Surely having your consciousness in some kind of computer/machine will be similar enough to 'locked in' syndrome to be a torture?
If they network you with others, it'll be a a true system of narcissists.
A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
371–380 of 441 posts
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had something similar happen to me once and didn't know how long it was going to last and it really was that terrifying, except instead of questioning what I was, I could remember everything I normally could. I just couldn't sense anything but my own thoughts and memories. Luckily I came out of it, but it would be an awful hell.
That is intense. I hope that's the only time you have to experience that. Speaking of hell, it's actually similar to what my Catholic school taught us hell would be like. No physical pain or brimstone... Just your mind, alone and separated from all for eternity.
Really? Interesting. People are social to an extent that they think isolation is hell?
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
While I agree there may be classified tech more advanced than commercial & available research systems, I think this generalization is, to put it politely, nonsense.
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is intense. I hope that's the only time you have to experience that. Speaking of hell, it's actually similar to what my Catholic school taught us hell would be like. No physical pain or brimstone... Just your mind, alone and separated from all for eternity.
Really? Interesting. People are social to an extent that they think isolation is hell?
Well it goes a bit deeper than socializing. I said separated from all, but that's including "grace", which if I remember correctly is a connection to god that is available to humans during life.
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#375It's really strange to think it will be someone just like you, but not actually you. You never re-open your eyes so to speak, your copy does.
It seems a bit narcissistic to know you will never open your eyes again, but you would still like a copy of you to exist.
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
No, that's not even what they're saying. They're basically saying killing them in their sleep is not a problem. That's where that logic goes. Because you die when you go to sleep.
As long as someone who is exactly like me with my memories and thought processes is created in the morning.
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I did not know this. I assumed certain technology is more advanced in private industry or classified governmental programs, but I was unaware that my iPhone X is effectively a 1997 device.
You can find research projects that haven't (yet) been commercialised. They exist only in prototype form that either isn't ready for mass production or isn't economically feasible. You see it all the time with things like memristors or the latest potential cure for cancer.
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#378This seems to be based on the theory of the connectome, which is widely accepted but still fundamentally unproven.
The idea that we are but a sum of the electrical interactions between cells in our brain is extremely short-sighted.
Our nervous system expands over the physical limit of the brain. How can we be sure that memories are not activated by specific interactions with other departments of our body.
And even if it were true that brain equals conscience, how can we ignore the constant interaction with the external world? Would it be possible to recreate a conscience "in sich" and "für sich", to say it with Kant, without connecting it to a simulation of whatever else is there?
In any case, I applaud at this trial. It is intriguing and interesting, but it also is a display of scientific hybris that you don't see often. I completely disagree with the assumptions that are moving this operation, but I'm extremely excited to see where this ends up.
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I merged the bash logs where I nuked rm -rf / on a given computer into the logs of one where I have not ran that command, the result is not the same. What if you had 2 git repositories, and merged changes from one to another? Or 2 disk images? Why would memories be logs and not contents of the repository in this analogy? And if you care about changes to the brain state that aren't memories - just add these chang…
> Why would existence of a copy change anything? In programming it doesn't, yet you seem to argue it does. It isn't the copy that changes things. It is the potential of a copy that makes it glaringly obvious that the result is not the same instance. If there is some process that makes a second me, I don't have access to the copy of me's thoughts. This proves second me isn't actually me because I'm still here, and we…
> It is the potential of a copy that makes it glaringly obvious that the result is not the same instance.
Well for me the potential for a copy doesn't make anything obvious or impossible.
Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”
#380Any 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…
I'm not sure why that would be terrifying. If we are able to upload and run brains on a computer, then we understand consciousness which is a mystery subject. Be aware that running code on a computer is just the computation of numbers. So if computing a number makes a consciousness, then all possible states of your consciousness are happening. All the numbers are there.
I'm not sure why that would be terrifying
Because humans have now become overloards of your very conscience.
Imagine that I am a communist revolutionary and I take control of the governmental system and I don't like rich people, but I decide well all these virtual brains and their wealth they should be put to work for the state, to pay back their misdeeds and robbing of the earth of resources in their past life.
Maybe I am a Mengele and decide I have a wealth of experimental subjects. Difference is now I can bend and break you mind but you cant die, unless I delete you.
I see all kinds of ways this can go wrong and given time all possibilities will happen.