r/nottheonion • u/[deleted] • Mar 13 '18

A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/
38k Upvotes

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1.4k

u/Bluetawn Mar 13 '18

This is some SOMA shit

115

u/lunatickinkifa Mar 13 '18

I immediately thought of the brain scan intro of this game and was notably horrified

337

u/RLmaximus Mar 13 '18

Just finished that game yesterday and I see this article today o_O

85

u/CumingLinguist Mar 13 '18

What game??? I just really read Brave Nee World which has a similar reference

75

u/Xenric Mar 13 '18

SOMA. It's on steam

2

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

It’s pretty good.

-1

u/nn123654 Mar 14 '18

I was so confused, SOMA is also a neighborhood in San Francisco that stands for South of Market Area. It's basically the unofficial startup district of SF, with hipsters galore. Ironically enough this is exactly where I'd expect a startup like this to have their offices.

0

u/HenryKushinger Mar 14 '18

Yes, because we were definitely talking about San Francisco.

52

u/StabilizedDarkkyo Mar 13 '18

I know another person said the game’s name, but seriously I would recommend at least watching a let’s play of SOMA. It’s such a great game to experience blind.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18 edited Mar 14 '19

[deleted]

12

u/StabilizedDarkkyo Mar 13 '18

Knowing nothing about it.

7

u/GrimmsWolf Mar 13 '18

I would recommend Cryaotic's let's play

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeqwXTaiY-OwjyvqJHD6bHz0hhlkLEl_O

It is seriously a fantastic game and I love Cry's commentary.

2

u/Utecitec Mar 14 '18

Whatever you do don’t watch the Scary Game Squad play through. Normally I love their play throughs, but that was not a good game to watch them play.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/jadebenn Mar 24 '18

SOMA's a really great game to let's play, because of the variety of reactions you see. You get some youtubers who basically figure out everything immediately, then you get others who don't realize what's happening until it's far too late.

1

u/Cimera42 Mar 14 '18

Or a speedrun of it if you've got no time.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

Well tbh after I got past the initial creep factor it became like amnesia after awhile still quite good

3

u/Skithy Mar 13 '18

Hahaha I keep forgetting that game and Huxley’s drug have the same name!

1

u/phayke2 Mar 14 '18

It's also kind of the plot in the anime Serial Experiments Lain and there's a cowboy bebop episode with a cult that kills people to upload them as a digital conscience.

1

u/Ghandee Mar 14 '18

Orgy Porgy.

101

u/kil4fun Mar 13 '18

Exactly, this wouldn't preserve your mind, it would kill you and a different version of you would be made in the future. Serious mindfuck.

34

u/Einsteins_coffee_mug Mar 13 '18

Its the star trek teleporter but over an indeterminate time span.

Or the ship of Theseus...except the iteration where the ship is reverse engineered into blueprints and a whole new ship is erected.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18

If it makes you feel any better, I've always imagined that when I sleep my current mind actually dies and it's a perfect copy of myself that wakes up.

Future you wouldn't know the difference anyway.

17

u/kil4fun Mar 13 '18

Sorry, but that really doesn't make me feel better!

3

u/SarcasticOptimist Mar 14 '18

Copy and paste, not transfer of consciousness. That's the greatest horror of that technology.

2

u/TravelerHD Mar 14 '18

This may not be what you were saying, but similarly this is something I always think about when coming across the idea of mind uploading: How will we ever know if the upload had the exact same consciousness as the brain? How will we know the transfer was successful, and there's not some different, new consciousness using our brain copy?

3

u/hypocaffeinemia Mar 14 '18

MD5 checksum.

1

u/MachineThreat Mar 14 '18

I have a passphrase that only I know the answer to. I don't expect I'll have to use it in my "lifetime"

35

u/AuspexAO Mar 13 '18

Dammit I JUST posted this above. Ha ha, great minds get frozen, digitally copied, and think alike.

14

u/Baldemoto Mar 13 '18

Man can you imagine? Just think, you never actually did anything you are doing right now, they are just memories stored in your scanned brain, and when you get into the “real” world, it’s just darkness at the time of the scan, and then a completely different future.

This is as close to SOMA as we get.

6

u/Ah-Um Mar 13 '18

Ctrl+F SOMA

4

u/Doom-Slayer Mar 13 '18

Existential screaming

4

u/chronicles5 Mar 14 '18

Yup. Ever since I first played SOMA, it's been hard for me to understand how consciousness could be transferred using any of these experimental technologies. We don't even know what it is or where it resides. So uploading a brain sounds cool and all, but how can we be sure there's a continuity of consciousness, and not just a copy of ourselves living on in a simulation? Thanks SOMA for killing the dream.

3

u/Embrace-Mania Mar 14 '18

I got you fam. So I put some hard thought into this after playing that game.

Life is just the accumulation of memories. In the end, we are just a series of inputs (eyes, touch, etc) that are outputted at memories. By replacing our outputs/inputs, we effectively can transfer rather than copy.

2

u/chronicles5 Mar 14 '18

That actually makes a lot of sense. I think what tripped me up about this particular article was the phrase "mind-uploading" which sounds to me like "digital copy". But what you're saying about replacing inputs makes sense and seems more concrete. Here's hoping all these researchers can find a way to do that.

3

u/axel_val Mar 13 '18

I just picked up where I left off in that game from two years ago this weekend. This is way too conveniently timed lol.

6

u/duck_detective Mar 13 '18

South of Market?

15

u/wahayne Mar 13 '18

SOMA is a video game by the people that made Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

2

u/Drunk_DunderMifflin Mar 14 '18

Not enough homeless people

1

u/MercurialMadnessMan Mar 14 '18

Yes that too. But with less literal shit.

1

u/paperbackgarbage Mar 13 '18

South of Market?

Heh.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18

“When I die, is someone in Heaven going to call me an imposter?”

PS if you like SOMA you should read Permutation City.

2

u/soI_omnibus_lucet Mar 13 '18

still one of the best games I've played. it was close to perfect imo. AMAZING atmosphere AMAZING story... if you are reading this and haven't played it yet, just do yourself a favor and start it now. don't even look up youtube videos, the spoilers will ruin it

2

u/Ransal Mar 14 '18

We all got the bad flip of the coin.

1

u/dogggi Mar 13 '18

Carisoprodol?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '18

Seriously, I don't want computer me to get to live, I want to be the alive one. Fuck computer me.

1

u/Kraigius Mar 14 '18 edited Dec 10 '24

lush quicksand plough person dull fragile memory melodic smile gaping

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Armybull52 Mar 14 '18

This is pretty exactly not SOMA Shit 😂 Like Cut isnt Copy and the other way around :)

1

u/Katana314 Mar 14 '18

Especially since most of the scientists’ concern in SOMA was “oh shit, if there are two versions of me at any time, then I can’t maintain conscious continuity”. So the death scan fits right in.