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We've wrecked our habitat and keep most of humanity in some form or other of slavery, and there are exactly zero credible social movements aiming for another co

by cess11 2y ago

We've wrecked our habitat and keep most of humanity in some form or other of slavery, and there are exactly zero credible social movements aiming for another course. Why would we want to watch this deterioration and tyranny go on for centuries more? As for 'non-biological' humans, I'm assuming you believe in some soul that could be transfered from your body to a computer? If so, that's clearly into deeply religious territory. You are an analog being, you view the world as analog projections onto a mammal cortex. That is fundamentally, ontologically very different from digitally virtual environments. The digital lacks identity, which is the source of security issues in the computerised society. There is no difference between 1011011001 and 1011011001 regardless of source, it can be a biometry reader sending an encoding of your thumb print or another computer hooked into a network sending the same bytes. If we for the sake of argument ignored the problems with the transfer, then you still propose a deeply restricted existence, a machine prison, where there is no way for you to discern whether your experience actually comes from your sensors or some other source feeding digital signals into your machine. At best it is a simulacra of a dream you can't wake from. You'd be absolutely cut off from any possibility of freedom and immediate engagement with the universe. Now, I do understand that many people enjoy living almost their entire adult lives mediated through digitally transmitted images and sounds, but at least they still have the option to look away and out of their own bodies and into the remnants of the world that birthed our and many other species. Removing that option entirely and replacing it with the most intimate and absolute form of imprisonment we have yet been able to imagine does not seem at all attractive to me. Regarding "longevity", currently billions are suffering under the rule of a few generations that refuse to let go of power even though they are well beyond what is the common age of retirement in vast parts of the world. If allowed they will for sure continue this refusal and they signal clearly that they are going to kill and maim a lot of people just to try and stay in power now. Locking borders against climate refugees, taking resources from things like education and art and medicine and pushing it into war industry, inventing new insidious forms of surveillance and control to try and make sure dissent becomes impossible. If you get to watch them follow through on this, how do you expect to keep some semblance of sanity? Are you hoping to be able to ignore it, sitting on a server in a bunker being fed a constant soap opera of fiction and simulated conversations, humming away at some 200 watts or so?

csense 2y ago
> You are an analog being, you view the world as analog projections onto a mammal cortex. That is fundamentally, ontologically very different from digitally virtual environments. No it's not. If you accept "mind is brain" (i.e. consciousness is a phenomena within known or knowable laws of physics), a digital virtual environment that simulates the laws of physics (to arbitrarily good precision) could have brains (and therefore minds) running inside it that are indistinguishable (to arbitrarily good precision) from the real thing. [1] [2] > currently billions are suffering under the rule of a few generations that refuse to let go of power even though they are well beyond what is the common age of retirement in vast parts of the world. If allowed they will for sure continue this refusal and they signal clearly that they are going to kill and maim a lot of people just to try and stay in power now. Locking borders against climate refugees, taking resources from things like education and art and medicine and pushing it into war industry, inventing new insidious forms of surveillance and control to try and make sure dissent becomes impossible. I'd sure as hell rather be alive now than in the 1800's, or the 1700's, or the 1600's. Or the Middle Ages, or classical antiquity, or ancient times, or pre-history. Life sucks for billions of people compared to Western standards but life's also better for billions of people than it's ever been before. Humanity's mostly made forward progress over the long arc of time, and I'm skeptical of claims that such progress is doomed to permanently halt anytime soon. [1] I could replace "to arbitrarily good precision" with a proper mathematical formulation. But the technical details of the epsilons and deltas don't affect the thrust of the philosophical argument. I'm happy to leave a more precise epsilon-delta phrasing of my idea as an exercise to the reader(s). [2] Of course the equivalence goes both ways; I hardly need to explain to HN that it's possible to build digital computers in our analog universe!
- cess11 2y ago
  Like I said, that is a religious view, and as I alluded to, I do not accept it. I'm also not a fan of crypto-christian conceptions of historical "progress". Life was interesting and worth living in the past.
xvector 2y ago
> I'm assuming you believe in some soul that could be transfered from your body to a computer? If so, that's clearly into deeply religious territory. Actually, I would say the opposite is deeply religious territory. Nothing fundamentally restricts this unless you think the analog nature of a neuron is a pre-requisite to consciousness, and no synthetic/digital consciousness could ever exist. But you have no reason to believe this. Such a belief is almost religious. > where there is no way for you to discern whether your experience actually comes from your sensors or some other source This is life today as well. How do you know you aren't part of some Matrix-style biological mind prison? You don't. It's pointless even trying to wonder. > Regarding "longevity", currently billions are suffering under the rule of a few generations that refuse to let go of power even though Social problems can be fixed. Death is final. Tyrants existing is not a reason to promote the death of billions of innocents. If Putin lived for another 1000 years, I certainly wouldn't kill myself. You will experience more net social progress being immortal, though it may be slower, than dying after a short 80 years.

by cess11 2y ago

csense 2y ago

> You are an analog being, you view the world as analog projections onto a mammal cortex. That is fundamentally, ontologically very different from digitally virtual environments. No it's not. If you accept "mind is brain" (i.e. consciousness is a phenomena within known or knowable laws of physics), a digital virtual environment that simulates the laws of physics (to arbitrarily good precision) could have brains (and therefore minds) running inside it that are indistinguishable (to arbitrarily good precision) from the real thing. [1] [2] > currently billions are suffering under the rule of a few generations that refuse to let go of power even though they are well beyond what is the common age of retirement in vast parts of the world. If allowed they will for sure continue this refusal and they signal clearly that they are going to kill and maim a lot of people just to try and stay in power now. Locking borders against climate refugees, taking resources from things like education and art and medicine and pushing it into war industry, inventing new insidious forms of surveillance and control to try and make sure dissent becomes impossible. I'd sure as hell rather be alive now than in the 1800's, or the 1700's, or the 1600's. Or the Middle Ages, or classical antiquity, or ancient times, or pre-history. Life sucks for billions of people compared to Western standards but life's also better for billions of people than it's ever been before. Humanity's mostly made forward progress over the long arc of time, and I'm skeptical of claims that such progress is doomed to permanently halt anytime soon. [1] I could replace "to arbitrarily good precision" with a proper mathematical formulation. But the technical details of the epsilons and deltas don't affect the thrust of the philosophical argument. I'm happy to leave a more precise epsilon-delta phrasing of my idea as an exercise to the reader(s). [2] Of course the equivalence goes both ways; I hardly need to explain to HN that it's possible to build digital computers in our analog universe!

cess11 2y ago
Like I said, that is a religious view, and as I alluded to, I do not accept it. I'm also not a fan of crypto-christian conceptions of historical "progress". Life was interesting and worth living in the past.

xvector 2y ago

> I'm assuming you believe in some soul that could be transfered from your body to a computer? If so, that's clearly into deeply religious territory. Actually, I would say the opposite is deeply religious territory. Nothing fundamentally restricts this unless you think the analog nature of a neuron is a pre-requisite to consciousness, and no synthetic/digital consciousness could ever exist. But you have no reason to believe this. Such a belief is almost religious. > where there is no way for you to discern whether your experience actually comes from your sensors or some other source This is life today as well. How do you know you aren't part of some Matrix-style biological mind prison? You don't. It's pointless even trying to wonder. > Regarding "longevity", currently billions are suffering under the rule of a few generations that refuse to let go of power even though Social problems can be fixed. Death is final. Tyrants existing is not a reason to promote the death of billions of innocents. If Putin lived for another 1000 years, I certainly wouldn't kill myself. You will experience more net social progress being immortal, though it may be slower, than dying after a short 80 years.