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A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

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Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#201

Post by notahacker »

tlb wrote: post #17
prepend wrote: post #8

“What if we told you we can backup your mind?” ...and never restore it. As someone who has lived through many backup formats that stop being supported, don’t work, or decay with time this seems monumentally stupid as anything other than basic research. I applaud their goal, digital sentience, but sorry for any of their customers. They need a pitch that works on the recently dead (eg, current cryo companies) as I don’…

What probability of restoration would be high enough to consider it? The future timelines in which restoration does happen are probably extremely interesting to be part of, given how far tech would have progressed. (There are lots of sucky future timelines too, say with nuclear holocausts, where you'd be unlikely to be restored.) No: 100% chance of death. Yes: 100-X% chance of death, X% chance of getting to see a sup…

Alternate formulation:

Trade 99% chance of seeing tomorrow even if terminally ill for a 100% chance of not seeing tomorrow and a chance of resurrection which probability-wise is on a par with $insertreligionhere being broadly correct about the afterlife.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#202

Post by incompatible »

bulletsvshumans wrote: post #151

If folks really want to make sure they come back from the dead, they might also think about setting up proper incentives for performing the potentially highly laborious process that resurrection might entail even 100+ years from now. It might be helpful to place a sort of back-to-life bounty on yourself, to be held in escrow, and only to be paid out upon successful resurrection. The bigger the bounty, the higher your…

"Highly laborious process": I guess if the technology was available to preform this process, then automating it would be relatively easy. The materials that make up a human are cheap enough.

Edit: I read the article. So they are assuming in the future that they won't bother making a new human, but just load the brain state into a computer simulation, which would be even cheaper.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#203

Post by noetic_techy »

CalRobert wrote: post #128
noetic_techy wrote: post #107

This is going to sound a bit out there, but what if your brain is simply an antenna for your consciousness to come through from wherever. Has anyone actually tried to boot up an artificial brain derived from a real organism? I'd like to see a proof of concept that your brain IS indeed the seat of your consciousness, and not just a fancy quantum antenna.

Thanks for sharing this. Funny thing is, I've been thinking more and more that this seems like at least as plausible an explanation of consciousness as any, but hesitated to share the thought since, if it's not falsifiable, it's not really science (and we can't use the tools of science to verify it). Still, I find it at least as likely as the "consciousness just sort of happens when information processing gets comple…

Thanks. I have exact same thought.

Don't get me wrong, I think consciousness arising from sufficient complexity is also very much a possible answer, and I don't discount it. I'm just not totally convinced that there isn't more too it. Until a general AI arises, I don't think I will be convinced, and even if it did, who's to say it inst still just an approximation? Multiple AI intelligence domains slapped together with some approximation of a pre-frontal cortex. Even then, biology may still be something entirely different.

Sure, you start venturing into the supernatural realm talking about this, but who's to say that given sufficient time and study of this phenomena, the supposed "consciousness is everywhere" becomes the new natural science, and gives rise to new technologies we couldn't even conceive. It would be like discovering Electromagnetism all over again.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#204

Post by notahacker »

prepend wrote: post #62
lev99 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current trends show a future with a higher population and more income inequality. This describes a world where "expensive" is still a thing. I'm not saying you are incorrect about the future, just pointing out it's against several long term trends.

Current trends show a stabilizing population around 11 billion just after 2100. Income inequality and “expensive” are not exclusive. If the median income is $1B in current dollars with lots of zettanaires (10^21 vs 10^9 for bikkionaires) you will have high income inequality but still have plenty with few things expensive. Income inequality, with no other info, is not necessarily bad. https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publi…

The population won't stabilize around 11 billion in the unlikely event that affordable solutions to significantly extend life exist, never mind the technology to resurrect the dead from stored brains...

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#205

Post by kolpa »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #68
PeanutNore wrote: post #42

“Burdening future generations with our brain banks is just comically arrogant. Aren’t we leaving them with enough problems?” Hendricks told me this week after reviewing Nectome’s website. “I hope future people are appalled that in the 21st century, the richest and most comfortable people in history spent their money and resources trying to live forever on the backs of their descendants. I mean, it’s a joke, right? Th…

I'm sure most of us spend more than $10000 each year on prolonging our lives (food and rent). It doesn't seem very selfish to do it just once more.

Food and rent actually work.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#206

Post by whiskyant »

ajuc wrote: post #139
gagege wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part I'm always surprised people don't seem to get. If someone makes an exact copy of me, the original me is still going to think "I'm me. That other thing is a copy of me." So, if the original me has to die for the clone to be created... unless my consciousness somehow jumps to the clone, I experience a death which I do not come back from.

> unless my consciousness somehow jumps to the clone You don't have conciousness when you sleep (at least during some parts of it). Your conciousness disappears every night for several hours and is recreated every morning. Why is it not a problem, but when there is 2 of you - it suddenly becomes a problem? If you were sleeping while someone made a clone - would that make it OK? If no - why? There's no evidence of any…

So if someone said they'd shoot you in your sleep, but replace you with a clone with your memories and give that clone $100. You'd do it?

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#207

Post by John_KZ »

hartator wrote: post #105

> It has also won a $960,000 federal grant from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health I have nothing against the elite trying to live forever. However, I wish they weren’t using our taxes in the process.

I hope they use the fund to cure themselves of their grandiose fantasies of enabling immortality. The brains they "preserve" will end up in a trash can 10-20 years down the line when their company fails or management changes.

Reminds me of Alcor and Ted Williams. Or the myriads of "companies" that promise preserving your stem cells but in reality it's just one guy with a LN2 tank in his basement.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#208

Post by noetic_techy »

thg wrote: post #124
noetic_techy wrote: post #107

This is going to sound a bit out there, but what if your brain is simply an antenna for your consciousness to come through from wherever. Has anyone actually tried to boot up an artificial brain derived from a real organism? I'd like to see a proof of concept that your brain IS indeed the seat of your consciousness, and not just a fancy quantum antenna.

> Has anyone actually tried to boot up an artificial brain derived from a real organism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWorm

I've heard of this and have been eagerly anticipating some results. I'd like to see it trained to do something unique, uploaded, and that some behavior arise in the uploaded version. I'm not totally against consciousness arising from sufficient complexity, but I've yet to see it proven.

And then there are the normal people walking around with almost NO brain...

http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/the-medical-mystery-of-a-man...

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#209

Post by kolpa »

perl4ever wrote: post #71
tlb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What probability of restoration would be high enough to consider it? The future timelines in which restoration does happen are probably extremely interesting to be part of, given how far tech would have progressed. (There are lots of sucky future timelines too, say with nuclear holocausts, where you'd be unlikely to be restored.) No: 100% chance of death. Yes: 100-X% chance of death, X% chance of getting to see a sup…

There's no chance of you getting to see a "super-interesting future". This comment is as weird to me as confusing a book on Relativity with Einstein. If you had a terminal disease, and a twin, would you expect to wake up in the body of your twin after death?

The weird part is why you think you existed 10 minutes and why you think you will exist in 10minutes.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#210

Post by whiskyant »

Why are there so many people excited to do this? Don't they realize it'll be a copy/digital clone of them? Even if they could upload a digital representation of a person's brain without the person dying, it would still be a copy.

This isn't immortality, this is a company killing you then promising to create a clone of you with your memories at a later time.

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