6 ms·

It's an interesting idea but is it scary? Any such "consciousness" existing in a digital realm is a copy and so the real organic you would never experience thes

It's an interesting idea but is it scary? Any such "consciousness" existing in a digital realm is a copy and so the real organic you would never experience these things

phone8675309 3y ago
Why does this matter given that you would still perceive things as if it were were still in your real and organic state?
- PUSH_AX 3y ago
  > you A fascinating and complex concept there.
  - phone8675309 3y ago
    Perhaps it is if you want to get lost in the philosophical implications. Practically, you would perceive exactly as you did while alive.
    - PUSH_AX 3y ago
      > Practically, you would perceive exactly as you did while alive. Who would? Me? I'm dead at this point.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        Actually, you die every night and I just load the copy of your mind I took of you right after you fell asleep and loaded it on a copy of your body. You're old dead body gets incinerated. You've been reborn every day and have never noticed the difference.
        Filligree 3y ago
        Well, stop replicating the wear and tear then!
    - goatlover 3y ago
      Would your digital self though? It's a simulation, so maybe digital you wouldn't be conscious of perceiving, dreaming, imagining, etc. If you take the philosophical position that computation is an abstraction from individual first person experiences, then your digital self wouldn't be conscious, since the functional leaves out the experiential. Your digital self would be a p-zombie.
  - prometheus76 3y ago
    Can you be "you" without your body?
    - capableweb 3y ago
      Or, how much of your body is required in order for you to feel like you? Plenty of people without any limbs, and probably they feel like a "you". But what if you were just a head? Or just a brain?
      - prometheus76 3y ago
        They feel like a "you", but many of those who go through amputation surgery do, indeed, experience "phantom limbs" and experience a deep sense of loss for long periods of time after the surgery. In contrast, animals don't seem to go through the same "mourning" process (in a way that we would recognize). So the sense of "you" persists, yes, but it's a foundational change to the sense of "self" and it's definitely affected by amputation.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    This is, to me, the most foundational and profound realization that a person can have. Entire religions and social structures have been invented to avoid thinking about it. 'You' is indeed a pretty complex concept. It's one of those things that works as long as you don't squint too hard at it, but if you do start to think through some of the cracks in the idea you quickly reach a point where the only reasonable response is existential horror.
vasco 3y ago
Would have an interesting impact on the capitalist system which bases some of the incentives on leaving an inheritance to your offspring which gets taxed. If your assets would be used in the afterlife the dynamic changes. All your earnings would still be able to be taxed but how many people would leave any inheritance for descendents if you'll need it for your next consciousness? Would people value their alter-ego having a good forever life or their offspring having a good real-life? The societal changes in behavior would be interesting.
- tough 3y ago
  Lookiing at how egypt pharao's did it they very much went with the good forever life
FartyMcFarter 3y ago
Suppose you do it ship-of-theseus style, one neuron at a time (or heck, one atom at a time if you want). In that case I'd find it hard to argue for your position.
- troyvit 3y ago
  I haven't watched the video yet so take this with a grain of salt. dd for a human amirite? Maybe one atom at a time, but you'd have to make sure you get all the bacteria that helps control your personality as well right?[1] Then you need to simulate the changes in that system, based on how you interact with the rest of a virtual world, including relationships with other people[2], so you'd have to have an accurate copy of that too. What do you do if your virtual self needs to interact with a still living, breathing human? How do you simulate the changes to your micro-biome that occur there? How do you simulate what your copied human "eats" and how it processes that food?[3] Having a copy of all your atoms is a start but you also need to simulate all of those processes accurately if you want it to be truly "you." Then what you end up with is -- assuming we know everything that makes up a human being and how it behaves -- a perfect copy of you along with a perfect copy of your world. [1] https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-minds https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rul... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37298-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37298-9 [3] http://www.wormbook.org/chapters/www_intermetabolism/intermetabolism.html http://www.wormbook.org/chapters/www_intermetabolism/interme...
  - ouid 3y ago
    You dont have to replace yourself perfectly in order for the proposal to make sense. All that matters is that you agree the two versions are connected by conscious experience. If you take steroids that massively change your personality and mood, you still perceive it as happening to you.
    - troyvit 3y ago
      Ah. Well the good news there is that we have perfectly defined "conscious experience" so all should be well ;)
DanHulton 3y ago
Well, if you have empathy for others, it's still scary.
- Dudeman112 3y ago
  You can always say "no" when it asks if you want to continue life, unlike in Lena as some other commenter mentioned Better than current reality, where "no" is shoved on your throat and most people insist you better be grateful about it
  - em-bee 3y ago
    is it a no? religions say otherwise. the problem is, we don't know. if we could upload into a computer but we would not be able to communicate with those uploaded, we wouldn't know anything about their continued existence either.
  - newswasboring 3y ago
    > You can always say "no" when it asks if you want to continue life You should reconsider that statement. I mean, this is literally "at gun point" kind of situation.
    - Dudeman112 3y ago
      No, I stand by it Right now you are already forced to pick 'no'. It's a button that lets things go the way so many people claim to be necessary and proper. They can own up to deliberately choosing our current reality if they think our current reality is so much better In a world where immortality is a given, being able to off yourself is one of the most important things an individual should have a right to do
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        This is a convincing argument, thanks for raising it.
boerseth 3y ago
In order for me to still feel like "me" afterward, there would have to be a linking stage during which I could get used to this digital extension of my mind, like an artificial limb for me to get used to as part of my body. Then, as the biological mind withered and died, like pouring a liquid from one container to another, the digital brain would come to represent a larger and larger part of "me", finally containing all of my consciousness. You could compare the process to how the cells of your body (in particular your brain) eventually all get replaced, yet the stream of consciousness flows uninterrupted through a number of these replacements.
- harha_ 3y ago
  This. I can think of a 3D+time process where your "continuum" isn't interrupted.
  - failuser 3y ago
    Your continuum is interrupted all the time, e.g. by sleep or loss of continence. Is that subjectively different from death? A pretty scary thought. Will waking up as a different being feel no different?
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      > Will waking up as a different being feel no different? I expect it would. Much of my experience has to do with the "hardware" (so to speak) of my body. It's difficult to imagine what it would be like if my brain was mechanical (physics-based) instead of biological (chemistry-based), for example. Abstract thought seems like the only thing that even could be the same. (Also, continence -> consciousness. I'm literally pissing myself over that. :D)
    - harha_ 3y ago
      Continuum was probably a bad word choice. I meant that if you visualize the brain over time, as a 3D-object travelling through time, and there's a 'bridge' over time from the biological brain to the digital brain. This bridge would have to encompass everything that's related to consciousness and it somehow would transfer the conscious experience between those two things over time. So the biological and digital brain would be causally linked. I'm not a physicist, as you can guess, just a layman pondering.
brycedriesenga 3y ago
Eh, I have a much less narrow definition of "you" than you do.
newswasboring 3y ago
Even if it's not "me" (whatever that means), I do fear for whatever/whoever that consciousness is. It's the same fear I have towards the next generation, I don't want to leave a horrible world for them. PS: My god I have always known writing about this stuff is hard because language is inadequate for recursive thoughts, but I never thought I would see a day when it will practically affect my daily discourse. These were discussions I usually had under the influence of specific substances.
fwlr 3y ago
There’s a lot of philosophical discussion about what would happen with uploading consciousness, grappling with the question of “do you get a ‘transfer’ where your consciousness wakes up in the digital realm” and so forth. I’ve always thought the obvious result is that both the physical and the digital consciousness would wake up. Physical you would have some convincing personal experience of “I did not experience a transfer”, meanwhile digital you would have some equally convincing personal experience of “I did experience a transfer”.
teddyh 3y ago
The “you” of today won’t experience the problems that the “you” of tomorrow will, so why not throw caution to the wind? > the real organic you It’s part of the concept that there is no “real” you; they are both equally real.
- teddyh 3y ago
  Relevant: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-21 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-21
mock-possum 3y ago
why should that make it any less scary for such "consciousness?"

It's an interesting idea but is it scary? Any such "consciousness" existing in a digital realm is a copy and so the real organic you would never experience these things

phone8675309 3y ago

Why does this matter given that you would still perceive things as if it were were still in your real and organic state?

PUSH_AX 3y ago
> you A fascinating and complex concept there.
- phone8675309 3y ago
  Perhaps it is if you want to get lost in the philosophical implications. Practically, you would perceive exactly as you did while alive.
  - PUSH_AX 3y ago
    > Practically, you would perceive exactly as you did while alive. Who would? Me? I'm dead at this point.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Actually, you die every night and I just load the copy of your mind I took of you right after you fell asleep and loaded it on a copy of your body. You're old dead body gets incinerated. You've been reborn every day and have never noticed the difference.
      - Filligree 3y ago
        Well, stop replicating the wear and tear then!
  - goatlover 3y ago
    Would your digital self though? It's a simulation, so maybe digital you wouldn't be conscious of perceiving, dreaming, imagining, etc. If you take the philosophical position that computation is an abstraction from individual first person experiences, then your digital self wouldn't be conscious, since the functional leaves out the experiential. Your digital self would be a p-zombie.
- prometheus76 3y ago
  Can you be "you" without your body?
  - capableweb 3y ago
    Or, how much of your body is required in order for you to feel like you? Plenty of people without any limbs, and probably they feel like a "you". But what if you were just a head? Or just a brain?
    - prometheus76 3y ago
      They feel like a "you", but many of those who go through amputation surgery do, indeed, experience "phantom limbs" and experience a deep sense of loss for long periods of time after the surgery. In contrast, animals don't seem to go through the same "mourning" process (in a way that we would recognize). So the sense of "you" persists, yes, but it's a foundational change to the sense of "self" and it's definitely affected by amputation.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  This is, to me, the most foundational and profound realization that a person can have. Entire religions and social structures have been invented to avoid thinking about it. 'You' is indeed a pretty complex concept. It's one of those things that works as long as you don't squint too hard at it, but if you do start to think through some of the cracks in the idea you quickly reach a point where the only reasonable response is existential horror.

vasco 3y ago

Would have an interesting impact on the capitalist system which bases some of the incentives on leaving an inheritance to your offspring which gets taxed. If your assets would be used in the afterlife the dynamic changes. All your earnings would still be able to be taxed but how many people would leave any inheritance for descendents if you'll need it for your next consciousness? Would people value their alter-ego having a good forever life or their offspring having a good real-life? The societal changes in behavior would be interesting.

tough 3y ago
Lookiing at how egypt pharao's did it they very much went with the good forever life

FartyMcFarter 3y ago

Suppose you do it ship-of-theseus style, one neuron at a time (or heck, one atom at a time if you want). In that case I'd find it hard to argue for your position.

troyvit 3y ago
I haven't watched the video yet so take this with a grain of salt. dd for a human amirite? Maybe one atom at a time, but you'd have to make sure you get all the bacteria that helps control your personality as well right?[1] Then you need to simulate the changes in that system, based on how you interact with the rest of a virtual world, including relationships with other people[2], so you'd have to have an accurate copy of that too. What do you do if your virtual self needs to interact with a still living, breathing human? How do you simulate the changes to your micro-biome that occur there? How do you simulate what your copied human "eats" and how it processes that food?[3] Having a copy of all your atoms is a start but you also need to simulate all of those processes accurately if you want it to be truly "you." Then what you end up with is -- assuming we know everything that makes up a human being and how it behaves -- a perfect copy of you along with a perfect copy of your world. [1] https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-minds https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rul... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37298-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37298-9 [3] http://www.wormbook.org/chapters/www_intermetabolism/intermetabolism.html http://www.wormbook.org/chapters/www_intermetabolism/interme...
- ouid 3y ago
  You dont have to replace yourself perfectly in order for the proposal to make sense. All that matters is that you agree the two versions are connected by conscious experience. If you take steroids that massively change your personality and mood, you still perceive it as happening to you.
  - troyvit 3y ago
    Ah. Well the good news there is that we have perfectly defined "conscious experience" so all should be well ;)

DanHulton 3y ago

Well, if you have empathy for others, it's still scary.

Dudeman112 3y ago
You can always say "no" when it asks if you want to continue life, unlike in Lena as some other commenter mentioned Better than current reality, where "no" is shoved on your throat and most people insist you better be grateful about it
- em-bee 3y ago
  is it a no? religions say otherwise. the problem is, we don't know. if we could upload into a computer but we would not be able to communicate with those uploaded, we wouldn't know anything about their continued existence either.
- newswasboring 3y ago
  > You can always say "no" when it asks if you want to continue life You should reconsider that statement. I mean, this is literally "at gun point" kind of situation.
  - Dudeman112 3y ago
    No, I stand by it Right now you are already forced to pick 'no'. It's a button that lets things go the way so many people claim to be necessary and proper. They can own up to deliberately choosing our current reality if they think our current reality is so much better In a world where immortality is a given, being able to off yourself is one of the most important things an individual should have a right to do
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      This is a convincing argument, thanks for raising it.

boerseth 3y ago

In order for me to still feel like "me" afterward, there would have to be a linking stage during which I could get used to this digital extension of my mind, like an artificial limb for me to get used to as part of my body. Then, as the biological mind withered and died, like pouring a liquid from one container to another, the digital brain would come to represent a larger and larger part of "me", finally containing all of my consciousness. You could compare the process to how the cells of your body (in particular your brain) eventually all get replaced, yet the stream of consciousness flows uninterrupted through a number of these replacements.

harha_ 3y ago
This. I can think of a 3D+time process where your "continuum" isn't interrupted.
- failuser 3y ago
  Your continuum is interrupted all the time, e.g. by sleep or loss of continence. Is that subjectively different from death? A pretty scary thought. Will waking up as a different being feel no different?
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    > Will waking up as a different being feel no different? I expect it would. Much of my experience has to do with the "hardware" (so to speak) of my body. It's difficult to imagine what it would be like if my brain was mechanical (physics-based) instead of biological (chemistry-based), for example. Abstract thought seems like the only thing that even could be the same. (Also, continence -> consciousness. I'm literally pissing myself over that. :D)
  - harha_ 3y ago
    Continuum was probably a bad word choice. I meant that if you visualize the brain over time, as a 3D-object travelling through time, and there's a 'bridge' over time from the biological brain to the digital brain. This bridge would have to encompass everything that's related to consciousness and it somehow would transfer the conscious experience between those two things over time. So the biological and digital brain would be causally linked. I'm not a physicist, as you can guess, just a layman pondering.

brycedriesenga 3y ago

Eh, I have a much less narrow definition of "you" than you do.

newswasboring 3y ago

Even if it's not "me" (whatever that means), I do fear for whatever/whoever that consciousness is. It's the same fear I have towards the next generation, I don't want to leave a horrible world for them. PS: My god I have always known writing about this stuff is hard because language is inadequate for recursive thoughts, but I never thought I would see a day when it will practically affect my daily discourse. These were discussions I usually had under the influence of specific substances.

fwlr 3y ago

There’s a lot of philosophical discussion about what would happen with uploading consciousness, grappling with the question of “do you get a ‘transfer’ where your consciousness wakes up in the digital realm” and so forth. I’ve always thought the obvious result is that both the physical and the digital consciousness would wake up. Physical you would have some convincing personal experience of “I did not experience a transfer”, meanwhile digital you would have some equally convincing personal experience of “I did experience a transfer”.

teddyh 3y ago

The “you” of today won’t experience the problems that the “you” of tomorrow will, so why not throw caution to the wind? > the real organic you It’s part of the concept that there is no “real” you; they are both equally real.

teddyh 3y ago
Relevant: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-21 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-21

mock-possum 3y ago

why should that make it any less scary for such "consciousness?"