacy style immortality. I don't care at all if a separate version of me continues to exist – I want to be continuous with the physical substrate I now occupy. In other words, we are all Ship's of Theseus, and that's fine, but a perfect replica of the Ship breaks my internal narrative of continuity. To distinguish: If a form of "immortality" supports the possibility of another copy of me existing simultaneously with the current incarnation, then it is not the immortality I'd desire. Responding to the parent, I would much prefer slowly replacing my neural hardware with circuitry to wholesale scanning and instantiation in another substrate. Summarize: Identity is (partially) a function of substrate. Change the substrate in a discontinuous fashion, and identity itself becomes discontinuous. I call that discontinuity (one form of) "Death".

plokiju 10y ago

That begs the question of what are "you". I personally believe that I am just the data contained in my brain, and it can be copied and transferred around, but where ever it ends up would still be me.

arethuza 10y ago
I occasionally wonder if the "me" that goes to sleep is really the same "me" that wakes up or whether it is another instance of me restored from a backup.
te_chris 10y ago
There's a lot of recent psychology research that suggests you're very wrong and that your body and physical experience is fundamental to our existence as beings.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  That's trivially invalidated by observing that there are people without various limbs and/or other body parts that are nevertheless happily alive and considered to exist as beings. The physical body - and the physical environment we live in - are just variables that can be gradually altered. Even if the brain is optimized towards a particular environment, it doesn't mean it won't handle a different one.
  - pugio 10y ago
    It is not trivial, nor invalidated. They do exists as beings, yes, but different beings than the ones who possessed (or would have possessed) those limbs. The question is not one of necessary conditions for "being-hood", it is one of identity via continuity.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Identity via continuity sounds like the Ship of Theseus problem[0], and it doesn't seem like any kind of a roadblock for anything. As for being a different being, I personally wouldn't mind. I'm not the same being I was yesterday, or last year, anyway. For instance, over the past few years, I have many parts of my teeth removed and replaced with artificial components. I do not feel worse because of that. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

metaphorm 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...