Don't sell yourself short. It's a salty lump of fat.
people don't like this idea because if that's all we are, then who is anyone to say that the inevitable equivalent man-made lump of fat with electrical activity isn't entitled to all the same rights and status that we are
also jeebus doesn't want you to think you can't go on getting punished even after you're dead
honestly I never got this. Same with the simulation thing. What's it matter if we're in a simulation or all I ever do is the result of some salty fat firing off neurons? I mean what am I going to do about that?
people used to get burnt at the stake for this shit. and dont' forget how butthurt people got over the suggestion that --gasp-- the earth isn't the center of the universe
I'm aware it's controversial, I just genuinely do not get why you would care.
because when you have deeply entrenched religious indoctrination, ideas about the world, life, and reality that don't mesh with your "god" are literally personal attacks on your very identity.
some people care about this shit more than they care about anything else. you should get rid of the assumption that things need to make sense to these people
you should get rid of the assumption that things need to make sense to these people
trust me I don't but especially if I pick up the simulation thing that also seems to concern a lot of people who aren't religious. I mean I get the religious people, it's in direct affront to the axioms you structure your entire shit around. That makes sense to me, even if I don't share the axioms.
the simulation thing implies we don't have "free will" or that we don't have control over our life (which we don't anyway), and that scares people half to death. so, classic denial
The brain is not a "lump of fat". If you desiccate the brain, most of what's left are lipids, yes, but at that point you are not conscious anymore. The brain is a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, water and fat.
Also fairly sure that electrical impulses alone cannot account for consciousness. If that were "all" there was to it we'd have simulated a human brain by now. There's a few theories about quantum processes being involved but this isn't exactly easily proven.
If that were "all" there was to it we'd have simulated a human brain by now.
Didn't it take them a long ass time to do this for a fruit fly brain?
Depends on when you start the timer. The fruit fly brain was only completely mapped recently. There's a simulation of it that runs on a laptop. If that simulation can run on a modern laptop and the map was otherwise available, then it likely could have been done on supercomputers in the decades prior.
I thought they were up to mice now but I might be mistaken.
To simulate a human brain, we would need a complete map of it. We don't have that yet. If the quantum theories around neurons are correct, then the map would be incomplete without it.
I doubt we could simulate it directly without a very specialized ASIC.
The connectome doesn't really seem to be so realistic, at smaller scales sure.
I've never understood why people think the most sophisticated and complex technology humans have ever been aware of is too mundane just because we have scratched the surface of understanding it.
There's a lot of water and ions (IONS!) besides that lump of fat.
It’s OK. Consciousness is but a brief anomaly in the vast sea of time.
br-
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