I'm interested in this topic, but it seems to me that the entire scientific pursuit of copying the human brain is absurd from start to finish. Any attempt to do so should be met with criminal prosecution and immediate arrest of those involved. Attempting to copy the human brain or human consciousness is one of the biggest mistakes that can be made in the scientific field.

We must preserve three fundamental principles: * our integrity * our autonomy * our uniqueness

These three principles should form the basis of a list of laws worldwide that prohibit cloning or copying human consciousness in any form or format. This principle should be fundamental to any attempts to research or even try to make copies of human consciousness.

Just as human cloning was banned, we should also ban any attempts to interfere with human consciousness or copy it, whether partially or fully. This is immoral, wrong, and contradicts any values that we can call the values of our civilization.

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mpeg 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’m not an expert in the subject, but I wonder why you have such a strong view? IMHO if it was even possible to copy the human brain it would answer a lot of questions regarding our integrity, autonomy and uniqueness.

Those answers might be uncomfortable, but it feels like that’s not a reason to not pursue it.

	▲	throw_away723 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Those answers might be uncomfortable, but it feels like that’s not a reason to not pursue it. My problem with that is it is very likely that it will be misused. A good example of the possible misuses can be seen in the "White Christmas" episode of Black Mirror. It's one of the best episodes, and the one that haunts me the most.

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sedan_baklazhan 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wouldn't be surprised if in (n hundreds/thousands years) we find out that copying consciousness if fundamentally impossible (just like it's fundamentally impossible to copy an elementary particle).

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alfiedotwtf an hour ago | parent [-]

Elementary particles are suspiciously indistinguishable, so even if you could copy an electron, you wouldn't even be able to tell!

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

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bananaflag an hour ago | parent [-]

They meant this, which refers to copying the state of a particle into another (already existing) particle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem

And basically, about consciousness, what they said is true if our brain state fundamentally depends on quantum effects (which I personally don't believe, as I don't think evolution is sophisticated enough to make a quantum computer)

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sedan_baklazhan an hour ago | parent [-]

>as I don't think evolution is sophisticated enough to make a quantum computer

Well, evolution managed to make something that directly contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and creates more and more complicated structures (including living creatures as well as their creations), instead of happily dissolving in the Universe.

And this fact alone hasn't been explained yet.

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bananaflag an hour ago | parent [-]

https://www.sciencesnail.com/science/the-highly-ordered-natu...

	▲	sedan_baklazhan an hour ago \| parent [-]
		This is a bad explanation (or a non-explanation). 1. Why exactly life is attempting to build complex structures? 2. Why exactly life is evolving from primitive replicative molecules to more complex structures (which molecules on themselves are very complicated?) 3. Why and how did these extremely complicated replicative molecules form at all, from much more simple structures, to begin with?

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mrob an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Crazy that people are downvoting this. Copying a consciousness is about the most extreme violation of bodily autonomy possible. Certainly it should be banned. It's worse than e.g. building nuclear weapons, because there's no possible non-evil use for it. It's far worse than cloning humans because cloning only works on non-conscious embryos.

	▲	philipswood 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It might be one of the only reasonable-seeming ways to not die. I can see the appeal.

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echelon an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> Attempting to copy the human brain or human consciousness is one of the biggest mistakes that can be made in the scientific field.

This will be cool, and nobody will be able to stop it anyway.

We're all part of a resim right now for all we know. Our operators might be orbiting Gaia-BH3, harvesting the energy while living a billion lives per orbit.

Perhaps they embody you. Perhaps you're an NPC. Perhaps this history sim will jump the shark and turn into a zombie hellpacalypse simulator at any moment.

You'll have no authority to stop the future from reversing the light cone, replicating you with fidelity down to neurotransmitter flux, and doing whatever they want with you.

We have no ability to stop this. Bytes don't have rights. Especially if it's just sampling the past.

We're just bugs, as the literature meme says.

Speaking of bugs, at least we're not having eggs laid inside our carapaces. Unless the future decides that's our fate for today's resim. I'm just hoping to continue enjoying this chai I'm sipping. If this is real, anyway.