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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”

#321

Post by pmoriarty »

satori99 wrote: post #286
kevindeasis wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a similar scene in Altered Carbon

Iain M Banks' Culture novel, Surface Detail, also deals with the idea of eternal digital heavens and hells. Many of them are run by corporations. Some civilizations even send young sinners on day trips to hell to keep them on the 'right' path. Scary stuff. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail

Back in 1965, Stanislaw Lem wrote in his Cyberiad about a sadistic king who was given a virtual world to rule over. The king gleefully proceeded to torture its virtual inhabitants. Lem has a lot to say on the ethics of this.

You can read this remarkable story and Douglas Hofstadter's and Daniel Dennett's commentary on it here:

https://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-18-seventh-sal...

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

#322

Post by zebraflask »

whack wrote: post #277

Any sufficiently advanced technology that is capable of resurrecting your brain/consciousness, is also capable of subjecting your digital consciousness to eternal torture worse than anything experienced by Man thus far. If you haven't already, check out Black Mirror's last episode: Black Museum. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, even if there's only an infinitesimal chance of it happening. https://en.wikipedia.or…

This really isn't what YCombinator should talk about. Does this start new companies?

The reason for this site in the first place was to start new companies. Brains getting sliced into jars is not impressing anyone.

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

#323

Post by ccostes »

gagege wrote: post #155
ajuc wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I disagree that I disappear during states of "unconsciousness". Sleep/general anesthesia/drugs are just different states of brain activity, but I'm still "me" during these states. We don't say people become no one, or someone else when they sleep. So, a copy of your consciousness (if such a thing is possible) is different than sleeping. No matter how much the clone believes it is me, it will never be me. I still die…

I think the point about unconscious states was not that you "become no one", but rather that it is an interruption to the continuity of consciousness.

As a thought experiment, imagine you were magically replicated during sleep such that, at the time of replication, both "you"s were completely physically identical. Both would wake up thinking that they are the same person that went to sleep, but now there are two of them. Are either/both/none of them "you"?

My answer would be that they both are, and don't think there's anything special about our physical selves, nor any reason that we're limited to being singletons (to give a code analogy). The combination of our physical self and our cumulative experience and memories are what defines "us". Thinking of identity in possessive terms and the desire to think of ourselves as unique is a quirk of psychology, I think.

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

#324

Post by Mononokay »

axaxs wrote: post #320
Mononokay wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one is ever ready to die, then why do it? By the time this happens we'll more than likely be multiplanetary, and there'd be no incentive to really ever die. It's less a moral issue than a logical issue - "Let a person contribute to the world until they feel they have nothing else they can do" isn't a terribly unreasonable idea.

Most people have nothing to contribute to the world. Should we kill them off early?

If they feel they have something to contribute, as small as it may be, why would they choose to die? No one would need to kill anyone off.

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

#325

Post by monort »

Erlangolem wrote: post #133
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.

It’s called dualism, and you’re basically proposing a soul in 21st century language. Like a soul, it’s not testable, and lacks any evidence in favor of it, while requiring a new set of assumptions which cannot be tested. You’re also proposing some kind of new physics, which again, is somehow complementary to and yet hidden from current current theories.

It is not hidden, we don't have a complete physical theory - quantum mechanics and general relativity are not compatible.

As an additional fun fact - we don't know how general anesthesia works.

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

#326

Post by joering2 »

mygo wrote: post #276
incompatible wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Computers have yet to match many of the capabilities of the brain. Heck I have better image recognition when I’m drunk than all of Google’s image recognition nodes combined. Could a computer host a human mind to its full capacity?

Did you forget that any technology publicly known and available is about 20 years old? Im sure they are systems that can recognize image faster and more accurate than humans but its sort of a “product” you wont find by googling.

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

#327

Post by knowThySelfx »

Have got a very bad feeling about this. Makes you wonder what really is "You" or "I". Just a collection of memories in your brain? Do people here approve of the idea of soul? Most probably won't because there's no "scientific" proof for it yet.

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

#328

Post by Zanni »

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…

If they can bring your mind to life inside a computer, then you're essentially a simulation of yourself. In that case, how can you ever know that the person you're giving the password to is real? And that you haven't just been revived in a sandbox for the express purpose of getting your password, which they can then pass on themselves. Shades of Rick and Morty ...

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

#329

Post by dsl »

incompatible wrote: post #202
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.

Then enslave the mind to do work, to pay the hosting bills.

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

#330

Post by Erlangolem »

monort wrote: post #325
Erlangolem wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s called dualism, and you’re basically proposing a soul in 21st century language. Like a soul, it’s not testable, and lacks any evidence in favor of it, while requiring a new set of assumptions which cannot be tested. You’re also proposing some kind of new physics, which again, is somehow complementary to and yet hidden from current current theories.

It is not hidden, we don't have a complete physical theory - quantum mechanics and general relativity are not compatible. As an additional fun fact - we don't know how general anesthesia works.

Gaps in knowledge don’t imply gods in them, and especially really tight gaps imply nothing more than a gap in knowledge. The precise mechanism of GA isn’t certain, but it is known that disruption of hippocampal function is key, and no one is seriously suggesting thst it’s disconnection from “the soul” that does it. A theory of quantum gravity would be complementary to QM and GR, and that leaves no room for remote soul control either.

It’s just not scientific or rational to point at some things we don’t understand with the assumption that it must mean God did it. That’s mysticism and religion, not science, and if it uses the language of science, but not the substance it’s called pseudoscience.

If you want to postulate a soul within the rubric of QM/GR complementary theories, it’s very much on you to hypothesize and test. What field is carrying the signal? What machinery is receiving it? What’s sending it? Why is there no lag? Why is it all totally undetectable? Why are we trying to add a whole new set of assumptions on top of existing ones? Occam’s Razor really applies here, especially when it’s science vs. “devoutly to be wished.”

Just because we want reality to conform to ancient beliefs and present desires doesn’t make it so.

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