In my opinion, it’s post-human after any type of augmentation to the brain. Death may not be the most appropriate Termanology here as an individual is not considered clinically dead, until there is no brain activity. No mention of whether or not brain matter is organic or synthetic - if you have a synthetic neurons, you’re obviously alive if you have brain activity, you’re just not human anymore.

I said Total Synth replacement, because in my belief, we are the electrical pattern in our brain. If that is preserved via synthetic neurons, then death does not occur, IMO

brain of theseus

I think it's a matter of how gradually it's done.

If you do them all at once, then you're dead and something that just thinks is you is walking around.

But if you do them slowly over a period of weeks, then that gradual transition makes the end product still you.

i think it has to be juuuuust slow enough that each synthetic neuron connects its spindrils to the surrounding flesh neurons BEFORE the flesh neuron it’s replacing is removed.

the order should be:

1. connect the synthneuron to all the same surroundingneurons as the fleshneuron it’s replacing

2. let the connections send data a lil bit

3. kill the fleshneuron that the synthneuron has replaced

4. move on to replacing the next fleshneuron

My totally uninformed opinion, I am an engineer not a neuroscientist/philosopher, believes that as long as continuity is maintained between the totally biological brain and the synthetic rebuild, there will be the same person looking out from the inside.

A copy is not you, because you are still you so that must be someone else.

When you slowly update yourself bit by bit I don't believe there is any point in the process you can declare you as not you. This has always been my answer to the ship of Theseus problem. That the one who maintained continuity with the 'original' is the 'original'.

Exactly. Our personalities, memories, every thought and feeling we have is just the sum of electrical signals and neurotransmitters floating around an organ in our skull. If we preserve that but change the container, or the material in which those signals and chemicals travel on, nothing should've changed regarding "death."

If the same conciousness, memories and personality are transferred perfectly than it wouldnt be considered a death,

Don’t forget the glial cells! They move around neurons, and even listen to their electrical activity (astrocytes). They are also responsible for the amount of myelination on axons (oligodendrocytes/Schwann cells)

This is a famous thought experiment called the ship of Theseus.

There is no single correct answer to this question. I blew my 12 year old sons mind the other day when I posed him this question. He answered very confidently that the ship was no longer the same at the end of its travels. Then I reminded him that every atom in his body will have been replaced in 7 years time so does that mean his original self passed away?

I believe it is possible to transfer consciousness in the way of replacing pieces of the brain which complicates the question of what is consciousness?

I agree with this outlook

I don't think you would ever die in that scenario. "I" am not my body or my brain. "I" am the dynamic, self-sustaining pattern which is currently circulating through my neurons. If that pattern is maintained on different hardware, then I have not died.

If I build a lego set of a castle, and then replace each plastic brick one at a time with a stone brick, then the castle is still there. In fact, it never went anywhere. The Ship of Theseus paradox always felt kind of silly to me, because the answer always felt so obvious. The pattern of the planks is what makes the ship. If you replace each plank one at a time, the overall pattern is never compromised by more than a single board, so the ship is still there.

Here’s the point: if a biological system can replace the individual biological parts (cells) with new biological replacements and it’s the same person, why would it be different if we replaced the biological parts with more durable non-biological ones?

Getting them to mimic the originals well enough AND be more durable would be the hard part.

I fully understand the point. In fact if you search through my posts on this subreddit I’ve already spelled out in great detail this exact scenario several times. It’s still the same concept as the ship of Theseus.

As to perfecting the technology I have no doubt it will happen in the future.

Oh, sorry, I know. That was more a “coles notes” version than a “here’s what you need to see” version.

I completely agree with you and think you have a firm understanding of the topic.

almost everyone agrees on this 😂

Never? If synthetic neurons work 100% same as original it is still same person. If not, and the personality shift after replacement was smaller then personality shift from adulthood to time of replacement, I would still think it is the same person.

None or this

Your brain will have an icloud account aka a digital ID.

I always thought death to be less binary than we usually think of it. Take two examples: 1, your cells within the span of about 7 years completely replace themselves; and 2, dementia patients don’t experience one singular moment when their brain dies. I think the idea of death doesn’t exist outside of our illusionary belief in our own individuality from the rest of the universe. We’re just a bunch of stuff that incorrectly thinks it’s one thing. Vsauce did a video on this subject called “Do Chairs Exist?”. It’s worth a watch.

Consciousness is the result of a complex enough system

Your poll is missing an option

How much wood is replaced till its a new ship?

I personally believe that a person is dead if they do this. The uploaded consciousness isn’t them but a copy.

Which option? There was a limit on options so I couldn't add anymore.

Unless I misinterpreted the last option, it is my opinion that it's the pattern that makes the person, not the material of the substrate it's made on.
Gradual replacement maintains the pattern while it's in use.
The pattern continues uninterrupted.
Death occurs at no moment.

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The consciousness doesn’t exist within the brain, it exists within the ether. Many experiments have been done with people who have been through awful accidents and sustained horrific brain injuries and have still managed to retain their consciousness, albeit in a diminished capacity physically.Every part of the brain had been removed amongst all the patients, and they were all still connected to their consciousness, implying that the consciousness does not reside within the brain.

There was also a study done with a group of mice who were taught how to navigate a maze. Each mouse was then taken away and had different parts of its brain surgically removed. After a recovery period, w each mouse was then put back into the maze, and they were all still able to navigate the maze.

Quantum theory is finally catching up to the fringe theory; Lynne McTaggart’s book, The Field covers a range of cutting edge, peer-reviewed studies that have been done recently that show the existence of an “ether”, a source field of energy that we don’t yet understand, and it is theorised that this energy field is the source of the spirit or consciousness.

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/thread

Those who think it's immediate death have died many times then growing up getting new neurons. The science seems unclear though if adults grow new neurons. Regardless, a synthetic 1:1 neuron wouldn't be different (besides not aging).

This question was tackled by Chalmers: https://debategraph.org/Details.aspx?nid=1021

Neurons in our brains die and get replaced all the time and yet, our experience remains fairly unchanged. I don't see why replacing neurons with their synthetic counterparts would work differently.
There still is some concern regarding the speed of replacement, However. There is much difference between killing and regenerating neurons gradually over many years and replacing them all instantly. Even if we conducted such experiment, there would be no way of telling whether the person's "steam of consciousness" have been severed or not, as the result of an unsuccessful consciousness transfer would be a perfect clone of the original brain.

The concept of continuous identity is an illusion. There's no way to be sure your "consciousness" doesn't die every night and wake up as a new person who thinks they are you every morning.

Every moment that passes, our identity evolves into something slightly different than it was before. We modify ourselves simply by existing and observing our surroundings. I am not the same person I was 10 years ago. I just happen to have all (most, even) of his memories.

"You" are a collection of memories. And an algorithm that acts on those memories, along with new input, to make new memories. If your neural configuration is duplicated, there are many of "you" for but one single moment, and then each of them will begin to evolve in different directions. Once this moment passes none of these are the you that was at the moment of duplication. Not even "you".

The answer is, it doesn’t matter. A brain of neurons and it’s synthetic counterpart and every point in between is all consciousness. Life and the continuity of self and the concept of identity is all an illusion. It’s simply evolutionarily inconvenient for people to wake up every morning with no memories, experiences and skills. What we are is simply a pattern etched into some meat like a well trodden path through a field.

That will depend on what are "we". If our consciousness arises from computation of neurons, then it wouldn't matter what device does the computation or in what form it is done. If, however, there is something more to our consciousness (some quantum stuff, maybe even existence of souls), then I don't think this question can be answered until we learn more about these processes. I'm myself a materialist, but who knows...

In theory yeah, but it's possible we are tied to our organic matter and all the complexities in our DNA and biology from billions of years of evolution of the natural organic elements that make us, not man made copies that replicate the basics. The entire human experience isn't going to be easily recreated 1:1 by machine any time soon.

Honestly, we don’t know enough to be able to answer this question, but there has to be 1 part that is irreplaceable

I have come to believe that we are a pattern of matter, not matter itself

I think the crucial element making this a manner of attaining immortality is if the process gradual enough that the synthetic and natural neurons can overlap, with the electrical signals of the natural brain crossing into and back from the synthetic parts, because at that point the two are functionally identical, and the loss of the natural neuronal tissue would be like any other brain injury—something to be compensated for; and something which might change one’s identity to some extent, but not a fundamental loss or death of consciousness. Assuming it’s possible to simply continue adding more synthetic neuronal tissue, eventually the natural neuronal tissue could be a small part of the expansive whole.

Personally, I don't see why replacing the brain with synthetic neurons would be any different from replacing old cells with new ones in the usual, biological way. If the experience is the same from my perspective, that's good enough for me.

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Might as well solve consciousness. I don’t think we are anywhere close to knowing.

My nitpick with this view is that I don't see a problem seeing both versions as having continuity.

If you had nano fabricator technology, such that you could create a perfect replica of a person, to the point that you can't tell which one is the copy, they are not the same person as soon as they start having different experiences, but they both still have continuity to the person they used to be.

You are not the same person you were ten years ago, you are slightly not the same person you were yesterday. If you copy yourself, both used to be the same person, but are now two different people. Who the original is doesn't matter.

My preference would be for a synthetic consciousness implant that takes over when I am sleeping. A kind of test drive to ensure "I" do actually survive the transition.

If stress is connected to our guts and good feeling dependant on our physical activity, imagine what else we might not know, I don't believe is as simple as that.

I recommend the amazing horror game SOMA for that kind of mindblowing thought experiment. Cannot say more without spoiling a lot.

Generally your heart cells and neurons don’t really replace themselves (neurons literally can’t divide/replicate and come from stem cells in the ventricles). So I think this is true for every other cell except for these two organs.

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Death is a concept invented by the Jedi!

> every atom in his body will have been replaced in 7 years time

That's not actually true.

If you are making an assumption those synthetic neurons are fully functional and able to signal back and forth with organic ones, those questions make no sense, because the answer is obvious.

If you are making an assumption those synthetic neurons are non-functional and/or unable to signal to organic ones, those questions make no sense either, for the same reason.

> believes that as long as continuity is maintained between the totally biological brain and the synthetic rebuild, there will be the same person looking out from the inside.

So when you fall asleep at night, you die, and are replaced by an imposter the next day with the same memories?

If not, how about people who undergo deep hypothermic circulatory arrest, in which heart and brain activity completely cease?

I don't believe continuity of consciousness is required for continuity of personhood.

Normally, there should be enough time to verify that consciousness, information, etc. have been transferred to it before it becomes a synthetic brain.
How deep the transition is possible depends on the performance of the synthetic brain, the natural brain-like functions and their transition performance, and the performance of the BMI(Brain Machine {Interface).
After the synthetic brain has functioned many times to check its performance, the normal brain will either cease to function, or, given recent advances in biology, even the normal brain will cease to function. It is possible to cultivate the normal brain to the extent that it ceases to function, or even more than it ceases to function.
The current state of the art is that the synapses can be cultured to the extent that the normal brain is shut down.
In view of the current situation, we should first reach the stage of civilisation where the synthetic brain is used as an auxiliary brain or a brain for people with brain damage.
After that, immortality by synthetic brain will be researched.
Also, it is said that the brain functions differently in different parts of the brain, so a percentage poll does not seem appropriate.
I expect that research on the synthetic brain and consciousness will gradually progress from the expansion of the frontal lobe and the visual, motor and memory areas that are damaged by brain function.
The day may come when something like the Meta brain, created by the synthetic brain, will be able to control normal brain functions.

Yep. Actually though, it would depend on your mindset if it matters or not... but the funny thing is, if you are very attached to the idea of thinking yourself as the original, and not a mere copy, you can bet your ass that the "copy" thinks the exact same thing. Knives out, I say whoever bleeds out last is the original.

Also, this whole continuity argument is a cop-out, IMO. I fail to subjectively (which is the only way that matters) experience continuity every night, and somehow, I live with that.

Same, which is how I think mind upload could be achieved, by replacing our neurons by ones that are capable of interfacing with machines easily.

came here to say this, knew I'd be too late, take my upvote.

At the time of this comment, 47 voters are either dumb or trolling. Thinking that losing a single neuron means death is amazing.

Well we don’t know the full scope of what creates consciousness. Even if we replace our neurones synthetically, and copy every function they have so they they act as they would do if they were biological, there’s no telling what mechanisms could be lost in removing the underlying biological process itself.

For example, if consciousness is a byproduct of finely tuned entangled systems induced by our hormones and the many chemicals flooding our brain, then removing that and emulating the effect synthetically without the cause, may cause a collapse of consciousness.

I wouldn’t hedge my bets either way, but I think there’s a lot of room for discovery still, and it’s not as simple as merely synthesising the brain.

Exactly ! Thank you !

In my opinion you are not the brain itself, your brain is just a computation substrate indeed you are the information contained in said brain so as long as the information continues to evolve from one state to another independent of time or space between those you are living

That both hilarious to imagine and somehow very true.

Isn’t this the same thing as the Star Trek teleportation paradox? Problem is as you replace neurons it might get to a point where you’re no longer seeing out of your own eyes but there is an exact brain replica of you that’s going around walking and talking….. 🤔

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Theoretically it's the Ship of Theseus, but practically we have no damn clue beyond speculation.

Maybe changing mediums is actually simple and straightforward or maybe it's impossible.

Feel like you should never go full synth until they take over

if the neurons behave exactly the same, nothing has changed and nobody died.

>I believe it is possible to transfer consciousness in the way of replacing pieces of the brain which complicates the question of what is consciousness?

Consciousness can't be confused with brain itself. The brain has a bunch of things running that sum up to a consciousness kind of like Jenga, taking one brick away doesn't mean the whole tower collapses. In Jenga the tower is consciousness and the brain is all of the wood blocks that makes up the tower.

Consciousness is an emergency property of the brain, the tower is the emergent property of the wooden blocks. But obviously consciousness is alot more complicated than a tower.

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We need much more research before we can ethically proceed

I don't think they die, even if 100% replaced. However, I do not think they are made immortal either.

Let's not kid ourselves. Any system capable of replacing the human brain will need to be technologically complex. Can you imagine the system maintenance required to keep it working long term?

It's not going to last forever and the resources to keep it "alive" are going to be greater and more difficult to coordinate than those required by much of our existing technologies imo.

Consciousness is like a Jenga block tower.

I think the real problem is the human language definition of identity. Language fails to describe this because we really didn't develop the concept and we because had no need to for most of human history but this will change when start exploring the boundaries. Sort of like learning the world was round instead of flat but with human identity.

A consistent, seperate, lasting individual along linear time is already an utter illusion. So I'll say never.

Even 1 synthetic neuron?

Every time we talk about consciousness we have someone speaking the kookoo speak.

And this kookoo idea always uses the gaps of science to fill with nonsense. The gaps of science like quantum theory is more mundane than souls or whatever you're thinking. Energy in science is different from what you're thinking, it simply means the ability to get something moving.

You're missing the most obvious choice...it doesn't.

When windows start asking for a new license

No, many of your heart cells and neurons won’t ever be replaced. For the most part it is though.

I think there also needs to be spatial continuity, on top of the associative continuity. If you use such a nano-fabricator technology, you’re putting someone in a place that they never were, thus breaking continuity and meaning they are not the same person. On the other hand, if you just replace all the cells in your brain with artificial ones, there is still both associative and spatial continuity, so the end result is still you.

They probably don't know what a neuron is.

Pretty sure ASI would be able to figure out any problems we have with making a system last forever.

Couldn’t put it better. Continuity is a complete illusion

the biological brain is not consciousness.

"The Ship of Theseus" isn't silly, it's an excellent example of getting at the underlying question of what makes a thing, and where are the lines between the thing and the concept of the thing.

How can it be "The ship of Theseus", if there is no part which Theseus ever touched? If it's made of trees planted long after his death?

As soon as a single thing changes, it's no longer the same, by definition. Yet some argue that a thing can be more than the sum its parts.

There's a saying "you can never step in the same river twice". The water is constantly moving and changing, yet "the river" is there.

Personally, I'd say that it stopped being the ship of Theseus the moment Theseus lost ownership. It's just a ship. A ship is something that can be defined and exists in material space. Its qualities meet the specifications of "shipness". Being "the ship of Theseus" is a transiant fiction.

Who you and I are as people is defined by our memories and core processing algorithms, and those also change. I am not the five year-old me, the five year old me changed day by day to become who I am now. I am the river. It's the continuity and memory which make us "the same" despite change.

It's not silly if you insist on breaking up the world into neatly defined and demarcated "things." If, on the other hand, you see the world as one giant process, and all things within it as nothing but flexible concepts which are loosely attached to subsets of that process, then it is very silly.

Saying that the ship is no longer the same after a single plank changes is... I mean, you're technically correct, yes. But it really smacks of pedantry to me.

You are your brain, so you die as more is removed. I would call a 40% replacement a 40% death. It may be a seamless transition, yet dead you still are. The thing that is now experiencing life in your body could be a loving caring synthetic organism that genuinely thinks it's you, but it's not.

Came here to talk about the Ship of Theseus. Everybody already chatting about it lol

This is another example of the Ship of Theseus scenario. As long as there is continuity of consciousness there is no death just a slow transformation into a new beginning.

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They probably only have one neuron.

> There's no way to be sure your "consciousness" doesn't die every night and wake up as a new person who thinks they are you every morning.

Yes, omg!!! I was going to say something similar. Possibly the single biggest challenge to advancing the philosophy (or science) of consciousness, is the fact that people have such wildly differing ideas of what consciousness is. The fact is, our wakeful consciousness is dramatically compromised on a regular basis - sleep, general anesthesia, spacing out for a long time, etc. All we have to go on are memories, which obviously aren't the same as consciousness since memories can be stored on a hard drive with the power turned off.

I regularly think to myself, "this may be the first time I've ever been awake. My environment seems to match this brain's expectations, so this brain probably collected data on this environment in the past....but at the time, it could have been anyone's brain"

None of the above, my thoughts make me who I am

> There's no way to be sure your "consciousness" doesn't die every night and wake up as a new person who thinks they are you every morning.

and therefore no way to be sure any number of those don't wake up in a simulation etc. making any dreams of uploading the perceived continuous "you" moot as you could be already there

Bold of you to assume that the human brain is what make you human.

---Billions of non-human micro organisms living in the average human.

Total Synthetic Replacement - Immortality.

I don't know for an absolute fact, but I suspect that gradual replacement with the right types of synthetic neurons should allow your consciousness to exist in the new substrate.

As long as normal continuity of consciousnesses is preserved, it's just as similar as the replacement of the atoms of the body, which cycle every 5-10 years depending on a person's age. A normal person doesn't hold that they died every time an atom or even all the atoms in the brain or body as a whole is replaced either. Death at least in my opinion can be best described as the total and irreversible interruption of consciousness of a primary being. This for example precludes things like Star Trek teleporters or mind uploads being non-lethal or leading to individual immortality because in both instances they produce only a copy of the original being.

The cells themselves yes, but most of their atoms will be replaced as part of normal repair cycles.

So many options missed:

1. as mentioned Theseus ship - question has no answer
2. gradually along replacement
3. sometime after the procedure (no immortality, e.g. LED burn out, admittedly later than OLED, but still AFAIK do).
4. never as death in an illusion (it is not classic immortality IMO).

Yeah, there should be another option. If done gradually enough, you wouldn't be 'dead' in my mind—you'd just be different.

You die every night you go to sleep. Continuity of self is an illusion produced because of your memories.

Gradual replacement is not even needed, building a clone of you and killing the "original" you would have the same effect.

/thread

Well I don’t know now, I just don’t know

Those are the good ones too

>Saying that the ship is no longer the same after a single plank changes is... I mean, you're technically correct, yes. But it really smacks of pedantry to me.

It's not pedantry, it's literally the point of the thought experiment.

>It's not silly if you insist on breaking up the world into neatly defined and demarcated "things." If, on the other hand, you see the world as one giant process, and all things within it as nothing but flexible concepts which are loosely attached to subsets of that process, then it is very silly.

A process is a thing. The components of a process are a thing. A concept is a thing. Everything inherits from "thing", that's why it's called "everything ".

You are more agreeing with me than not.

It is pedantry. From my point of view, the thought experiment is silly and unnecessary. It is trying to explain something which is completely obvious, and which does not require an explanation.

I am aware that a process is a thing. I am also aware that there is only so much one can do with language. You are getting hung up on individual words and their literal, narrow definitions.

But whatever. I'm not going to try and convince you of anything, because I suspect we're coming at this from two incompatible paradigms. Peace.

Consciousness is non local so it doesn’t matter!

Gradual replacement seems viable, the new neurons need to be able to fully replicate the functions of the biological ones.

Consciousness is orthogonal to life and death however, so it's not a very good question. One can be alive and unconscious, so what's to say one cannot be dead and conscious, via artificial neurons or the like.

I'd say the pattern that is my "Soul" is not the brain. The brain is hardware. My personality is my operating system. I can add new skills and ideas, without dying. I can grow or change with updates. But I'm still the same OS. Extreme data changes might constitue death, but the analogy breaks down a bit here.

I wrote a short blog post about this concept using this exact analogy a while back, it's here for anyone interested. "Transhuman of Theseus"

That would be the last one

When the synthetic neurons stop working. This is assuming you define the individual by the continuity of their consciousness rather than some arbitrary substrate like neurons, since they get replaced over time with biological ones already.

Maybe it’s a spectrum, bro or sis. I already feel like I lost a bit of my soul, and I don’t have any brain replacement hardware.

The reason you think its pedantry is because you probably haven't actually given it proper thought.

How do you define the difference between a process, and a subprocesses. If you don't differentiate between a process and another process. Simply because they are the same larger process, then you are applying nihilistic concepts to answer questions

"The question doesn't matter, because in the end the ship is a linguistic trick and the collective parts that make up the ships never actually existed as a single entity but only as a process. Therefore it doesn't matter how much is replaced"

Well how about if you took the exact ship, and pulled it apart and used all the parts of the ship to create an entirely different ship, but contained all of the different parts and gave it a different name. Would said ship then still be called "The ship of Theseus"? what if you only used half of the planks, or what if you added all those parts in to another ship as replacement parts. Would it still be the same process?

How would your "view" differentiate between the process of our planet as a whole, and the individual human?

Its incredibly simple to expand your "definition" to say its just a part of the whole, and therefore there is no reason to engage because its obvious.. Well that uses the underlying qualities of nihilism to rebuke the fundamentals of the question "I don't think anything have intrinsic value, only what we subscribe to it" is the same thing as saying "I don't think the question have merit because its easy to answer, the boat was never a thing, it was always only the concept"

New neurons are created and integrated into the neuronal network during learning and memory formation

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-life-and-death-neuron

So there is an existing mechanism in the brain to accommodate changes, but we don’t understand how outright replacement would work since there isn’t an existing biological process to reference

Nah, I'm done.

I think it depends heavily on 'how' the synthetic neuron is replacing an existing one. If it's just dropped in there it seems like the that neuron and whatever memory or process it was part of is gone and there's just a new 'opportunity' for a connection to be made, but overall each percent of replacement is that percent 'not you' and is just a new 'thing'.

If, on the other hand, the artificial neuron is installed with the same sensitivity and precise reactivity as the existing one, so that any trigger that would have activated the original neuron results in the exact same outputs, then 100% replacement of the neurons is still 100% you. It may also be important that the new neuron also reacts to changes the same as the organic neuron would, so that repeated excitation results in the same type of strengthening of connections, etc. If not, every 'type' of difference is simply a continuous gradient of 'not you'.

​

If you change it gradually enough, i believe either type of change could be made imperceptible enough that it might still seem like 'you' just changed over time.

Dying every time you go to sleep is a wild exaggeration of the experience of consciousness primarily because your brain keeps working, it never actually 'stops' it just slows down. And the step of killing the original you isn't necessary in any way if you assume you've made a perfect copy with a good 'push' to get it going. Unless you think the soul is required, then a clone would just be 'another' you whether the original is dead or not. It would be interesting to see just how quickly the two copies deviated from each other, but more from a scientific standpoint of brain plasticity rather than an exercise in 'who it really who'. Even tiny differences in experience see likely to start deviating the continuing consciousness very quickly.

Cells of Theseus. Are the cells really the same if all of their constituent atoms have been replaced?

This is a really deep rabbit hole.

ship of theseus.

That's fake cuz i know im still me every time i wake up again idk about you guys

Consciousness is NOT an emergent property of the brain. You're stuck in the incorrect materialist paradigm. The brain, and everything else in the physical universe, emerges within consciousness. Consciousness itself doesn't "emerge." It's non-material, dimensionless, and eternal.

Consciousness is NOT an emergent property of the brain. You're stuck in the incorrect materialist paradigm. The brain, and everything else in the material universe, emerges within consciousness. Consciousness doesn't "emerge." It's eternal.

Quantify consciousness. Like, which quantum particles make it up? Where does it exist within the body?

this seems like like saying "I'm the center of the universe" that absolutely no one will take seriously. The universe doesn't emerge with consciousness, it has existed before I was born and will exist when the all the atoms in my body decay into something else..

Consciousness is NOT an emergent property of the brain. You're stuck in the incorrect materialist paradigm. The brain, and everything else in the material universe, emerges from within consciousness. Consciousness itself doesn't "emerge." It's eternal, dimensionless, and non-material. To quote the father of quantum physics, Max Planck, "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

Never. If the synthetic neurons are performing exactly the functions in the same way as "natural" neurons what's the difference?

I don't think replacing your brain with synthetic brain makes you dead.

if also done gradually, would the brain and thew new synth parts not adjust to each other?

I think it could be possible, but it won't result in true immortality. Everything dies eventually.

The hard problem of consciousness is still a problem though: we don't know how consciousness exists, but ironically it's the only "thing" we can now for sure exists, because we need "it" to ascertain the existence of anything.

Therefore, personally, I think consciousness is primary. I think reality itself started like an epic, untrained, chaotic neural network (I mean NN as a concept, not as physical neurons). Like a chaotic dream ("Vishnu's dream"). Consciousness by its nature seeks order and structure (kind of like the opposite force of entropy), because order brings comfort, happiness, and avoids pain. This is the mechanism that is like the "activation function" for training the NN.

This leads to increasing, fractal complexity. Ever more stable "consciousness structures" are recursively generated to train parts of the whole. Like dreams within dreams, and eventually, subrealities / simulations like this one, in which we have the experience of physical matter that seems very solid and unchanging (but isn't really, if we look at it closely).

So the physical body is like an avatar of a very tiny part of that larger consciousness system. If you change or destroy it, perhaps the mind content (thoughts, memories, personality, ... everything that makes you "you") will be gone (or absorbed in some archive, who knows), but the stream of consciousness will still be there. It will just change form.

Perhaps consciousness is just imagined.

I used to ghost/clone thousands of computers. Sounds like you're saying I can ghost your mind thousands of times and each one would be you.

I used to ghost/clone thousands of computers. Sounds like you're saying I can ghost your mind thousands of times and each one would be you.

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Maybe the universe is just a consciousness and we’re just living in it’s imagination, almost like a simulation but not quite.

So is it an illusion or a collection of memories? Collection of memories has non-illusory continuity after all (barring confabulations and the like).

You aren’t your flesh, you are a series of specific electrical and chemical interactions happening all the time. All you’d need to do is maintain this while replacing tissue.

What makes us who and what we are is a complex set of internal interactions.

Consciousness has no location or dimensions. It's non-material and eternal (therefore it can't be quantified). It's not an emergent property of any complex system. To quote the father of quantum physics, Max Planck, "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

You are so very wrong. Many people take the idealistic (non-materialistic view) very seriously. The father of quantum physics, Max Planck, certainly did. Erwin Schrödinger, another founding father of quantum physics, certainly did. They were geniuses. To quote Max Planck: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

When are you on the way to your destination? Every step of the way there.

Theseus: Just keep the parts you take off and you have TWO boats.

You can just put those synthetic neurons in a new box (skull shaped box) and end up with the original brain AND the synthetic copy.

Lets imagine this thought-experiment:

Imagine that you sit on a tractor-seat and gradually build a really advanced tractor around yourself. A tractor so advanced it can do everything all by itself, including what your brain can do. The tractor thinks in the way you think and has a copy of all your memories. When you step out of the completed tractor the tractor continues on its merry way. Your consciousness never went anywhere.

OR we could gradually hack off pieces of your body and brain, replacing them with tractor parts. Which would obviously lead to your death gradually, slightly more so with every step.

PS: And if anyone goes "but making a synthetic human isn't like this", yes it is, you just make the tractor parts in the shape of the farmer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/yxxlul/comment/iwu1p5k/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/yxxlul/comment/iwu1p5k/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/yxxlul/comment/iwu1p5k/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I keep having to reiterate this.

Wanna bet? https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/yxxlul/comment/iwu1p5k/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Which is absolutely wrong. Ship of Theseus is always wrongly presented, what if you just keep the original pieces and end up with two ships? I go through a better thought-experiment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/yxxlul/comment/iwu1p5k/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Just say you want that to be the case, nothing points towards that factually

If we expand our consciousness to a different medium, when do we die?

That is to say, if you expand your consciousness so that you are your biological part and machine part at the same time, then the biological part is removed, what happens?

Like if we see our mind as a house, what happens when you expand it to the size of a mansion?

And let's say that the brain is just an organ (at that point) and isn't responsible for 90% of what we call ourselves.

What happens then? If you remove it, would it be killing 10% of yourself or would it mean that you just die?

​

This shit gives me a headache. I'd rather wait for a superintelligence to figure this out...

The only reason it gives you a headache is because you aren't systematic about it.

How about you imagine it with a caravan instead of a brain.

If you add to a caravan, but then detach the original from the addition, and build a copy of the original in its place, then the original caravan never went anywhere. Did it?

I used to believe "continuity of consciousness" is what mattered, as you do. Where's continuity of consciousness when you've had a deep, dreamless sleep, or when you've been under anesthesia after surgery? Consciousness is the most fundamental layer of reality. It's not an emergent property of a sufficiently complex brain or mechanism. It's non-material, dimensionless, and eternal. The physical universe exists wholly within consciousness.

Everything points to what I said about consciousness being the case. You can't grasp what I said about consciousness because you're stuck in the failed and outmoded materialist paradigm. You may not be capable of shifting to the more enlightened idealistic paradigm.

Fuck I was about to comment that

Assuming that synthetic neurons would have the same properties and could seamlessly interact with our organic tissue, then it would not be death.

Our body is a ship of Theseus many times over, your cells function, die, and get replaced with new cells on and on.

Neuron replacement is different only so much that neurons typically do not get replaced once the brain is fully grown. But the process would be no different than the natural replacement of your blood every few days, the replacement of your skeleton every 15 years, or the replacement of your skin every few weeks.

Our thought patterns and electric signals would simply take over the synthetic neuronal cells as organic cells become a minority.

Unless of course, the argument is merely a rephrasing of the tech-phobic idea that somehow human-made things are inherently worse.

A lot of people with disabilities will also want to do this. Having a healthy functioning body after a life of immobility will be the primary reason for wanting to transition. Many older people who are alive when this technology is available will also want to transition. However, there will always be those who reject transitioning and that's their right. For me and my brother, we plan to transition because we want to travel to other worlds which isn't currently possible.

Yes. That being said, each one would immediately cease to be "me" and would become its own "me" upon coming into being. Each would think of itself as me, with my memories, and each would be right.

If it is not quantifiable or measurable in some way, then by empirical principles, it does not exist.

That argument relies on the assumption that the individual components of one’s consciousness cannot be replaced without gradually creating a new consciousness entirely (while destroying the original.) while you could be correct, the argument isn’t indescribably sound. Mine view point also makes non-concrete assumptions, but that doesn’t necessarily make either of us wrong (since so much is still unknown or unknowable)

So I could k1ll you then cause you'd still be alive.

The brain is known to lie to us. It's actually a fairly usual things for the brain to make-up or distort things in an effort to maintain consistency of thoughts, beliefs, and actions. You can easily observe an example by pointing out a person doing something they consider as against their stated beliefs, the brain in such case will make up anything to appear as if there never was any inconsistency. If a brain makes up false memories, a person will still act according to these memories as if they were real.

That would be awesome

It doesn’t ✌️

No. Because each copy would be a sentient being. This really is not complicated.

I'd do it for you but the licensing fees are too much.

Agreed but you've got it completely wrong.

Given replication crisis in psychology, I wouldn't be so sure about ubiquitousness of those lies.

The brain surely uses shortcuts that can be exploited in laboratory settings or by scammers (leaving aside malfunctions), but it is a bit different than lies.

The idealistic paradigm is unverifiable woo-woo fucking nonsense.

Metaphysics of Quality

depends on the form factor. if 0 - 10% is just an implant or headset, then you would definitely feel alive. but as more neurons get replaced, and the surgeries get more invasive, I think there would be existential crisis along the way. by the time 50-100% gets replaced, there's no guarantee of a containing that many neurons in the same skull cavity, and who knows, maybe ship of theseus immortality comes with immobility. you'll feel alive in VR, but at an existential cost.

>That argument relies on the assumption that the individual components of one’s consciousness cannot be replaced

No, the point is you can keep the original components, and end up with two consciousnesses.

Its hard to argue that your copy is your uploaded self when you, the original, is still there if you only kept the original parts instead of throwing them out with the trash. Isn't it?