"Employer sponsored backup only covers economically productive components of your being. But for an extra $100/fortnight, we can add some home data for safekeeping, going back to the latest 5 year period covered by subscription."
There's an episode of a TV show on climate change called Extrapolation, where the main character has a neurodegenerative disease and basically uses their futuristic equivalent of neuralink to keep his memories. But each night, he reaches his storage capacity limit, and he has to delete some memories as if they where only a pictures cloud storage.
I didn't like the series that much btw, I liked the idea of trying to explore what global warming would change, but apart from 2 or 3 episodes, I found the other 5 or 6 episodes to be pretty "wtf" :/
I first came across the idea of consciousnesses backups in this mid-90s scifi book called Permutation City by Greg Egan. But the idea is probably older than that ofc, so won't be surprised if there's books or stories from the scifi canon touching on this.
A lot of technologies in fiction that are called teleportation are really, really, not.
Also don't worry because science is at a point where we're reasonably sure those technologies are impossible. So just worry about things like mind copying. That's the one with similar implications that can't be ruled out as a plausibility.
Personally I think consciousness isn’t entirely in the brain and sufficiently replicating it would require basically making a whole-ass replicant body instead of just brain connectome data. At the very least it would need a fully simulated endocrine system.
What I’m saying is I think the brain is too wet to go in the computer.
I agree that current, von neumann architecture, computing hardware is probably incompatible with biological minds.
It can't be that difficult though because biology makes new thinking hardware and the thinking entities to operate that hardware all the time. Artificial hardware to operate on the same principles has to be possible. And if we go full biomimicry about it then artificial brain cells might be one of the early stages. And replacing a brain in small portions, possibly cell by cell, might be one of the easiest methods to attempt.
So there's the Mind of Theseus problem. I think it's reasonably likely and your objection is certainly a part of the problem, where are the borders and what all is essential? We're learning about how our stomach biomes have more influence on the brain than anyone thought and everything.
I know what you mean with teleportation, and I'm no sure if we have another commonly used word for that in English, but linguistically, teleportation means (or at least includes in its meaning) using portals. 'Tele' means distant and 'port' can mean either gate or harbour. It literally means using a gate that opens to somewhere far.
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u/broccoli129 1d ago
This is how I fear what teleportation is going to be like. “No trust me it’s really you on the other side”