5 ms·

A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

127 points by Brajeshwar 8mo ago

Fisherman1983 8mo ago
Very cool
ozlikethewizard 8mo ago
Would people want this? Imagine waking up to a world where 200 years has passed, everyone you knew is dead, everything you knew is history.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- tasn 8mo ago
  Just buy the family pack and get your wife and kids on it too. As for traveling to the future: that sounds like fun!
- semitones 8mo ago
  Fry found a way to make it work
  - ranger_danger 8mo ago
    It's dolomite, baby
  - SmirkingRevenge 8mo ago
    Just beware of the suicide booths
- thesmtsolver2 8mo ago
  Why do you assume that everyone you know will be dead? Won't some of them also be preserved. As for "everything you knew is history", who wouldn't want to witness and be a part of a new world?
  - janwirth 8mo ago
    I just got an app idea
  - simonask 8mo ago
    I can recommend the comic “Transmetropolitan” by Warren Ellis, which deals with this and many other questions. You have to imagine what it would be like for someone who lived in 1826 too wake up today, in a world where nothing they know is relevant, they have no connections, no idea what to do with any of it. Historians might want to interview you, or the first couple of people like you, but then what? You will be an audience member to a show you don’t understand, until you die.
    - thesmtsolver2 8mo ago
      If a large number of people get reanimated, I don't think this will be their fate. I can imagine "educators" who can get them up speed. In a future where people get reanimated, I would think this shouldn't be a problem long term. Any existence may be better than non existence.
      - graypegg 8mo ago
        Retraining people once they're alive again not only requires logisitics and hiring N-centuries from now, but also requires that anyone really cares. You could imagine a world where 100s of people are being reanimated at once, but I don't think the economics would ever let that event happen. Once this passes through a few generations of people responsible for tending to the needs of rich people's frozen brains, the empathy and money will be gone. Imagine inheriting a business funded from people wanting to skip over the entirety of your lifetime because they assume your time is too boring for them. Plus, your impact on that business will be null. There is nothing you can do except keep it going and get more rich people's brains in there. The only "innovation" that's going to drive business is bringing someone back to life... which for a large span of brain custodians, will only be possible AFTER their death. Maybe you need to model it after a religion; humanity has kept stuff going for long spans of time under that framing... but are you still just a servant to these ancient people who you have not met, and will actually NEVER meet since you'll die first... having spent precious time in your life taking care of them? Seems like an uninspiring religion. Or... you do some fraud, which is much easier. They're already functionally dead, and you presumably have access to a lot of their money. Money that is worth more in your lifetime, than in their future. People have historically cared very little about the personal feelings of the pharoah as they dust off his bones and take his nice things. Doesn't even need that long. Guess what, T+200 years, the brains are getting dumped in a river.
- ranger_danger 8mo ago
  I quite enjoyed the original run of the docuseries "Futurama" on this concept.
  - alex_suzuki 8mo ago
    Remember to have a little something parked on your savings account. Compounding interest works in your favour over a few centuries.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
- cdrnsf 8mo ago
  I imagine there's plenty of appeal among the zero introspection set.
- joshstrange 8mo ago
  More time to pursue hobbies and see the literal future? Uh yeah. Especially if friends/family also opt in.
  - 615341652341 8mo ago
    Make sure to read those terms and conditions!
- jlarocco 8mo ago
  Yeah, count me out. I don't even like how the world's played out in the 40 years I've been here. Imagine waking up in 200 years and finding out 90% of the world is still poor, we can't feed everybody, the rich still get to do whatever they want, we're still warring for no good reason, etc.
  - colechristensen 8mo ago
    So... same as the whole of human history? You're upset that your generation isn't going to fix all of the problems of civilization that have existed forever?
    - jlarocco 8mo ago
      I don't know why you think I'm upset. It's not my responsibility to fix the world's problems. But I don't have much faith in humanity to make things better, so I'm not sure I'd want to see a future with another 200 years of people making things worse. I guess I would say I'm happy to live my life now and let the future can take care of itself.
- colechristensen 8mo ago
  Futurama and the Bobiverse series investigate this pretty well. Same question as if you'd like to drop everything and create a new life on the other side of the world, not for everyone.
- 7oi 8mo ago
  Or imagine waking up in a world where “ownership” of your mind has exchanged hands as the company who started this has gone through “structural changes” etc and you’ll basically be commandeered to be the brain of someones coffee machine or something for an eternity. Or, as in the Bobiverse books, the brain of a space probe, but I have a bleaker view of the future than that…
- asah 8mo ago
  see Altered Carbon (netflix), amazing story.
- dexwiz 8mo ago
  This assumes you wake up and are given liberties. There are much worse fates. Waking up and owing your life to the company forever is pretty awful. Worse even is never truly waking up but instead being replicated and turned into the brain for a servitor. If you believe the Roko Worshippers, you might be woken up just to be tortured.
- windowliker 8mo ago
  Even worse, imagine waking up in a world where 200 years have gone by and nothing has changed, everyone is still here that you knew in your 'first' life. All the self-serving bosses, all the mendacious politicians, all the mediocre entertainers. Like a groundhog day from hell, forever.
  - bluefirebrand 8mo ago
    The beauty of groundhog day is what we can accomplish when we have unlimited time and no real responsibilities People overemphasize the "time loop trap" piece but seem to overlook the fact that he eventually uses the time to better himself in almost every way. He's a much better, much more enriched and happy person by the end.
    - windowliker 8mo ago
      Groundhog day was perhaps the wrong phrase to use. In any case I don't believe people would spontaneously attempt meaningful self-improvement with any seriousness if there was no expected finality to our existence. Don't forget, Bill Murray's character has to kill himself numerous times before he makes any kind of worthwhile progress.
      - bluefirebrand 8mo ago
        Another way of looking at it is that Bill Murray's character learns over and over that there are no consequences to failure. The biggest thing holding people back imo is fear of failure, fear of consequences. If your dream is starting a business but if it fails you'll be broke, it's understandable if you're hesitant Fear of failure cripples people because setbacks are so costly. Many people never attempt anything because they are afraid they will fail. Or more accurately because they cannot afford to fail
        windowliker 8mo ago
        It's nice that a fictional character in a fictional scenario could come to such an understanding, but in real life there absolutely are consequences to failure, in a multitude of ways. If you mean it in the sense that 'ultimately, nothing really matters', then the subtext to that is that nothing ultimately matters because we all die in the end. Which would be completely negated by immortality.
- dfxm12 8mo ago
  I'm infinitely curious, so it's almost a perk that everything I knew would be history, implying there's a ton of stuff to learn/catch up on. I've dealt with loss. It sucks, but it's part of being alive (I say with just a hint of irony). I do recognize that not everyone feels this way about this topic though. That's ok.
- bluefirebrand 8mo ago
  I've thought about this a bunch I don't necessarily want to live forever. But I am very curious about Humanity's ultimate fate. I want to see how things play out I want to know if there is life out in the universe, if humanity ever meets other intelligent life, or even if we ever meaningfully leave Earth I don't know. I love the good in humanity, I hope we eventually wind up more good than bad, and I just want to see. Edit: Also, if we ever actually build a society that is a lot more meaningfully ethical and good than our current society, maybe I would want to live forever in it, or at least a very long time. Maybe it would just be nice to have the choice of when I go
7oi 8mo ago
One step closer to the Bobiverse.
- chasil 8mo ago
  I'm just finishing the last one published. It would be interesting to wake up as a Von Neumann probe. Still, did these people completely solve the ice crystalization problem? https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/dp/B01LWAESYQ https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/d...
  - 7oi 8mo ago
    It is absolutely one of my favourite series and made Dennis E Taylor an absolute goto author for me. I also love his Outland series. I quite enjoy listening to the Bobiverse audio books especially. Anything Ray Porter narrates is usually magnificent.
DennisP 8mo ago
More of a digital copy scenario. The article says the process involves toxic chemicals that lock everything in place so the connectome can be examined. There's no known way to reverse the chemical process in the biological brain. https://archive.is/SMcX5 https://archive.is/SMcX5
- georgemcbay 8mo ago
  > "to allow them to continue, in effect, with their life.” "in effect" doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
- birdsongs 8mo ago
  Not that I think this is anywhere close in actuality, but It's reminding me of MMAcevedo. (https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo) What server will I wake up on? Who is running the infrastructure? What will be asked of me to be allowed to continue to exist on that server? Given our current societal trends, I can't imagine I would enjoy any existence where a copy of me is spun back up. And of course, my original thread of consciousness will still be ended, so this is some alternate copy of me. (Based on my view of the teletransportation paradox.)
  - kakacik 8mo ago
    You will not wake up on any server. At best possible theoretical far future scenario better or worse copy of yours will. If you would survive such process, you yourself, the human instance that wrote that will be just looking at somebody else living their now-fully-digital (prison) life. I don't understand why people don't get this simple fact. We are all gonna die, make inner peace with that (it isn't that hard, depends mostly on your ego) and enjoy rest of that short time here. If you seek immortality, do it either via exceptional deeds or via well-raised children, that's the best we have. No force in the world is going to move both your mortal neurons with all synapses and electric charge between them that together form your personality into anything else, digital or not. Its like asking to transfer this cup of tea I hold right now into digital form. No, it can be copied to certain precision and that's it.
mentos 8mo ago
Absolutely not sounds like a be careful what you wish for Black Mirror episode where you wake up trapped in some simulation you can’t break free from but it’s ok because you signed on the dotted line to donate your mind and body to science.
Procrastes 8mo ago
Here's a thought experiment. I offer you the chance to be put in a medically induced coma and shipped around the world to strangers you know nothing about. You don't know what economic, political, or moral system you'll awaken to. The only thing you know for sure is they, for some reason we're interested in receiving an unconscious person, no questions asked. Do you take the deal? Do you sign your family up for it?
- ghywertelling 8mo ago
  Would the dynamical strange attractor system that is brain start in the same basin as it died in? Something to think about.
- Filligree 8mo ago
  In this scenario, the alternative is “you die”. Let’s make sure we’re including that in the question.
  - andrewflnr 8mo ago
    That doesn't change things as much as you might think. Sufficiently advanced technology can create many fates worse than death.
  - rozap 8mo ago
    Brains 'R Us recently filed for chapter 11 and has been cut up and sold for scrap to private equity. The new PE firm has your brain. In 2208 there's a large grey market for brains to be used for hybrid AI and meat bag workflows. It's technically illegal in many jurisdictions due to "ethical implications", but is still the cheapest way to run many workloads. The method used to harness the brain involves reanimating it in a jar of jelly, and then forcing it to do the 2208 equivalent of a captcha. Each time the brain fails a captcha, the brain receives an electric impulse which simulates the most excruciating pain that the brain can respresent, but the brain cannot scream or run away.
    - KronisLV 8mo ago
robot-wrangler 8mo ago
Herbert West requires extremely fresh specimens
windowliker 8mo ago
Oh great! A new way to keep the tax base growing!
igorramazanov 8mo ago
Are we even sure, that personality is stored solely in a brain? What if whole or other parts of body involved as well
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  You'd have to at least present a candidate to make such a suggestion, otherwise the simple counter is 'where else would it be?'
- Sharlin 8mo ago
  As far as we know, damage to no part of the body results in personality changes, changes to subjective sense of self, or the loss of memory or cognitive ability, except the brain.
  - igorramazanov 8mo ago
    There are some, not fully verified/researched, personality shifts after heart transplantations. Controversial, and I don't know if anyone tried to run some proper research with psychometrics. Same goes with fecal transplantations for curing major depressions. Not fully researched either, and not sure if we can say that a depression qualifies as a personality trait.
  - zzrrt 8mo ago
    Chronic pain probably changes your personality, so I think we should give the idea more of a chance, that being plopped into a new body/no body would alter you too.
olivierestsage 8mo ago
No thanks
anarticle 8mo ago
Those 50y mortgages won't pay for themselves! Probably a good first step in life extension, I know a lot of first peeks at this came from hypothermic people. Those lessons are now used in heart surgeries to slow metabolism and limit cell deaths. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8297075/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8297075/
e-dant 8mo ago
I have no mouth and I must scream
ppap3 8mo ago
Nothing like a ghost pain for a ghost digital person
coppsilgold 8mo ago
A thought experiment: One by one your neurons are replaced by their digital counterpart as a nano-scale computer in-place, with equivalent functionality. After which neuron number are you no longer you? You remain conscious throughout the process, the process may last however long with pauses for sleep. After the replacement is complete, one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to their clone instantiated in a computer. After which neuron number are you no longer you? This mind upload thought experiment convinced me that as long as there are no sharp discontinuities in experience, it makes no sense to ask what happened to the you. It also carries the implication that you are not your brain, but rather the abstract dynamical system instantiated in it.
- beeflet 8mo ago
  No amount of replacement removes your sense of self. "You" become a machine. I think the main thing that makes this inrealistic is the scale. In theory it also could take place on a larger level of discretization: chunks of many neurons. I think it also matters what the nature of the replacement is. Is it possible for you to retain memories and skills throughout this intrusive process? Presumably, if the computer has "equivalent functionality".
- ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
  Plenty of people (not tons, but many) experience loss of neurons through injury, disease, or aging. We generally consider the person to be the same person, even if their personality changes. Likewise, as you grow in childhood, you create many many neurons. Again, you are still you throughout the experience of growing up. I suspect in your thought experiment you'd remain you throughout. Honestly, a community I bet does a lot of thinking about the self and what makes you "you" is the trans community, given their experience grappling with bodies and identity already.
  - johnisgood 8mo ago
    My grandma got dementia, and she has been deteriorating quite a lot just now at the hospital to the point where she is unrecognizable. Yes, technically she is still my grandma, but at the same time she is not. I hope you understand what I am trying to get at. (Of course I still consider her my grandma and she is being cared for just as much as she would have been years ago. It just saddens me that I cannot have the same or similar interactions as I could have some time back.)
bryanrasmussen 8mo ago
this is probably one of the least efficient implementations of state persistence ever attempted, but I like it.
davidw 8mo ago
'Hold that thought'
pgt 8mo ago
Recently rewatched Demolition Man (1993) where criminals are frozen in cryostasis and then reanimated – a very prescient film. All I could think of was Demolition Pig
caditinpiscinam 8mo ago
"William and Mary" -- Roald Dahl https://user.ceng.metu.edu.tr/~ucoluk/yazin/William_and_Mary.html https://user.ceng.metu.edu.tr/~ucoluk/yazin/William_and_Mary...
Uncle_Clark 8mo ago
When I see things like this, it reminds that the saying life imitates art is surprisingly true. This is basically the premise of the movie Transcendence to a certain extent. Very interesting and very cool but begs the question just because we can, does it mean we should? That being said, ever since I found out about Colossal Bioscience and their de-extinction projects, I have been tuned into their progress with great interest because it is the real life Jurassic Park.
deadbabe 8mo ago
What does it mean to “continue with your life”? Even if you are raised from the dead, it means you just go back to work at some point, where you prompt an AI Agent all day, collect a paycheck, pay bills, and occasionally do some dopamine stimulating activities, until you die again? This tech will only be used on people who are considered too important to die: demagogues and dictators, mass influencers.
ZYZ64738 8mo ago
Why on earth? It seems to me that the brain itself is the very disease they're trying to preserve here. Not to mention that, as usual, only certain super-rich people could probably afford it—which, to me, seems like one of the worst and most incurable "diseases" there is. Just my humble opinion, coming from my broken brain ;-)
5o1ecist 8mo ago
[dead]
pugchat 8mo ago
[dead]

127 points by Brajeshwar 8mo ago

Fisherman1983 8mo ago

Very cool

Would people want this? Imagine waking up to a world where 200 years has passed, everyone you knew is dead, everything you knew is history.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
tasn 8mo ago
Just buy the family pack and get your wife and kids on it too. As for traveling to the future: that sounds like fun!
semitones 8mo ago
Fry found a way to make it work
- ranger_danger 8mo ago
  It's dolomite, baby
- SmirkingRevenge 8mo ago
  Just beware of the suicide booths
thesmtsolver2 8mo ago
Why do you assume that everyone you know will be dead? Won't some of them also be preserved. As for "everything you knew is history", who wouldn't want to witness and be a part of a new world?
- janwirth 8mo ago
  I just got an app idea
- simonask 8mo ago
  I can recommend the comic “Transmetropolitan” by Warren Ellis, which deals with this and many other questions. You have to imagine what it would be like for someone who lived in 1826 too wake up today, in a world where nothing they know is relevant, they have no connections, no idea what to do with any of it. Historians might want to interview you, or the first couple of people like you, but then what? You will be an audience member to a show you don’t understand, until you die.
  - thesmtsolver2 8mo ago
    If a large number of people get reanimated, I don't think this will be their fate. I can imagine "educators" who can get them up speed. In a future where people get reanimated, I would think this shouldn't be a problem long term. Any existence may be better than non existence.
    - graypegg 8mo ago
      Retraining people once they're alive again not only requires logisitics and hiring N-centuries from now, but also requires that anyone really cares. You could imagine a world where 100s of people are being reanimated at once, but I don't think the economics would ever let that event happen. Once this passes through a few generations of people responsible for tending to the needs of rich people's frozen brains, the empathy and money will be gone. Imagine inheriting a business funded from people wanting to skip over the entirety of your lifetime because they assume your time is too boring for them. Plus, your impact on that business will be null. There is nothing you can do except keep it going and get more rich people's brains in there. The only "innovation" that's going to drive business is bringing someone back to life... which for a large span of brain custodians, will only be possible AFTER their death. Maybe you need to model it after a religion; humanity has kept stuff going for long spans of time under that framing... but are you still just a servant to these ancient people who you have not met, and will actually NEVER meet since you'll die first... having spent precious time in your life taking care of them? Seems like an uninspiring religion. Or... you do some fraud, which is much easier. They're already functionally dead, and you presumably have access to a lot of their money. Money that is worth more in your lifetime, than in their future. People have historically cared very little about the personal feelings of the pharoah as they dust off his bones and take his nice things. Doesn't even need that long. Guess what, T+200 years, the brains are getting dumped in a river.
ranger_danger 8mo ago
I quite enjoyed the original run of the docuseries "Futurama" on this concept.
- alex_suzuki 8mo ago
  Remember to have a little something parked on your savings account. Compounding interest works in your favour over a few centuries.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
cdrnsf 8mo ago
I imagine there's plenty of appeal among the zero introspection set.
joshstrange 8mo ago
More time to pursue hobbies and see the literal future? Uh yeah. Especially if friends/family also opt in.
- 615341652341 8mo ago
  Make sure to read those terms and conditions!
jlarocco 8mo ago
Yeah, count me out. I don't even like how the world's played out in the 40 years I've been here. Imagine waking up in 200 years and finding out 90% of the world is still poor, we can't feed everybody, the rich still get to do whatever they want, we're still warring for no good reason, etc.
- colechristensen 8mo ago
  So... same as the whole of human history? You're upset that your generation isn't going to fix all of the problems of civilization that have existed forever?
  - jlarocco 8mo ago
    I don't know why you think I'm upset. It's not my responsibility to fix the world's problems. But I don't have much faith in humanity to make things better, so I'm not sure I'd want to see a future with another 200 years of people making things worse. I guess I would say I'm happy to live my life now and let the future can take care of itself.
colechristensen 8mo ago
Futurama and the Bobiverse series investigate this pretty well. Same question as if you'd like to drop everything and create a new life on the other side of the world, not for everyone.
7oi 8mo ago
Or imagine waking up in a world where “ownership” of your mind has exchanged hands as the company who started this has gone through “structural changes” etc and you’ll basically be commandeered to be the brain of someones coffee machine or something for an eternity. Or, as in the Bobiverse books, the brain of a space probe, but I have a bleaker view of the future than that…
asah 8mo ago
see Altered Carbon (netflix), amazing story.
dexwiz 8mo ago
This assumes you wake up and are given liberties. There are much worse fates. Waking up and owing your life to the company forever is pretty awful. Worse even is never truly waking up but instead being replicated and turned into the brain for a servitor. If you believe the Roko Worshippers, you might be woken up just to be tortured.
windowliker 8mo ago
Even worse, imagine waking up in a world where 200 years have gone by and nothing has changed, everyone is still here that you knew in your 'first' life. All the self-serving bosses, all the mendacious politicians, all the mediocre entertainers. Like a groundhog day from hell, forever.
- bluefirebrand 8mo ago
  The beauty of groundhog day is what we can accomplish when we have unlimited time and no real responsibilities People overemphasize the "time loop trap" piece but seem to overlook the fact that he eventually uses the time to better himself in almost every way. He's a much better, much more enriched and happy person by the end.
  - windowliker 8mo ago
    Groundhog day was perhaps the wrong phrase to use. In any case I don't believe people would spontaneously attempt meaningful self-improvement with any seriousness if there was no expected finality to our existence. Don't forget, Bill Murray's character has to kill himself numerous times before he makes any kind of worthwhile progress.
    - bluefirebrand 8mo ago
      Another way of looking at it is that Bill Murray's character learns over and over that there are no consequences to failure. The biggest thing holding people back imo is fear of failure, fear of consequences. If your dream is starting a business but if it fails you'll be broke, it's understandable if you're hesitant Fear of failure cripples people because setbacks are so costly. Many people never attempt anything because they are afraid they will fail. Or more accurately because they cannot afford to fail
      - windowliker 8mo ago
        It's nice that a fictional character in a fictional scenario could come to such an understanding, but in real life there absolutely are consequences to failure, in a multitude of ways. If you mean it in the sense that 'ultimately, nothing really matters', then the subtext to that is that nothing ultimately matters because we all die in the end. Which would be completely negated by immortality.
dfxm12 8mo ago
I'm infinitely curious, so it's almost a perk that everything I knew would be history, implying there's a ton of stuff to learn/catch up on. I've dealt with loss. It sucks, but it's part of being alive (I say with just a hint of irony). I do recognize that not everyone feels this way about this topic though. That's ok.
bluefirebrand 8mo ago
I've thought about this a bunch I don't necessarily want to live forever. But I am very curious about Humanity's ultimate fate. I want to see how things play out I want to know if there is life out in the universe, if humanity ever meets other intelligent life, or even if we ever meaningfully leave Earth I don't know. I love the good in humanity, I hope we eventually wind up more good than bad, and I just want to see. Edit: Also, if we ever actually build a society that is a lot more meaningfully ethical and good than our current society, maybe I would want to live forever in it, or at least a very long time. Maybe it would just be nice to have the choice of when I go

7oi 8mo ago

One step closer to the Bobiverse.

chasil 8mo ago
I'm just finishing the last one published. It would be interesting to wake up as a Von Neumann probe. Still, did these people completely solve the ice crystalization problem? https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/dp/B01LWAESYQ https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/d...
- 7oi 8mo ago
  It is absolutely one of my favourite series and made Dennis E Taylor an absolute goto author for me. I also love his Outland series. I quite enjoy listening to the Bobiverse audio books especially. Anything Ray Porter narrates is usually magnificent.

DennisP 8mo ago

More of a digital copy scenario. The article says the process involves toxic chemicals that lock everything in place so the connectome can be examined. There's no known way to reverse the chemical process in the biological brain. https://archive.is/SMcX5 https://archive.is/SMcX5

georgemcbay 8mo ago
> "to allow them to continue, in effect, with their life.” "in effect" doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
birdsongs 8mo ago
Not that I think this is anywhere close in actuality, but It's reminding me of MMAcevedo. (https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo) What server will I wake up on? Who is running the infrastructure? What will be asked of me to be allowed to continue to exist on that server? Given our current societal trends, I can't imagine I would enjoy any existence where a copy of me is spun back up. And of course, my original thread of consciousness will still be ended, so this is some alternate copy of me. (Based on my view of the teletransportation paradox.)
- kakacik 8mo ago
  You will not wake up on any server. At best possible theoretical far future scenario better or worse copy of yours will. If you would survive such process, you yourself, the human instance that wrote that will be just looking at somebody else living their now-fully-digital (prison) life. I don't understand why people don't get this simple fact. We are all gonna die, make inner peace with that (it isn't that hard, depends mostly on your ego) and enjoy rest of that short time here. If you seek immortality, do it either via exceptional deeds or via well-raised children, that's the best we have. No force in the world is going to move both your mortal neurons with all synapses and electric charge between them that together form your personality into anything else, digital or not. Its like asking to transfer this cup of tea I hold right now into digital form. No, it can be copied to certain precision and that's it.

mentos 8mo ago

Absolutely not sounds like a be careful what you wish for Black Mirror episode where you wake up trapped in some simulation you can’t break free from but it’s ok because you signed on the dotted line to donate your mind and body to science.

Procrastes 8mo ago

Here's a thought experiment. I offer you the chance to be put in a medically induced coma and shipped around the world to strangers you know nothing about. You don't know what economic, political, or moral system you'll awaken to. The only thing you know for sure is they, for some reason we're interested in receiving an unconscious person, no questions asked. Do you take the deal? Do you sign your family up for it?

ghywertelling 8mo ago
Would the dynamical strange attractor system that is brain start in the same basin as it died in? Something to think about.
Filligree 8mo ago
In this scenario, the alternative is “you die”. Let’s make sure we’re including that in the question.
- andrewflnr 8mo ago
  That doesn't change things as much as you might think. Sufficiently advanced technology can create many fates worse than death.
- rozap 8mo ago
  Brains 'R Us recently filed for chapter 11 and has been cut up and sold for scrap to private equity. The new PE firm has your brain. In 2208 there's a large grey market for brains to be used for hybrid AI and meat bag workflows. It's technically illegal in many jurisdictions due to "ethical implications", but is still the cheapest way to run many workloads. The method used to harness the brain involves reanimating it in a jar of jelly, and then forcing it to do the 2208 equivalent of a captcha. Each time the brain fails a captcha, the brain receives an electric impulse which simulates the most excruciating pain that the brain can respresent, but the brain cannot scream or run away.
  - KronisLV 8mo ago

robot-wrangler 8mo ago

Herbert West requires extremely fresh specimens

windowliker 8mo ago

Oh great! A new way to keep the tax base growing!

igorramazanov 8mo ago

Are we even sure, that personality is stored solely in a brain? What if whole or other parts of body involved as well

jacquesm 8mo ago
You'd have to at least present a candidate to make such a suggestion, otherwise the simple counter is 'where else would it be?'
Sharlin 8mo ago
As far as we know, damage to no part of the body results in personality changes, changes to subjective sense of self, or the loss of memory or cognitive ability, except the brain.
- igorramazanov 8mo ago
  There are some, not fully verified/researched, personality shifts after heart transplantations. Controversial, and I don't know if anyone tried to run some proper research with psychometrics. Same goes with fecal transplantations for curing major depressions. Not fully researched either, and not sure if we can say that a depression qualifies as a personality trait.
- zzrrt 8mo ago
  Chronic pain probably changes your personality, so I think we should give the idea more of a chance, that being plopped into a new body/no body would alter you too.

olivierestsage 8mo ago

No thanks

anarticle 8mo ago

Those 50y mortgages won't pay for themselves! Probably a good first step in life extension, I know a lot of first peeks at this came from hypothermic people. Those lessons are now used in heart surgeries to slow metabolism and limit cell deaths. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8297075/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8297075/

e-dant 8mo ago

I have no mouth and I must scream

ppap3 8mo ago

Nothing like a ghost pain for a ghost digital person

coppsilgold 8mo ago

A thought experiment: One by one your neurons are replaced by their digital counterpart as a nano-scale computer in-place, with equivalent functionality. After which neuron number are you no longer you? You remain conscious throughout the process, the process may last however long with pauses for sleep. After the replacement is complete, one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to their clone instantiated in a computer. After which neuron number are you no longer you? This mind upload thought experiment convinced me that as long as there are no sharp discontinuities in experience, it makes no sense to ask what happened to the you. It also carries the implication that you are not your brain, but rather the abstract dynamical system instantiated in it.

beeflet 8mo ago
No amount of replacement removes your sense of self. "You" become a machine. I think the main thing that makes this inrealistic is the scale. In theory it also could take place on a larger level of discretization: chunks of many neurons. I think it also matters what the nature of the replacement is. Is it possible for you to retain memories and skills throughout this intrusive process? Presumably, if the computer has "equivalent functionality".
ahhhhnoooo 8mo ago
Plenty of people (not tons, but many) experience loss of neurons through injury, disease, or aging. We generally consider the person to be the same person, even if their personality changes. Likewise, as you grow in childhood, you create many many neurons. Again, you are still you throughout the experience of growing up. I suspect in your thought experiment you'd remain you throughout. Honestly, a community I bet does a lot of thinking about the self and what makes you "you" is the trans community, given their experience grappling with bodies and identity already.
- johnisgood 8mo ago
  My grandma got dementia, and she has been deteriorating quite a lot just now at the hospital to the point where she is unrecognizable. Yes, technically she is still my grandma, but at the same time she is not. I hope you understand what I am trying to get at. (Of course I still consider her my grandma and she is being cared for just as much as she would have been years ago. It just saddens me that I cannot have the same or similar interactions as I could have some time back.)

bryanrasmussen 8mo ago

this is probably one of the least efficient implementations of state persistence ever attempted, but I like it.

davidw 8mo ago

'Hold that thought'

pgt 8mo ago

Recently rewatched Demolition Man (1993) where criminals are frozen in cryostasis and then reanimated – a very prescient film. All I could think of was Demolition Pig

caditinpiscinam 8mo ago

"William and Mary" -- Roald Dahl https://user.ceng.metu.edu.tr/~ucoluk/yazin/William_and_Mary.html https://user.ceng.metu.edu.tr/~ucoluk/yazin/William_and_Mary...

Uncle_Clark 8mo ago

When I see things like this, it reminds that the saying life imitates art is surprisingly true. This is basically the premise of the movie Transcendence to a certain extent. Very interesting and very cool but begs the question just because we can, does it mean we should? That being said, ever since I found out about Colossal Bioscience and their de-extinction projects, I have been tuned into their progress with great interest because it is the real life Jurassic Park.

deadbabe 8mo ago

What does it mean to “continue with your life”? Even if you are raised from the dead, it means you just go back to work at some point, where you prompt an AI Agent all day, collect a paycheck, pay bills, and occasionally do some dopamine stimulating activities, until you die again? This tech will only be used on people who are considered too important to die: demagogues and dictators, mass influencers.

ZYZ64738 8mo ago

Why on earth? It seems to me that the brain itself is the very disease they're trying to preserve here. Not to mention that, as usual, only certain super-rich people could probably afford it—which, to me, seems like one of the worst and most incurable "diseases" there is. Just my humble opinion, coming from my broken brain ;-)

5o1ecist 8mo ago

[dead]

pugchat 8mo ago

[dead]