• xzvf [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    if we ever get the technology to upload a brain into a computer i will be one of the first people to do it

    • Dewot523 [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      This is close to impossible. You do not have a mind, made up of little bits of data a computer can read. Minds do not exist in reality. They are an abstraction. You have a brain, a wet pile of electrical meat. "Uploading your brain" is conceptual equivalent of taking the original paper score to Beethoven's ninth symphony, stuffing it inside your iPhone and then expecting music to play. It needs to be transformed and transcribed, and at that point it loses its unique identity that makes you you.

      • unperson [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Every time you've heard Beethoven’s ninth symphony it's been because someone stuffed the score in a computer and it played.

        Even if you heard it in a real life orchestra or something. The fact that the score is not the same parchment paper (deaf) Beethoven wrote it in changes nothing about the piece.

        • Dewot523 [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I don't think you're getting what I'm saying. An upload of your brain wouldn't be you, it'd be a clone, and almost definitely a subtly changed one.

          • unperson [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            My personality and my memories and so on change subtly every day I wake up. Over the years the changes accumulate and I'm a different person.

            Of course, even if the brain scan and simulation technology was perfect so that there's no distinguishable difference in my thoughts immediately before being scanned and once being simulated, over time the material conditions, the fact that I'm a computer and I now require electricity and microprocessors instead of food and shelter, would over time shape my thoughts and my ideology and turn me into a different person.

            It'd still be me.

            When the technology isn't perfect there's a discrete change, but again saying that a discrete difference changes the person is saying that one dies when they have a stroke.

            • Dewot523 [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              To be clear I am a proponent of "'You"' is a meaningless concept" but that's not really what I'm talking about right now.

              • unperson [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                I'm sorry. What do you mean then with the "unique identity"?