/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.11183440]

If I'm 31 years old today, do you think mind uploading will be
a thing before it's my time go?

[Anonymous No.11183443]

>>11183440
nope

[Anonymous No.11183449]

>>11183440
Probably need to figure out consciousness before that happens. Its still an open question in psychology and medical science. We know where certain actions take place, but how that gets thrown together as a super structure of mental faculties is an elusive mechanic.

[Anonymous No.11183458]

Just write a diary or journal in the meantime

[Anonymous No.11183486]

>>11183440
If anything it will just be some type of "fun" app in the future. Not something that you would necessarily bet your life status on, but something that your grandkids will laugh at.

[Anonymous No.11183487]

Obligatory comment about how mind uploading isn't actually a continuation of yourself but a false clone within a machine.

[Anonymous No.11183501]

>>11183487
It obviously depends on the mechanism. We don't understand consciousness, so everyone talking about mind uploading is spouting shit.

If I took a snapshot of your brain and built a copy of you from scratch programmed to be exactly like you in every respect, would it be you? Even though you're still around and wholly independent? I'm not saying it wouldn't.

[Anonymous No.11183506]

>>11183440
Basically there won't be any cool stuff during your lifetime. You were born too early sorry, enjoy climate change propaganda, american propaganda, chinese propaganda, and spyware in literally every device because that's the apex of cultural and technological development you'll see.

[Anonymous No.11183516]

>>11183506
I wish I'd been born a slave in 1850, that way I'd get to observe all the progress rather than have it as a starting condition.

[Anonymous No.11183520]

>>11183516
You'd probably die before you got to see anything

[Anonymous No.11183525]

[Anonymous No.11183526]

>>11183501

We don't fully understand consciousness, but most would argue the mechanism is biological in nature, maybe you have other ideas.

[Anonymous No.11183558]

>>11183526
>the mechanism is biological in nature
So what?

[Anonymous No.11183580]

>>11183525
and then there's the guy in the virtual world, thinking that his consciousness got successfully transferred there. and he'd be just as right about that as the guy who remained in his body is in thinking that his consciousness didn't get transferred.

[Anonymous No.11183606]

>>11183580
Doesn't help the guy still sitting in the chair. Consciousness is an interesting problem, because we know it exists but we know fuckall about it. It's easy to say "we have no reason to believe X" where X is continuity from moment to moment or from wetware to hardware or anything else, but it doesn't follow that we should believe the reverse. We know almost nothing about it.

[Anonymous No.11183680]

>>11183440
The techies of course will argue that even if the human body and brain as we know them become obsolete, immortality in the form (ii) can still be achieved: Man-machine hybrids will permanently retain their usefulness, because by linking themselves with ever-more-powerful machines human beings (or what is left of them) will be able to remain competitive with pure machines.

But man-machine hybrids will retain a biological component derived from human beings only as long as the human-derived biological component remains useful. When purely artificial components become available that provide a better cost-versus-benefit balance than human-derived biological components do, the latter will be discarded and the man-machine hybrids will lose their human aspect to become wholly artificial. Even if the human-derived biological components are retained they will be purged, step by step, of the human qualities that detract from their usefulness. The self-prop systems to which the man-machine hybrids belong will have no need for such human weaknesses as love, compassion, ethical feelings, esthetic appreciation, or desire for freedom. Human emotions in general will get in the way of the self-prop systems' utilization of the man-machine hybrids, so if the latter are to remain competitive they will have to be altered to remove their human emotions and replace these with other motivating forces. In short, even in the unlikely event that some biological remnants of the human race are preserved in the form of man-machine hybrids, these will be transformed into something totally alien to human beings as we know them today.

[Anonymous No.11183684]

>>11183440
The same applies to the hypothesized survival of human minds in "uploaded" form inside machines. The uploaded minds will not be tolerated indefinitely unless they remain useful (that is, more useful than any substitutes not derived from human beings), and in order to remain useful they will have to be transformed until they no longer have anything in common with the human minds that exist today.

Some techies may consider this acceptable. But their dream of immortality is illusory nonetheless. Competition for survival among entities derived from human beings (whether man-machine hybrids, purely artificial entities evolved from such hybrids, or human minds uploaded into machines), as well as competition between human-derived entities and those machines or other entities that are not derived from human beings, will lead to the elimination of all but some minute percentage of all the entities involved. This has nothing to do with any specific traits of human beings or of their machines; it is a general principle of evolution through natural selection. Look at biological evolution: Of all the species that have ever existed on Earth, only some tiny percentage have direct descendants that are still alive today. On the basis of this principle alone, and even discounting everything else we've said in this chapter, the chances that any given techie will survive indefinitely are minute.

[Anonymous No.11183685]

>>11183440
The techies may answer that even if almost all biological species are eliminated eventually, many species survive for thousands or millions of years, so maybe techies too can survive for thousands or millions of years. But when large, rapid changes occur in the environment of biological species, both the rate of appearance of new species and the rate of extinction of existing species are greatly increased. Technological progress constantly accelerates, and techies like Ray Kurzweil insist that it will soon become virtually explosive; consequently, changes come more and more rapidly, everything happens faster and faster, competition among self-prop systems becomes more and more intense, and as the process gathers speed the losers in the struggle for survival will be eliminated ever more quickly. So, on the basis of the techies' own beliefs about the exponential acceleration of technological development, it's safe to say that the life-expectancies of human-derived entities, such as man-machine hybrids and human minds uploaded into machines, will actually be quite short. The seven-hundred year or thousand-year life-span to which some techies aspire is nothing but a pipe-dream.

[Anonymous No.11183698]

>>11183580
>implying it's even possible to transfer consciousness in the first place

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WKqO16mkGE

[Anonymous No.11183725]

>>11183698
"just as right" as in both are accounts of what subjectively happened. there's no fact of the matter which "actually" happened. i don't see this being in contradiction with the video you posted

[Anonymous No.11183819]

>>11183680
What part of the human anatomy and function do you think would be useful to the machines if we ever got to that point?

[Anonymous No.11184044]

>>11183501
It would. The definition of me would just change from singular to plural.

[Anonymous No.11184055]

>>11183440
"Mind uploading" will probably just be an advanced form of psychological profiling.
Your "consciousness" will be a standardized model shared among all customers.

The two combined will create a realistic impression of the real thing!

[Anonymous No.11184068]

>>11183440
First you must join a gym and become a total bro as that has been shown to increase longevity and good living times. Then you must enhance yourself and eventually become a brobot or a cybro or something so as to have no demarcation between bio bro you and machine bro you. Then you get to be the ship of Theseus, when your bio bro part wears out your machine bro part can fix you up again and vice versa.

[Anonymous No.11184081]

>>11184044
Not quite. Before the upload you should consider both continuations future "yous", but after the upload they diverge, despite sharing a past self. Everyone still has only 1 present self.

[Anonymous No.11184485]

>>11184044
>>11184081
Either of these is a sensible hypothesis. Let's compare evidence. Oh wait, there isn't any.

[Anonymous No.11184487]

>>11183440
No, but effective cryonics will be

[Anonymous No.11184492]

So is there a chance at this actually being a thing without it just being a copy of me?

[Anonymous No.11184499]

>>11184487
Seriously?

[Anonymous No.11184505]

>>11184499
They can preserve a human connectome perfectly now, the technology just hasn't been permitted to go to market because they're worried if they "do it wrong" or "rush it" it will lead to mysterybadness

[Anonymous No.11184521]

>>11183440
Maybe. But you'll still be trapped in meatspace and just have a digital clone. Live life to the full and die as free of regret as possible.

[Anonymous No.11184524]

>>11184521
This. Hope instead for life extension and brain preservation technology.

[Anonymous No.11184530]

>>11184524
>This. Hope instead for life extension and brain preservation technology.
Fuck yeah, that would be nice. Either that or >>11184487

>>11184505
No shit? I thought we only got as far as pigs?

[Anonymous No.11184534]

Mind uploading is a meme, just aim for artificial longevity by staying healthy as fuck and trying to live forever.

[Anonymous No.11184539]

>>11184534
These two things are one and the same. Immortality is melding consciousnesses with artificial intelligence. Immortality is redundancy. DNA figured this out eons ago. Now we’re about to perfect this system of indefinite self-preservation.

[Anonymous No.11184543]

>>11184530
Hmm. Maybe I misread. I'm referring to Nectome and their work.

[Anonymous No.11184636]

we don't even know what dreams are, or consciousness even

[Anonymous No.11184642]

you are immortal therefore yes

[Anonymous No.11184651]

Happy Birthday my dude

[Anonymous No.11184659]

>>11183501
I think it wouldn't. In an infinite universe there is probably infinite clones of my brain right now and yet I am only experiencing my own as far as I can tell. Of course, if they are exact copies then all the experiences would overlap, but imagine that an exact copy of my brain is in existence right now, but experiencing different stimulation. I am only experiencing one set of stimulation, as far as I can tell, so I think it's unlikely that an exact copy of my brain across the universe qualifies as my consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11184685]

>>11184492
You are already a copy of you.

[Anonymous No.11184734]

>>11184499
https://www.cryonicscalculator.com/

[Anonymous No.11184804]

>>11183458
Not OP but I wrote a journal in my teens. I found it was a much better way of sorting out my thoughts and feelings rather than keeping shit in my head. I also remembered my dreams much better during this period.

[Anonymous No.11184814]

>>11184804
>try to write a journal
>completely fucking cringe at the shit I write the next day and toss it out
how do I not hate myself enough to actually do this?

[Anonymous No.11184825]

>>11184814
Nobody but you should be reading your thoughts anyway. Accept the cringe and realize that's how you felt at the moment. It helped me be more rational in my thoughts as time went on.

[Anonymous No.11184833]

>>11183440
I think 2060 is probably the most conservative estimation of longevity escape velocity kicking in. maybe sooner but not later.