What is the perceived difference between falling asleep and waking up the next day, vs going to sleep and copying your consciousness to a machine/new body.
Some sleep is conscious (dreaming) but they’re easily forgotten. Perhaps being unconscious still always has a grain of consciousness (but is just forgotten).
It seems there is a grain of reduced experience while sleeping. Copying seems to imply it’s always a clone (a different ego, a different person).
The body. It’s feeding you vast amounts of information every moment, it’s the one making decisions, you’re the AI assistant providing analysis and advice
If you clone a tree, you get a similar tree. The branches aren’t in the same place. If you clone a human, why would the nerves be laid out the same way? Even if it’s wired up correctly, without a lifetime of cooperation why would your body take your advice?
Imagine you wake up. Red looks blue. Everything feels numb. The doctor says “everything looks good, why don’t you try to stand up?”. You want to cooperate with the doctor, but you don’t stand up. You could move, but you don’t. Rationalizing your choices, you tell the doctor you don’t feel like it. You feel your toes, you shift to get away from the prodding of your doctor, but you just can’t muster the will to stand
Imagine you wake up. Your sight is crystal clear, you feel your body like never before. The doctor says “don’t move yet”. With the self control of a child, you rip out the itchy IV to get the tape off of you. The doctor says something in a stem tone, and you’re filled with rage. You pummel the doctor, then are filled with regret and start to cry
Emerging science suggests this kind of situation could lead to brand new forms of existential horror
I agree.
But here is an interesting thing to think about:
What is the perceived difference between falling asleep and waking up the next day, vs going to sleep and copying your consciousness to a machine/new body.
Some sleep is conscious (dreaming) but they’re easily forgotten. Perhaps being unconscious still always has a grain of consciousness (but is just forgotten).
It seems there is a grain of reduced experience while sleeping. Copying seems to imply it’s always a clone (a different ego, a different person).
The body. It’s feeding you vast amounts of information every moment, it’s the one making decisions, you’re the AI assistant providing analysis and advice
If you clone a tree, you get a similar tree. The branches aren’t in the same place. If you clone a human, why would the nerves be laid out the same way? Even if it’s wired up correctly, without a lifetime of cooperation why would your body take your advice?
Imagine you wake up. Red looks blue. Everything feels numb. The doctor says “everything looks good, why don’t you try to stand up?”. You want to cooperate with the doctor, but you don’t stand up. You could move, but you don’t. Rationalizing your choices, you tell the doctor you don’t feel like it. You feel your toes, you shift to get away from the prodding of your doctor, but you just can’t muster the will to stand
Imagine you wake up. Your sight is crystal clear, you feel your body like never before. The doctor says “don’t move yet”. With the self control of a child, you rip out the itchy IV to get the tape off of you. The doctor says something in a stem tone, and you’re filled with rage. You pummel the doctor, then are filled with regret and start to cry
Emerging science suggests this kind of situation could lead to brand new forms of existential horror