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

newscientist.com

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

#91

Post by coppsilgold »

A thought experiment:

One by one your neurons are replaced by their digital counterpart as a nano-scale computer in-place, with equivalent functionality. After which neuron number are you no longer you? You remain conscious throughout the process, the process may last however long with pauses for sleep.

After the replacement is complete, one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to their clone instantiated in a computer. After which neuron number are you no longer you?

This mind upload thought experiment convinced me that as long as there are no sharp discontinuities in experience, it makes no sense to ask what happened to the you. It also carries the implication that you are not your brain, but rather the abstract dynamical system instantiated in it.

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

#92

Post by Sharlin »

igorramazanov wrote: post #45

Are we even sure, that personality is stored solely in a brain? What if whole or other parts of body involved as well

As far as we know, damage to no part of the body results in personality changes, changes to subjective sense of self, or the loss of memory or cognitive ability, except the brain.

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

#93

Post by gambiting »

throw310822 wrote: post #89
rozap wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brains 'R Us recently filed for chapter 11 and has been cut up and sold for scrap to private equity. The new PE firm has your brain. In 2208 there's a large grey market for brains to be used for hybrid AI and meat bag workflows. It's technically illegal in many jurisdictions due to "ethical implications", but is still the cheapest way to run many workloads. The method used to harness the brain involves reanimating it…

> grey market for brains to be used for hybrid AI and meat bag workflows ... is still the cheapest way to run many workloads. It's an absolute nightmare scenario, but luckily it has become completely implausible since 2023. We're actually on a trajectory for human brains becoming the most expensive option for basically any job. Not saying this would make me comfortable with brain cloning, but at least the simple econ…

>> We're actually on a trajectory for human brains becoming the most expensive option for basically any job.

Unless RTX9000 with 16PB of ram needed to run basic Gemini2077 model costs more than a house, but a brain jar with electrodes is cheaper than that. Then the economic incentives will shift the other way.

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

#94

Post by beeflet »

coppsilgold wrote: post #91

A thought experiment: One by one your neurons are replaced by their digital counterpart as a nano-scale computer in-place, with equivalent functionality. After which neuron number are you no longer you? You remain conscious throughout the process, the process may last however long with pauses for sleep. After the replacement is complete, one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to…

No amount of replacement removes your sense of self. "You" become a machine.

I think the main thing that makes this inrealistic is the scale. In theory it also could take place on a larger level of discretization: chunks of many neurons.

I think it also matters what the nature of the replacement is. Is it possible for you to retain memories and skills throughout this intrusive process? Presumably, if the computer has "equivalent functionality".

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

#96

Post by Supermancho »

therealpygon wrote: post #44
kakacik wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will not wake up on any server. At best possible theoretical far future scenario better or worse copy of yours will. If you would survive such process, you yourself, the human instance that wrote that will be just looking at somebody else living their now-fully-digital (prison) life. I don't understand why people don't get this simple fact. We are all gonna die, make inner peace with that (it isn't that hard, dep…

Eh, it’s mostly for the trillionaires to keep their wealth after death. For everyone else, you will inevitably eventually end up driving a garbage truck. Don’t believe me? Your digital copy runs on a server doing important work! Company goes out of business. Assets get auctioned. Garbage truck. Or another? The trust you set up ran out of money because all of the fees continued to increase and outpaced certain economi…

One of the many details of Altered Carbon (Netflix) that they got right. Digitized minds would become so numerous as to be considered little more than fancy trash.

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

#97

Post by ahhhhnoooo »

coppsilgold wrote: post #91

A thought experiment: One by one your neurons are replaced by their digital counterpart as a nano-scale computer in-place, with equivalent functionality. After which neuron number are you no longer you? You remain conscious throughout the process, the process may last however long with pauses for sleep. After the replacement is complete, one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to…

Plenty of people (not tons, but many) experience loss of neurons through injury, disease, or aging. We generally consider the person to be the same person, even if their personality changes.

Likewise, as you grow in childhood, you create many many neurons. Again, you are still you throughout the experience of growing up.

I suspect in your thought experiment you'd remain you throughout. Honestly, a community I bet does a lot of thinking about the self and what makes you "you" is the trans community, given their experience grappling with bodies and identity already.

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

#98

Post by beeflet »

KronisLV wrote: post #62
rozap wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brains 'R Us recently filed for chapter 11 and has been cut up and sold for scrap to private equity. The new PE firm has your brain. In 2208 there's a large grey market for brains to be used for hybrid AI and meat bag workflows. It's technically illegal in many jurisdictions due to "ethical implications", but is still the cheapest way to run many workloads. The method used to harness the brain involves reanimating it…

> Each time the brain fails a captcha, the brain receives an electric impulse which simulates the most excruciating pain that the brain can respresent, but the brain cannot scream or run away. What percentage of your life being enjoyable vs horrible suffering makes it worth living? Maybe you're 80 years old at the time of storing your brain. Suppose after being revived that regime with capitalist incentives holds for…

What percentage of your life being enjoyable vs horrible suffering makes it worth living? I don't know but 99% of my life being used to solve captchas makes it not worth living

>Suppose after being revived that regime with capitalist incentives

Having to provide for other people is literally the same as being trapped in a "I have no mouth and I must scream"-esque torture chamber. Given the historical track record of communism, you're more likely to end in the torture chamber than not in that situation. The curve of history bends towards factory farms.

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

#99

Post by thunfischtoast »

coppsilgold wrote: post #91

A thought experiment: One by one your neurons are replaced by their digital counterpart as a nano-scale computer in-place, with equivalent functionality. After which neuron number are you no longer you? You remain conscious throughout the process, the process may last however long with pauses for sleep. After the replacement is complete, one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to…

Chip of Theseus

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

#100

Post by interstice »

coppsilgold wrote: post #91

A thought experiment: One by one your neurons are replaced by their digital counterpart as a nano-scale computer in-place, with equivalent functionality. After which neuron number are you no longer you? You remain conscious throughout the process, the process may last however long with pauses for sleep. After the replacement is complete, one by one these neurons are switched off with their functionality offloaded to…

Glad to know I'm not the only one that thinks along these lines, and presumably by extension that teleportation by delete and rebuild mechanics would be mass murder.

You might no longer be you in the sense of you behave quite differently, but I remember being 16 and I don't behave like that either. The discontinuity is the point, as you eloquently put it.

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