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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’

#201

Post by smeej »

ikiris wrote: post #147
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?

If not, I should have had to do something with her body when I woke up where she went to sleep.

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

#202

Post by vermilingua »

smeej wrote: post #195
stetrain wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The copy who woke up wouldn't know the difference. There would be thousands of copies that experienced going to bed and then nothing afterwards.

I had a great deal of difficulty going to sleep the night after this first occurred to me. I only really managed to assuage my fear by realizing there would be an incredible number of dead bodies to deal with if this were happening to everyone every night, and it was extremely unlikely it was only happening to me.

This really hit me the first time I went under GA.

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

#203

Post by mensetmanusman »

smeej wrote: post #193
mensetmanusman wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every nanosecond the set of atoms constituting you changes, each of those are a different you.

There's a difference between "I have changed" and "I have been copied." This seems obvious enough to me that I don't question it, but is it not obvious to everyone?

Copies are impossible because every moment is change with bounded but non-zero uncertainty.

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

#204

Post by maxwell »

leobg wrote: post #157

When was the last time you read a book from the 1960s? Or browsed files from a hard drive from the 90s? I guess the same will happen with brains.

I'm reading a book from 1974 right now. The book I read before that was a 2013 adaptation of a book from 1605. The book I read before that was from 1956.

The book I read before was from 1985: I started it while the author was still alive but he died before I finished it. The book I read before that was from 1998.

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

#205

Post by gowld »

nkrisc wrote: post #188
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time you go to sleep your consciousness shuts down. What wakes up is something slightly different due to biological processes. You are not tired, your mood is different, part of cells in your brain got replaced, memories become more stable and maybe linked to other similar memories, etc... This is way more pronounced for people waking up from a coma. Philosophers thought of this for a while, see https://philoso…

There’s a difference when there could conceivably be two of you. There will never be two of me in my bed when I wake up, so I’m the same. If my mind could be copied and embedded in a robot or whatever, then there are two of me, each now diverging. That other one is not me, as far as I, the other, am concerned.

You'll need to be more clear in your last sentence.

If you are cloned while you are sleeping, and both the original and the copy are moved into different rooms before you wake up, both of you think themself is you, and both of you think the other is not you. So, who is correct?

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

#206

Post by nitwit005 »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #183
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…

This makes sense if you believe in a non-materialist self, like a soul. That model wouldn't be falsifiable- we can't measure it, so it can have whatever properties are convenient. You could then rule out the possibility that your soul would inhabit the copied 'you' by fiat. Scientifically, though: of course an exact copy of you is you. If you don't believe in souls but still feel like this is not the case, that indic…

It's not an issue of the soul, if you make a copy there are two people now, which are clearly physically separate, and think independently.

Even if you somehow made a perfect instant copy, they'll start drifting apart, as they'll be experiencing different things.

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

#207

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

hinkley wrote: post #105
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…

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…

I think the idea originated with Max Planck:

German physicist Max Planck somewhat cynically declared, science advances one funeral at a time. Planck noted “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

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

#208

Post by ruszki »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #176
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time you go to sleep your consciousness shuts down. What wakes up is something slightly different due to biological processes. You are not tired, your mood is different, part of cells in your brain got replaced, memories become more stable and maybe linked to other similar memories, etc... This is way more pronounced for people waking up from a coma. Philosophers thought of this for a while, see https://philoso…

Every nanosecond the set of atoms constituting you changes, each of those are a different you.

Not if “you” is created by emergence.

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

#209

Post by wutwutwat »

smeej wrote: post #195
stetrain wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The copy who woke up wouldn't know the difference. There would be thousands of copies that experienced going to bed and then nothing afterwards.

I had a great deal of difficulty going to sleep the night after this first occurred to me. I only really managed to assuage my fear by realizing there would be an incredible number of dead bodies to deal with if this were happening to everyone every night, and it was extremely unlikely it was only happening to me.

You're taking what the above person said too literally. They didn't mean physically dying, they meant your mind dies every night when you sleep and in the morning a new mind/a copy of your previous mind, is what wakes up and continues on as you.

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

#210

Post by Jensson »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #199
danparsonson wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if we copy you into a robot and the copying process leaves you unharmed and awake, are they both you?

Yes, they are both me. It is admittedly a weird conclusion, but that doesn't make it false- we did a weird thing and got a weird result. Objectively, there is no case for saying either is not you.

So twins are both the same person? Not sure what you mean, they aren't both you, you create a new person who thinks the same way you do.
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