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The thing we're trying to preserve is not the information of ourselves, but the physical brain and spinal column. I have to disagree. If, while you are sleepin

The thing we're trying to preserve is not the information of ourselves, but the physical brain and spinal column. I have to disagree. If, while you are sleeping, someone replaced your brain with a processor capable of simulating your brain - whether at the physical level of quarks and electrons or at some higher level of abstraction - and connected it to your spine and whatever else is relevant, you would not even notice the difference until someone tried to image your brain. What makes you you is the information in your brain and its ability to process and update this information, not the brain itself as the substrate that stores the information and provides the ability to modify it.

willis936 5y ago
If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". The best you can do is Ship of Theseus into a more robust medium, but that further highlights that there was nothing special there to begin with. The preservation urge is not rooted in reality.
- danbruc 5y ago
  If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". I the copy would certainly think I cheated death, I the original not so much. You are assuming your conclusion, you are assuming the continuity of your self is tied to the matter of your brain, so the original is you while the copy is not you. If the copying happened while you were unconscious, then two copies of you would eventually wake up and both would be unsure if they just cheated death or if they are going to die at some point.
  - Nursie 5y ago
    The two copies would then go on to live separate lives, the original would not experience the experiences of the immortal copy, and would die. To them, from their subjective viewpoint, they have not achieved immortality.
    - danbruc 5y ago
      Of course, but the copy is also you and has achieved immortality. willis936 has set this scenario up like this, to make you mortal and immortal at the same time. If you want to become immortal unconditionally, destroy the original after the copying process, then there will be only one you and you will be immortal.
      - Nursie 5y ago
        > Of course, but the copy is also you Not in any way that's meaningful to me! But I guess we should leave it there, I'm not really adding to the debate.
      - ASalazarMX 5y ago
        The copy isn't you, it is like you. If you disappeared and let it take over your life, no one would notice, but it would start diverging from you quickly because your life has changed very drastically.
        danbruc 5y ago
        Okay, forget this immortality thing, back to the original teletransporter. You step into a machine, it scans you at the subatomic level, and disassembles you into your atoms. Some distance away a second machine receives your scan and assembles some atoms accordingly. Alternatively your atoms also get shipped to the second machine and are put back into place there. Is the person coming out of the second machine you? If not, why? Some things to consider. You usually do not care about the exact atoms your body is made of, they get exchanged constantly. Even more dramatic changes like losing limbs, getting organs transplanted, or even replacing your heart with an artificial one do not change your identity. They will most likely affect your personality but they will not make you a fundamentally different person. Your consciousness is not uninterrupted, you lose it every time you fall asleep. You can even fall unconscious, get transported by an ambulance to a different place, get pieces of your body replaced, and wake up some time later in a hospital bed. You will most likely agree that you are still the same person. Sure, the teletransporter is more extrem in essentially every regard, but where is it fundamentally different so that the person stepping out of it is not the same person that stepped into it at the other end?
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    No. If the copy is faithful, it would understand the procedure made a copy. Unless you made an identical copy (and what would you gain from this?), each would know which is which. I guess you could lie to the patient about the procedure being a mind transfer instead of a copy. That would help market the procedure if the copy was destructive, though.
- willis936 5y ago
  To expand on this: the thing we want isn't immortality as it is possible in reality. What we actually want is the nature of reality to be different. We want our identity to be special, something that can be labeled as a mysterious "consciousness", but no such thing exists. It's a hard truth that almost no one is willing to face. The people making decisions about whether or not we commit atrocities to "others" should bother to face this reality first.
  - danbruc 5y ago
    I don't know about other people in general, but this does not apply to me, I would rather like to know how things work, because if you know you might actually be able to hack things and this seems much more interesting than making unsubstantiated claims or having unsubstantiated hopes about things you do not understand.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
I find these philosophy thought exercises profoundly useless. Even if copying a brain into a simulator, surgically replacing the brain with the simulator without the host noticing and without secondary effects, was somehow possible, they give the same vibe as "imagine an infinite rope", "imagine a perfectly spherical cow", etc. They're fun for discussing while having a few beers with your friends, but they don't help solve the problem they think they're helping solve.

willis936 5y ago

If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". The best you can do is Ship of Theseus into a more robust medium, but that further highlights that there was nothing special there to begin with. The preservation urge is not rooted in reality.

danbruc 5y ago
If you cloned yourself perfectly to cheat death you wouldn't think "I cheated death", you would think "I just made a copy and I'm still afraid of death". I the copy would certainly think I cheated death, I the original not so much. You are assuming your conclusion, you are assuming the continuity of your self is tied to the matter of your brain, so the original is you while the copy is not you. If the copying happened while you were unconscious, then two copies of you would eventually wake up and both would be unsure if they just cheated death or if they are going to die at some point.
- Nursie 5y ago
  The two copies would then go on to live separate lives, the original would not experience the experiences of the immortal copy, and would die. To them, from their subjective viewpoint, they have not achieved immortality.
  - danbruc 5y ago
    Of course, but the copy is also you and has achieved immortality. willis936 has set this scenario up like this, to make you mortal and immortal at the same time. If you want to become immortal unconditionally, destroy the original after the copying process, then there will be only one you and you will be immortal.
    - Nursie 5y ago
      > Of course, but the copy is also you Not in any way that's meaningful to me! But I guess we should leave it there, I'm not really adding to the debate.
    - ASalazarMX 5y ago
      The copy isn't you, it is like you. If you disappeared and let it take over your life, no one would notice, but it would start diverging from you quickly because your life has changed very drastically.
      - danbruc 5y ago
        Okay, forget this immortality thing, back to the original teletransporter. You step into a machine, it scans you at the subatomic level, and disassembles you into your atoms. Some distance away a second machine receives your scan and assembles some atoms accordingly. Alternatively your atoms also get shipped to the second machine and are put back into place there. Is the person coming out of the second machine you? If not, why? Some things to consider. You usually do not care about the exact atoms your body is made of, they get exchanged constantly. Even more dramatic changes like losing limbs, getting organs transplanted, or even replacing your heart with an artificial one do not change your identity. They will most likely affect your personality but they will not make you a fundamentally different person. Your consciousness is not uninterrupted, you lose it every time you fall asleep. You can even fall unconscious, get transported by an ambulance to a different place, get pieces of your body replaced, and wake up some time later in a hospital bed. You will most likely agree that you are still the same person. Sure, the teletransporter is more extrem in essentially every regard, but where is it fundamentally different so that the person stepping out of it is not the same person that stepped into it at the other end?
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  No. If the copy is faithful, it would understand the procedure made a copy. Unless you made an identical copy (and what would you gain from this?), each would know which is which. I guess you could lie to the patient about the procedure being a mind transfer instead of a copy. That would help market the procedure if the copy was destructive, though.
willis936 5y ago
To expand on this: the thing we want isn't immortality as it is possible in reality. What we actually want is the nature of reality to be different. We want our identity to be special, something that can be labeled as a mysterious "consciousness", but no such thing exists. It's a hard truth that almost no one is willing to face. The people making decisions about whether or not we commit atrocities to "others" should bother to face this reality first.
- danbruc 5y ago
  I don't know about other people in general, but this does not apply to me, I would rather like to know how things work, because if you know you might actually be able to hack things and this seems much more interesting than making unsubstantiated claims or having unsubstantiated hopes about things you do not understand.

ASalazarMX 5y ago

I find these philosophy thought exercises profoundly useless. Even if copying a brain into a simulator, surgically replacing the brain with the simulator without the host noticing and without secondary effects, was somehow possible, they give the same vibe as "imagine an infinite rope", "imagine a perfectly spherical cow", etc. They're fun for discussing while having a few beers with your friends, but they don't help solve the problem they think they're helping solve.