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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”

#431

Post by SolarNet »

mozumder wrote: post #430
SolarNet wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of a test, many people haven't been able to, and neither can you apparently, until someone has a test it is effectively non-falsifiable. Science isn't about proof, if observations change (primarily improve) then we change what we think we know. Which is why the above is all the "proof" I need. you can falsify it very simply. Provide a test. I have met my burden.

So, if you can't back up the assertion that it's not testable, you have "effectively" lost the argument. Go back 90 years. How do you know there isn't a 4th fundamental force of nature? Science isn't about making assertions and not being able to back it up.

> So, if you can't back up the assertion that it's not testable, you have "effectively" lost the argument.

I have backed up the assertion. I have pointed to the existing literature, and the many people who have tried and failed to write a test. I have a very basic hypothesis, one that could be broken by a very simple piece of evidence: a test.

But here is the real problem. You are treating this as an argument. And I am not. This isn't about winning or loosing to me, I am just trying to understand the universe better (as are the people above saying this isn't falsifiable), and you want to win. Besides if this were a proper argument, you'd have a clearly stated position I could argue against, and you don't seem to have one (outside of 'dualism can be proven', which is a ridiculous assertion, easily refuted).

> Go back 90 years. How do you know there isn't a 4th fundamental force of nature?

How do you know there isn't a fifth now? We have no clue how we would test for it, but there are unexplained phenomena which might involve a fifth force (dark matter and the perplexing way that gravity works for example). Saying something is non-falsifiable doesn't mean it's "proven" to be wrong. Just that science can't say anything about it yet. With more knowledge and more time we learn that our previous understanding was wrong, and that we can test for new things we couldn't even imagine before (and some that we could).

> Science isn't about making assertions and not being able to back it up.

You're right, it's not. Which is why I have been able to back it up, by pointing out that many very smart people (scientists among them) have tried to think of a way to test this and failed. My assertion stands with the caveat all science has: given what we know now. Science is wrong all the time - I don't mind being wrong about this - but for the time being it appears true. And that is what is useful.

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

#432

Post by perl4ever »

kolpa wrote: post #209
perl4ever wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Logically, there is no reason I can give why in 10 minutes, my consciousness and yours will not switch places. If it happened in the past, neither of us would know. Yet I still experience being me right now, just "because".

Really, what we have here is a quasi-religio-philosophical argument for reincarnation. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea of reincarnation after death, in fact, but I think people who believe in uploading minds are implicitly pretending to have knowledge about the process that nobody has.

Any rules for where your consciousness ends up in the next instant in the event of a discontinuity are made up based on your preferences and prejudices. One may wish to believe that a computer that stores the patterns of your living brain captures your mind after you die, but it's no more or less valid (i.e. probable, provable) that the cliche that you are reincarnated into some particular living entity as reward or punishment for how you lived your life.

Reincarnation is, in my opinion, outside the realm of science, so I don't disbelieve in it, I merely doubt it is possible to know anything about it due to the impossibility of investigating scientifically.

...and "mind-uploading" is merely a subset of human invented systems of reincarnation.

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

#433

Post by perl4ever »

AgentME wrote: post #267
perl4ever wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If I had a terminal illness, and I had the option of having a healthy twin come into existence with all of my memories, goals, and creativity, I'd spend anything on that option. It's a shame if there's some sense it's not "really me", but what I care about is that my friends don't get a me-shaped hole in their lives, that my responsibilities continue to be taken care of, and my goals keep getting met in the way I hop…

Well, people raise children, mentor others, create art, build real and abstract things that outlive them. I'm not sure why a twin with your memories and abilities would necessarily be the best possible creation. To me, someone who can only be satisfied by that appears to be somewhat lacking in identification with the rest of humanity.

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

#434

Post by pombrand »

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…

It's a bit pretentious to think that any being would bother to spend precious free energy to torture a bunch of lowly humans don't you think. Hence not worried.

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

#435

Post by AgentME »

perl4ever wrote: post #433
AgentME wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a terminal illness, and I had the option of having a healthy twin come into existence with all of my memories, goals, and creativity, I'd spend anything on that option. It's a shame if there's some sense it's not "really me", but what I care about is that my friends don't get a me-shaped hole in their lives, that my responsibilities continue to be taken care of, and my goals keep getting met in the way I hop…

Well, people raise children, mentor others, create art, build real and abstract things that outlive them. I'm not sure why a twin with your memories and abilities would necessarily be the best possible creation. To me, someone who can only be satisfied by that appears to be somewhat lacking in identification with the rest of humanity.

As someone relatively young still, if I found myself on an early deathbed, it wouldn't do much to comfort me to imagine that perhaps most others are content with what they've created by the time they reach their deathbed. The best thing for me would be more time to create things/impact myself, and the next best thing would be an agent that I'm confident that would finish up (or continue) those things the very same way I would've done. Maybe those aren't entirely different outcomes depending on the fidelity of the agent and my interpretation of identity.

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

#436

Post by khazhoux »

yters wrote: post #422
khazhoux wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matter + electricity. What problems and contradictions?

How can matter + electricity access immaterial mathematical objects?

What do you mean by "access"?

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

#437

Post by knowThySelfx »

omegaworks wrote: post #417
knowThySelfx wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relax, it is not gonna happen. Even if it "happens" in a sense, it won't be "them". Tech dissent is not much appreciated in yc, esp when a yc fellow is backing this.

>Relax, it is not gonna happen. It already is happening in some sense. Prices for many drugs people need to cope with chronic disease continue to rise. The price of insulin, for example, has tripled in the past decade.[1] >Tech dissent is not much appreciated in yc, esp when a yc fellow is backing this. If you're accusing me of luddism, you've missed my point entirely. Do you think we should automatically fall in lin…

No, I wasn't accusing you at all. In fact, was agreeing with you. Just that I used a bit of sarcasm by pointing out how it is in here.

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

#438

Post by myroon5 »

mannykannot wrote: post #111

So, assuming the technical premises are correct here, who will be paying for the uploading? If it is a trust fund established from the initial fee, then the question of who manages the fund becomes an existential matter - it's not like you can switch managers post-(your)-mortem. On the other hand, if the continued operation of this service depends on later recruits, that's quite the pyramid scheme that you are partic…

Do you remember the name of the Larry Niven novel?

Sounds interesting

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

#439

Post by yters »

khazhoux wrote: post #436
yters wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can matter + electricity access immaterial mathematical objects?

What do you mean by "access"?

We do math. Math is immaterial. How then can we do math if we are only material? Matter has no insight into the immaterial world.

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

#440

Post by sowbug »

incompatible wrote: post #198
sowbug wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing public-key cryptography. Sign a message to prove you know a private key that also authorizes the release of funds. This happens to be exactly the functionality of Bitcoin. It is debatable whether known public-key cryptography systems will survive attack for the amount of time under discussion here. I suspect the hack will be to extract the secret from the brain being resurrected, recover the funds,…

It's pretty unlikely that any particular system like Bitcoin will still be around in 100 years. It would be difficult to think of any investment that will still be worth something in 100 years. Buried gold perhaps?

Being able to upload a mind is effectively the same as immortality. I doubt wealth matters at all to immortal beings.
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