5 ms·

I really do hope ASI gets us to gradual replacement-based uploading. Having something as glorious as sapience trapped in a delicate and temporary bag of flesh k

I really do hope ASI gets us to gradual replacement-based uploading. Having something as glorious as sapience trapped in a delicate and temporary bag of flesh kinda sucks.

seydor 2y ago
I m still conflicted what we do with the bag of flesh after the fact. Are we bag holding forever?
- alex_duf 2y ago
  Something tells me the bag might change its mind about the whole operation once the upload is finished and it realises what's up next. So yeah not sure I like the idea.
  - thr0w4w4yHNabc 2y ago
    So far the only idea that I've read about and might feasibly result in uploading instead of copying is gradual replacement of each cell by a nanobot simulating that cell. So at the end of it, there'd be no bag to change its mind.
    - xvector 2y ago
      You can simplify it a bit. Yes, gradual replacement is likely the way to go, but you probably don't need to replace individual neurons one at a time. Individual neurons don't really matter or meaningfully contribute to our consciousness. You can likely replace the large "functional groups" of neurons instead, with the group size threshold being the maximum that doesn't meaningfully affect our consciousness. This might well be many billions of neurons at a time.
    - jodrellblank 2y ago
      Greg Egan's Sci-Fi jewel (dual) idea: https://philosophy.williams.edu/files/Egan-Learning-to-Be-Me.pdf https://philosophy.williams.edu/files/Egan-Learning-to-Be-Me...
  - xvector 2y ago
    Hence the "gradual replacement" part of my comment :) Scan and copy never made sense to begin with, as you point out. Not sure why it's the default when people think of mind uploading.
    - thr0w4w4yHNabc 2y ago
      People seem to imagine it like plugging a cable or getting an EEG cap and then they can't imagine the next step. Gradual replacement is a very radical idea to most people - a friend of mine recently described is as a horror movie.
      - jodrellblank 2y ago
        In this book, I think: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393899945799 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393899945799 - 108 Tips for Time Travellers by inventor and Professor Peter Cochrane, 1999, one of the essays is him asking his wife if she would still love him if he had false teeth, a false leg, etc. bit by bit until she stops the conversation saying "I'm not having you dying by installments!". When you replace a heart with a pump, you don't get a human heart. When you replace a kidney with a dialysis machine, you doon't get a human kidney. Why expect that when you replace neurons with simulations you get a human brain or a human consciousness, or when you've replaced everything, a human? Biological replacement, your body growing more new neurons, maybe, but it won't be mind uploading. And it won't get you you-at-age-twenty back.
        thr0w4w4yHNabc 2y ago
        Let's assume that the replacements are perfect replicas from the outside, only the inside is different. Why would it not work? The examples you listed are current technologies that don't remotely approach the primary nor secondary functions of the originals.
        jodrellblank 2y ago
        > "Why would it not work?" As a thought experiment I'll go with "atom by atom replacement would still be you". But I won't easily go with "therefore we modern humans could actually do it in reality, and replace the parts with fakes, and then with simulated fakes, and then extract the simulation to run elsewhere for the uploading part, and even God couldn't tell the difference" just by asserting all those extra bits to be true. When have we ever made perfect replicas with the inside the same, of anything non-trivial at any scale? Physical impossibility (it would work but we can't do it) argument, see here for long discussion of how hard the engineering problems of just Neuralink are: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html Physical "doesn't make sense" argument; we model brains as 80 billion neurons but bodies are not neatly separate organs and neatly separate pieces. The brain isn't separate from the body - nerves are basically brain matter spreading down to your spine, guts, arms, legs. Are 80 billion fake neurons surrounded by layers of scar-tissue reconnections going to be the same? What sense does it make to suggest a simulated sperm could mate with a real egg?
  - ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
    “The equation must be balanced!”
- pas 2y ago
  what do you mean? the bag is useful for going around, but it's frail and needs replacing every few decades.
  - seydor 2y ago
    a $1000 drone is much more useful for going around
vixen99 2y ago
Nothing particularly glorious about sapience trapped in a permanent bag of flesh especially one with a rather fixed view about the world about it. Never mind dictators; how about: 'The President of Global Enterprises Inc. is today 150 years old and currently holds the record for the longest serving president in the Company's history'. A cause for celebration?
- xvector 2y ago
  I don't really care if stubborn, old leaders live longer if it means I don't have to worry about my loved ones dying and get to see humanity reach the stars.
  - chasd00 2y ago
    Be careful for what you wish for. There’s no guarantee immortality doesn’t result in eternal suffering.
    - Filligree 2y ago
      Humans generally don’t like eternal suffering, and will fight against it. That’s a reason to think it won’t happen.
      - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
        I don't like being crushed by rocks but I can fight against it all I want, a rock that's heavier than me will crush me.
    - xvector 2y ago
      Wait, where did I say that immortality would be mandated!? Of course you'd get to choose when you want to shuffle off the mortal coil. For me, personally, I don't see that being the case for many hundreds or even many thousands of years at least. I'm nearly 30 and I feel like I've barely lived a blink of an eye.

I really do hope ASI gets us to gradual replacement-based uploading. Having something as glorious as sapience trapped in a delicate and temporary bag of flesh kinda sucks.

seydor 2y ago

I m still conflicted what we do with the bag of flesh after the fact. Are we bag holding forever?

alex_duf 2y ago
Something tells me the bag might change its mind about the whole operation once the upload is finished and it realises what's up next. So yeah not sure I like the idea.
- thr0w4w4yHNabc 2y ago
  So far the only idea that I've read about and might feasibly result in uploading instead of copying is gradual replacement of each cell by a nanobot simulating that cell. So at the end of it, there'd be no bag to change its mind.
  - xvector 2y ago
    You can simplify it a bit. Yes, gradual replacement is likely the way to go, but you probably don't need to replace individual neurons one at a time. Individual neurons don't really matter or meaningfully contribute to our consciousness. You can likely replace the large "functional groups" of neurons instead, with the group size threshold being the maximum that doesn't meaningfully affect our consciousness. This might well be many billions of neurons at a time.
  - jodrellblank 2y ago
    Greg Egan's Sci-Fi jewel (dual) idea: https://philosophy.williams.edu/files/Egan-Learning-to-Be-Me.pdf https://philosophy.williams.edu/files/Egan-Learning-to-Be-Me...
- xvector 2y ago
  Hence the "gradual replacement" part of my comment :) Scan and copy never made sense to begin with, as you point out. Not sure why it's the default when people think of mind uploading.
  - thr0w4w4yHNabc 2y ago
    People seem to imagine it like plugging a cable or getting an EEG cap and then they can't imagine the next step. Gradual replacement is a very radical idea to most people - a friend of mine recently described is as a horror movie.
    - jodrellblank 2y ago
      In this book, I think: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393899945799 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393899945799 - 108 Tips for Time Travellers by inventor and Professor Peter Cochrane, 1999, one of the essays is him asking his wife if she would still love him if he had false teeth, a false leg, etc. bit by bit until she stops the conversation saying "I'm not having you dying by installments!". When you replace a heart with a pump, you don't get a human heart. When you replace a kidney with a dialysis machine, you doon't get a human kidney. Why expect that when you replace neurons with simulations you get a human brain or a human consciousness, or when you've replaced everything, a human? Biological replacement, your body growing more new neurons, maybe, but it won't be mind uploading. And it won't get you you-at-age-twenty back.
      - thr0w4w4yHNabc 2y ago
        Let's assume that the replacements are perfect replicas from the outside, only the inside is different. Why would it not work? The examples you listed are current technologies that don't remotely approach the primary nor secondary functions of the originals.
        jodrellblank 2y ago
        > "Why would it not work?" As a thought experiment I'll go with "atom by atom replacement would still be you". But I won't easily go with "therefore we modern humans could actually do it in reality, and replace the parts with fakes, and then with simulated fakes, and then extract the simulation to run elsewhere for the uploading part, and even God couldn't tell the difference" just by asserting all those extra bits to be true. When have we ever made perfect replicas with the inside the same, of anything non-trivial at any scale? Physical impossibility (it would work but we can't do it) argument, see here for long discussion of how hard the engineering problems of just Neuralink are: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html Physical "doesn't make sense" argument; we model brains as 80 billion neurons but bodies are not neatly separate organs and neatly separate pieces. The brain isn't separate from the body - nerves are basically brain matter spreading down to your spine, guts, arms, legs. Are 80 billion fake neurons surrounded by layers of scar-tissue reconnections going to be the same? What sense does it make to suggest a simulated sperm could mate with a real egg?
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  “The equation must be balanced!”
pas 2y ago
what do you mean? the bag is useful for going around, but it's frail and needs replacing every few decades.
- seydor 2y ago
  a $1000 drone is much more useful for going around

vixen99 2y ago

Nothing particularly glorious about sapience trapped in a permanent bag of flesh especially one with a rather fixed view about the world about it. Never mind dictators; how about: 'The President of Global Enterprises Inc. is today 150 years old and currently holds the record for the longest serving president in the Company's history'. A cause for celebration?

xvector 2y ago
I don't really care if stubborn, old leaders live longer if it means I don't have to worry about my loved ones dying and get to see humanity reach the stars.
- chasd00 2y ago
  Be careful for what you wish for. There’s no guarantee immortality doesn’t result in eternal suffering.
  - Filligree 2y ago
    Humans generally don’t like eternal suffering, and will fight against it. That’s a reason to think it won’t happen.
    - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
      I don't like being crushed by rocks but I can fight against it all I want, a rock that's heavier than me will crush me.
  - xvector 2y ago
    Wait, where did I say that immortality would be mandated!? Of course you'd get to choose when you want to shuffle off the mortal coil. For me, personally, I don't see that being the case for many hundreds or even many thousands of years at least. I'm nearly 30 and I feel like I've barely lived a blink of an eye.