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Comment by WarOnPrivacy | Hacker News Reader

> Can lab-grown brains become conscious?

This is about as horrific a future as I can imagine. Humanity's worst possible achievement would be the ability to sustain and manipulate a brain, outside of a body.

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Yes, it is very "I have no mouth and I must scream"-esque.

Personally, I'm not really convinced that electrical activity in the brain means there's a subjective consciousness there. Yet the fact that we don't know (perhaps can never know) is enough to say that continuing with such experience is amoral and moving into the ugliest, worst side of science.

I've front-loaded my horror fantasy with tech that can communicate with the helpless brain.

I never read that particular Ellison piece. I figure this is one of those universal "What's the worst thing I can think of" tropes.

Do a quick search on Youtube, there's a recording of I Have No Mouth read by Ellison. It's ~40min long. It's so damn good but will also put you in a nihilistic funk for a while.

There's a part of me that believes in this age of humanity, deep down we still question whether or not God/gods is/are real. Thus, we're trying to commit the most insane and outrageous atrocities to humanity, science and the natural world, just so he shows up and yells, "WTF is wrong with you people?!?!". It's like trying to get attention from your parents. If doing the right thing doesn't work, burn the house down.

I understand your point.

I have two others:

1) Atheists do exist.

2) There have been insane and outrageous atrocities to humanity, science, and the natural world -- this might just be the next chapter in that saga. Either that saga continues until Humanity doesn't, God comes knocking, or a "Star Trek Federation" type scenario comes around.

>1) Atheists do exist.

Duh?

I'm super confused if my tongue-in-cheek comment went over your head or not. I do mention setting a house on fire to get someone's attention. I figured that's more than enough info to declare not to take the entire comment seriously.

I think it was the part about "deep down" questioning whether gods are real. Many people are happy to question it, nothing deep down about it. I assume that was what they meant by atheists do exist.

They way you wrote it made it sounds as if you were saying that everyone at the surface believes gods are real, but only deep down do they perhaps, maybe question it. It sounds as if you were taking it for granted that everyone obviously believes gods are real, which is of course not true, whether you meant that or not.

Wow... I mean... I get you're trying to understand where the misunderstanding is. But, this smells like people not understanding the difference between figurative and literal. Like right there, do I actually think this gives off a smell of some sort, no and the fact I now have to clarify that means I literally believe humanity is already fucking doomed. This is just one large example of, "Chill out, it was a joke."

Gods aren't real. The point of the very witty comment is that people are subconsciously still always arguing about them: "If God is real, would he let me do this!?"

Or, "If God is real, surely this will flush him out."

Yay! Someone got the joke! Though, I'm dead inside now since people took it way too seriously and got into a pissy fit that I insinuated there are no atheists.

Thank you, because for a while there, I thought I was taking crazy pills again.

God is questioning wether she exist all the time.

Every culture has a belief about the intrinsic value of human life beyond rationality, which could be described as a faith.

I think most objections against experiments of this nature stem from the fear that this could change. It might, but also due to different factors like ecologic degradation and over population.

But if outrageous atrocities are inevitable, why would you stop here?

It's not irrational to hold an opinion. I like watermelon more than grapefruit. Nothing irrational about that, just subjective.

Comparing that to faith makes no sense to me. Faith is a willful suspension if disbelief, against all evidence. That's not an opinion.

> 1) Atheists do exist.

Are you so certain about that? Atheists, in all cases, are paradoxical. They fall into two categories.

1) I am an atheist because I don't believe in God.

2) I am a atheist because I know God does not exist.

The first sense is not ontological, but based on what they believe. They are, in fact, the reciprical of an agnostic.

In the second sense, they claim the unknowable.

So if atheists exist, they are either mistaken about what they are or they claim knowledge they can not possibly have.

Atheism is somewhat impossible, and atheists, all of them, at best, are agnostics. So perhaps atheists do not actually and legitimately exist.

I'm not sure I understand what it means to be the reciprocal of agnostic, but I very much believe that the entire concept of deities is nonsense. People who call themselves agnostic tend to disagree, and people that call themselves atheist tend to agree. I'll continue to call my self an atheist so that I can actually be understood.

This is a perverse level of precision to insist on. Yes, people cannot hope to have 100% certainty that no gods exist. No, that should not be the threshold, unless you would call yourself agnostic on whether leprechauns exist. And nobody (except a few people more interested in proving a point than in discussing how people actually talk) does that.

Is this purposefully contrived to confuse?

You seem unaware of the fact that agnosticism and atheism are perfectly compatible with each other. Agnostic atheists are still atheists.

I am so certain that atheists exist.

I am one. A valued friend is also. We are intelligent and emotionally aware people. Both of us know and value people who believe in God. Speaking for myself, I see no disconnect.

Regarding your "they claim the unknowable": if an atheist is claiming the unknowable, so is the theist. Yes, I do experience great emotions and experiences. I do not attribute these to God. If you do, that is great and please enjoy that. I will have mine as I shall.

My point is that if you insist that I am at best an agnostic, so are you. Pascal's Wager. We just are placing opposing bets in Las Vegas.

> deep down we still question whether or not God/gods is/are real.

Deep down? I'm happy to question it consciously and out loud, should anyone ask me about it directly.

Sure, maybe it's that complex contrived situation. Or maybe people are just curious.

Dan Simmons' "The Fall of Hyperion" describes a setting where brains of suspects of high crimes are put into a jar for interrogation. The death sentence in that setting was abolished, but the alternatives were not exactly pretty. One of them was be disposal of the body and placement of the brain in storage indefinitely, while cutting off any means of communication.

All a matter of implementation: Trying to "upload our consciousness" into computers is just a slightly less macabre version of the very same brain in a vat idea.

This also reminds me of the Matrix except no one would be able to wake up from the dream. Could be fine if the Matrix was a comfy place to live I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Think San Junipero vs the before mentioned I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, if the dream was fun and felt like real life your lab grown brain wouldn't really know the difference, it would just have a different perspective.

I think a worse achievement would be a virtual reality hell where we could lock sentient minds to suffer for an eternity.

Being a conscious lab brain might accidentally be bad. Being in hell would be intentional maximal harm.

Depends on what we do with the brains no? If we could attach said brains to adequate inputs I see no reason for it to be hellish or horrific.

Should there be outputs? (wow, lots of questions there)

The scenario is being a brain in the hands of someone in power, who doesn't like you.

I think that would depend on what inputs that brain received and perhaps whether its outputs were able to affect its environment.

What if that brain were interfaced to a mechanical robot that could not be affected by disease and would be essentially immortal ?

We often forget how horrible having a biological body actually is, never having experienced any other form of existence.

Totalitarian regimes could punish dissidents and make an example of them by literally placing them in hell and televising this to the populace. Plenty of psychopaths evil enough to do this.

There’s a Culture book about this: Matter by Ian Banks

Well, or a great one if we could get a brain out of a messed up body into a functioning one. Probably both?

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