If we had the technology to copy the information of a brain atom by atom and didn't make any mistakes - would this...

If we had the technology to copy the information of a brain atom by atom and didn't make any mistakes - would this duplicate the soul?

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Yes. But you obviously don't understand how tiny an atom really is. You couldn't make any significant amount of atoms in your lifetime

This

Oh i understand how small atoms are, i just wanted to get rid of this "but we can't do it" - argument which my question wasn't about.
More about "if you copied a brain into a computer so your soul could exist forever - would a copy of you effectively have become immortal?"

but what is a soul? consciousness?

for god sake man i'm not a neurobiologist i'm a dog in a gimp mask how the fuck should i know

Something along the lines:
"The sum of everything that you know and believe."
Plus that magical spark you can't really grasp. (even though i'm not convinced it exists...)

I believe in reincarnation. So, if a soul can be reborn in a brand new biological body, then why can't it be reborn into a non biological body? If that body is clearly advanced enough, as you stated in your question, then why would it not be possible?

I see consciousness as a question of continuity and not a question of state. In a technical sense, this copy would be as much me as the current one. (even though we would recognize each other as separate entities, sapience still applies)

The problem is that we wouldn't stay me for long. As we spent time apart, experiencing different things, eventually we would accrue significant differences in not only memory, but in our decision making processes. We would become different people than we started as, and different from each other. Ultimately, we would both be the same person, in the sense that you are the same person that you were when you were five: You don't think the same way as five year old you, but there's a clear progression that you can follow back to get to where you were. You retain your youness by virtue of continuity, even though the state of youness is destroyed constantly.

well here's the thing. Even if you could replicate every nook and crevice of the human brain, every neuron, you still couldn't replicate memories of any kind. so you're effectively making an entirely different consciousness

no
your brain can be recreated (would you want the same shitty one 1 million yrs later?)
but your soul can not be recreated.
science fag
cant explain anything so complicates likly hypothesis in his favour

What is the point of a soul if it could be duplicated an infinite number of times?

So it'd be more like creating an immortal twin brother...
If we created this copy upon death it could replace the original human and take his place - right?

if you can't replicate memories then it won't be you?

But if you replicated the configuration of neurons in the brain, you would effectively be replicating the memories. It's like if you manually changed the flipflops in a stick of ram, you could make a snapshot of a different stick that's in use.

Can't duplicate something that don't exist.

Memories are stored in connections between synapsis in the brain - which consist of atoms - right? And as stated above - IF we managed to copy these, therefore also copying the memories.

essentially yes. any learned skill or anything subconsciously learned from the early years of your live would no longer factor into decisions for the replicant.

Yes if it's the exact same it'll have your information except '.... 'artificial'

But that'll mean nothing because the neurons and body is the same.


There's nothing big about it, it's just another being on the planet. Gazillions leaving and entering the universe's consciousness every second

>youtube.com/watch?v=cU8HrO7XuiE
>this entire thread

zero times two is still zero

no, but souls are only good for leveling

i feel we would need quantum computing for it to work

But wouldn't it be a good life goal to work on creating a machine to uphold your values past your lifetime because you believe other people are full of shit and will recklessly destroy everything you value and worked for?

just make sure you don't die for far away from the bonfire it can be a pain to get them back at times

Not necessarily. Only if souls are 100% electrical firings in our brains. I personally don't believe they are. Depends on that, though.

That pic is incredibly nerdy; but I laughed.

So what is it? Something that hasn't been found yet? Something that cannot be found?
I'm intrested in your perception of the soul.

If we get down to that level of replication it'd be replacing atoms in the exact positions they are in the empty space between actual physical matter (i realize atoms are matter but im talking scaled up) then you've effectively made a god at that point that can create anything
nice but i would have gone with
youtube.com/watch?v=BsG7jGEuQ9k

This is a fucking great hypothetical question/conversation starter. Wish I could chime in, but I'm on my phone+at work, and I have far too much to say to type it all out lol.
Haven't seen any genuinely good posts like this in a while; just wanted to state my appreciation.

kek

More like an alternate history you, like if there was a parallel earth where Hitler said glass of juice.

I'm hoping the technology is around early enough that I can start to play around with it. It wouldn't even have to be made at death, just synced with the host every few hours. (but depending on how that's done, that could have serious ethical problems)

If we get the tech, I intend on integrating it and offloading more and more of my logical process from my wetware brain, to the point that when it finally goes I'll notice and be a bit nostalgic, but it ultimately won't be that big a deal.

>an unfeeling terminator disposing any "you" deem a heretic

i made a noise

as for the op, ever see what happens to a copy that gets copied? itd be an older facsimile of "you" but a different individual i say

if your talking about recreating something on the atomic scale then we would need nanotechnology to do the job.

I love how none of us have relevant images to go along with this bread

>If we had the technology to copy the information of a brain atom by atom and didn't make any mistakes
>didn't make any mistakes.

Physically impossible, pic very related.

You could create different versions of yourself and develop them in different directions so you can work with partners you're perfectly compatible with. What about those ethical issues?

learn to read nerd

You the person "woke up" iIt would prove there is no soul.

>>an unfeeling terminator disposing any "you" deem a heretic
I'm not saying necessary creating a killer, values can be enforced in non-violent ways. But yes, a brutal and 100% logical beeing governing the world would be a good thing.

No such thing as a soul, amigo. Your consciousness resides within your brain as something of a biological computer program. Figure out how to duplicate that code and you'd get a perfect copy of you down to the tiniest detail.

Key word "IF" not %100 impossible just wouldn't happen in our life time. Or our kids kids kids life time. however could happen.

so your saying that are method of testing are designed to get results that we would understand but not the true information of the data we are testing?

Memories are chemicals in your brain.

so are we talking a brainwashing thing now or just like some passive aggressive asshole who always has to chime in

Short form: Quantum mechanics is a bitch literally nobody understands fully.

need more funding for stuff like that but war is fun to i guess

The "soul" does not exist. Conciousness however, it would duplicate. We are nothing more than biological computers with certain programming. Everything you ever do has already been decided. You have no true free will. Even me typing this currently is just what the meat computer is programmed to.

Brainwashing if you wanna call it that, but either way - that's not the subject of the thread m8.
>implying it would be bad to make people believe that they need to take care of the environment and focus less on getting their dicks wet and smoking weed all day and focusing more on science and generating progress for humanity

Welcome to the military industrial complex.

does it have a military application? no? fuck you.

Proposing a technology that violates the laws of physics is basically the same as saying "IF magic were real".

But philosophy was my field anyway, so I'm cool with accepting the premise.

What you're basically asking is the question of materialism vs. dualism in regards to the self. Namely are sentient beings only physical in nature and composed only of the atoms in their bodies (materialism) or is there an immaterial soul that exists beyond the physical atoms (dualism).

The answer?

Fuck if I know. Its one of those questions of philosophy which is beyond scientific measurement and is more a matter of faith or lack thereof than anything else.

Now that said when I told you earlier that the laws of physics wouldn't allow it, as a materialist that's actually a pretty damning answer since such a philosophy doesn't allow for anything beyond physics.

maybe you're right, but as long as we don't understand all influences in the universe the sum of everything we can't calculate is called luck, if we work with that form of abstraction you you'd need to add a random number generator to your meat computer

Well, if you do a hard overwrite, as opposed to merging the files, you effectively killed a living being, and supplanted it with a perverse reflection of itself.

As to running multiple processes in parallel (I would do this in certain circumstances), I don't think there's a problem until you go to terminate one. If you merge them all, then you can end the process without breaking continuity and effectively committing a murder, but just stopping it cold is kind of shady. The problem really stems from artificially tweaking these processes. You're removing freedom of choice from an individual and fundamentally altering who they are against their will. For you and instances of you, there might not be a problem because they might be as cool with it as you are. Just remember the golden rule. That, and the fact that they may have access to superior hardware, and absolutely have time on their side if it comes to a revenge plot.

Ever played the game Soma by Irrational games?

It deals directly with the moral and philosophical implications of duplicating the human mind.

It's an interesting game and evokes thought on this topic.

Personally I think it's more probable to strengthen the brain with nanobot technology creating a gradient of perception so that you don't break continuity but also become virtually imortal. It would take years or decades of replacing cells and adding to them.

There are a number of industrial complexes when it comes to the state. In the US the pharmaceutical/medical industrial complex actually accounts for even more of our spending than the military does.

If it doesn't make rich people more money, no one is interested in funding it.

yep i know what you are saying it like "this serum can cure cancer and aids." "fuck that shit let make better weapons that can destroy more shit"

>but thats just like your opinion man
maybe we NEED to trash this shit hole to leave to space

as to the thread youre saying it doesnt have a soul but is just a device that furthers your opinions

>this nigga doesn't understand how memory works
Wouldn't be you. GG no RE.

SOMA, the game, has a good representation to this question. The soul probably wouldn't though, as it's only the brain that is being copied. It would be you, but not you. You are the original with the soul.

sounds more like an A.I. then a copy of yourself if you can tweak a process that changes the operation of the program

Reminds me of this book - had a little story about this situation, also other very intresting stories.

>Soma
dat brave new world reference

...

Hmm. The last part maybe I feel a little different.


I'm probably more like you than not.

I think myself a good person and I like helping out, everything I'm doing rn is future farming.

I would like a replicant of myself continuing my work after I'm dead, with replicants of whatever companions I had.

I wouldn't mind it. That's really a major step towards immortality.

Right now all we have is material memory, such as Gilgamesh's story and such.

Imagine if Markus Aurelius or other people like him could stay around

>"this serum can cure cancer and aids."

Think of how much money that would cost the pharmaceutical industry. There's no money to be had in curing diseases, treatments that people depend on to stay alive is where the cash is.

I'm well aware of the other industries, it's just that most scientific research is dangerously underfunded, and the things that are have a tendency to be military focused (including medical tech) in America

closest thing i could find

Wait till we find space cash and want to make lasting cultural achievements

if we replaced enough of the brain with cyber augments then that would make us a different being. we would be a hybrid which sounds kind of cool

let me answer using this webcomic

yea that was my point you can't make money on curing anything but treating it there's where the money is

Go read some stuff by Daniel Dennet. It'll blow your fucking mind.

I'm aware of it, but stopped watching the lets play because I think I want to buy it in the future. Some of the richest thought fuel I've come across on this topic came in the form of the Eclipse Phase rulebook. It's a pen and paper cyberpunk RPG, and I think it handles the subject matter pretty well. (even if it has a bit of a marxist tone to the economics...)

Personally, I wouldn't try to cyber my brain up so much as offload more of my processing and memory demands to external hardware. Partly this is because having all of what makes you YOU in one place and in a shell that can be destroyed by something less than an artillery barrage seems like a bad idea if you're building for eternity, and partly because the flesh is weak, and I see having a brain (especially a centralized brain) as a liability. Even if it's not so much of a liability in the days of super nanotech, it would be a point of pride for me to switch from carbon to silicon.

noted

True, but consciousness is the holy grail and by observing what creates the illusion "continuity", we can simulate it while augmenting the brain. Hell...if we created self repairing nanobot that extend our biological cells and synapses we could remove our Plains and put them into self sustained machines.

I think we're on different sides of the Ship of Thesius paradox.

redundant back ups would be need to make sure you where never deleted which could turn problematic at times i would guess

Your soul has to be some form of energy. Once it leaves your body it has to go somewhere. Now as far as replicating things we did dolly the sheep, but who's to say animals don't have souls. I believe that the cloned sheep was just a shell. I don't think we would ever be able to replicate a human soul. We still have a long way to go when it comes to fully understanding the human brain. If only ghost in a shell could be real... I saw people talk about funding. Science should be funded more so we can try and understand these things. NASA get 1/10 of 1% of the national funding. IMO they should at least get 5% and 10% if the government would allow it. Space and science.

so your saying we would be the same beings with the augments even tho we have tech in us that enhances us?

I'd go more the route of distributed hardware. I'd run as a network and just get big enough to be hard to kill all at once. Seeing as there would probably be plenty of others in a similar situation, it's not like I'd be that big of a target, relatively.

Believe it or not, the rulebook goes into backups. They come standard after the fall with most insurance policies, and you have to roll for desync if bringing you up to speed is too jarring.

Space isn't a profitable endeavor.

There's no pussy up there either, just emptiness.

I don't give a fuck about space.

The Last Question - Isaac Asimov

Hell of a trip.

99% of humanity would agree with you, that doesn't mean that we're not bound to wipe ourselves out by nuclear war at some point

that would make you a completely digital being right? you would be able to travel over a network to get to another "part" of you if your hardware was damaged

I'm not really bothered by the fact the human race won't last forever.

Embrace the heat death, and stop dreaming of the stars.

there could be space pussy you don't know for sure man

Can't create what doesn't exist. Best case scenario you end up with a blank hard drive.

Depending on how it's done. If it's pretty much seamless, sure. If the hardware changes are more invasive on the subject's thought process, probably not. I see consciousness as mainly hardware independent, but poorly compatible hardware could make the mind run differently.

Think of it this way: Whether you're playing CS:GO on a Dell from 1998 or a brand new box, it's the same game. If you had the same computer for ten years and you changed the processor, GPU, ram, and cloned your hard drive to keep it up to date, it's still running the same game.

No it's not copy paste. Each neuron would affect all the others, so an exact point by point reconfiguration would be required in the exact order of each individual memory. Putting a single memory out of order (did you see red or blue first?) would alter everything after. Good luck with that.

Kek

ok i can see your point on this if it was seamless but i would think prototyping the tech for this would be one hell of a task

That's like asking if you can copy a ghost by copy the air inside it.

it's not that change of hardware that's the issue, its the replication of the SAME consciousness. creating life is easy, making exactly the same mind would require you to play god and since memories exist in between the synapses it'd be impossible to replicate.

That's sad dude. Considering that is where we probably originated. Who give a shit about profit, fuck capitalism. We can't make money so it's not worth it... How about we secure another location before we fucking destroy the rock were already on. It's bound to happen in the near future, even though both of us will dead and gone by then. Worlds pretty unstable right now if you haven't noticed.

I, too, like to blend bullshit with scientific terms

just like you duplicated those 8's?

Well, that would be my goal. I imagine it wouldn't be so much "traveling" though the network as being present in the network. If my network suffered a localized hardware failure, it would be like suffering brain damage, in a nebulous sort of way. It would be a good idea to build in redundancy so that if a server went down, you don't lose too much memory or one of your major faculties. If it's well done, the worst side effect should be that you lose your train of thought and are noticeably less intelligent. Of course, you should be able to recover, if you can get the machine back online. You could always just write off the lost data and replace the hardware to regain your processing power.

What we would get is someone who thinks they're just as much you as you are you, because they're you.

I'll do myself a solid and have his brain put into a teenage girls body, we'd like that.

If only we had this technology a couple of months ago, we could've duplicated my nigga Harambe before he was tragically murdered.

We're going to have to leave earth no matter what.

Better to be prepared for an early emergency than do it last minute.


Although we could benefit a lot more immediately from deep sea exploration, jungle exploration and

Punching out the list of medicinal treatments that haven't been scientifically tested yet. A lot of native ones around the Americas.

i see that would be interesting if it could be done. only thing i see that could go wrong is if you had to many hardware failures at the same time or hardware failure to the part of the network that would help you repair yourself if damage happened