Comment by nicklo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nicklo | Hacker News Reader

This is a classic ship of Theseus problem and TFA has a really hostile tone that to me indicates either a lack of exposure to the topic or an intentionally obtuse take as a form of clickbait.

TFA argues that digitizing one self inevitably leads to two copies, and the digital one is not real.

Let’s take a step back and start by replacing/simulating one neuron digitally. Is this a new you? I doubt TFA would argue so. Now replace 3,000 neurons every second over the course of a year and now your entire brain has been digitized. At which point did you stop being you?

The options are, 1) every second you are a new you, with or without digital replacement, 2) every second you are the same you with or without digital replacement 3) every second you are a new you with digital replacement but the same you if you don’t digitally replace. 4) some arbitrary % that feels right like 50%.

Option 3 hinges on a special differentiation between digital and chemical computation, which is at odds with fundamental properties of Turing Machines. Option 4 is as hand-wavey as it gets. Options 1+2 while they seem very different, ultimately can be treated as functional equivalents with slight philosophical differences.

There are real debates to be had over the morality of mind uploading and the very real risks of doing so, and many great sci-fi short stories covering this topic. Unfortunately, this article is too caught up on its hot take to make room for a proper consideration beyond its knee-jerk reaction.

I'm glad you brought this up! Every time the subject of transfer of consciousness comes up this is a drum I beat endlessly. We need physical continuity for any sort of meaningful transfer to happen.

I think that it actually could work as long as the parts that we are integrating into our physical brain are able to be integrated naturally by our neurons and glia and allow our networks to begin offloading computational work to the new parts. Doing this slowly over time to ensure full integration should work as long as the new pieces are designed properly. It's really a matter of how our brain would offload what it currently does to the new hardware, which we know it can do within itself thanks to the study of plasticity mechanisms

If we go the Ship of Theseus route, that should theoretically be a way to preserve our awareness, our "self"

Some sort of transfer of data or copy wouldn't work because our awareness is still with the original

I've undergone some procedures such that I've been put under more than a dozen times in a short period of time. It really hammered home the point (to me) that… the continuity is an illusion in at least some situations. When you wake up, the continuity comes from memory. Fuck with the memory, and you really fuck with the sense of continuity.

One example: at one point I woke up with utter certainty that nothing unusual had happened in the last hour, and I was rather peeved at how long it was taking to even start with the preliminaries. As in, my sense of continuity was from a moment significantly before the last moment I could later remember (!)

That's only perception of continuity. I'm specifically speaking about physical continuity. Continuity of our physical system which has constant internal communication, this internal network dialog does not stop even when under anaesthesia.

Our continued awareness comes from being the same physical system when we wake back up even if you don't have memory of the events.

> Now replace 3,000 neurons every second over the course of a year and now your entire brain has been digitized. At which point did you stop being you?

Slowly, over the year, I would have died. You are describing a brain wasting disease.

I'd ask it another way: if somebody could replicate your brain's neurons outside your skull, let's say inside a super-strong nuclear-powered titanium robot with x-ray vision, at which point are you happy to shoot yourself in the head and let your superbot digital counterpart continue to "live your life"?

Or is this digital counterpart not supposed to take up your mantle until after you die naturally?

If you try to prevent your digital clone from acting independently, can it sue you for it's freedom? Can it accuse you of false imprisonment or coercive control, and seek help? (There are plenty more Blake Lemoines out there who would take up it's cause against you)

If "digital you" hasn't yet won its freedom to act as an independent person, and it then commits a crime (eg wire fraud or conspiracy to commit murder via bitcoin hitman) does "real you" go to court or to prison?

If "digital you" doesn't win it's personhood and "real you" gets killed in a freak accident before signing a will that gives yor digital clone the right to inherit your personhood, do they have to become someone else?

That's assuming it was possible to connect the digital brain, neuron by neuron, to the organic brain and exactly replicate the chemistry at the interface. Far beyond present technology.

But supposing that's solved, consider building the same digital system without destroying any part of the human brain.

Whether you digitize the whole brain in an instant or 3000 neurons/second, the digital copy is obviously a copy if the original still exists.

So how does destroying the original turn a copy into not a copy?

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