Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk • Hacker News Board

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#171

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc » Sun, Nov 13, 2016, 12:51 PM UTC

comex wrote: post #118

pinkrooftop wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the dissonance is more pronounced in love animals / eat mistreated animals. Empathy developed presumably along with the enjoyment for taste of animal fats and protein

That dissonance can be resolved relatively easily by throwing money at the problem and eating non-mistreated animals. Love/eat is a harder moral problem IMO because there is no acceptable workaround, at least today. Someday there will be one: we'll be able to buy synthetic meat that's truly equivalent to animal meat (maybe grown with animal stem cells), and eventually the harvesting of real animals will end. But that…

Most people "solve" it with love cute animals, eat animals I don't care about.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#172

Post by logfromblammo » Mon, Nov 14, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

truth_sentinell wrote: post #133

logfromblammo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends largely on whether you want to model mites or mammals. We could probably make a computer model of tiny arthropods in 2017, if someone were willing to throw piles of money at the problem. A computer model of a human will be more difficult. But also consider that an acceptably accurate model of the human brain would be an AI. You would still be experimenting on a person.

I'd definitely consider a fully emulated human brain another human, because by the premise that's fully emulated, it will also feel desires, and have survival instincts. That'd be another moral debate -similar to slavery-, because there will be people that would emphatize with them, and there will be others that will think they're just "machines". But that's talk for another topic. On this case, you'd want to emulate…

The emulation program becomes the mind. You cannot avoid it. The natural consequence of the boot-up sequence for a real human brain is a human consciousness. If you create a precise and accurate model of a human brain in software, and emulate its physical functions, the emulation program contains the consciousness.

If you try something clever, like disconnecting all motor controls and sensory inputs, you now have a person who is blind, deaf, numb, anosmic, and paralyzed. The horror of that situation is compounded if you are emulating over a scanned copy of a cadaver's brain.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#173

Post by vblord » Mon, Nov 14, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

qbrass wrote: post #167

vblord wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious what you would think if they cloned a monkey and then did the operation to the cloned monkey? Would you still feel sad for the monkey if you knew that the only reason it existed was for this one purpose?

If that solved the ethical dilemma, they'd make humans for that purpose.

haha. Great point.