‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’ • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by jaco6 » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 9:57 PM UTC

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…

Very well, you think that preserving the brain, or even preserving the nervous system, is futile. But what of total biostasis, preserving the entire organism, just like the archaebacteria that live for thousands of years in ice or other extreme environments by slowing their metabolisms to a crawl?

To me, excessive negativity about the possibility of immortality smacks of weakness and defeatism. You either love life and want as much of it as possible, which makes you a friend of humanity, or prefer death, which makes you an enemy of humanity. I take a stronger line than the neuroscientist in the article. “Death positivity” like that of Viktor Frankl, anti-natalism, even faith in magical spiritual resurrections—all are anti-human viewpoints, only excusable in the past because they were copes with the inevitability of death. Now that we have reason to believe it can be averted, we owe our potential future selves every possible effort to save them from oblivion.

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

#272

Post by ToValueFunfetti » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 9:57 PM UTC

geye1234 wrote: post #218

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't believe in a soul in the sense of a "ghost in a machine", since it introduces so many problems. Nonetheless, it's pretty clear that there is an immaterial component to thought, and therefore to our existence, for various reasons. Examples: 1. If we are entirely material, we can't know anything. For example, if you're thinking about a tree, there must be something about you that has 'grasped' what it is to be…

Hold a tree in your mind. Now describe it aloud. You have now produced a material effect in the physical world that resulted directly from your idea of a tree. Definitionally, that means it is not immaterial- you conjured it with material and measured it with material.

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

#273

Post by exe34 » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 9:58 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #241

gowld wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

it's almost as if your thought patterns and language are a product of your experience of being the only copy of you...

if having copies of you walking around was a normal thing, our language and expectations would reflect that.

right now if another copy of you comes by and claims your wife and your house, you'd be miffed. but the whole concept of one of you owning the house is just an artefact of how individuality and possessions happen to be right now. it doesn't have to be forever. there was a time you could steal a picture and have the only copy - now you can save a copy on your phone and you don't deprive another of theirs. some day people and stuff could behave the same.

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

#274

Post by johnea » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 9:59 PM UTC

radarsat1 wrote: post #131

etrautmann wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In addition to all that we don't know about synapses etc, I've often wondered if even mapping all the "hardware connections" so to speak would even be enough. You'd have everything in the right place, but what about the "signals" running on it? Does a certain amount of constant activity on these circuits constitute signs of a "living" brain vs a dead one? How much of our consciousness is really in the topology of the…

Just to add a current link to this conversation:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/consciousness-mig...

An article suggesting that consciousness is embodied in the active fields, not the synapses themselves.

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

#275

Post by mrtranscendence » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 10:02 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #224

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 time you go to sleep your consciousness shuts down. What consciousness? Yes, I am aware that "sleep" means that a person becomes unconscious (trivially demonstrated), but that is not the same thing as "consciousness shutting down". Supposing there is such a thing as consciousness, it doesn't seem to be anything that is suspended by the sleep process. And that's also a big "if", because consciousness is just w…

If I'm not conscious, it's rather difficult to explain what I'm experiencing right now.

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

#276

Post by jaco6 » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 10:02 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #128

I don't want to live more than 100 years and I don't want to come back from the dead either. Make way for the next generation and their wants.

You’re being defeatist and ignoring the evidence presented in the article—even hospice patients want to live longer. You, too, will desire to live before (and hopefully: if!) you breathe your last.

This is because the entire goal of the sentient consciousness is simply to preserve itself as long as possible. DNA has the essential goal of replicating itself in reproduction. Consciousness, by contrast, appears to have no goal other than self-preservation. People sometimes choose to sacrifice themselves, but usually only when death is inevitable and they wish to save someone else from it (Lily/Harry Potter and Medal of Honor type situations).

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

#277

Post by JasserInicide » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 10:02 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #56

One of Don DeLillo's later good novels is about this stuff (Zero K). I always think people's attitude toward possible future worlds is interesting. You can see a wide spread of opinion in this thread -- whether you think functional immortality would be a good thing says a lot about who you are. Ditto for colonizing other planets, automating all work, building AGI, and so on. I suppose I'm on the side of the technolog…

People living forever will stall humanity. Generations and their old ways dying with them are necessary for civilizations to progress.

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

#278

Post by koube » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #213

suzzer99 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How do you think Star Trek transporters would work?

Instantly ctrl-f'd to see if anyone would mention transporters. I believe in some circles this has been dubbed "The Transporter Problem". It's a thought experiment that already exists.

Invincible also tackled this problem, with someone cloning a new body, and copying his brain to a new body. For a brief moment both bodies perceive the same thing before their experiences split into the two bodies. The copy wakes up, says goodbye to the original, who is dying, and says "I'm sorry it wasn't you."

This is also IMO related to the ship of theseus problem. Are you the same person you were 20 years ago? Are you the same person in the morning as the person who went to sleep? Are you the same person as a minute ago? What if you add in concussions/memory loss/degenerative disease?

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

#279

Post by bee_rider » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

prettyStandard wrote: post #139

bee_rider wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I actually believe in quantum immortality but I think it is slightly suspicious—out of all the people you could have been be born as, you just happen to be born in a timeframe where brain preservation might be possible before you die?

I see what you're saying...but... Most people are alive right now. The population historically has been much lower, so odds are you would be born around the time high technology would support a high population.

I think that “most people are alive now” is not true (although it is often repeated).

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16870579

> So what are the figures? There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived.

> This means that we are nowhere near close to having more alive than dead. In fact, there are 15 dead people for every person living.

So it is not wildly impossible that you’d be alive now, but it is fairly unlikely.

Also, hard to say what’s in the future of course, but even if population growth levels off, you’d expect to be born in the future, right? Which brings up another question, why not?

If we are going to go along on the fully ridiculous implications here and reinterpret all probabilities as conditioned on your immortality, why weren’t you born in the far future? I’d expect people born in the future to have easier access to immortality.

Maybe birth rates will go way down if we discover immortality (lowering your odds of being born later). Or maybe pre-immortality minds will be seen as more interesting and worth preserving (increasing your odds of being kept around).

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

#280

Post by kelnos » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

kh_hk wrote: post #89

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…

In terms of computing (one that we do not understand), it would be like cloning a live machine by taking the CPU dye only, or maybe the hard drive. How many parts you need to take away from a computer for it to be the same machine? It's easy though with a VM, or a kernel that supports many hardware. Kind of a digress, but I liked this idea.

I don't think this is a great analogy because computers don't have consciousness (yet).

But I usually move the hard drive (or at least its contents) between machines when I get a new computer, and that's enough for me to think of it as the "same", even if I reinstall the OS on the new machine and just copy my home directory onto the new one.