A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place • Hacker News Board

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#111

Post by 0x3f » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

RE the first question I'm sure someone hasn't seen this yet:

https://existentialcomics.com/comic/1

Subjectively though, sleep 'feels' like it maintains continuity in a way. But of course that could just be a rationalization.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#112

Post by krisoft » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

> one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to their clone instantiated in a computer.

We are not just brains in a jar. Our bodies provide rich sensory information, and feedback loops without which we would definietly not be “us”.

To use the “Ship of Theseus” analogy you are proposing to replace all the parts of the cockpit with new parts, but you are also at the same time discarding the hull, the sails and the oars. It would not be the same “ship” without those other things. You also need to very precisely replicate/simulate those parts too otherwise you won’t have the same person.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#113

Post by ryoshu » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room#Brain_replacement...

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#114

Post by ben_w » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

We can already grow brain organoids cheaply and easily enough to be a YouTuber's long-running series, so even if biological somehow gets cheaper than silicon, it still isn't going to be a revived complete human brain from someone who died 50 years earlier and probably retired 20 years before that.

I mean, imagine someone who got themselves cryonically preserved in 1976 getting either revived or uploaded today: what job would they be able to get? Almost no office job is the same now as then; manufacturing involves very different tools and a lot of CNC and robotic arms; agriculture is only getting more automated and we've had cow-milking robots for 20-30 years; cars may have changed the least in usage if not safety, performance, and power source; I suppose that leaves gardening… well, except for robot lawnmowers, anyone who can hire a gardener can probably afford a robo-mower?

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#115

Post by NiloCK » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

When a person dies, not all of the cells in the body 'blink out' at once.

I've never died, but I imagine that a near-death person with 80, 60, 40, or 20 percent brain cell function is still in possession of qualia - lived experience of some sort.

I also imagine that this experience is diminished and likely otherworldly when compared to my normal goings on.

Finally, I imagine that this qualia 'fade to approximate black' as the living cell count trends to zero.

These neural-replacement thought experiments have never been convincing to me. What's proposed is that my brain dies - piecewise - and a new mecha-brain is born, piecewise. The period of interop between meat-me and mecha-me leaves me no less dead at the end, and only slightly less "partially dead" than in the normal death process ("more alive", or at least, "less bizarre" because my remaining living cells are receiving coherent inputs rather than random noise / silence).

Note that I'm not engaged in meat chauvinism here - I don't deny the potential consciousness of the mecha-me, but it's a different consciousness than mine.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#116

Post by jgrizou » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

During your sleep, we clone you fully down to brain connectome and burn your original body.

On waking up, we show you the video of what happened. You feel the same person as yesterday when you went to bed. Are you?

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#117

Post by mnky9800n » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

It’s somewhat impossible to me to determine if a sense of self is an emergent phenomenon or an illusion without Descartes.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#118

Post by ses1984 » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:24 PM UTC

Is your consciousness now the same as the version of you that wakes up tomorrow?

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#119

Post by harperlee » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:26 PM UTC

Another thought experiment:

One by one your neurons are replaced by water. At which neuron are you no longer you?

The fact that there is no clear time to pinpoint for a change doesn't imply that there is no such change... so your thought experiment doesn't really prove that the 'you' is kept.

In the end, Theseus ship is, and is not, the original ship, and both things can be true at the same time.

Re: A pig's brain has been frozen with its cellular activity locked in place

#120

Post by BobbyJo » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

> No. That's the definition of damage. "Change" doesn't imply loss. Damage does. With change you can add and/or subtract characteristics. Damage subtracts, it is a more precise term for the examples you gave. Using such a broad term as "change" makes it a euphemism for damage. A bit dishonest really.

Again, you're missing the point. We can use the word damage and it doesn't change the argument here. A concussion is damage, but it doesn't mean you're someone else after you have one.

> Neither did I.

Not sure why you brought up people who don't have opinions then.

> Dead folks included?

If we are talking about reanimated consciousnesses of the dead, the yeah.

> Also, who is comfortable losing a decade of memories?

So you think people should be more accepting of losing ALL memories (dying) than losing 10 years of memories? I'm kinda losing the point you're trying to make here. Should we hold on as hard as possible, or accept obliteration. You seem to be saying both.

> How can you be so sure? I have has much right to have an opinion on what constitutes the self as much as you do.

By definition? You are stating your opinion as fact. Having an opinion is fine, but if your argument relies on your opinion being true then that's just circular reasoning.

> No, it is you who's assuming you know my opinion on this.

I'm not assuming it, I'm reading it. Maybe I misunderstood something, but I only have what you give me here.

> Continuity. The ship of Theseus (with all planks and everything replaced) will always be the...

If we use Theseus as the proxy for our convo:

I'm not saying the new ship "is the original ship" in some philosophical way. I'm saying, if it behaves the same and carries the same passengers, I don't see any reason to change the ship's name. If the original ship said "hey, I'm cool to be taken apart as long as you save my design and build me again later to the best of your ability," then I have no problem building the ship later and calling it "The ship of Theseus".

> So no, I'm not equivocating death with the end of the self.

So, what did you mean by "it" when you said "it reaches a binary state, from alive to dead"?