Maybe it seems I'm being flippant, but I gave it quite a lot of thought. It's one of a recurrent themes of "rationalist" sci-fi, a genre I like very much.
> You'd have the hardware to run your person on, but you'd have no information on the full informational state stored by which circuits are firing, which are building up to fire, and how fast each one is building up.
You just include that in the brainscan.
> It would be "You" to itself.
Yes. And I think this is enough. Current me would be a stranger to me 20 years ago.
> How do you measure a successful reboot? What is your error tolerance?
There was a sci-fi story where people had backup chips in their brains that measured all activity and learned over years to simulate that activity. If the simulated and real activity agreed to 99.999% over a long period of time the biological brains were euthanized and the chip took over the body.
IMHO it's quite good standard for error tolerance. If all measurable effects are the same for a long period of time (let's say a year).
I'm not persuaded Pauli Exclusion Principle is making this impossible, it depends on how sensitive our brains are to quantum effects, and I don't think we have data one way or another (do correct me if I'm wrong).
It might be impossibly high standard, but even then - if my future decisions depend on quantum fluctuations that will be simulated differently on a different hardware - my current identity isn't built on these future decisions YET. If we're really throwing dice making some decisions - I don't consider these dice or these results to be part of my identity now. If I reverted time and got a different decision the second time - I'd still think of that person as me, just in a different mood.
As for disruption of society, economy, etc - sure, these are big concerns. But we're talking philosophy here, not sociology.
> You'd have the hardware to run your person on, but you'd have no information on the full informational state stored by which circuits are firing, which are building up to fire, and how fast each one is building up.
You just include that in the brainscan.
> It would be "You" to itself.
Yes. And I think this is enough. Current me would be a stranger to me 20 years ago.
> How do you measure a successful reboot? What is your error tolerance?
There was a sci-fi story where people had backup chips in their brains that measured all activity and learned over years to simulate that activity. If the simulated and real activity agreed to 99.999% over a long period of time the biological brains were euthanized and the chip took over the body.
IMHO it's quite good standard for error tolerance. If all measurable effects are the same for a long period of time (let's say a year).
I'm not persuaded Pauli Exclusion Principle is making this impossible, it depends on how sensitive our brains are to quantum effects, and I don't think we have data one way or another (do correct me if I'm wrong).
It might be impossibly high standard, but even then - if my future decisions depend on quantum fluctuations that will be simulated differently on a different hardware - my current identity isn't built on these future decisions YET. If we're really throwing dice making some decisions - I don't consider these dice or these results to be part of my identity now. If I reverted time and got a different decision the second time - I'd still think of that person as me, just in a different mood.
As for disruption of society, economy, etc - sure, these are big concerns. But we're talking philosophy here, not sociology.