We Don’t Have to Die
overcomingbias.com
We Don’t Have to Die
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#2I resist the idea that consciousness can be preserved like this, but moreover in any way. I think the litmus test for understanding consciousness is making something that is consciousness. I don't think anyone has done this.
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#3I resist the idea that consciousness can be preserved like this, but moreover in any way. I think the litmus test for understanding consciousness is making something that is consciousness. I don't think anyone has done this.
How would you know if they did?
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#4Neal Stephenson wrote a novel about this: Fall; or, Dodge in Hell.
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#5I guess the author of this piece doesnt believe in reincarnation or the eternal soul.
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#6> Alas, this scenario can’t work if your brain is burned or eaten by worms soon. But the info that specifies you is now only a tiny fraction of all the info in your brain and is redundantly encoded. So if we freeze all the chemical processes in your brain, either via plastination or liquid nitrogen, quite likely enough info can be found there to make a brain emulation of you. So “all” that stands between you and this future immortality is freezing your brain and then storing it until future tech improves.
This feels wrong to me.
No, not on an ethical level or anything like that, but rather the fact that it wouldn't be you that continues living, but rather a copy of you, much like cloning an HDD and putting the new one in the computer, while the old one probably gets tossed away (though some forms of getting to this emulation with brains might also be destructive during the process).
Your present consciousness is not just the pattern itself, but rather the pattern within a specific brain - yours. If you are currently reading this and are experiencing this (not just remembering this as a memory that you had a thousand years ago), then it's a given that you're on the losing side of this equation, unless we develop viable cryopreservation or something to reverse aging.
Otherwise, there's probably nothing but a final cessation of consciousness for you in store, at some point in time. One moment you'll be thinking and experiencing the world around you, the next you'll stop and will never have a thought or an experience again, at least with our present understanding of the universe (Boltzmann brains and Quantum immortality both seem unlikely).
Sure, you can argue semantics and the Ship of Theseus, but i don't care much about preserving an instance of my brain/memories that's not me, much like how i find the claims that a person can "live on" in others' memories to be nonsensical.
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#7> Alas, this scenario can’t work if your brain is burned or eaten by worms soon. But the info that specifies you is now only a tiny fraction of all the info in your brain and is redundantly encoded. So if we freeze all the chemical processes in your brain, either via plastination or liquid nitrogen, quite likely enough info can be found there to make a brain emulation of you. So “all” that stands between you and this…
this is a pervasive issue with LessWrong-oriented life extension ideas. They seem to take the position that a simulation of you, IS you, and that your attitude towards it should be the same as your attitude towards your experienced self. This makes no sense to me whatsoever - a simulation of me would not, in fact, be me, because I would not experience its perspective.
I've never gotten around to reading about why they take this position - presumably there's a lengthy sequence or post about it.
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#8> You are mostly the mind (software) that runs on the brain (hardware) in your head; your brain and body are tools supporting your mind. If our civilization doesn’t collapse but instead advances, we will eventually be able to move your mind into artificial hardware, making a “brain emulation”. With an artificial brain and body, you could live an immortal life, a life as vivid and meaningful as your life today, where you never need feel pain, disease, grime, and your body always looks and feels young and beautiful.
Let's start by assuming science-fiction is true...
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#9> You are mostly the mind (software) that runs on the brain (hardware) in your head; your brain and body are tools supporting your mind. If our civilization doesn’t collapse but instead advances, we will eventually be able to move your mind into artificial hardware, making a “brain emulation”. With an artificial brain and body, you could live an immortal life, a life as vivid and meaningful as your life today, where…
To be fair, assuming that science-fiction is true is the cornerstone of that entire genre.
Lets start by assuming time-travel exists, but it only goes back to the point where you turned on the machine. Or lets assume hyperdrives were invented and we're entering a period of space exploration (Star Trek), etc. etc.
It turns out to be pretty fun.
-----------
So lets say it were possible that "saving your brain to software" was possible. How would it work?
We know that worms and jellyfish have memories but no brains for example. Their simple nervous systems store memories in the nerves themselves. Surely, our nerves in our muscles and fingertips are storing some of our memories: the "software" we download out of our bodies would probably have to include that!
(A common joke is that my fingers know my passwords but my brain does not. Maybe its true: muscle memory is a real thing after all).
Ultimately, it is clear that to "transfer our memories", we need to rebuild a nervous system, and maybe a good chunk of our bodies (if memories are truly stored in the nerves in our muscles, then to perform an adequate transfer, we need to recreate those nerves with the same "settings" as our hypothetically downloaded software)
Its fun to think about, because we don't actually have to solve the problem. Its just fantasy. We can think and discuss the problem as much or as little as we'd like, without in fact doing any hard work.
IE: The fun part.
Re: We Don’t Have to Die
#10> Alas, this scenario can’t work if your brain is burned or eaten by worms soon. But the info that specifies you is now only a tiny fraction of all the info in your brain and is redundantly encoded. So if we freeze all the chemical processes in your brain, either via plastination or liquid nitrogen, quite likely enough info can be found there to make a brain emulation of you. So “all” that stands between you and this…
You've hit upon an ongoing debate about continuity of consciousness. The best answer I've heard is to replace your brain with artificial neurons one at a time in order to create a gradual transfer but even that seems unsatisfying.