Epicmafia

Transferring Brains to Hard Drives

over 7 years

Obviously, if you scanned a brain's neurons and simulated them in a computer, you would only duplicate a human mind; the subject of the scan would have no cognizance in the copied brain.

However, what if this process was done slowly? That is, 1,000 brain cells were scanned at a time, destroyed, and then replaced with electronic components. Would the original brain assimilate the electronics or would it be an entirely different person?

Can human brains be converted into electronics while still being the same person?

Yes

somethingwhatever

over 7 years

this seems to be the whole if i build a new ship out of an old ship, but for human mind
google says the name for taht is Theseus's paradox

AmericanMafiaBernd

over 7 years

I think you take it too far, Obito.

Consciousness ties into how neurons relate to other neurons. When neural axioms tie themselves to different neurons, you're still the same person, since the rest of your brain has time to accept that change.

If half of your 100 billion neurons suddenly rearranged their axiom structure, I'd believe you would be a different person, but that doesn't happen.

ObitoSigma

over 7 years

Our perception of consciousness is independent of who we are.

The

over 7 years

It's a much more realistic thought experiment if you connect someone with a second, unused brain (real or artificial) and then disconnect them, creating two functioning consciousnesses from one.

ObitoSigma says

The person we are living as now is different from the person we were living as moments ago. We don't notice change. We are a different person every moment in time. Converting this into electronics would not be a different process.

And your theory falls apart in the face of dividing consciousness.

Through experiments with severing the corpus callosum we know that a brain areas can be partially isolated with interesting effects, but the higher level functioning we call consciousness still manages to create an illusion of unity. What we have yet to do is actually separate the areas of the brain that produce human-level consciousness.

ObitoSigma

over 7 years

The person we are living as now is different from the person we were living as moments ago. We don't notice change. We are a different person every moment in time. Converting this into electronics would not be a different process.

AmericanMafiaBernd

over 7 years

cub says