9 ms·

Seems like a big bet on the concept that the physical structure of the brain preserves enough information to resurrect a consciousness. If electrical transmissi

Seems like a big bet on the concept that the physical structure of the brain preserves enough information to resurrect a consciousness. If electrical transmissions are at all required, then this would render a brain nothing more than an amusing curio. Although, given that their target market is already those planning to be euthanized, I suppose the tradeoff of one's brain being an amusing curio vs. one's brain being worm food is not a reason to avoid this service. If they are correct, it brings up an interesting question: given that the technology requires a slow, planned process to preserve the brain, at what point should a uniquely brilliant person be euthanized, in order to preserve them, rather than allowing them to die by sudden misadventure, e.g. not paying attention and getting hit by a car crossing the street. Given that the output of so many brilliant people is skewed to when they are young, do we just start proactively euthanizing the top 0.05% of the population when they reach 50, to preserve our best for the future?

prepend 9y ago
Clearly, morality and the greater good of humanity requires that we proactively euthanize any genius who hits 60. Even against their will. All assets should go to the euthanasia team to cover costs.
- manmal 9y ago
  Do you refer to a certain Star Trek episode? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_... (Ritual suicide at age 60 embedded in culture)
  - prepend 9y ago
    I had forgotten about this. I bet I subsciously used it. I was actually thinking of Logan’s Run when writing my comment.
  - cpeterso 9y ago
    Or Logan's Run. (Ritual suicide embedded in culture, age 21 in the novel and 30 in the film)
  - smhenderson 9y ago
    RIP David Ogden Stiers [1]. That episode of Trek might be the only thing I ever saw him other than MASH but I found him quite good in both. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogden_Stiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogden_Stiers
  - RegBarclay 9y ago
    Also found in Asimov's Pebble in the Sky.
- EGreg 9y ago
  Or, you know, you could just clone them, like Riker. Or make a copy without invasive means. And anyway, if people have cybernetic implants, I wonder what being human will mean.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    People talk about how cybernetics will change what it means to be human, however I really believe we are already past that point. My cell phone and computer augment my ability to do things to such a degree that I feel I'm not myself without those abilities. I rely on note apps to remember things, calendars to schedule, internet searches to re-discover information or lookup specifics. My social life, my professional life, and my personal life are all significantly changed by computers. I honestly feel taking your eyes and hands out of the equation and putting stuff directly into your brain is going to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.
OscarCunningham 9y ago
>If electrical transmissions are at all required, then this would render a brain nothing more than an amusing curio. That fact that people sometimes survive lightning strikes and epileptic fits suggests that normal brain activity can be restarted after a disruption.
- Balgair 9y ago
  The current research in Neuro is that a memory a synaptic condition, in that some synapse is structured in some way in relation to other neurons. There are W-many GABA receptors and X-many vesicles, Y-many AMPA receptors and Z-many neurotransmitters. Each receptor is in some state of flux in terms of it's age and other chemical modifiers on the protein. The synapse itself is tethered in some way and has structural proteins in it (not all of which are known these days). The astrocytes and glia that surround each synapse are also modifying the region, including some uptake/downtake of receptors and neurotransmitter vesicles (cool, very recent stuff). Additionally, the cells themselves are regulating the synapses in relation to the other synapses in the cell and the extra-cellular environment. Note: not all neurons 'fire' via synapses, some are just directly attached to a cell's soma (main cell body where the nucleus is). It's Bio, everything is crazy. Still, that synapse is thought to be the main modification area of neuronal firing, in that it acts like a classical memristor. So, though electrical activity is not required and lightning/shocks can be sustained (by some miracle), the 'self'/mind is the network of the synapses (GIANT caveats apply here). Also, even under heavy anesthesia, the neurons are firing and active, jsut not coherently. If you can preserve the synaptic weights, their dynamics, and their network, you should be able to reconstruct the 'mind' of another person. However, that is one instant in time and space. You'd need to know where pretty much every ion was and it's momentum, and I'm pretty sure that's impossible (Heisenberg and all that jazz).
  - 21 9y ago
    > You'd need to know where pretty much every ion was and it's momentum, and I'm pretty sure that's impossible. As parent said, people do stuff like trans-cranial electric stimulation which surely changes where some ions are, yet they do not lose their personality afterwards. I'm pretty sure our brain is more robust than the exact position of every ion. Biology is very messy, and stochastic. Also note how artificial neural networks are very noise resistant, which allows people to run them on low-precission numbers.
minimuffins 9y ago
I dunno, if this guy won't even look both ways maybe he doesn't actually deserve a slot in the cryo cooler.
mulmen 9y ago
> Given that the output of so many brilliant people is skewed to when they are young... [citation needed] Is this really the case? If so why do salaries increase with age? What do you mean by "young"? The bottom half of living people by age? How do you explain the years our children spend in school generating no value at all?
- mandelbrotwurst 9y ago
  Are you sure that children do not generate value?
  - mulmen 9y ago
    That’s a very unfavorable and disingenuous reading of my comment. The portion of kaizendad’s comment that I replied to specifically mentioned “output”. I interpret this to mean economic benefit or “value”. The time students spend in school is time they are not working. Children generate almost zero economic benefit until they are out of school and the type of person kaizendad references is likely to spend a lot of time in school. Their economic contributions probably do not start until their late 20s. I think a persons maximum economic output is probability closer to middle age than their early adult years. Perhaps kaizendad and I simply misalign on the definition of “young”.
    - brett40324 9y ago
      Your position on this is a little disturbing, and ignores every child/young adult who either grew up poor and had to work, or worked part time because their parents didnt buy them a car or every other thing they wanted as a teen. Or, they just actually wanted a job. I mean, in the US you can go anywhere and there's 15 and 16 year olds working as clerks, restaurant employees, etc. I got my first legally taxed job in Indiana as a 'root beer boy' at a diner when I was 14! Edit: https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/youth-employment/ https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/youth-employment/ From link, "As of October 2015, 49 percent of all youth ages 16-24 were employed in any work, either full- or part-time. Youth enrolled in high school had an employment rate of 18 percent, while the rate for those in college, either full- or part-time, was 45 percent."

prepend 9y ago

Clearly, morality and the greater good of humanity requires that we proactively euthanize any genius who hits 60. Even against their will. All assets should go to the euthanasia team to cover costs.

manmal 9y ago
Do you refer to a certain Star Trek episode? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_(Star_Trek:_The_... (Ritual suicide at age 60 embedded in culture)
- prepend 9y ago
  I had forgotten about this. I bet I subsciously used it. I was actually thinking of Logan’s Run when writing my comment.
- cpeterso 9y ago
  Or Logan's Run. (Ritual suicide embedded in culture, age 21 in the novel and 30 in the film)
- smhenderson 9y ago
  RIP David Ogden Stiers [1]. That episode of Trek might be the only thing I ever saw him other than MASH but I found him quite good in both. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogden_Stiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ogden_Stiers
- RegBarclay 9y ago
  Also found in Asimov's Pebble in the Sky.
EGreg 9y ago
Or, you know, you could just clone them, like Riker. Or make a copy without invasive means. And anyway, if people have cybernetic implants, I wonder what being human will mean.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  People talk about how cybernetics will change what it means to be human, however I really believe we are already past that point. My cell phone and computer augment my ability to do things to such a degree that I feel I'm not myself without those abilities. I rely on note apps to remember things, calendars to schedule, internet searches to re-discover information or lookup specifics. My social life, my professional life, and my personal life are all significantly changed by computers. I honestly feel taking your eyes and hands out of the equation and putting stuff directly into your brain is going to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.

OscarCunningham 9y ago

>If electrical transmissions are at all required, then this would render a brain nothing more than an amusing curio. That fact that people sometimes survive lightning strikes and epileptic fits suggests that normal brain activity can be restarted after a disruption.

Balgair 9y ago
The current research in Neuro is that a memory a synaptic condition, in that some synapse is structured in some way in relation to other neurons. There are W-many GABA receptors and X-many vesicles, Y-many AMPA receptors and Z-many neurotransmitters. Each receptor is in some state of flux in terms of it's age and other chemical modifiers on the protein. The synapse itself is tethered in some way and has structural proteins in it (not all of which are known these days). The astrocytes and glia that surround each synapse are also modifying the region, including some uptake/downtake of receptors and neurotransmitter vesicles (cool, very recent stuff). Additionally, the cells themselves are regulating the synapses in relation to the other synapses in the cell and the extra-cellular environment. Note: not all neurons 'fire' via synapses, some are just directly attached to a cell's soma (main cell body where the nucleus is). It's Bio, everything is crazy. Still, that synapse is thought to be the main modification area of neuronal firing, in that it acts like a classical memristor. So, though electrical activity is not required and lightning/shocks can be sustained (by some miracle), the 'self'/mind is the network of the synapses (GIANT caveats apply here). Also, even under heavy anesthesia, the neurons are firing and active, jsut not coherently. If you can preserve the synaptic weights, their dynamics, and their network, you should be able to reconstruct the 'mind' of another person. However, that is one instant in time and space. You'd need to know where pretty much every ion was and it's momentum, and I'm pretty sure that's impossible (Heisenberg and all that jazz).
- 21 9y ago
  > You'd need to know where pretty much every ion was and it's momentum, and I'm pretty sure that's impossible. As parent said, people do stuff like trans-cranial electric stimulation which surely changes where some ions are, yet they do not lose their personality afterwards. I'm pretty sure our brain is more robust than the exact position of every ion. Biology is very messy, and stochastic. Also note how artificial neural networks are very noise resistant, which allows people to run them on low-precission numbers.

minimuffins 9y ago

I dunno, if this guy won't even look both ways maybe he doesn't actually deserve a slot in the cryo cooler.

mulmen 9y ago

> Given that the output of so many brilliant people is skewed to when they are young... [citation needed] Is this really the case? If so why do salaries increase with age? What do you mean by "young"? The bottom half of living people by age? How do you explain the years our children spend in school generating no value at all?

mandelbrotwurst 9y ago
Are you sure that children do not generate value?
- mulmen 9y ago
  That’s a very unfavorable and disingenuous reading of my comment. The portion of kaizendad’s comment that I replied to specifically mentioned “output”. I interpret this to mean economic benefit or “value”. The time students spend in school is time they are not working. Children generate almost zero economic benefit until they are out of school and the type of person kaizendad references is likely to spend a lot of time in school. Their economic contributions probably do not start until their late 20s. I think a persons maximum economic output is probability closer to middle age than their early adult years. Perhaps kaizendad and I simply misalign on the definition of “young”.
  - brett40324 9y ago
    Your position on this is a little disturbing, and ignores every child/young adult who either grew up poor and had to work, or worked part time because their parents didnt buy them a car or every other thing they wanted as a teen. Or, they just actually wanted a job. I mean, in the US you can go anywhere and there's 15 and 16 year olds working as clerks, restaurant employees, etc. I got my first legally taxed job in Indiana as a 'root beer boy' at a diner when I was 14! Edit: https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/youth-employment/ https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/youth-employment/ From link, "As of October 2015, 49 percent of all youth ages 16-24 were employed in any work, either full- or part-time. Youth enrolled in high school had an employment rate of 18 percent, while the rate for those in college, either full- or part-time, was 45 percent."