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Comment by friendlybus | Hacker News Reader

> is there a chance we might see the Matrix or brain uploads in our lifetimes? And if not in our lifetime, is it ever achievable?

How could you upload just your brain and be the same person? Need your whole body, surely?. This overlaps with Transporter problem from Star Trek and the Prestige, it's not you who lives in there, just a copy.

>but human BCI could be the best/most important development in our history. Any problem gradient with a chance of unlocking immortality should be leaned into.

You would be creating a mirror of yourself on the computer, it wouldn't be you. An immortality for your brain image maybe.

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I think the Ship of Theseus is a related philosophical thought experiment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Even without your previous experience, you are literally not the same cells that you were a few years ago. As such, to achieve the same kind of continuity of consciousness and become fully digital, I think one would have to gradually replace their brain.

I always thought it's an obvious and solid solution. And if we assume it's possible to do a snapshot and have a perfect mind clone in I can't see how there can be any doubt it'll work.

There's a 32 light year volume that encompass my whole history. The universe seems to preserve every point of my life to a resolution. If https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity turns out correct (or something like it), my life is preserved in perfect resolution across an increasingly large volume of space.

Separately: There's no point in my life where I'm ever the same person. I've continually evolved.

With human history, the resolution of records continues to expand. Fossils, artifacts, writing, photos, and Google search logs all contain personal information. The resolution of historical information shows a clear trend.

Am I immortal if only a moment of my life is preserved, or am I immortal if all points of my life can be accurately be resimulated?

I would argue there is no difference. In order to resimulate me at any point in time, my context, my surroundings, must be considered. My context exists for historic reasons. In order for my brain to be interpretable its application in real world interactions must be considered the the world can only be understood by knowing its history.

To know me you need to know my life and surroundings at all points in time. Technology is slowing increasing the resolution of human immortality, although the universe seems to have already accomplished this perfectly.

The structure of the body more or less remains the same. Ship of Theseus hits the same limits evolution does. We don't really become a completely different species from local changes.

What is the point of information if you can't embody it? I guess the desirability of immortality in a computer system completely relies on how faithfully the system can pretend on your behalf, that you have a body. An endless heaven without having a body to structure your sensations and grant you movement through space and time... seems lacking.

It would not be necessary to gradually replace the brain, nor any other parts of the connectome. If you agree that cognition is due to physical processes of the brain, then it is impossible that consciousness is anything more than very advanced logic. You could devise a situation in which a person is gradually converted into a robotic form, and another where he is simply replaced with a robotic clone, such that you would end up with the same exact logical brain(contained within the robot) in both cases. So, in this instance, where does cognition diverge? If the gradual replacement results in the continuation of the stream of consciousness, but the creation of a robotic copy does not, then why can't that difference be physically measured? Would you suggest a supernatural explanation? Or is the experience consciousness as shallow as the belief that it has been preserved (which I say it is)?

I think you misinterpreted my comment. The poster I was responding to was talking about how it would not be the same consciousness, but a clone of that consciousness.

I am not making any unprovable claims about a spirit/soul, though I do not completely shut out the possibility there is something we haven't measured yet. I believe that externally, there is no difference in your scenario.

I think where there might be a difference, is to the consciousness itself. The continuity of that experience being the difference. In which case, gradually replacing the brain should be a solution to the continuity problem (like the Ship of Theseus). Where I think this is conceptually weakest, is when considering how much continuity of consciousness exists while sleeping or being sedated.

Neal Stephenson wrote a science fiction novel "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell" that came out in 2019 whose plot is about the uploading of people into computer systems. It covers a range of ideas and possibilities with plot lines outside and inside of the computer system. Highly recommended if you are interested in thinking about this topic in more detail. Also a pretty fun read. I still have the last bit of the book to finish.

An oft-covered topic in science fiction! My favourite take on it is Permutation City by Greg Egan... it's from 1994, but reads like it was written yesterday!

An even more hellish vision is Iain Banks' _Surface Detail_ [1] where some civilizations upload the consciousnesses of thousands of their citizens into simulations that make them suffer (at least there are counterexamples that upload themselves into 'heaven').

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail

> How could you upload just your brain and be the same person? Need your whole body, surely?. This overlaps with Transporter problem from Star Trek and the Prestige, it's not you who lives in there, just a copy.

I don't think it would be a problem if it isn't the same you or if the old you dies. Linear continuity is rooted in our biology, and this would be something entirely new that requires new ways of thinking about it.

Reconstituting memories and information would be a game changer. Imagine manipulating them! Making them more efficient encodings, removing inaccuracies, etc. (There's a lot of potential for bad here too.) Cloning memories, merging them...

If you're extremely concerned about not being the same person, maybe consciousness can expand to fill a vacuum? I'm not particularly concerned, but there might be ways of dealing with the issue.

This is all so sci-fi that it probably makes the researchers laugh and shake their heads.

> You would be creating a mirror of yourself on the computer, it wouldn't be you.

It's possible that the new you would believe you are still you, even though you would be a separate new you. I think what we're really touching upon here is that it starts to go against our belief that we are exceptionally special. And of course we are -- we don't really know any better. But maybe it simply doesn't matter and it would be good enough. Think of it like going to sleep -- how do you really know, beyond theoretical doubt, that you're still "you" when you wake up?

I'm simply here to provide a perspective perhaps not often considered. More for sparking additional thinking on the subject than anything else. I too believe we're super duper special unique snowflakes ;)

You’re digital copy might not be conscious, if consciousness isn’t something we figure out how to simulate. It’s speculation at this point that a simulated mind would be conscious. We simply don’t know that to be true.

> How could you upload just your brain and be the same person? Need your whole body, surely?

In practice, people who received heart transplants are generally considered to be the same person as they had been before the transplantation, so it seems most of us have already accepted that you don't need the whole body.

Um, in practice, the number of people who have actually received a head transplant is precisely zero. So how they are considered is about as relevant as how Harry Potter is considered.

> Um, in practice, the number of people who have actually received a head transplant is precisely zero. So how they are considered is about as relevant as how Harry Potter is considered.

Reread the GP: "heart transplant"

Um... oops. No wonder I was being downvoted.

In fairness, the context was uploading the brain, and whether the whole body was needed, so it was a semi-reasonable misread.

Still... there's a large distance from "I can have a heart transplant and still be considered the same person (even though 1% of my body now has different DNA)" to "I can have no body at all and still be the same person". The claim was that a body is a significant part of who we are as people, which is not a claim that a heart transplant addresses at all.

> [T]here's a large distance from "I can have a heart transplant and still be considered the same person (even though 1% of my body now has different DNA)" to "I can have no body at all and still be the same person". The claim was that a body is a significant part of who we are as people, which is not a claim that a heart transplant addresses at all.

All right, let's tackle it a bit more directly than replacement: Does amputation of a limb diminish an individual's personhood? Is your answer dependent on the use of a prosthetic?

Diminish? Probably to some degree.

I mean, I saw this guy who had both legs amputated. He entered the Utah Summer Games in the 100 meters in the "open" class, meaning he was taking on the best in the state straight up - no "handicapped" class. He took first in the preliminaries and second in the final.

If he thinks of himself as an athlete, he still is. But if he wants to play footsie under the table with his SO... that's something he lost.

So it depends to some degree on where your sense of personhood is. But I think for all of us, we're not a brain in a vat. We interact with our external physical environment. If you lose all of that... haven't you lost something that matters to you? If you can't enjoy a steak, can't enjoy a kiss, and can't enjoy the smell of a flower (or even the sight of one), then aren't you something less than you were when you could do all those things?

Wow. Um... no. I don't think that disability or other loss of ability diminishes an individual's humanity or personhood.

Let's just agree to disagree.

Sure parts are replaceable, one at a time. Replacing them one a time maintains the body. The structure of the body is more than the sum of it's parts though.

The robots need a body to orient their brain in spacetime. AIs classifying images from pure theory requires a body to relate to all the other objects in the world. Tagging a door knob as 'turnable, openable' requires the robot to have a hand that can do it. A banana only looks edible and life sustaining because we have a body. A floating head loses all interest in a lot of things, I'd guess.

You would have a simulated body, simulated environment.

It hurts my brain to think about that. Simulating the brain is one idea, adding the body on too is levels of complexity I can't fathom. Biologists struggle writing 128 page documents just to characterize a single molecule, so they can construct a 5-6 part nano-vehicle.

The hubris of this idea is just so far off the charts I can't even call it wrong or insane. It's in the "FTL" bucket for me.

This requires more research.

"Three groups of patients could be identified: 79% stated that their personality had not changed at all postoperatively. In this group, patients showed masslve defense and denial reactions, mainly by rapidly changing the subject or making the question ridiculous. Fifteen per cent stated that their personality had indeed changed, but not because of the donor organ, but due to the life-threatening event. Six per cent (three patients) reported a distinct change of personality due to their new hearts." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00435634

Does it matter of the substrate is replaced a bit at a time or all at once? If so, why? If not, how is the “transporter problem” any different than what every person goes through all the time?

Look up Altered Carbon, a scifi novel from which two high-quality TV mini-series were recently produced. It's the whole premise. Bodies become disposable "sleeves".

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