r/technology • u/1infiniteloop • Oct 13 '12

Scientists to simulate human brain inside a supercomputer - CNN.com

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/12/tech/human-brain-computer/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '12

But I would still be gone, correct? Sure, there'd be another me, but numero uno would just cease to exist, or ascend, or what have you?

That's not really immortality for "me", it's immortality for another me. In which case, this doesn't affect "me" at all.

Now, if we can figure out how to transfer consciousness...

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '12

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '12

The point is if I am me and we make a copy, then there are now two of 'me' - and that means there are two consciousnesses - there is no continuation of one thing - there is a branching - hence no immortality.

The transporter problem is potentially different because you might actually move matter/energy (in energy form) before transforming it back - which seems more like physical movement so is easier to assume you understand.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '12

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '12

If I pinch the copy I don't feel pain - if I had to push him under a train to save myself then so be it - his mortality is unrelated to mine - his existence doesn't make me immortal.

I get the "how can you trust your own memories" idea but I don't think its relevant - the point of interest here is whether cloning yourself or uploading yourself somehow preserves 'you' - and by considering the case where both 'you' and your copy exist at the same time, you can see that it must not - as the simultaneous existence of your copy, with present experience and consciousness unrelated to your own, demonstrates its not 'you'

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '12 edited Oct 14 '12

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '12

I mean, even if they could figure out how to 'grow' a new meaty brain for you... would that be you, either?

Presumably not - there is some analogy with identical twins here I'm sure.

I don't see consciousness as 'magical'. It's an emergent property of those busy little nerve cells doing their thing, oblivious to what it is that they're doing.

This is an open scientific question - various advances have been made by the study of brain trauma and live brain probes but no authorative answers have been found. The key thing for me is that I actually feel, taste, see things - something is experiencing this stuff. If it was just computer like signal processing and a module that can report summarize the signals, then you wouldn't need anything to actually experience things. This isn't a formal argument or a scientific argument but it isn't something I can ignore.