Albert: “The little robot swims up to the neuron, surrounds it, scans it, learns to duplicate it, and then suddenly takes over the behavior, between one spike and the next. In fact, the imitation is so good, that your outward behavior is just the same as it would be if the brain were left undisturbed. Maybe not exactly the same, but the causal impact is much less than thermal noise at 310 Kelvin.”
I find this physically implausible. By behaviour you would have to include all interactions it has with mind altering substances (caffeine to acid), how it reacts to acceleration and lack of blood (e.g. seeing stars). You have to build new neurons and modify existing connections. To be as identical as makes no difference you would also have to imitate all possible brain affecting diseases, from CJD to Alzheimers. All while generating roughly the same electro magnetic radiation so that our brain waves are some what similar.
Let’s call that little robot a neuron, and build it out of protoplasm. How many ATOMS do we have to swap out before you aren’t you? When does this change have a more significant impact on you-ness than the jiggling of your brainmeats inside you car when you go over a speedbump?
Albert: “The little robot swims up to the neuron, surrounds it, scans it, learns to duplicate it, and then suddenly takes over the behavior, between one spike and the next. In fact, the imitation is so good, that your outward behavior is just the same as it would be if the brain were left undisturbed. Maybe not exactly the same, but the causal impact is much less than thermal noise at 310 Kelvin.”
I find this physically implausible. By behaviour you would have to include all interactions it has with mind altering substances (caffeine to acid), how it reacts to acceleration and lack of blood (e.g. seeing stars). You have to build new neurons and modify existing connections. To be as identical as makes no difference you would also have to imitate all possible brain affecting diseases, from CJD to Alzheimers. All while generating roughly the same electro magnetic radiation so that our brain waves are some what similar.
Let’s call that little robot a neuron, and build it out of protoplasm. How many ATOMS do we have to swap out before you aren’t you? When does this change have a more significant impact on you-ness than the jiggling of your brainmeats inside you car when you go over a speedbump?