5 ms·

> It can't; after all, if you can make one copy then you can make ten copies. Just because you find a notion inconvenient to deal with doesn't mean it's not fa

by Udo 13y ago

> It can't; after all, if you can make one copy then you can make ten copies. Just because you find a notion inconvenient to deal with doesn't mean it's not factually possible. It basically comes down to your view on the supernatural, and by extension the role of your brain. If you're a materialist, we can talk. Otherwise it's just about religion (which is fine if that works for you personally) and in that case a conversation isn't really possible. Much like space flight and killer drones, this will one day mature from science fiction to reality and we'll have to deal with it in some form. At this point, you have a choice to make: either hang on to centuries worth of convoluted ideas about the soul made by people who didn't know anything about anything, or move on to a new substrate that is much better aligned with the way our minds actually work and better suited for moving us forward as a civilization. And it's most likely not going to be a do-or-be-damned choice. Barring unforeseen social dynamics, nothing is going to prevent you from choosing to stick with a biological existence.

javert 13y ago
> because you find a notion inconvenient to deal with doesn't mean it's not factually possible. That is a completely unjust accusation. Even from a materialist perspective, I think the guy was raising one of the most important questions.
- Udo 13y ago
  I didn't mean it as an accusation. The argument was literally that this can't be possible because that would allow multiple copies of a person! > Even from a materialist perspective, I think the guy was raising one of the most important questions. I fail to see how that's even a debate at this point. Either you see that the mind is a process being executed on a certain kind of substrate, or you believe that something from outside the physical universe is making up the mind and the brain is just an actuator. Pretty much everything else derives from one of these points of view. If you think there is "special matter" and "ordinary matter", or that there is something special going on in the brain beyond its information theoretical content, that's not really a scientific/materialist position. If there's any defensible position in between, I'm genuinely interested in hearing it. Again, I don't mean to attack or upset anyone, please forgive me if I inadvertently gave the wrong signals.
  - klon 13y ago
    But would a duplicate of me feel like I live forever? Won't I just feel it's my duplicate that lives on when my biological self dies? Maybe a little more satisfying than having a pyramid "live on" but still.
    - Udo 13y ago
      As software people, we have a unique advantage over other humans when it comes to understanding the process of copying information. I invite you to look at it from that perspective. > But would a duplicate of me feel like I live forever? Your duplicate is you, it doesn't even matter how many of you there are at the end. Unless the initial brain upload is a destructive scan, this pertains to your biological "original" as well. How things feel like in that situation would be pretty much down to your state of mind, so no difference there to how things are now. Also, this doesn't mean you'll live forever. Nothing is forever. It's just another form of existence, albeit there is reason to be hopeful it will be longer and individually better than a biological existence. > Won't I just feel it's my duplicate that lives on when my biological self dies? Again, that depends on the tech level at the time. Most likely, the first forays into this territory will be made by dead people who have their brains scanned. There will be no biological self left in that case. Once technology moves further, it may become possible to do a non-destructive scan of the brain. In that case, people will most likely opt for this technology as a backup plan (though some - including myself - may not and choose to literally fork themselves). > Maybe a little more satisfying than having a pyramid "live on" but still. The difference, as I said, is that it is you who lives on. Even if you could somehow confer upon a pyramid a portion of yourself, it's still just a static monument. Transferring your mind onto a virtual machine is not just a matter of preserving it for posterity, the point is to continue living and thereby changing. The concept of you is not a static thing.
      - StavrosK 13y ago
        I have an inkling that, when we finally have the means to live forever, we will realize that we actually are just a program running on a brain, and it won't matter if we die.
011011100 13y ago
You didn't actually understand the parent post. If we make a copy of you and I kill you, am I extending your life? You're dead (you are not capable of having conscious experience). But there's a biological system with a nearly identical behavior that's living. That copy of you will have a similar conscious experience, but it won't be you. That's the point of the parent. The parent's not talking about a soul.
- Udo 13y ago
  > If we make a copy of you and I kill you, am I extending your life? If you make a copy of me, for a brief time there will be two of "me". After living for some time, those two will diverge increasingly. That's what living is, changing and developing. So next after copying me, you want to kill me and you want to know if you're thereby extending my life? That seems like a non sequitur statement. What do you mean by killing "me", anyway? Killing both copies? Killing one copy? How does killing extend the life of anything? > But there's a biological system with a nearly identical behavior that's living. That copy of you will have a similar conscious experience, but it won't be you. Okay, now we're moving closer. The first mistake you make is assuming there's an "original" and a "copy". If they're functionally identical, they're both me in equal measures. Killing one is still murder, becoming more tragic the more time the two minds had to develop on their own. Your are basing this example on the hidden assumption that a mind is trapped inside a body and forever bound to it, that a copy of my mind won't be "me". I recognize this sounds intuitively correct to a lot of people, but it's not actually reflecting physical reality. The atoms making up my mind are not specially tagged. The information they represent can be copied in principle, and the process that is "me" can be executed on other platforms. In this, the assumption of uniqueness is just not applicable. > That's the point of the parent. The parent's not talking about a soul. I realize that "soul" is a loaded term. But in the end, you're operating on those same loaded assumptions that seem obvious to yourself, but aren't really compatible with a purely physical model. It's an easy mistake to make without realizing it. Our everyday intuition is not always a good indicator of physical reality. Everyday intuition suggest that there can only be one "me". It suggests that consciousness is one unbroken process, and that my mind is a fundamentally static kernel. It suggests that I'm a black box with unknowable inner workings. None of these things are actually true.

by Udo 13y ago

javert 13y ago

> because you find a notion inconvenient to deal with doesn't mean it's not factually possible. That is a completely unjust accusation. Even from a materialist perspective, I think the guy was raising one of the most important questions.

Udo 13y ago
I didn't mean it as an accusation. The argument was literally that this can't be possible because that would allow multiple copies of a person! > Even from a materialist perspective, I think the guy was raising one of the most important questions. I fail to see how that's even a debate at this point. Either you see that the mind is a process being executed on a certain kind of substrate, or you believe that something from outside the physical universe is making up the mind and the brain is just an actuator. Pretty much everything else derives from one of these points of view. If you think there is "special matter" and "ordinary matter", or that there is something special going on in the brain beyond its information theoretical content, that's not really a scientific/materialist position. If there's any defensible position in between, I'm genuinely interested in hearing it. Again, I don't mean to attack or upset anyone, please forgive me if I inadvertently gave the wrong signals.
- klon 13y ago
  But would a duplicate of me feel like I live forever? Won't I just feel it's my duplicate that lives on when my biological self dies? Maybe a little more satisfying than having a pyramid "live on" but still.
  - Udo 13y ago
    As software people, we have a unique advantage over other humans when it comes to understanding the process of copying information. I invite you to look at it from that perspective. > But would a duplicate of me feel like I live forever? Your duplicate is you, it doesn't even matter how many of you there are at the end. Unless the initial brain upload is a destructive scan, this pertains to your biological "original" as well. How things feel like in that situation would be pretty much down to your state of mind, so no difference there to how things are now. Also, this doesn't mean you'll live forever. Nothing is forever. It's just another form of existence, albeit there is reason to be hopeful it will be longer and individually better than a biological existence. > Won't I just feel it's my duplicate that lives on when my biological self dies? Again, that depends on the tech level at the time. Most likely, the first forays into this territory will be made by dead people who have their brains scanned. There will be no biological self left in that case. Once technology moves further, it may become possible to do a non-destructive scan of the brain. In that case, people will most likely opt for this technology as a backup plan (though some - including myself - may not and choose to literally fork themselves). > Maybe a little more satisfying than having a pyramid "live on" but still. The difference, as I said, is that it is you who lives on. Even if you could somehow confer upon a pyramid a portion of yourself, it's still just a static monument. Transferring your mind onto a virtual machine is not just a matter of preserving it for posterity, the point is to continue living and thereby changing. The concept of you is not a static thing.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      I have an inkling that, when we finally have the means to live forever, we will realize that we actually are just a program running on a brain, and it won't matter if we die.

011011100 13y ago

You didn't actually understand the parent post. If we make a copy of you and I kill you, am I extending your life? You're dead (you are not capable of having conscious experience). But there's a biological system with a nearly identical behavior that's living. That copy of you will have a similar conscious experience, but it won't be you. That's the point of the parent. The parent's not talking about a soul.

Udo 13y ago
> If we make a copy of you and I kill you, am I extending your life? If you make a copy of me, for a brief time there will be two of "me". After living for some time, those two will diverge increasingly. That's what living is, changing and developing. So next after copying me, you want to kill me and you want to know if you're thereby extending my life? That seems like a non sequitur statement. What do you mean by killing "me", anyway? Killing both copies? Killing one copy? How does killing extend the life of anything? > But there's a biological system with a nearly identical behavior that's living. That copy of you will have a similar conscious experience, but it won't be you. Okay, now we're moving closer. The first mistake you make is assuming there's an "original" and a "copy". If they're functionally identical, they're both me in equal measures. Killing one is still murder, becoming more tragic the more time the two minds had to develop on their own. Your are basing this example on the hidden assumption that a mind is trapped inside a body and forever bound to it, that a copy of my mind won't be "me". I recognize this sounds intuitively correct to a lot of people, but it's not actually reflecting physical reality. The atoms making up my mind are not specially tagged. The information they represent can be copied in principle, and the process that is "me" can be executed on other platforms. In this, the assumption of uniqueness is just not applicable. > That's the point of the parent. The parent's not talking about a soul. I realize that "soul" is a loaded term. But in the end, you're operating on those same loaded assumptions that seem obvious to yourself, but aren't really compatible with a purely physical model. It's an easy mistake to make without realizing it. Our everyday intuition is not always a good indicator of physical reality. Everyday intuition suggest that there can only be one "me". It suggests that consciousness is one unbroken process, and that my mind is a fundamentally static kernel. It suggests that I'm a black box with unknowable inner workings. None of these things are actually true.