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A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

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Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#251
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be difficult with the current legal system in most of the United States because of the rule against perpetuities[0]. Of course, jurisdiction shopping makes this easier in certain locales. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities

According to Larry Niven ( Rammer ), the courts will find the dead cannot own property. I observe there's a certain prejudice, in that law is written by the living. The other ideas of cryptocurrency/escrow/private keys would escape the law... until you tried to spend it legally. You might as well bury gold in a chest.

Couldn't you just put it in your will? EG that I leave $X to whoever supplies the right password? You would also need to leave money to your new self I suppose.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#252

This is going to sound a bit out there, but what if your brain is simply an antenna for your consciousness to come through from wherever. Has anyone actually tried to boot up an artificial brain derived from a real organism? I'd like to see a proof of concept that your brain IS indeed the seat of your consciousness, and not just a fancy quantum antenna.

This idea has zero basis. It's a mind-brain version of Russell's Teapot: I claim there is a teapot floating between Earth and Mars, and I challenge you to prove otherwise!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry you aren't satisfied. There's plenty of information out there about somatopsychic side effects and we know drugs alter mental states all the time. That's so well established, I find it laughable that anyone would even question it. I'm not very interested in seeking the Nobel Prize in this area. I am busy doing other things that I fantasize will lead to a Nobel Prize. Best.

I am sorry that I was not satisfied. Mind alterations are induced by drugs. Chemical imbalances influence the same. I just am not convinced that these evidences are enough. Thank you.

If you are sincerely interested in the topic, starting by being dismissive and disrespectful of the individual you are addressing is not an effective means to start a good discussion.

I did a research paper in high school on Functional Hypoglycemia. Chronic low blood sugar is known to promote anxiety and paranoia. I've blogged about managing various somatopsychic side effects with diet, such as eating oranges for the vitamin c while enduring random fits of rage to get that under control and eating beef with potatoes to mediate the salt lithium connection and calm bipolar-like mood swings.

But I am not interested in fighting some uphill battle to convince a skeptic who is just pissing all over me with every reply. So I had no reason to stick my neck out and share any of that. I get enough flak from the world for managing my medical condition with diet and lifestyle.

Edit: There's also lots of interesting stuff about nutrition and state of mind in this discussion about nutrition and the prison population: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867#16141719

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#254

If folks really want to make sure they come back from the dead, they might also think about setting up proper incentives for performing the potentially highly laborious process that resurrection might entail even 100+ years from now. It might be helpful to place a sort of back-to-life bounty on yourself, to be held in escrow, and only to be paid out upon successful resurrection. The bigger the bounty, the higher your…

This sounds like it could be the premise for another book in Daniel Saurez's series Daemon and Freedom.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#255

If folks really want to make sure they come back from the dead, they might also think about setting up proper incentives for performing the potentially highly laborious process that resurrection might entail even 100+ years from now. It might be helpful to place a sort of back-to-life bounty on yourself, to be held in escrow, and only to be paid out upon successful resurrection. The bigger the bounty, the higher your…

Memorize a private key to a Crypto wallet and transfer all of your assets to it in the days leading up to uploading? And of course let everyone know that's the case beforehand!

What if it's cheaper to extract the key from your brain and dump the rest?

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#256
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be difficult with the current legal system in most of the United States because of the rule against perpetuities[0]. Of course, jurisdiction shopping makes this easier in certain locales. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities

According to Larry Niven ( Rammer ), the courts will find the dead cannot own property. I observe there's a certain prejudice, in that law is written by the living. The other ideas of cryptocurrency/escrow/private keys would escape the law... until you tried to spend it legally. You might as well bury gold in a chest.

I wonder if you could use a trust corporation to do this... I don't know anything about law though.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's non-falsifiable, which is the actual standard of science, because we don't have a test for it yet. We'd have to have something to observe and measure, something to test. As some quick examples for this specific case: * There are mental disorders, drugs, experiences that seem to imply dualism; those are entirely inside those people's mind with no way to prove those experiences are true, or simply products of the…

> It's non-falsifiable You just made an assertion. Now you have to prove it. If the idea that the spirit is another fundamental force of nature is true, then it can be tested and be falsifiable.

If you think it's testable, then you should write up a test and, hopefully, carry it out.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#258

If folks really want to make sure they come back from the dead, they might also think about setting up proper incentives for performing the potentially highly laborious process that resurrection might entail even 100+ years from now. It might be helpful to place a sort of back-to-life bounty on yourself, to be held in escrow, and only to be paid out upon successful resurrection. The bigger the bounty, the higher your…

You have to bet on being among the first to be revived, i.e. to have one of the highest taking bounties but not the highest.

You don't want to be the first but you want to be the tenth or so. Once the process takes off all the bounties will drastically lose their worth because such technology will likely disrupt a lot of what humans place value on.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memorize a private key to a Crypto wallet and transfer all of your assets to it in the days leading up to uploading? And of course let everyone know that's the case beforehand!

Why would people 200 years into the future believe your assertion?

If the crypto network is still around then the balances can be publicly verified.

Re: A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How then do you explain how physical injuries and external stimulation to the brain affect the brain's operation in ways that we increasingly understand? Not saying we're anywhere close to having it all figured out. But this is the sort of question you have to address to accept dualism. I'd certainly like to believe there's something more to my conscious existence than this perishable gray matter. I prefer to believe…

How do you explain being normal and having almost no brain at all: http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/the-medical-mystery-of-a-man...

This looks like a good example of the 80/20 rule: 80% of our brain matter is dedicated to the hardest last 20% of IQ points. (Only being slightly tongue-in-cheek here.)

Also, there's probably usually a lot of brain matter dedicated to redundancy, memories, and enabling connections between ideas to foster creativity, and this person may be lacking in these areas in hard-to-measure ways. If most of our brain truly had no purpose, evolution would have selected against it forever ago. (Instead, evolution went through large lengths to keep our heads so big.)

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