Entropy Rising

Cybernetics, Mind Uploading, and the End of Human Limitations | Entropy Rising Episode 4

• Jacob • Episode 4

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Join Jacob and Lucas in this episode of Entropy Rising as they explore the fascinating future of cybernetics and mind uploading. Imagine a world where brain implants boost your intelligence, robotic limbs move with your thoughts, and your consciousness can be transferred into a digital utopia. They discuss the benefits and risks of these groundbreaking technologies, including ethical questions about identity, control, and the price of immortality.

The conversation covers a wide range of topics, from the practical implications of cybernetic enhancements to the societal impact of a future where the lines between human and machine are increasingly blurred. Jacob and Lucas delve into the possibility of using neural implants to cure diseases, enhance cognitive abilities, and even eliminate social anxiety. But they also ponder the darker side: what happens when only the wealthy can afford these enhancements? How do we ensure these technologies are used ethically, without compromising our humanity?

As they imagine a future where mind uploading allows people to escape the limits of biology, they explore the philosophical question of what it means to truly exist. Is a digital copy of your mind still you? Could a consciousness living inside a machine ever be as authentic as a biological one? The hosts tackle these questions with humor and curiosity, offering different perspectives on the pros and cons of living in a cybernetic world.

The episode also touches on the concept of a digital afterlife, where people could theoretically live forever within a simulated environment. Jacob and Lucas discuss the potential for a utopian existence free from physical constraints, but also the potential for exploitation and control. What if an uploaded mind could be punished or manipulated? Would living forever truly be a blessing, or could it become a nightmare?

Tune in for an engaging discussion that blends futuristic speculation with humor, challenging you to think deeply about what comes next for humanity. Whether you're excited about the potential of technology to enhance our lives or wary of the risks involved, this episode of Entropy Rising will leave you with plenty to consider about the future of human evolution.

Website: https://www.entropy-rising.com/

Jacob:

Maybe there's certain laws that say if You know commit murder or something like that. We won't let you upload to the matrioshka brand and You're literally just denied an afterlife Or they say, okay, you can be uploaded, but there's going to be certain punishments and if you're an artificial uploaded consciousness, you can have suffering beyond belief Hello and welcome to Entropy Rising where we talk about science and futurism. I'm your host, Jacob, and I'm here with my co host, Lucas. Lucas, how are you doing?

Lucas:

I'm doing great, Jake. How are you doing today?

Jacob:

I'm doing good. I'm really looking forward to jumping into everything we have to talk about today. I did want to, real quick before we dive into the conversation, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's been following us over on threads. we're reaching almost 200 followers on threads, which is crazy.

Lucas:

Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you, everybody. That's awesome

Jacob:

Absolutely. And if you've been engaging on Threads, I've been the one that you're talking to. so if you want to carry on these conversations, Threads is a great place to do it. And if you've coming here from Threads, welcome to the show.

Lucas:

Yeah, welcome.

Jacob:

And last thing is just thank you to everyone who's been following the show. We've gotten a few subscribers on YouTube and some followers on Spotify. So if that's you, you know, we really appreciate it. And we're glad you're following along to hear what we have to say.

Lucas:

Yeah, it means the world to us.

Jacob:

Alright, let's not delay the conversation though. this week we have some interesting topics. I know you specifically really wanted to talk about cybernetics. Yeah. And I saw your list of notes. I'm excited to hear what you have to say about it.

Lucas:

Absolutely. Yeah, I just wanted to dive into, the bizarre world of, cybernetics. Get into it a little bit, how it's changing our lives, where it might take us in the future. And, just imagine a world where, you can be wired to the internet or, upload yourself into something or, modify your body in some way.

Jacob:

For anyone who's unaware, can you give like a quick, rundown of what exactly is cybernetics? Like a working definition for it?

Lucas:

Absolutely. let's break it down, right? Cybernetics is the study of systems that manage and control information. The term was first coined by Norbert Weiner. In the 1940s, and it's all about understanding how systems, whether biological or mechanical communicate and regulate themselves. In the case of cybernetics and enhancements, we're talking about connecting the human body with machines in a way that allow for real time feedback. That means devices like brain implants, exoskeletons, even prosthetic limbs. That could communicate with the nervous system, making us more efficient and capable.

Jacob:

That makes sense. when I think of cybernetics, I do specifically think of, like the nervous system, like brain implants. I guess also prosthetics, but more about how they connect to our nervous system.

Lucas:

Yeah, absolutely. That's the difference between just having a plastic leg or having something that has tactile feel and that you can move around using your brain. That's what separates those two.

Jacob:

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Lucas:

so I just want you to imagine this, right? it's the near future. you've gone through a procedure to have a neural implant installed. The idea is that you'll be able to enhance your cognitive abilities, improve memory. Process information faster and even connect to the internet directly with your thoughts. But then things start to get a little bit too connected.

Jacob:

Yeah.

Lucas:

So at first everything works great. You're more productive. You're learning faster and you feel like you're finally on top of your game. But then one day your implant starts doing things on its own. Sending messages, accessing data, even controlling your body in subtle ways. Like suddenly your hands are typing out emails when you're not even thinking about it. And it's like you have a mind of its own. And you're not sure if you should be impressed or terrified.

Jacob:

Okay, so you're making like a hypothetical situation where I guess like the implant starts, taking patterns of your own behavior and maybe overlaying them over your, before you're even planning on doing it.

Lucas:

Right? Because that would be what is putting essentially another brain In your brain would do.

Jacob:

it makes sense. I know there's a tick tocker. he has a cybernetic leg and he talks about how it literally uses machine learning to learn his gate and learn how he walks and it predicts how it should swing out and stuff just based on this training data.

Lucas:

Yeah. that's crazy to think about, but it is like now. We're creating these things, you know, you have neural link that's coming out that they're having advancements and that's being able to help people who weren't able to control their limbs before they, connected to your brain and directly to your nervous system. And suddenly using a connection between those two, you're able to manipulate your body once more. using that connection instead of your actual nervous system,

Jacob:

I really do think that's going to be the true melding of the virtual and technological world with the biological.

Lucas:

Absolutely. so here's where things about cybernetics start to get, pretty interesting. So you imagine a future where everybody has access to cybernetic enhancements. Suddenly you're not learning things like reading books or watching tutorials. You're downloading information directly into your brain. You need to learn a new language for a trip. Boom. You got it.

Jacob:

now that sounds nice in and of itself.

Lucas:

Yeah. but the list can go on and on with what you can do, right? You want to ace a big presentation done. You can learn how to do public speaking. You can have it completely take over, get rid of all that social anxiety. You can have it pump different hormones or stimulants into your body, whatever you would need. To be able to perform that action at a hundred percent efficiency.

Jacob:

that would also cure a lot of mental illness.

Lucas:

Absolutely. you could have it to where it regulates, everything in your body, you want to be a lower weight, you want to be more muscular. you want to be able to go out and be more charismatic, everything except for your appearance. and even that can be modified in the future, but that's a different topic. But, uh, cybernetics can essentially do that for you.

Jacob:

That's crazy. Cause I really only thought about it in terms of just a brain computer interface, not changing other aspects of how your body functions.

Lucas:

Yeah. it really is a crazy. world to think about, where whatever problem you could be facing mentally, you can overcome that. And then of course there is the physical people who have disabilities or. who have, lost limbs from certain things, they can be replaced with machines that, link up with your brain and it can be seamless, the transition between the two.

Jacob:

the biggest one I think of is like paralysis, which we saw the first patient who received a neuro link implant, was quadriplegic. And that, I can't imagine the quality of life improvement that has to be.

Lucas:

it has to be incredible. It's hard to think about. What it would be like to not be able to use your limbs, to not be able to use your legs or your arms, and essentially just be trapped in your head. And then, it's unfathomable to think about what it would be like to get that back after that time.

Jacob:

Yeah, even just a basal level of connection, to be able to control a computer again, it's just huge.

Lucas:

It absolutely is.

Jacob:

I guess one of my biggest questions, something we've touched on a little bit on the show, is how is that going to affect society if everyone has access to this technology?

Lucas:

It's a great question. So picture this, right? Your implant connects to a vast network of data. And in the middle of a conversation, you're able to pull up the history of the topic you're discussing, every scientific fact, every famous quote, every counterpoint, and then what happens to the value of human creativity, right? Do we lose the need for independent thought if all the knowledge we could ever need is always available in our heads?

Jacob:

Ooh, this is actually reminding me, I don't if I feel like I bring this author up every single episode, but Alistair Reynolds. there's a subset of humanity in his, revelation space novels called the ca joiners, who essentially have brain to brain connection, and they're interconnected in this hive of humanity, and they can share entire concepts to each other. They don't use, they think talking is too slow. They can basically just beam an entire concept to someone else. Yeah.

Lucas:

like thinking about that, will we lose part of ourselves, And doing that, cause that sounds amazing at first, but it's almost like a similar thing with, shorts, like it's just skipping stuff or not really skipping, but just compressing right. Information being able to send that to each other and just immediately have that you sort of lose the. the feeling that you get with having an in depth

Jacob:

conversation with somebody, or is it going to be more in depth? something that they explore in that same book series is that they feel like talking to somebody, you can't convey the same depth of knowledge and experience that you can through this direct brain to brain connection, because I'm not just sending you my words. I can send you my thoughts, my emotions, my point of view on a topic. So maybe it'll allow for even better communication. It

Lucas:

definitely could. I mean, going in the opposite direction, people have always said that a lot of times, when you're having a conversation with someone and it's really emotional, I myself, I get lost with words, right? They can't convey how I'm feeling. So you're right. It can go in the other direction and really create an even stronger connection through that conversation or whatever we would call it. the sharing of that concept, but that is a very interesting idea. and on the flip side, right now, think about the job market. A cybernetic enhancement becomes more widespread. The bar for what's considered normal might shift. If someone has a cognitive implant that lets them learn complex tasks instantly, suddenly it's not about who can learn the fastest. But who can think the most critically or innovatively? Cybernetics would level the playing field in some ways, but it could also create an even more competitive society. If you're not enhanced, do you fall behind?

Jacob:

That is a fair point. I mean, this is kind of the same ethical dilemma that comes up with things like gene editing. if you have the money to make your offspring have better genes so they can perform better, that gives them an unfair advantage in life. And especially with cybernetics, if presumably when this is a new technology, it is going to be fairly expensive. So if I can pay to have a competitive advantage to you, that's, yeah, that's, there's a lot of ethical dilemmas there.

Lucas:

Absolutely. I feel like the only way that it would really be You know, acceptable as if it was available to everyone. Yeah,

Jacob:

but it's going to be expensive at first. I imagine, of course, maybe a long way down the road cybernetics are considered A normal thing everyone has access to them But I feel like even then there's a potential that you might have, you know The b grade cybernetics and I might have the more expensive ones that allow Maybe faster cognitive ability, I can reason faster than you gives me a wider access to information, or maybe I can retrieve that information at a faster rate than you and still gives me a competitive edge.

Lucas:

I feel like there has to be that competitive edge. There has to be something that people are driving. To push forward, to be able to, one up the guy next to you. I feel like that is, although, it's cruel to the people that aren't at that top level. It's needed in a society to be able to drive people.

Jacob:

But I feel like, in our society, that drive is it more or less levels the playing field and you might have more money than me, but I can still. Study math, study physics, and, I'll perform you if I really, dive into it, or at least there's this thought that I can. But with cybernetics, you can literally just pay to be smarter than me. Yeah! Yeah! If I don't have the money, and there's nothing I can, it doesn't matter how much studying I can do, if you can pay to think twice as fast as I can.

Lucas:

maybe the first ones that come out, like the first cybernetic implants, they'll be on a lower level, but that'll advance quickly. And that gap between what they can and can't do will become smaller and smaller.

Jacob:

That is true. I mean, over the course of hundreds of years, presumably, it'll be almost like smartphones, or even some basic model smartphones. They'll do all the things a new one can do. I imagine with cybernetics, it'll probably be a similar trend.

Lucas:

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, talking about the future, let's say everyone is walking around with some form of neural implant. This can mean that your brain is, constantly analyzing emotions, behaviors, and even interactions with other people, which is crazy. Yeah, that

Jacob:

is kind of wild to think about.

Lucas:

think about how that might change dating, right? Let's say that you're out with someone and they're wearing a neural interface too. They can literally read your emotions. And in turn, you can read theirs. Every awkward pause or unspoken thought would be laid bare.

Jacob:

Yeah. I feel like you would almost need to have some sort of neural, block. a certain level that people just can't see into without you granting it permission, almost like with like iPhones, right? You can, turn off read receipts. I feel like you would need that for your, your implants. So people can't see certain levels of your emotion or something.

Lucas:

Absolutely. I mean, especially talking about like with people that you're trying to court, right, in a way it would almost be the polite thing to do in the future is allow for someone to have that. I don't want to say shame, but that privacy of emotion. Yeah,

Jacob:

exactly. That might be the sign of a trusting relationship is like, Oh yeah, I don't, he doesn't share his emotion with me. Not like in the toxic way that happens today, but like on a literal level of no, he, that's blocked off. I can't just read his mind. I actually have to ask him what's going on. Yeah. But that also does open the door to a lot of, potential, abuse situations, if you force somebody to have their mind laid bare to you, so you can see every single thought, how could they even think about trying to escape that situation? And not only on the domestic front, but even in a corporate world, what if your employer forces you to keep a certain level of that open to them? So they know maybe even as soon as you know, that you want to leave that job. Yeah.

Lucas:

I mean that ties into what, some people view as could be dystopian.

Jacob:

I, yeah, that definitely could be dystopian and it might be necessary that, Even if these technologies can allow that level of depth and understanding, the manufacturer might have to lock that off because even giving people the option to do that, if they personally would want to, could put other people in such an awkward position that it's just like, we're just going to lock that off and let no one have it.

Lucas:

Yeah. I mean, just imagine the stress that you would feel going into a date or a workplace and you're like, okay, my entire self. is on display immediately, the anxiety would be crazy. But then of course, you could have a cybernetic implant that reduces your anxiety.

Jacob:

Yeah. at

Lucas:

that

Jacob:

point

Lucas:

though, how much of that is still you? Exactly. Exactly. It's almost like you, you are trading your humanity. For, being what society views is better.

Jacob:

I will say if you like this topic, you really should consider reading the revelation space series, specifically the parts of that have to do with the conjoiners, because that's all their society is the super connected hive mind, almost you still function as an individual within that society. But there is this almost layer above the corporeal world where it's just like this web of thought and experience. And, the conjoiners in this book, that's the name for the people in the society, they do not do well by themselves. They need to be connected to this. It almost be like taking someone, like a kid today and getting rid of the internet, but times a hundred, they feel very disconnected and isolated. And, I love the way this author does stuff because it sounds very dystopian and very much like the Borg from Star Trek, but by all accounts, anyone who enters into this subset of humanity loves it. And it never wants to go back.

Lucas:

Yeah, but is it still them? If they'd entered in? That is

Jacob:

the open question in the book. It's can I trust that to still be you? Because your mind's connected to everyone else all the time.

Lucas:

Yeah, it reminds me of of a book I read. I can't remember the title of it. But it's essentially when you turn 16. you go and you're made beautiful. there's a surgery that you get to be beautiful and pretty much the struggle between the book is that to become beautiful, they essentially cut out a part of you, like your cognitive thinking. it was really interesting cause it relates to this a lot. Now, of course for them it was physical beauty, but it's the same idea. You would be losing a piece of yourself to be able to join in on a gestalt consciousness.

Jacob:

Yeah, exactly. I, for one would probably do it.

Lucas:

Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, just because I'm a huge tech buff, like I bring it on. Yeah, exactly. But I can definitely see where it would. make me sad to lose that piece of myself. But at the same time, once you're there, it doesn't matter. It's the same thing. Like when you're dead, Yeah. We don't want to die, but when you're dead, it doesn't matter.

Jacob:

And would you be sad? Cause you can take the influence can make you happy. So I guess that's the hypothetical question. It's a little philosophical, but would you rather be sad, but no, that's true sadness in your true self, or just be happy and live in bliss, but. have the notion, that's not truly you.

Lucas:

that's hard, right? Because, because it's, is it

Jacob:

me? I'm going to take being happy. I don't see the downside.

Lucas:

Yeah. but is it you really being happy anymore? Imagine not being able to have your individual thought. Yeah.

Jacob:

Now that's yeah, that's another

Lucas:

level of extreme, but right. but I do under, I would definitely take blissful happiness, especially if it could be for everyone, because there's a lot more people in this world that are miserable than the. Happy, right? if us all being happy, but losing a little bit of ourselves, I feel like that would be something that's worth it to get rid of all that misery. But if it's selective. I don't know how it would react. I it's a hard question to ponder.

Jacob:

That's true. I think we've gone a little off the rails though, from cybernetics, maybe.

Lucas:

Yeah, we did. okay. So let's go into the ethics of cybernetics.

Jacob:

Yeah.

Lucas:

so getting serious for a second. One of the biggest concerns with the rise of cybernetics is the ethics behind it. What happens when only the wealthy can afford brain implants or body enhancements? You're already starting to see the divide in things like access to healthcare and education. Could cybernetic enhancements become another tool for the rich to get ahead? Leaving the rest of society behind. So touching on that, and then there's the issue of consent, right? If everybody's getting upgrades, how do we decide what's too much?

Jacob:

Okay. when you say consent, I assume if everyone's getting upgrades, do they not have the option?

Lucas:

is it okay to enhance someone's brain to the point where they lose their own sense of identity? What happens, when AI starts to take over decisions, making for people, we're entering a world where the lines between humanity and technology are going to get blurred, and fast.

Jacob:

I got you. when it comes to, you're talking about the consent side of it, I feel like a person needs to have control over the cybernetics they have. But imagine a world, where you, you come out. And you get an implant, you're saying. this is not happening in your lifetime. This is already, the transition to cybernext has already happened. You're born into this world and it's, it just gets put into you at a young age. Exactly. Like it just happened. It's

Lucas:

like at age five, you get your first implant to be able to communicate with your friends.

Jacob:

Makes me think about kind of social media now, where you have kids who are getting social media accounts made for them at a young age and they grow up with it.

Lucas:

Yeah, you can definitely see it that way, right? And those kids could be more socially adept or it could be worse off. We really don't know yet, but the kids with cybernetic implants, they're going to be ahead in school, right? They're going to be ahead socially because they can communicate better. They'll be able to start reading emotions better. there'll be better at public speaking. So is it really a choice or do you have to do that for your child just that they can make it in the world?

Jacob:

I can say, yeah, that's a huge ethical question. It's not just going to be for children. It's going to be for people. It's almost like having a smartphone today. I can opt not to be on the internet and have a smartphone, but I'm not going to be able to get a job, but times 10, because now we're talking about an invasive, piece of technology that's going to be incorporated into your brain. So you. Ethically, if you have the option not to opt into this technology, but it ostracizes you from society, is that really an option? I don't think that's an option. I mean, yeah, it's not,

Lucas:

but that, again is I think that's an ethical issue, right? Because at that point, then why not just put the implants into the embryos?

Jacob:

Yeah.

Lucas:

like just have the machine grow within because it could be. like a biomass that is essentially an implant that programmed to grow in a certain way and accept the implant and build onto it,

Jacob:

funny enough, as the extreme option, that might be the more egalitarian option if everyone's got it and then no one had to say so, maybe that's just the way to go. I say, you know what, Let's remove the ethics of choice and just say everyone gets it and everyone gets the same one. We're all on the same level. We all get to enjoy this blissful happiness. Is it you? What does it matter? What was you without this if you've had it since an embryo anyways?

Lucas:

Yeah, but that's how ethics is, right? It never matters for the People that are going into it, it matters for the people making the decisions to do that. So for us not growing up with those implants and people, fearing what that could be like, how their offspring will no longer be like them in a way they're going to live a completely different life. it's hard to make that decision and that's where those ethics really come in because for those people who a hundred years in the future have already been, they're the fifth, sixth generation that has had this happen to them. It's not going to matter to them because that's what they know now.

Jacob:

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I don't have an ethical answer for that.

Lucas:

Yeah, it's hard, right? But it could be the future, right? It could be, like you said, the egalitarian way, offering that to everybody might be better than it being a selective choice for only the rich. Yeah. Only the people that feel like they deserve

Jacob:

it. Because that is the issue I have. This is just going to benefit rich people and widen the gap between the haves and the have nots.

Lucas:

realistically, I just don't see a future. I see a future where everybody might have them. But the rich will always have it.

Jacob:

Yeah, seems to be the case.

Lucas:

Yeah. All right. So, um, you know, pretty much, the future of cybernetics, it's exciting, a little, unnerving, but we could all be walking around with enhancements that make us faster, smarter, healthier, maybe even more emotionally intelligent, right? But let's face it, none of us are ready for the day when our toaster starts, offering, unsolicited relationship advice.

Jacob:

Hey, as long as it's good advice. I guess so. Yeah. Um, well, something I think that is closely related to cybernetics, and we've definitely already touched on small parts of it in the earlier discussion, is going to be the idea of mind uploading.

Lucas:

Oh yeah. I know that you were excited about that.

Jacob:

Yeah. it's almost like taking cybernetics, I think, to its logical extreme. It's not just augmenting the human brain with technology. It's running the human brain on technology.

Lucas:

Now, when you say running the human brain on technology, can you give me a little bit of an in depth thought of how that would work?

Jacob:

yeah, absolutely. Actually, before we go into the mechanics of it though, one of the, I feel like elephants in the room that we should, discuss with mind uploading is actually a little bit of the philosophy behind it. I don't want to dive into this too much, but I actually did run a poll on our threads asking if you upload your brain to a computer, is that still you? And it seemed like a, an open question. Overwhelming majority of the people said that is not you anymore, that is a copy of you. And I definitely get why people feel like that, and in many ways I feel like that too. So I think, I just want to dispel this notion of, you see it in science fiction all the time, you put on a cap, you download your brain into a computer, and now, you can live on forever in this technological utopia. That's realistically not going to be how this works, because if you try to upload a copy of your brain onto a computer, I don't think that's you anymore.

Lucas:

So what if you were to do that, but there was no longer like you and your body?

Jacob:

Yeah. So it's the idea of if you upload a copy in your brain, but the upload process kills the original, you know? Okay, so, at that point, you know, it's almost like the Star Trek, teleporter, thing. Isn't that still you? for all intents and purposes, sure, you could call that you, but I still think it's the same thing as, the you and your body dying so that another version of you can live on. Now, if that's the only option, I could see people opting for that at the end of their natural lives anyways, but I don't think many people are going to be able to do that in their twenties, right?

Lucas:

no, because it would still be, it would be scary because in a way you're dying and you're just crossing your fingers open, man, whatever consciousness is that transferred over.

Jacob:

Yeah, exactly. So I feel like the only way people are opting for that is if they're already dying. Anyways, if you're, at the end of your natural lifespan, you don't have long to live at that point. Sure. Whatever. You can upload my brain at the computer, even if it kills me, because, Let's just hope this gives me something right now, but I do want to, compare that to something, Alistair Reynolds covers this in a great novel called house of sons. There's a character in this book who through cybernetics, he slowly augments his brain over time. into being basically a computer. And it happens over the course of 50, 60 years, and the book goes on to say almost neuron by neuron level, where, over his life he eventually just becomes a computer. His brain is goes from being organic to 100 percent cybernetic, and at that point he's able to transfer his consciousness around, but the key aspect of this version of mind uploading is he has a continuous stream of consciousness. There's never this one point where he gets uploaded to a computer. It happens slowly over a long period of time. It's like a brain of Theseus.

Lucas:

Yeah. It's, so you're slowly taking out little pieces, putting them back in. replacing them with components that can take over that part of the brain. that is interesting, but it's hard to think about because you can also just think that at one point when he took out one of those pieces and put it back in, that's when he died.

Jacob:

Yeah, I see. I disagree. I think at that point it really is you. I mean, there's no difference because at that point you might argue somebody who gets even like a tiny concussion and a single neuron dies. You're not going to say that's not them anymore. So what's the difference if you replace that neuron with an artificial neuron that does the exact same thing

Lucas:

It's just the whole thought of what is consciousness, right? that, that causes issues, going from there. But I'd definitely be more comfortable with doing it that way, but it's still the same end result. So why would the. why would it be different?

Jacob:

I think it's the continuity of consciousness. Okay. You're never going to sleep and then hoping another version of you wakes up. You're there for the whole process.

Lucas:

that, that is really cool to think about, but it also makes me feel like I would have just as much faith was with a complete upload because it's going into the, it's all becoming the same thing. You're completely replacing your brain with a machine. It's just one of them. Like you said, you never broke consciousness, but. Who's to say that I, wouldn't open my eyes and still be me inside of the, machine brain that was completely. recreated. Does that make sense?

Jacob:

Yeah. But I think people would feel a lot more comfortable.

Lucas:

Oh, absolutely.

Jacob:

I would 100

Lucas:

percent over 60 years. I just get to make my brain a mortal. Yeah. And

Jacob:

by the end of it, you're an uploaded artificial consciousness. yeah. That would be cool. I love that solution to the problem because I feel like that is the best of both worlds. You get to live on forever as an artificial consciousness, but you're not really as much bringing in the question of, is that still you? There's still some questions, sure, but I think to a lot more people, it feels like a satisfying answer. I still can see that being me. I personally can still see that being me.

Lucas:

Yeah, absolutely. So how would that work? what would the architecture of a brain like that be?

Jacob:

Yeah. one, one quick note is when we're talking about the architecture of the brain is that Even if you can design a more efficient way for a brain to run on a computer, you might opt for a less efficient way that mimics biology, or mimics the current way our brain is set up with the neural pathways, just to keep it still being you, in some ways. And as for where we're going to run these things, there's a couple of options, but one that I particularly love is the concept of a matrioshka brain. Have you ever heard of that? Are you familiar with that at all? I have heard of it, but, what does that end up? Yeah. Just to make sure that everyone's on the same page. a matryoshka brain is basically if you take a Dyson swarm. And to those who don't know, a Dyson swarm is essentially a bunch of solar collectors that you can put in orbit around a star that will collect all that energy of a star. And at that point, it's a Dyson swarm. If it connects all that energy, or even if it collects a percentage of that energy, we can still say it's a partial Dyson swarm. What makes it a Matrioshka brain is if you then use all of that collected energy just to run a Dyson swarm. a computer simulation for artificial uploaded intelligences. Now you've got two options. one of the crazy options is if you can use all that energy in the matriarchs brain to run a single, intelligence and have a really super intelligent AI, or you could potentially use all that computational power to run multiple human level intelligences and multiples doing a lot of work there because you could potentially do quadrillions of uploaded consciousness with this much energy and that much computational power.

Lucas:

Yeah, it's almost like you can create an entire galaxy of simulated events.

Jacob:

Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, you can have just in one star quadrillions of uploaded consciousness, all in the mantriuska brain, all uploaded.

Lucas:

so why would we do that instead of having them running on Earth?

Jacob:

Yeah, no, that's a great point. one of the ones that I think is the most obvious is just energy. there's a lot more energy in our star than on Earth. So being able to harness the full energy of the star is just gonna You can run more people. you can also potentially see this as a way to preserve the Earth. Do you really want to turn the Earth into a giant planet? to run artificial intelligences, maybe if there's no biological beings left, but, I think it's much more likely you want to get them off of Earth so that Earth can stay a pristine thing for the biological, and you can have the technological civilization running, in the cloud, so to speak. And a final thing, and this is the one that I think is the most important, is by distributing the consciousness through, what we hundreds of millions of orbital satellites that are orbiting the, star. You are giving a failsafe of sorts. You don't need to worry about an asteroid coming in and taking out the planet and killing quadrillions of people, Sure, you might have some satellites fail, but as long as you're not running a single consciousness on only one satellite, it's safe. you could potentially spread a consciousness out over hundreds or even thousands of satellites of these orbital, installations. That way, even losing one or two nodes isn't going to kill you as an uploaded consciousness.

Lucas:

It would almost be like creating them as neurons.

Jacob:

Yeah, exactly. the only catch to doing a distributed model of consciousness like that is the the speed of your thoughts is going to slow down depending on how many nodes you try to incorporate, just due to light delay. if you try to spread your consciousness out on every single node of a Dyson swarm, a single thought for you might take hundreds, even thousands of years in real time. vice versa though, if you can concentrate your consciousness into a single node, you might be able to experience subjective hundreds of years in a second.

Lucas:

Yeah, but if, if that's what's happening to quadrillions of people's consciousness, and that's what they're experiencing, and it's more efficient and safer to do it that way, it wouldn't be like experiencing that for you because your thoughts would be your thoughts. So it's just in the, in the universe, they're taking 100 years to have a thought. Instead of one, but that doesn't matter to you anymore.

Jacob:

True. But you could still see situations. potentially, if you have a whole society of uploaded consciousness, if I need to think faster than you, then I might have to bring my consciousness a little more to bring your

Lucas:

satellites closer together

Jacob:

maybe not physically move the satellites, but move the data closer together and make sure that I'm only occupying satellites that are within a certain sphere of influence of each other.

Lucas:

Yeah. It's I want this hexagon of satellites here so that I can bounce my ideas around, within six months instead of 10 years. Exactly. And see the rich can still have their spot. yeah.

Jacob:

I could potentially see a situation, if you have a Dyson swarm matrioshka brain, where the rich, or those who have more material resources, are able to occupy the satellites that are closer to the star, which gives them more energy, lets them run their, it's called frame jacking, lets them run their simulated experiences at a much higher frame rate, so they can experience much more time. relative to, let's just call it standard time, the galactic normal time. So they might be able to move their consciousness inwards to that matrioshka brain and have subjective, years, in a matter of minutes or seconds, whereas, the people who maybe don't have as much a benefit or for whatever reason, want to be more spread out, might take on the outer shells in the matrioshka brain. And for them, a subjective year might actually be like hundreds of years in real time. So they just get to

Lucas:

experience more life.

Jacob:

Yeah. you can 100 percent say that's going to be more life because if that Dyson swarm matrioshka brain only lasts for a certain amount of time, there's only so much time in the universe, right? Yeah. If you can run your simulation faster, you get more of that.

Lucas:

Absolutely. it really is just. The fight for, I guess, would that be considered health?

Jacob:

I don't know what you would call that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Health or life, I guess.

Lucas:

Yeah. just, it's weird to say, you're buying more life because we can't do that right now, but that could be a reality in the future.

Jacob:

And if you have, other uploaded consciousnesses that you want to visit, you have to make sure your frame rate can match theirs. So you might have to slow yourself down if they're a consciousness that exists on the outer shells of this, matrioshka brain, just so that you can have the similar, levels of. Experience.

Lucas:

Yeah. it's interesting to think about what would the impacts of that be on society?

Jacob:

one of the ways that I personally think would be fun if this worked its way out is imagine if we actually kept humans on earth as biological beings, but we said, okay. After a certain amount of time as a biological human, your brain can be uploaded to the matrioshka brain. And maybe, if you can imagine in this situation, you might have way more people existing as uploaded consciousness in the matrioshka brain than there are biological humans on earth. But that would serve as an interesting way to keep the species propagating and to create new consciousness. Could you make artificial ones? Maybe, but it seems, if you already have the brain uploading technology, it seems better to do it in the biological way and then upload consciousness after the fact. Yeah, but My thought is if this is the case, if you do this, if you have biological humans on earth, they live for a certain amount of time and then after that time they upload themselves to the matriarchal brain. That's almost like a guaranteed afterlife. Not only is it a guaranteed afterlife, but you actually have your ancestors coming and, talking to you directly. your mother, your grandmother, They might still come and have conversations with you while you're this biological being.

Lucas:

yeah, that, that does, that sounds amazing. it makes me question what it would be like for. religions at that point, they're like, wait, would they be like, don't follow the machine. The machine is evil.

Jacob:

There will probably be some, people who choose not to go this route who want to have just the corporeal biological experience I could 100 percent see people saying you're denying yourself a true afterlife. But I think the vast majority of people are going to take the guaranteed thing. Of course. But imagine just what that, what would that do for society knowing that. There really is an afterlife and not only is it the case that If you're bad in this life, you're going to be judged in the afterlife and you can guarantee it but also what if you do horrible things in this life and you're not only just facing life imprisonment You could be either denied an afterlife. Maybe there's certain laws that say if You know commit murder or something like that. We won't let you upload to the matrioshka brand and You're literally just denied an afterlife Or they say, okay, you can be uploaded, but there's going to be certain punishments and if you're an artificial uploaded consciousness, you can have suffering beyond belief.

Lucas:

Yeah. they could put you in quite literally any situation. Yeah,

Jacob:

exactly. Cause it's all artificial. Horrific. And not just you, they can make a thousand copies of you and a million copies of you and put them all in horrible situations and really maximize the suffering of you, depending how much you really pissed off your AI overlords, right?

Lucas:

that would really be something. Yeah. No, I feel like people would definitely be on their best behavior.

Jacob:

Yeah, I wonder what that would do to society. I wonder how much that would change also the people who are trying to gather vast amounts of wealth. Cause it doesn't really matter anymore, does it? If you're talking about living hundreds of thousands, millions of years as an oblivious consciousness, the 50, 60 years as a human is a blink of the eye. So, why be greedy at all? You should try to be I think most people would just say, let me do the best I can.

Lucas:

It's just like a little stepping stone. Yeah, exactly. It's crazy that you said, like murder because thinking about it, what would murder be like if you were to take that opportunity for somebody?

Jacob:

Yeah, that's something else I was thinking about too, We already look at murder as a horrible, horrendous thing to do. And typically people look at, the younger the victim, the worse it is. Because people, I think, measure, how bad an act is by how much you're denying of somebody. Yeah. And the younger they are, you're denying them even more life. You might say they never got a chance to live. imagine taking the life of someone who had potential millions of years of life ahead of them. I could see the penalties for that just becoming, harsh. I could see that being looked on way worse than it is today.

Lucas:

Yeah, the multi million creation of yourself of suffering. Yeah. Because that, you're talking about, You denied the possibility for them to be uploaded into a Matrioshka brain, you're denying them of, you wouldn't even see it on the span of what their life could be. Well, even

Jacob:

if they're 50, it's still, it's yeah.

Lucas:

it's like such a small amount. Of what they could have experienced.

Jacob:

you know, I think I've heard, uh, there's been some cultures that you have this idea of not just killing the man, but killing a soul. It really would be just the same thing.

Lucas:

Yeah. Yeah. It would, that, that would be terrible. Now I'm thinking about that, like what would separate us in that afterlife if we were there? like our AI overlords, like you said, would they have more access to The brain or to what they could do with that type of technology or would we all be on the same?

Jacob:

So you can imagine the society of upload consciousnesses could be really just the sky's the limit you can do whatever you want Potentially you would have some type of overseer administrator Type role now whether that would be an ai and artificial intelligence, or maybe that would be an elected governance, you know that actually Is responsible for picking rules that this one that controls the physical Dyson swarm of the society within it. But it's odd to think about too, because you could have, hundreds of thousands of millions of different societies that never connect to each other with them. That's a matrioshka brain as well. if you wanted to, you don't ever have to talk to another actual. Uploaded mind again, you could create your own paradise and populate it with presumably You know enough artificial intelligence. That's maybe not like a general AI but enough to make you feel like you're communicating with people and Fulfill your social needs and never actually see another artificial intelligence and just live within your own Eden

Lucas:

Yeah, it would be

Jacob:

whatever you

Lucas:

wanted that life

Jacob:

to be. Yeah, exactly. So Yeah, the sky's the limit. Really, you can do whatever you want. Now, the governance of it, that would be interesting too, because it does occupy an actual physical space. And presumably, someone's going to need to keep up with the maintenance of that.

Lucas:

Yeah, and the protection of that, and and all of that. So, Perhaps in a way of paying for itself, you have to serve so many years in physical life. Yeah, I could see that. Contributing to the brain.

Jacob:

Yeah, that's the price you pay for admittance into it is, you are as a physical biological human, the keeper of the Dyson swarm. you. Do whatever needs to be done, help with maintenance or, maybe help construct new nodes that get launched or whatever needs to be done in the physical world. And after you've done your part and maybe I create a new beings, you yourself get uploaded.

Lucas:

Yeah. And that's interesting to think about too. would people still seek pleasure in this life or would it all be just hard labor because what's coming is infinite.

Jacob:

I mean, you've probably seen the psychological studies, right? If you promise somebody something right now or something better in the future, most people take the thing right now. People can be really bad about delayed gratification. So I don't think people are going to fully sacrifice their biological life. But I do think you might have a situation of a little more temperance than some people in modern society have. Just because, You know what's coming. It's there. You can touch it. You can see it. So there is something to look forward to.

Lucas:

Absolutely. the

Jacob:

last thing I want to touch on, on the idea of uploading minds to like a Matrioshka brain or even, this applies to, AI just overtaking us, you're familiar with the Fermi Paradox, which is just the question of, and we'll make a whole episode on this, but the question of where is all the alien life? And like I said, we'll make a whole episode of this. I just want to quickly touch on this because some people propose this is a solution to the Fermi Paradox. And. It's not, there's a couple of reasons for it. One of the biggest ones is, to make a matrioshka brain that already defeats the Fermi paradox, because that is a mega structure that would be observable from alien civilizations. So if this is what's happening, if all the civilizations are realizing why go and explore the stars when we can just stay at home and make matrioshka brain, that's still something that would be observable from other civilizations. And, on top of that, you still need physical resources, and while you can handle quadrillions of uploaded consciousness, you can't handle infinite of them. So, presumably, this civilization would still want to expand to other stars and spread nodes and create more Matrioshka brains. There's no reason they wouldn't want to expand in the physical world. they might do so slower, but they would still do it.

Lucas:

Yeah. thinking about. just like the great filters of what it could be, and what would stop people from, being able to expand in that way. it would make sense people thinking that could be a solution, right? that entire thought of, Oh, you can just upload and outlive the universe. Yeah. but, even if they were using like an artificial intelligence, creating machines to go out and expand, like you said, we would still see signs of that.

Jacob:

Yeah. even if they never left their solar system, if they just built this That is something we would see.

Lucas:

Yeah,

Jacob:

because it would glow really bright in the infrared spectrum but emit no visible light. That's the telltale sign of a Dyson swarm.

Lucas:

Yeah, just putting off all of that heat, but having none of that, because all that energy is being absorbed. Yeah, that definitely makes sense.

Jacob:

I just wanted to cover that one last part and other than that, I don't really have anything else to add to this.

Lucas:

Yeah, I think that was a really interesting topic. Yeah. It's awesome. Lucas, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me, Jake.

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