Steven Seagal Asks For Vladimir Putin's Support in Immortality Research

[garbon]

The human brain, like all our other organs, isn't designed to last very long. And if it gets replaced, how are we still us?

You lack imagination.

[Ideologue]

The human brain, like all our other organs, isn't designed to last very long. And if it gets replaced, how are we still us?

Every neuron is unlikely to be replaced all at once.  If even 10% of your memory-encoding flesh was replaced every year, external memory (cybernetic systems ranging from electronic human memory storage, if possible, to more prosaic devices like a simple diary) would certainly provide enough continuity to establish identity between the current clump of matter and the previous one.

And in any event, it may be possible in principle to replace damaged memory encoding with not just functional neurons but identically structured neurons, faithfully reproducing the original memory trace so that even faded memory wouldn't be an objection.

[Tamas]

Yes but that would be a copy

[Slargos]

The human brain, like all our other organs, isn't designed to last very long. And if it gets replaced, how are we still us?

Every neuron is unlikely to be replaced all at once.  If even 10% of your memory-encoding flesh was replaced every year, external memory (cybernetic systems ranging from electronic human memory storage, if possible, to more prosaic devices like a simple diary) would certainly provide enough continuity to establish identity between the current clump of matter and the previous one.

And in any event, it may be possible in principle to replace damaged memory encoding with not just functional neurons but identically structured neurons, faithfully reproducing the original memory trace so that even faded memory wouldn't be an objection.

The issue is far more convoluted than that.

[Ideologue]

Yes but that would be a copy

So?  People are mostly copy anyway.

The issue is far more convoluted than that.

In what fashion?

[Slargos]

Yes but that would be a copy

So?  People are mostly copy anyway.

The issue is far more convoluted than that.

In what fashion?

Are you unaware of the controversy surrounding Teleportation [which in the matter of brain replacement would be analogous], the "Soul" and Self? Or have you simply already made up your mind?

[Ideologue]

Yes but that would be a copy

So?  People are mostly copy anyway.

The issue is far more convoluted than that.

In what fashion?

Are you unaware of the controversy surrounding Teleportation [which in the matter of brain replacement would be analogous], the "Soul" and Self? Or have you simply already made up your mind?

No, I'm aware.  I just wasn't sure if you were attacking the possibility of rebuilding neurons or--as has now been made clear--the ontological problem of identity.

I've made up my mind pretty well on that.  Identity does not really exist.  Take for example, reading this very sentence.  After reading this sentence, your brain will be in a different state than it was before it began.  Given the ubiquity of change, can we really ascribe absolute identity to anything?  We identify humans with their previous states only as a practical matter.  They are never really the same people from year to year, or moment to moment, and neither are we.

As for the ineffable soul, or self, it is a fleeting thing, which anyone can demonstrate to themselves just by being conscious: how much are you aware of right now?  That moment constitutes a physical limit to your "soul."  The continuity we feel is an illusion, although a useful one based on similarity, ongoing processes, and access to memory images of previous conscious experience.

So the brain is no different than Theseus' ship: we can, in principle, rebuild it with enough exactitude to pass our practical test of identity.

I regard the teleportation problem as a false problem.  We effectively teleport from moment to moment already.  It's weird and interesting to think of a death/rebirth cycle moving at several hundred hertz, but it's of no practical importance.

[Slargos]

A satisfying answer, even if I'm not necessarily in agreement. 

Edit: Although It's a very useful principle to apply to people, given that the function is while the building blocks of flesh and bone are replacable and as such any individual block is useless in itself other than as it fullfills the function.