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Comment by aquadrop | Hacker News Reader

> If you were offered the chance to become as intelligent as Feynman but only if you turn over a copy of all your future thoughts to the private business that made this possible, would you take it? Something non-invasive, like a computer that images your brain while you sleep.

No. If you were offered wings so you could fly, but in exchange you must spend rest of your life in a cage, would you take it?

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Honestly it would depend on the size of the cage.

2x2x2 meter cage.

It further depends on the amenities on offer, and the bird's size.

Hell, folks (including me) want to live on a Mars base, where "living in a cage" is probably an apt description of life for at least the first couple generations.

I'd sure as hell hand over a copy of my brain to a corporation in exchange for the ability to back up my brain and functionally live forever.

You missed the part I was replying to, when I replied it was the only content of the parent post. My analogy is about deal where you as a human get wings (ability to fly), but have to spend the rest of your life in a cage.

2x2x2 AU would still be too small.

Would it then become important for that business to give these minds that would not make them feel trapped and caged? Wouldn't the quality of results be hampered if lots of suffering were to occur? Could the mind at some point become useless since it would be drowned in depressive, cyclical, and often illogical thought? That, too, would create a research point, but would be pretty inhumane and I would hope an ethics oversight panel would not allow such states to exist.

So many questions surround this... If the body is dead, but the brain is still active of reasonable thought and to that end communication, who decides it's fate? Does a mind deteriorate once there is no outside stimuli of the senses?

Not that I would agree to be in this state, but man there would be huge fields of research to do.

There's a Black Mirror episode about this, but saying which episode it is would be a big spoiler. Just watch the whole series if you haven't.

Would it then become important for that business to give these minds that would not make them feel trapped and caged?

Sounds like a more reasonable basis for the genesis of the Matrix than what was portrayed in the movie. :-)

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