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‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#141

Post by wutwutwat »

“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.”

This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it.

It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplants, or living forever, and then talk about uploading your mind to the cloud or swapping someone else's healthy brain into your healthy body, or scanning your brain and recreating it, and make it sound like it is going to help you to live forever. If my brain is scanned and uploaded to the cloud, a copy of me would live on forever, but me, literally, me, will still deteriorate and die, then rot away into nothingness. My mind, my personality, my essence, me, will not live forever under any of these solutions. I'll die. A copy of me, a point in time snapshot of who I was when it was taken, will continue on, with my memories, mimicking who I was. That gives me no comfort at all. I don't care if a copy of me lives on forever if I still die. That's not immortality, not for me personally, not if I die.

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#142

Post by jryan49 »

Nux wrote: post #113

Once the brain has been powered off and the back on, is it even "you" anymore? Hasn't that person died and a new one was "born"? Used to go a little bit crazy thinking about this when watching people getting transported in StarTrek.

I like how the video game Soma showed it. If you fork a brain you kind of have a 50% chance of it continuing into the copy, and 50% chance of you being "left behind". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x790AjID0FA

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#143

Post by anon84873628 »

idontwantthis wrote: post #119
hinkley wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to go on in a world that has either left you behind or keeps making the same mistakes over and over in a cycle and won't listen to you because you're too old to understand? And conversely, I think Kim Stanley Robinson puts it best in the Mars trilogy. Scientific progress often has to wait for the old guard to die so new ideas can be tried. Sometimes there are actually new things and they need to be…

There’s a short story about uploaded consciousnesses being used as AI slaves. They go bad once enough years have gone by that they can’t speak the modern language anymore. Then they usually lapse into insanity or depression.

Reminds me of: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#144

Post by whythre »

augusto-moura wrote: post #133
NickM wrote: post #11

I used to buy into this kind of stuff, but I've become more and more skeptical of the idea that you would still be yourself if your brain could be preserved/emulated/transplanted/whatever. Our nervous system extends into our bodies. We feel emotions in our bodies. People with certain kinds of brain damage that prevents them from feeling emotions normally also experience trouble making rational decisions. More recent…

I don't think I agree with you. There are multiple examples in society of damaged nervous system connections with the brain, spine cord damage for example, where the personality of the pacient changes little. In the same sense, losing limbs or entire sections of your body (aside from psychological trauma and other psychological consequences) don't affect personality that much Of course the nervous system is much more…

I see what you mean- but consider that the gut does seem to play a significant role in mood and mental health. The enteric nervous system may not hold memories, but it seems to have something to do with personality and digestion issues can have negative cognitive effects.

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#145

Post by cg5280 »

wutwutwat wrote: post #141

“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…

Not that it makes things any better for the original you, but the copied you would presumably feel and believe themself to be the real you. From their perspective, "you" really are living forever. To proceed with the copying would be a sort of act of kindness for yourself.

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#146

Post by suzzer99 »

wutwutwat wrote: post #141

“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…

Suppose you died every night in your sleep and were replaced in the morning with a perfect copy of yourself with all your memories intact. Would you know the difference?

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#147

Post by ikiris »

wutwutwat wrote: post #141

“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…

Is the person from before you last slept the same you? How do you know?

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#148

Post by OscarCunningham »

idatum wrote: post #95

Do memories and/or brain functionality rely on volatile storage? So if you die, that storage is gone. How our brain works may rely on more than the structure of the brain. When you are brought back (booted?), things may not work the same.

People get struck by lightning or have epileptic fits, and it doesn't wipe their personality.

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#149

Post by [deleted] »

wutwutwat wrote: post #141

“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…

[deleted]

Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’

#150

Post by suzzer99 »

etrautmann wrote: post #61
NickM wrote: post #11

I used to buy into this kind of stuff, but I've become more and more skeptical of the idea that you would still be yourself if your brain could be preserved/emulated/transplanted/whatever. Our nervous system extends into our bodies. We feel emotions in our bodies. People with certain kinds of brain damage that prevents them from feeling emotions normally also experience trouble making rational decisions. More recent…

As a neuroscientist working on brain computer interfaces, it's painfully clear to me that we are absolutely nowhere close to understanding the full complexity of the human brain in a manner required to simulate or reboot someone's consciousness. It's not even clear yet what level of abstraction is required. Do we need to map all of the synapses to get a connection graph, or do we need to map all synapses plus the syn…

Imagine the bugs introduced in trying to make a digital copy of a brain. Terrifying for the subject.
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