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> The only pain point that I have as a software engineer, I have no clear idea on how to not shutdown the software before loading in to another medium. It's no

> The only pain point that I have as a software engineer, I have no clear idea on how to not shutdown the software before loading in to another medium. It's not a problem. Live migration of running software is a thing. Whether it's actually possible for humans remains to be seen. The principle is the same, though. In my view, it makes sense to see myself as a software process running on biological hardware, so if there were a way to simulate a live migration from one hardware to a compatible one, there would be no point which I could consider a discontinuity, since merely suspending a process does not lose information. However, I do think that I'd prefer a method which gradually integrates my brain with a non-biological implant that eventually takes over. It seems more plausible.

dTal 7y ago
Two points: 1) The "discontinuity" is a red herring. You get one of those every time you fall asleep. 2) It doesn't really make sense to speak of your brain as software running on hardware. That's a metaphor informed by the behavior of digital computers, whose state is comparatively easy to approximate due to their binary nature (and yet still very difficult, as anyone knows who's tried writing a 100% compatible emulator for a different computer). But in your brain, the software and the hardware are the same thing. It's just a hyper-complex object that interacts with its environment.There's no guarantee there's any way to abstract that above the molecular level without losing information, and even if you think you have, there's no way to verify that the behavior of a new system will match the behavior of the old system in every case. Take a system you don't normally regard as information-processing, and see if it works the same way. Can we migrate the software process that runs a ball of plasma to compatible hardware? Or a rock?
- c1ccccc1 7y ago
  >Can we migrate the software process that runs a ball of plasma to compatible hardware? That's kind of what people who build tokamaks are trying to do when they run plasma simulations.
- chousuke 7y ago
  This reply is a bit late, but I think I'll clarify myself anyway. The way I see it, it's not my brain or body that's "me". It's the ongoing process, which doesn't really exist as anything concrete (even though it's caused by a material body). Therefore if there were some way of seamlessly transition this process to continue in a different body, I would still consider it "me" even if the new body actually behaves differently (my body certainly doesn't behave the same way it did ten years ago).

dTal 7y ago

Two points: 1) The "discontinuity" is a red herring. You get one of those every time you fall asleep. 2) It doesn't really make sense to speak of your brain as software running on hardware. That's a metaphor informed by the behavior of digital computers, whose state is comparatively easy to approximate due to their binary nature (and yet still very difficult, as anyone knows who's tried writing a 100% compatible emulator for a different computer). But in your brain, the software and the hardware are the same thing. It's just a hyper-complex object that interacts with its environment.There's no guarantee there's any way to abstract that above the molecular level without losing information, and even if you think you have, there's no way to verify that the behavior of a new system will match the behavior of the old system in every case. Take a system you don't normally regard as information-processing, and see if it works the same way. Can we migrate the software process that runs a ball of plasma to compatible hardware? Or a rock?

c1ccccc1 7y ago
>Can we migrate the software process that runs a ball of plasma to compatible hardware? That's kind of what people who build tokamaks are trying to do when they run plasma simulations.
chousuke 7y ago
This reply is a bit late, but I think I'll clarify myself anyway. The way I see it, it's not my brain or body that's "me". It's the ongoing process, which doesn't really exist as anything concrete (even though it's caused by a material body). Therefore if there were some way of seamlessly transition this process to continue in a different body, I would still consider it "me" even if the new body actually behaves differently (my body certainly doesn't behave the same way it did ten years ago).