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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’

#241

Post by nkrisc »

gowld wrote: post #205
nkrisc wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It makes no difference. If it’s possible for the two versions to meet (they exist simultaneously) then what you’re describing is simple deceit.

A world where two of me exist is fundamentally and irreconcilably different than a world where I simply go to bed and wake up each day. It makes no difference if I personally am aware.

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

#242

Post by ben_w »

gowld wrote: post #205
nkrisc wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For me, the relationship is non-transitive.

If you tell me this will happen tonight, I would right now call both "me". Both of them after the event would agree that I am them. Both of them would agree they are different people to each other, even if they say so in perfect stereo unison.

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

#243

Post by kelnos »

smeej wrote: post #201
ikiris wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that's the thought experiment. We're not talking about physical bodies, we're talking about consciousness. When you go to sleep, does your consciousness cease to exist, to be replaced with a new one, with all your memories and behaviors and attitudes, when you wake up?

I have memories of being me and doing me things yesterday, but was that really me doing those things, or was that a different consciousness that doesn't exist anymore, and my memories are just the high-fidelity recorded experiences of someone else?

And on top of it all: if that's the case, does it matter?

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

#244

Post by geye1234 »

dinfinity wrote: post #185
ashleyn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also skeptical of the idea that one can "upload" consciousness and it would still be "you". I suppose this is true in a philosophical sense, but in a practical sense, subjective experience of consciousness rules the roost. It's inevitably going to be a mere copy of you. You don't get to experience any of it. Similar to a software project which is forked, I think it makes more sense to classify it as an entirely d…

> It's inevitably going to be a mere copy of you. You don't get to experience any of it. You can make the same argument for 'you before you went to sleep' and 'you after you woke up'. The only real link you have to that previous consciousness are memories of experiences, which are all produced by your current body/brain. Think about this: For every consciousness (including you right now) it is _impossible_ to experie…

>> It's inevitably going to be a mere copy of you. You don't get to experience any of it.

> You can make the same argument for 'you before you went to sleep' and 'you after you woke up'. The only real link you have to that previous consciousness are memories of experiences, which are all produced by your current body/brain.

Except I know, empirically, that people go to sleep all the time and wake up, and remain the same person. And I know (for practical purposes) I do the same. I -- my mind/body composite -- lie down, and get up the next morning. I remain the same person.

Simply 'copying' or 'uploading' my consciousness, like a computer file, is impossible even in theory, because I'm not just a conscious mind, but a conscious mind which is also a body. Consciousness cannot be split from the material body, even in theory. Somebody upthread said that he'd seen many amputees undergo personality changes as a result of their operations -- this is an informative (if very sad) example.

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

#245

Post by ninala »

glenstein wrote: post #166
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…

>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. I think that may be true enough, but it doesn't have the upshot you seem to think it does. It just means that what we need to sustain not just a brain itself but the totality of the environmental cond…

> Octopi actually have neurons extending through their limbs. We don't.

You don't have neurons extending through your limbs?

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

#246

Post by Taters91 »

gowld wrote: post #205
nkrisc wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Irrelevant, cloning doesn't and probably never will, happen.

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

#247

Post by wutwutwat »

kelnos wrote: post #216
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 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. That's just one opinion, though. We still don't know what consciousness really is. We don't know what makes us who we are. We don't know if some concept (scientific or supernatural) of a "soul" exists apart from the behavior that arises from the phy…

I'd agree with you, except if my brain was scanned and uploaded to the cloud, I'd still exist in my original brain. There can't be two originals of something so the cloud version would be a copy of me, since the original me would still be alive, able to talk to the copy of me living in the cloud.

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

#248

Post by jtbayly »

gowld wrote: post #227
smeej wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

See The Real Transported Man

Wasn’t The Prestige about this idea, too?

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

#249

Post by neom »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #215
neom wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless some quantum effect doesn't actually allow that to be true, a "great filter" of sorts. Could make a copy and it just doesn't turn on, due to unknown unknowns, can't know why.

You're essentially suggesting 'maybe the laws of physics would stop applying here for unknown reasons' , but it's not plausible that would happen absent evidence.

I was trying to elegantly hint there is probably lot we don't understand. :)

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c07936 / https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10671017/

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

#250

Post by mensetmanusman »

smeej wrote: post #212
mensetmanusman wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The fact that "you are different" does not mean a "different you" now exists, though. Change of this specific kind is already intrinsically integrated into your existence and identity.

Every moment of consciousness is different. It is a different you in that sense. What is the strand that keeps it the same ‘you’?
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