Brain of Theseus.
This is the correct way IMO. “Uploading” your mind to a computer is making a clone/copy, but the original dies the same.
Maintaining continuity of consciousness is the only thing that would make me feel comfortable with converting myself to a machine intelligence.
I hate to break it to you, but our meat brains don’t even have continuity of consciousness. We become unconscious all the time. The only real constant is the “hardware” our consciousness emerges from, but even that is always changing.
Except our brains are still functioning. If they didn’t keep functioning, we’d be brain dead. The point is that there’s a common thread that connects every waking moment together.
I don’t get the down votes. Did y’all forget about sleep? No one vividly dreams every night all night long. Often it’s the fade to black going to sleep then the sudden awakening.
You do not die every night.
Obviously not, but what is the functional difference? If you can’t tell it’s happening, does it actually matter?
Yes, yes it matters a lot. If you die you do not wake up again.
Sorry, should have been more specific. If you died in your sleep every night and came back to life in the morning, and you couldn’t tell it was happening, would it matter?
It’s not a question with a right answer, I just want to hear your thoughts about it
That’s not what he means and you know it.
I think the only way we know it is us for sure is if we are conscious in both the original and clone at the same time. Like… okay… I know this is me in the new brain, I’ll shut down the other one.
Like… okay… I know this is me in the new brain, I’ll shut down the other one.
the other one: i’m pretty sure you’ve got it backwards, pal
No, no… you misunderstood. We’re just taking a trip to the brain farm up north. You’ll be able to think with the other brains up there. It’ll be fun.
Read Old Man’s War.
I agree.
But here is an interesting thing to think about:
What is the perceived difference between falling asleep and waking up the next day, vs going to sleep and copying your consciousness to a machine/new body.
Your brain is still functioning while you’re asleep. If it turned off all the way then you’d become brain-dead.
But would you notice?
Probably. If you’ve ever been under anesthesia then you’ve probably noticed the difference between sleeping under anesthesia and sleeping under normal conditions. Personally, I normally get the feeling that time has passed when I sleep, I didn’t have that feeling when I had my wisdom teeth removed; and anesthesia still doesn’t turn your brain all the way off. I’m pretty sure if your brain actually turned off all the way and then turned back on again, then you’d probably feel like you’re a different person.
You wouldn’t notice because you’d be dead. Your clone wouldn’t notice because it would think it was you. Your friends and family wouldn’t notice because they’d think your clone was you.
Some sleep is conscious (dreaming) but they’re easily forgotten. Perhaps being unconscious still always has a grain of consciousness (but is just forgotten).
It seems there is a grain of reduced experience while sleeping. Copying seems to imply it’s always a clone (a different ego, a different person).
reading this comment suddenly reminded me of the “Pantheon” show.
Man I can’t get that brain laser out of my memory. So brutal
As long as it’s made mandatory to cover with insurance so it’s available to everyone. The last thing we need is an immortal ruling class.
Hoping real hard that Alternate Carbon is not becoming reality.
I see that you too have heard the prophecy.
Don’t worry, going by past history this will be available to any and…uhh, [checks notes] oh, uh-oh.
Oh at this point it seems like we’re treating dystopian science fiction as a guidebook instead of a warning.
Someone’s getting hangry and needs a Soylent.
Hold on, what color Soylent are we talking about? Is it the delicious, definitely only plants, green flavor?
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech
Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus
Let the death of Saburo Arasaka be a lesson to us all: even 150+ year old bastards can get choked the fuck out
On the plus side an immortal ruling class might actually start caring about climate change.
Sure, in the most dystopian way possible.
“Have you tried ‘kill the poor’?”
… and reduce emissions by wasting the rest. But due to negative selection leading into that upper class they won’t be able to manage the planet further despite thinking that they can and will die of hunger eventually.
Is a forever expanding population of old people much better?
If they’re functional, and we get serious about space or birth control, then no it’s not a problem. But that is another path we can take to really juice the dystopia.
It will take a very long time indeed before we can reach another habitable planet enough to alleviate an exponentially growing population, and forced birth control will be unpopular, not to mention probably employed as eugenics by those in power against those who aren’t.
There’s always orbital habitats. They ramp up a lot quicker than even a Mars colony.
Not the way I’d want to spend the rest of my life, that’s for sure.
Eh, it would be worth it with the right recreational activities up there and knowing we weren’t setting up altered carbon.
You’d have zero control over your existence. Someone else would own that station and you’d exist entirely at their whim. They would decide if you get food, air, water, shelter. No real access to nature. I’d rather die.
The final boss of subscriptions
Good lord, just let people DIE. Imagine what a rotten place this would be if people with outdated mindsets continued to control the world decades or even centuries after their expiration dates. People were already angry about 80 year old presidential candidates… what happens when they’re 120, or 150?
For $10 a month you can get the brain implant without ads.
You know… I’m just gonna check this DNR box.
I know it’s a scientologist movie but “battlefield earth”…
I’d rather not enact the highest stakes ship of Theseus
Probably the best description I’ve seen of this lmao
You don’t want to save your old brain chunks and put them back together to see if you can make on old version of you?
No thanks. We don’t need rich people living forever.
Might be the only way to get them to give a shit about the environment.
I doubt it. They will just dump shit further away. If their solution default is to make things “somebody else’s problem” there’s no reason to believe they will stop thinking that way.
That might be their outlook on “local” pollution for a while, but you don’t think going from 20 years left to centuries to live might affect their opinions on global climate change?
Not really. Many of them are already heavily invested in life extension tech (not that I think it will work, but it means they’re optimistic). I think their general worldview is that technology will fix it, at least for them.
Yeah, I’m probably being too optimistic.
Speak for yourself. I think it would be great.
They can live forever but have to trade their fortune for it permanently
I want a brain update and a penis upgrade please! Yes 275Tb of ram for my penis and 6" of brain 🧠!
I don’t want my penis remembering that much.
rm -rf penis/Oops
That actually made me laugh out loud. 😂
Cyberpunk, let’s gooo🤣
After upgrade, years later in a CT scan. Dr. “That is a weird looking brain it almost looks like a pecker.”
Total mindfuck.
The penis upgrade already exists, it’s called a “vaginoplasty,” sweaty 💅💅💅
There are two reasons he believes the neocortex could be replaced, albeit only slowly. The first is evidence from rare cases of benign brain tumors, like a man described in the medical literature who developed a growth the size of an orange. Yet because it grew very slowly, the man’s brain was able to adjust, shifting memories elsewhere, and his behavior and speech never seemed to change—even when the tumor was removed.
That’s proof, Hébert thinks, that replacing the neocortex little by little could be achieved “without losing the information encoded in it” such as a person’s self-identity.
The second source of hope, he says, is experiments showing that fetal-stage cells can survive, and even function, when transplanted into the brains of adults. For instance, medical tests underway are showing that young neurons can integrate into the brains of people who have epilepsy and stop their seizures.
“It was these two things together—the plastic nature of brains and the ability to add new tissue—that, to me, were like, ‘Ah, now there has got to be a way,’” says Hébert.
Very interesting. I’ve also seen research suggesting that the application of stem cells to damaged neural tissue within the spinal cord could repair it, so the idea that you could use a similar approach to actual brain health isn’t such a big leap. But still, wow. I wonder how long it would take for the immature cells to develop into “adult mode” that’s fully integrated into the patients cortex. In order to replace the entire brain, you’d have to do it in like, 8 parts, with years of recovery time in between each surgery. Also there would exist the potential for the new cells to develop into like, a second, smaller brain, if the connections sour or if the new material isn’t stimulated the “right” way.
a man described in the medical literature who developed a growth the size of an orange. Yet because it grew very slowly, the man’s brain was able to adjust, shifting memories elsewhere, and his behavior and speech never seemed to change—even when the tumor was removed.
Wow, that’s wild.
FROM THE MOMENT I UNDERSTOOD THE WEAKNESS OF MY FLESH IT DISGUSTED ME
I don’t want to live longer, fix my fucking knees and back.
…fresh cloned bodies…
This would do that.
Millennials and Gen Z: *bond over their death wish Scientists: *ETERNAL LIFE
Could they have at least waited for the boomers to go first, they’ll never give up power now
“Millennials are ruining the death industry!”
I am not renting my corporeal existence from a megacorporation. There is no way this is ever affordable to the masses without some pretty huge caveats
Your Braintm privacy policy has been updated. Blink once to accept the new privacy policy.
Caveat 1: Move out of the US
Caveat 2: ???
Caveat 3: Extended youth
President Joe Biden created ARPA-H in 2022, as an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, to pursue what he called “bold, urgent innovation”
I did not see Biden creating a cloning and immortality medical research arm of the government but I guess it’s proof he already knew he was getting old before the debate and no wonder Trump wants back in the white house.
No. Absolutely not. Whenever anyone says, “wouldn’t it be great to live forever” remember that means people like trump and Musk are with us forever. Unless people take things into their own hands, but that’s another issue.
Maybe the procedure would fix whatever’s wrong with their brains. Like, maybe Trump would slowly regain the ability to form complete sentences. I’m imagining a Flowers for Algernon situation where he wakes up one day, reads his own Wikipedia page, and is briefly ashamed before the non-neural parts of his body crap out.
people like trump and Musk are with us forever.
Hey, we only have to get lucky once. They need to keep being lucky every time.
