this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 45 points 7 months ago (4 children)

A lot of people don't realize that a 'cut & paste' is actually a 'copy & delete'.

And guess what 'deleting' is in a consciousness upload?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I mean, if I die instantaneously and painlessly, and conciousness is seemingly continuous for the surviving copy, why would I care?

My conciousness might not continue but I lose consciousness every day. Someone exists who is me and lives their (my) life. I totally understand peoples aversion to death but I also don't see any difference to falling asleep and waking up. You lose consciousness, then a person who's lived your life and is you regains consciousness. Idk

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You make a good point. We all might be being copied and deleted in our sleep every night, for all we know.

There'd be no way to know anything even happened to you as long as your memory was copied over to the new address with the rest of you. It would be just a gap in time to us, like a dreamless sleep.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Old post but...if it's just memory, you'd lose ttauma and other ingrained coping mechanisms, no? There's no brain to try and fight back against things. Just memories making you...you...? Or not you, if you oose some of your behaviors?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Most people don't like the idea of a suicide machine.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah, and I completely understand that. Just from a logical perspective though, lets say the process happens after you fall asleep normally at night. If you can't tell it happened, does it matter? I've been really desensitized to the idea of dying through suicidal ideation throughout most of my life (much better now), so I'm able to look at it without the normal emotional aversion to it. If teleportation existed, via this same method, I don't think I'd have qualms about at least trying it. Certainly wouldn't expect other people to but to me I don't think it's that big a deal. I wouldn't do a mind upload scenario, but moreso due to a complete lack of trust in system maintenance and security, and a doubt that true conciousness can be achieved digitally. If it's flesh and blood to flesh and blood though? I'd definitely try

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

its the transporters all over again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

That's actually not true. When you cut/paste a file on your computer (for most computers), it's much faster than copying the file. Deleting the file is also not instant, so copy and delete should be the slowest of the three operations.

When you cut and paste a file, you're just renaming the file or updating the file database. It's different how that works depending on your file system, but it typically never involves rewriting much of the data of the file.

Edit: Fixed typo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Only if you copy and paste to the same disk. When copy pasting to a different disk, as any consciousness transfer would entail, it is very much actually copied and actually removed (from the index).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

when you copy/paste a file on your computer it’s much faster than copying the file

I think you meant ‘when you cut/paste a file’?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Oh yeah I did mean cut/paste, my bad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

It's all good as long as you're always on the better side of the coin flip.