the-podcast guy recently linked this essay, its old, but i don't think its significantly wrong (despite gpt evangelists) also read weizenbaum, libs, for the other side of the coin

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    6 months ago

    Yeah, it's the illusion of self and continuity of consciousness thing. People assume that any upload would be necessarily destructive and that there'd be a loss of continuity. No one ever seems to think "well, wait, why couldn't I be awake for the whole operation in a way that preserves subjective continuity?"

    In the ship of theseus, brain being replaced cell by cell concept you don't get your head chopped off and imaged, you're very gradually shifting what hardware your mind is running on. The lights never go out, there's never a drastic, shocking moment of change, you never wake up in a jar.