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Comment by logfromblammo | Hacker News Reader

That depends largely on whether you want to model mites or mammals.

We could probably make a computer model of tiny arthropods in 2017, if someone were willing to throw piles of money at the problem. A computer model of a human will be more difficult.

But also consider that an acceptably accurate model of the human brain would be an AI. You would still be experimenting on a person.

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I'd definitely consider a fully emulated human brain another human, because by the premise that's fully emulated, it will also feel desires, and have survival instincts. That'd be another moral debate -similar to slavery-, because there will be people that would emphatize with them, and there will be others that will think they're just "machines".

But that's talk for another topic. On this case, you'd want to emulate only the physical functioning of our brain and body and not our minds.

The emulation program becomes the mind. You cannot avoid it. The natural consequence of the boot-up sequence for a real human brain is a human consciousness. If you create a precise and accurate model of a human brain in software, and emulate its physical functions, the emulation program contains the consciousness.

If you try something clever, like disconnecting all motor controls and sensory inputs, you now have a person who is blind, deaf, numb, anosmic, and paralyzed. The horror of that situation is compounded if you are emulating over a scanned copy of a cadaver's brain.

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