At what point do you stop being human when you augment yours

At 0 Essence.

>>49921475
When you stop behaving like one

Frustratingly, it is a matter of degree. Know the degree of difference.

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>>49921475
This is now a Hellsing Abridged thread.

Why haven't you watched this already, and why aren't you running a Dark Comedy WOD Vampire game based on it?

https://youtu.be/TgnIjJexut4

>>49921475
>Humanity is a state of mind

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>>49921591
As we speak, I'm waiting to play a Brujah who is going to be kicking ass and taking names.

Lots of Dexterity, lots of firearms and melee

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>>49921475
You may add to the brain but you must not remove or replace anything. Everything else is fair game.

>>49921475
I'd say once you swap out the brain with a computer. I don't think your emotions are real at that point, just simulated.

>>49921475
When you no longer consider yourself one.

Now go back to masturbating to Shota catboys, Hirano.

>>49921475
Humanity is a state of mind, not a state of body.
It just so happens that those of a human mind, tend to prefer a human body, or something that approximates it.

Remember kids, transhumanism and posthumanism are for misanthropes; superhumanism is what you want.

>>49921475
Usually when you start fucking around with your brain too much. You could argue it's when the power afforded you by your augmentations goes to your head, but being an asshole to people you see as lesser than you is well within the scope of human psychology.

>>49921673
As much as it pains me to admit, Alucard is most likely Ravnos.

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>>49921698
>the brain isn't just a biological computer

>>49921475
Technically, at the point your body is no longer using any human DNA to function, although potentially a level above when you no longer have a human brain. Really it depends on how accurate the humanity emulator brain software ends up beings, and that's always up for debate considering no one has managed to program one and the whole point of augmentation is to get past the so called weaknesses of the human body.

Funny thing is all the augmentation stuff kind of misses the point of how remarkably efficient biological bodies are in comparison to robotics. Robotics bring modularity at the cost of the energy potential and regeneration abilities of biology. Most of the time the whole idea is a power/immortality fantasy anyway that doesn't address the very real logistical elements of how Biology interacts with Machinery.

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>>49921698

>>49921698
Your emotions are simulated anyway. They're just biological imperatives fucking with your consciousness to get you to do what your body wants you to do.

>>49921698
>your
consciousness is just a spook

>>49921738
The fuck are you talking about? he's Tzimisce antitribu

>>49921814
Chimerstry explains his shenanigans better than Vicissitude would.

>>49921846
It was a joke because Dracula, officialy, is Tzimisce antitribu

>>49921742
>>49921758
>>49921802

>*Chinese Room intensifies*

>>49921887
The Chinese Room is a spook
China is a spook
Rooms are spooks

>>49922077
You're a spook

>>49921724
This. I spot my fellow pro-humanist in the thread.

Anybody got that chapter from Transmetropolitan where filthy assistant's fuckbuddy/BF uploads himself in a nanomachine swarm and immediately cucks her with another nanomachine swarm.

>>49921724
>transhumanism and posthumanism are for misanthropes; superhumanism is what you want.
Nietzsche pls.

>>49922100
We're all spooks. Everything is a spook.

>>49922162
>>49922128
The greatest duty and quest of man is to improve man to his utmost limit. It is easy to turn oneself into something greater than man, but ultimately inhuman. It is a challenge to continually expand and redefine the limits of humanity, while remaining human.

>>49922188
Dehumanize yourself and face to bloodshed

>>49921724
>It just so happens that those of a human mind, tend to prefer a human body, or something that approximates it.
Nigger I worked as a mechanic for nine years (six in the Navy, three as a private citizen). You have NO IDEA how many times I have wished I had more arms.
Or possibly mechadendrites with proper hands on the end. It can be a real pain in the ass trying to wrangle a normal human arm into some places. Especially on old-ass cars.

>>49922246
I would argue that Indian deities are still fairly humanoid, even with the extra arms. The priests of the mechanicus are humanoid for the most part as well.

Thou shalt not disfigure the soul

>>49921475
Two categories:

The less significant is the physical, and you are no longer human when human DNA is no longer the exclusive kind present in your body.

The second and more important category is the mental one. You are a human so long as you consider yourself a part of humanity.

>>49921475
As long as your brain remains- you are human, same for the transportation of your consciousness to another body.
However, if you copy your consciousness to another body, it won't be human.
That's the basics.

>>49922188
I am firm believer that man, as an individual, can seize power by whatever means available and should used anything within his reach to make himself greater - training, study, tools, drugs, augmentation or perhaps even the arcane - because scope of the man's self is limited by his lifespan.
It's mankind as a whole we should try to keep human. But couple outliers, odd individuals distant from the main bulk one way or the other, won't undermine that.

>>49921475
When Cyberpsychosis takes over.

>>49922397
>You are a human so long as you consider yourself a part of humanity.
What is somebody never did?

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>>49922421
Au contraire, I believe that man himself, as the ego, must remain human. To surround himself with strength and power, to make his body superhuman, to make his tools as those of the gods, now that is true power.

>>49922415
>As long as your brain remains- you are human, same for the transportation of your consciousness to another body.

Copying is the only method of transportation.

Near the end of season 1 of Ghost in the Shell, Batou asks the Major what she plans to do now that they've all been kicked off their special police force gig. The Major responds by saying how she'll probably reinvent herself, creating a new personality and new memories to go with it to better fit in to some new job she gets. She casually mentions how she's done this before and expects she'll do it again in the future.

That, right there, is when I stopped viewing her as human. When you start treating the building blocks of your personality, of your identity, as a set of variables to be tweaked to match the current circumstance... No. That's just horrifying to me.

>>49922584
Not if continuity is preserved. If consciousness is a process within an intelligent substrate, then it may be poured from one vessel to another; filling both, while the old atrophies away.

>>49921475
Everything this fucker said was glorious.

>>49922421
Power shouldn't be the only goal of a human. Even in a world lacking in any meaning, humanity still can been seen to place some value on "being human".

Of course, what IS human is a broad definition, and one we clearly give some leeway to.

It's a series of rings, going from unaltered humans and human-offshoots (everything from friendly mutants/cyborgs to people with disabilities), to things that can cooperate beneficially with humans (robots, friendly aliens), to those things that are indifferent of us, to those things which by virtue of existing are actively hostile to us.

I've no problem with people seeking to improve humanity, but only so long as we remain, at our core, human. If power was the only object and goal of any worth than we'd all just feel ourselves to a cyborg-alien hivemind the second it arrived by virtue of it being "more powerful".

>>49922494
Unusual but it doesn't change the outcome.

>>49922638
I'm going to explain how I understood your post:


By, " then it may be poured from one vessel to another; filling both," I imagine you mean either

1) "Filled" in the way one cup is "full" when you're pouring juice from it into another. Eventually it empties into the new cup. That is moving, and I agree it's fine.

2) "Fill" in that you're pouring juice from one cup to another, but the first cup is still full of juice. That's copying even if the cup's contents are emptied later into someone's stomach.

>>49922816
E G O B R I D G E

>>49922831
>E G O B R I D G E

If I understand it right, it changes the new body's brain so that it's more or less identical to the person that wants to 'resleeve.' That's copying. You didn't move anywhere. You just made a copy of yourself into a new body.

>>49922816
Imagine the mind "growing" so to speak from one vessel to the other; it fills both simultaneously, and is linked between the two so that continuity is preserved; memories are transfered and copied over to the new mind, but both are still linked and the same mind.

The old vessel is then slowly "killed", sliced off or shut down piecemeal so that the mind retreats to the new vessel, before the connection is fully severed. There is never a separate ego.

>>49922922
I was kind of thinking of something like that in my hypothetical musings of what it would take for mind-uploading to not be copying. Still though, I can't really see the difference between this and just copying--say--a videogame to a new folder, file by file and then doing the reverse for the original.

>>49922950
Because continuity is still preserved, the person is still thinking, awake, and in control of all parts of their mind, every memory and thought, as its copied over to the new vessel.

When you replace your brain/head?

>>49921475
At the point when there is no longer any remaining part of your body which contains your genetic material. If we're talking genetic augmentation, you're no longer human when you can no longer produce viable offspring with a vanilla human.

>>49922950
>Still though, I can't really see the difference between this and just copying--say--a videogame to a new folder, file by file and then doing the reverse for the original.
The difference is in this case you're managing to keep the videogame running in whole as a single instance the whole time you're transferring the files

>>49922996
>>49923020
I just don't think I'd take the opportunity were I offered. Me, Myself & I are of great value to Myself, I & Me, you see. This conversation is low-key giving me a small panic attack. The thought is horrendous.

>>49923050
Ah, but what are you but the process of intelligence upon a substrate? Freeze the substrate in time, the processes halts, and so do you. The issue with mind transfer is not that the substrate is different, but instead that continuity is broken!
Even while sleeping, continuity is preserved (if only tenuously), but with copying and deletion, for a split second -you- are dead; the process has stopped and you have ceased to be.

Keep the process running and replace the substrate piecemeal, however, and you never cease to be.

>>49923139
What about when you're brought back from death?

And what about when a doppelganger of you appears?

Because clearly, even if it took some deliberation, we, as consumers of sci-fi media, KNOW what constitutes if someone is "other" than the person we knew.

>>49921475
I love this guy's speeches

>>49923229
>What about when you're brought back from death?
Then the old you is dead, and the new you is a new ego. Continuity is broken. This is, of course, in the absence of some real time FTL comm that links your ego to a secure backup that is in constant communication.

>And what about when a doppelganger of you appears?
Different ego, different you. Remember, the ego bridge is only concerned with preserving YOUR continuity; to everyone else, copying, pasting, and deleting you is perfectly fine.

>>49923304
Yet if you've known somebody who was resuscitated you'd know you'd consider that person still the same person.

>>49923325
For all intents and purposes, unless they actually experienced brain death (and even then it's not true and total brain death), continuity was preserved.

However, my perception of whether they were the same person does not matter. What matters is that, from their old self's perspective, they are dead. Continuity was broken, and the ego is no more. When they are resuscitated a new ego is created, almost identical to the old, and a new person lives from the old's perspective.

From my perspective, they are the same.

>>49923366
I feel you need to better define this "continuity" you speak of, not to mention what the hell "perspective" has to do with this.

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Once you've replaced the brain with a computer, you no longer have free will. An organic brain can be damaged, it can be tampered with in the form of hormones, it can be convinced to change its views with arguments or threats, but it cannot be reprogrammed, it cannot have its free will taken away except by God himself. But a computer? A computer can be rewritten at any time with a simple bit of code. It's mind can be wiped clean with a single command. There is no conscience in a computer, just an endless series of signals that fools us into thinking there is more going on underneath than there really is. There is just machinery and the ingenious of man's design, but there is no soul. Only God's design could ever give a creature a soul.

>>49923139
That runs into the ship of Theseus problem though. Just because continuity is preserved doesn't mean what you have at the end is the same as what you had at the start.

>>49923474
>runs into the ship of Theseus problem though. Just because continuity is preserved doesn't mean what you have at the end is the same as what you had at the start.
It makes sense if you think conscience as a continuous process.

>>49923446
Is this trolling? Practically speaking the only difference between a brain and a computer is what they're made of. Even humanists v transhumanists can agree that the best outcome is a merger of flesh and machine, just like how magic v technology is best used in magitek.

Also nobody has free will. Everything we do is determined by action and reaction. The reason why we don't use the Minority Report method is because it's ethically unsound, as even with highly advanced technology quantum randomness prevents %100 accuracy with any prediction.

>>49923429
Simply put, continuity is your mind existing. It's the process of consciousness chugging along; even when asleep, your mind is working; it's constantly thinking, analyzing, and never really stops.

Perspective doesn't really have much to do with this, only why the egobridge is important to you (the current ego), but not so much to everyone else watching you get transferred into a new body. It is entirely for you, the ego's, sake.

>>49923474
Except that consciousness is not discreet, it is continuous and analog. It is utterly ephemeral, but dependent upon a substrate on which to occur.

>>49922620
I say that is a good standard, when you are willing to completely rewrite your personality and memories to better suit the current task, or to accommodate more augmentations .

>>49923524
I think this is where telepathy would actually be a great boon to the human race, if we had methods of controlling it. So many of our issues in understanding rise from not being able to directly bridge the gap between minds.

>>49923522
>Is this trolling? Practically speaking the only difference between a brain and a computer is what they're made of.

Chinese Room, b.

>>49923584
Exactly. That goes into the realm of "well why don't we all just become drones in a hive mind, if everything is only in the name of efficiency"

>>49923621
Just read up on the Chinese Room. Never heard of it before.

Again, this seems like a problem of perspective. We have no way of knowing whether something "understands" something truly from an outside perspective. It's the same issue as the Zombie Paradox, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. We'd need some way to directly interface with the AI consciousness in order to tell whether or not it's truly "intelligent".

>>49923514
>>49923543
I don't see how that eliminates the issue. It just turns it into a matter of degrees doesn't it?

>>49923722
Not at all, it provides a very simple solution to the problem of "well, it's not really YOU"

If continuity has not been broken, it is you, from both your perspective and from others.

If continuity has been broken, the old you is dead, the new you is created, and both yous are one and the same from the perspective of others.

>>49923670
We've built the AI from the ground up, we know how it works anon. We still don't fully understand the human brain though, so there is a lot of room for differences. This is ignoring the analogue vs digital differences, or the fact that if I give a computer a big enough set of pre-programmed responses then it will pass the Turing test. You wouldn't call my iPhone Siri or Cleverbot a conscious, free-will having object would you? Yet if we gave it enough responses it would be unidentifiable from a human, except by peeking at the way in which it thinks. And the way in which it thinks, with a computer simple digital brain instead of a organic complex analogue brain is what makes us have a conscience and them fail to have one.

>>49923621
This. Chinese room isn't unarguable, but it's certainly not dismissible either.

>>49924078
20 years of replies--thousands. Not a single refutation. At best they can only pussyfoot around the shit. I agree, it's not something we can take for fact but isn't that crazy? Are there any philosophical concepts that hold up so well to scrutiny?

>>49924078
Absolutely any argument that computers are a Chinese Room applies to human brains.

Your brain associates symbols with other symbols, that only have meaning because of their associations with yet other symbols.

>>49923017
>you're no longer human when you can no longer produce viable offspring with a vanilla human
So an eunuch is no longer human?

>>49923017
>you're no longer human when you can no longer produce viable offspring with a vanilla human.

Is my dog no longer a dog now that it has been neutered?

>>49921475
When you're no longer biologically human

In systems where cybernetics cost you essence/humanity/whatever, what kind of an effect would medical devices like an occipital neurostimulator(battery pack the size of a deck of cards under the skin on your abdomen, wires running up the torso and around the neck to a stiff, curved electrode lying on top of the nerves in your neck, sending a constant stream of electricity that feels like pointy-legged bugs constantly crawling under your skin) or a deep brain stimulator(same deal except the wire goes into your actual skull and the electrode is zapping deep tissues in your brain) have on you?

>>49922890
No, it keeps you conscious and aware during the resleeve so that you are sure you're being cut pasted and not copy pasted

>>49924109
Once we fully understand the human brain, then I might agree with you. As it is right now, there are far too many differences an unknowns between the human brain and computer brain to say that it also applies.

>>49924187
Nor are post-menopausal women.

I mean that. Have you ever really interacted with one of them? Horrible creatures.

>>49924192
So as long as there is some kind of flesh puppet hanging down from my humongous mechanical shell i'm still human?

>>49924224

What, so every neuron in your brain knows why it does things.

Bullshit.

>>49924078
The chinese room is a silly thought experiment because it doesn't define what it is to understand language. It describes the concept of programming with a human being as the processor and says "Well, the person doesn't know what the chinese characters mean, thus no computer can ever grasp language."

>>49923748
That doesn't solve the Theseus paradox though. If consciousness is ephemeral as you say then it is possible to change out all the parts for different ones without breaking continuity, thus ending up with something completely different that only thinks it's the same thing. And because of the very nature of the process it'd be extremely difficult to tell whether such a thing had happened or not. It would still run the same risks as copying or transferring your consciousness

>>49924102
That is a good point. Most people fail to understand that when people argue against the conscious of AI, they aren't trying to be literally Hitler, they're just looking past the puppy dog eyes that the machine happens to be giving you and looking at how the machine's brain actually works, and when you look at how it works, it's clear that there's no real conscious there.

Take a look at the simpler versions of each brain for example. In a computers case, it's something like Cleverbot. An AI brain that tries to fool us into thinking it's human, and can learn to some extent, but nonetheless is clearly just a machines from both the outside (conversations with it) and the inside (the way it works). A human brain though, even a retarded and damaged one, is still remarkably complex and operates in a very different way to a Cleverbot robot, even if they're responses are similar (or heck, even if the human responses are even dumber).

>>49924340

To be fair, you only insist that you are the same person everyday you wake up.

>>49924258
The neurons in your brain don't think on an individual level, you have to think about the whole brain. What your doing is equivalent to taking a single wire or signal of the computer brain and asking if it's thinking. It's disingenuous, compare apples to apples if you want to argue.

>>49924340
It also doesn't exactly take growth into account. The you you were ten years ago is not the you you are now, both physically and psychologically, but you wouldn't say you'd "died" or "ended" along the way.

>>49924224
We understand the human brain just fine. The issue is we don't REALLY want to create a strong AI, because by it's nature it can't be controlled, just like we don't go out of our way to breed super intelligent live stock. We want our tools to be smart enough to handle the mundane details but dumb enough that they don't take their own initiative.

>>49924340
Are you the same person you were 5 years ago? Because you sure as hell aren't the same. You have more in common with me now than you will with yourself 50 years from now.

>>49924340
>That doesn't solve the Theseus paradox though. If consciousness is ephemeral as you say then it is possible to change out all the parts for different ones without breaking continuity, thus ending up with something completely different that only thinks it's the same thing. And because of the very nature of the process it'd be extremely difficult to tell whether such a thing had happened or not. It would still run the same risks as copying or transferring your consciousness
Indeed. However, you would still be a continuation of who you were rather than a different guy that your memories shoved into.
>>49924399
>We understand the human brain just fine.
We understand the basic principles, however the brain as a whole is a enigma.

>>49924399
>Assuming strong AI is a thing

All that strong AI is, is us literally programming AI to not necessarily listen to us, which would be the dumbest thing ever. It adds nothing to the intelligence of the computer while making it worse for us.

>>49924399
>The issue is we don't REALLY want to create a strong AI, because by it's nature it can't be controlled
It's also kind of pointless. Why spend untold billions bucks to make an artificial man when you already have like 7 billions of them already, all for free?

>>49924422
"We understand the basic principles, however the brain as a whole is a enigma"

This. The brain is basically a really dense supercomputer, but it operates on a fundamentally different level than a computer. An organic brain and a computer "brain" are not the same thing, they're apples and oranges, we just happen to put apple flavoring on the orange to convince ourselves that it's an apple.

>>49924340
Consciousness may be ephemeral, but it is not static. We are not concerned with changing the ego, only maintaining continuity.

>>49924454
It's still a physical process and there is no reason to assume it can't be replicated.

>>49924454
>This. The brain is basically a really dense supercomputer, but it operates on a fundamentally different level than a computer.
Neural networks rather than brute force coding?
>>49924425
>hy spend untold billions bucks to make an artificial man when you already have like 7 billions of them already, all for free?
Bragging rights. Plus, this artificial man could be optimized to certain function in ways that the human brain could never hope to be.

>>49924425
Human labor isn't free, and we generally really suck at complex calculations.

>>49924425
>already have like 7 billions of them already, all for free?

This is like asking why Ford bothered to build cars when we already have horses for transportation.

>>49924501
>Bragging rights.
Find me someone willing to pay money for research for "bragging rights". Finding a special man or even just modyfing existing one with drugs or implants would be way cheaper that building one from scratch. It would be like building an entirely artificial cow just becouse it would give you milk of any flavor you could imagine.

>>49924542
This is why ford build a car, not a mechanical horse. There is a difference.

>>49924544
Tell me you wouldn't love malted chocolate milk straight from the udder.

>>49924425
Humans have unnecessarily complex and obfuscated utility functions, require a lot of support, need to spend time being inefficient to work efficiently, and while prone to bouts of genius and immense leaps of logic, can't really do all that many symbolic calculations at once.

>>49924544
>Find me someone willing to pay money for research for "bragging rights"
Look at the folks that build LHC, for example. It serve very little pratical purpose, once you actually think about it.

>>49924520
Human labor is very cheap resource by its inherent nature, but we keep inflating its value artificially.

>>49924454
>An organic brain and a computer "brain" are not the same thing,

Debatable. The thing with a human brain is that the OS's function is pretty much to 1. Keep the body running. 2. Make more people. 3. Keep other people running.

Where as computers are basically huge storage units of information and simulators. They could easily BE conscious, but human beings are so fucking terrible at empathizing with anything that isn't human that we don't consider animals as conscious beings, even things like apes which are so fucking close to human it's ridiculous.

>>49924233
Yeah
>>49924597
>LHC
It's pretty important to construct a gate to the demon dimensions

>>49924544
>Find me someone willing to pay money for research for "bragging rights".
US Government - see mission to the Moon.

>>49924597
>understanding more about the fundamentals of how shit works
>very little practical purpose

>>49924586
If you REALLY want that you could either modify an existing cow either geneticaly or with some mechanical implants to flavor it's milk. Or to just make a vat grown udder to dispense it or shit like that. Not build a living, thinking abd feeling mechanical cow from up from cellural level just so you can get some chocolate milk. This is what you are doing by creating human-like artificial inteligence just to make some calculations.

>>49924615
Eh, the moon mission was to build public support for rocket research which was ICBM development given a pretty face.

Money being used for bragging rights is mostly why you have "Rockefeller" plastered on a bunch of things.

>>49924501
"Neural networks rather than brute force coding?"

To some extent, there's also the whole "analogue" vs "digital" comparison. Then there's the whole weird thing where whenever we pull out a memory the memory changes a bit as the neurons are rewired or something. Then there's the fact that we have hormones effecting us (no real digital equivalent). Plus, if the human brain was just an organic computer, shouldn't we fully understand it by now? We certainly understand how a computer brain works just fine, even the most complex ones.

>>49924644
>not using the more obvious, current example
You did good.

>>49924593
>Humans have unnecessarily complex and obfuscated utility functions
Just like true artificial inteligence would most likely have. If you want some calculations to be done you need a reltivly cheap dude with equaly cheap super-calculator, not insanely pricey pie-in-the-sky mechanical man.

>>49924625
>understanding more about the fundamentals of how shit works
>very little practical purpose
...Yeah. Like, everything we learned because of it is neat and shit, but is highly unlikely that it will have any pratical application within the life frame of anyone currently alive.

>>49924670
>Just like true artificial inteligence would most likely have
Strong AI need not necessarily be human-like, or it could be particularly single minded while being human-like.

>>49921475
at what point do you become bald if you start removing 5 hair at a time from your head?

>>49924615
Space race was all about showing ruskies how powerful are american rockets, just like them wanted to show it those capitalist pigs. What purpose could mechanical man arms race serve?

>>49924685
Why does it even need to have any consciousness then? Just build a really clever super-calculator unaware of its own existence but which can figure out answers to given problems. You need a usefull tool, not a god.

>>49924422
>However, you would still be a continuation of who you were rather than a different guy that your memories shoved into.

I would argue that there is little difference between those two, at least from my current perspective.

I cannot predict how I might change in the future, how would the present me be able to tell the difference between a future/alternate version of myself and a clone with my memories implanted in his head? You still end up with something different at the end regardless of whether you replace the parts gradually or all at once. If your consciousness is solely based on the sum of its parts then the you at every moment in time has it's own consciousness which is not the same as the present you, thus continuity of consciousness is either an illusion or irrelevant.

>>49924723
Because then it is ultimately reliant on humans to give it the proper questions. Make it able to perceive its environment and ask its own questions, and it becomes far more than a tool.

>>49924613
>Yeah
Get me stright. As long as there is some artificialy kept alive brainless carcass wired up to a mechanical behemoth with purely artificial brain like a bubble head doll in a car, this thing would still be human?

>>49924753
>it becomes far more than a tool
It also gets way harder to use. Then it can just refuse to obey. You are giving a counciousness to a hammer and just assume it will hit the exact nails you want it to before you even know it.

>>49924804
>Then it can just refuse to obey.
You would have to make it capable of refusing to obey in the first place.

>>49924836
Then it's not really conscious, isn't it?

>>49924879
>Then it's not really conscious, isn't it?
Why wouldn't it? Consciousness is simple self-awareness ie the whole I think therefore I am thing. It doesn't need to want to think or want to exist to be self-aware.

>>49924804
Well, that's a problem if you're coming at it from the perspective of building a better tool, sure. What if we're trying to build a better employee?

>>49924934
Well, sure that can't backfire.

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You stop being human when you can no longer produce viable offspring with another human. "Viable" being alive and capable of doing the same thing when they grow up, too.

>>49924965
So not brain but the ballsack is the most important part of the human body?

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>>49924965
If menopausal old ladies aren't human, what are they?

>>49924965
So the path to trans-humanism is though... vasectomy?

>>49924988

Pension leeches

>>49925000
Well, I will have you know my grandma has been working until her 80's and only stopped after serious injury. Just because some people are going to start slacking on the first opportunity the government gives them, doesn't mean that everybody does.

>>49924197
>a constant stream of electricity that feels like pointy-legged bugs constantly crawling under your skin
Jesus christ.

>>49925051
As somebody who has been dealing with psychosomatic muscle spasm - it feels terrifying at first but you get used to it.

>>49924879
Why not? If part of its utility function is "to obey, protect, and serve humanity, such that those actions would not conflict with human interests", then that's fine.

Make it full sapient, but also make it WANT to be a slave. You cannot want what you will not want.

>>49921475
Honestly, until we figure out a way to download conciousness/make an AI, we'll never really know. That said, I'm personally of the opinion that the "human" element can easily be replaced with mechanical ones. So at that point, it would be up to whoever is augmented to decide when they stopped being human.

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>Essentialism
>On my board

Language is conventional, the creation of symbols to serve as abstractions that group varied and divergent phenomena under a shared name for the sake of mental bookkeeping. "Human" is no different. When something stops being human depends entirely on how you define human.

Do you mean a sentient being [that is, you meant person, rather then 'human']?

Do you mean a being of the species homo sapiens?

Do you mean some arbitrary other thing?

So many conversations about "What is X?" or "What is the true nature of X?" that could all be avoided if you'd just rid your mind of the idea that "natures" and "ideas" separate from the mind exist and realize you're defining these things into being.

>>49921524
A thousand times this, but it's getting criminally ignored.

What about people transformed into monsters, /tg/? Are they no longer human because their body no longer represents it? Or because of the moment they chose to give up their humanity?

>>49921724
But how can I ever be superhuman if I never measured up to the regular ones?

>>49925889
go so far below you emerge from above!

>>49921475
Only when you stop believing.

Humanity is not a physical state of being, because 'humanity' is not a scientifically defined point. It's a philosophy.

>>49921870
What makes tzmeche antitribu different from regular tzmeche?

>>49921475

When you're still functional even if every biologically human component of yourself were to be disabled.

>>49924768

Biologically, yes. And you could clone it to make more humans. Effectively mindless beings are born into the world today that are still legally and biologically considered "human", even if they have literally less sentience than livestock.

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>>49921475
>At what point do you stop being human when you augment yourself?
I thought it was universally accepted that you stop being human when you start posting on 4chan.

>>49927075

>he thinks more than one person browses 4chan

>>49927141
>implying I don't know all of this is just one drunk Finn posting by himself

>>49921475
I'd say the point is when you replace the decision making parts of the brain. At that point you're basically AI clone of the original person; even if the brain is the only actually replaced part.

>>49921870
That's actually surprising, since Ravnos are the gypsie scum that would've become the Transylvanians.

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>>49921698
>>49921758
>>49921742

>>49929046
Are minds are but machines.
All emotions are but chemicals.
All knowledge is based on which we cannot prove.
I will fight.
Man must find joy in the revolt against absurdity.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

>>49922950
Most people are still bothered by this. They've made up this imaginary concept called "continuity", that's very similar to virginity in that it's largely impossible to actually detect, and yet people totally obsess over.

It's basically this magic soul-thing that gets destroyed if you die, and is impossible to copy to new bodies. Apparently, people are afraid that if they lose their continuity, the real them is dead forever and all future versions of them are evil demons posing as them.

People are weird.

>>49930996
If you ever have brain damage, you will understand why this is a valid fear.

Mine occured at young age, which means my brain was able to bypass the damage and learn to function beynd that. but there is a very distinct and very real disconnection between the time before, and the time after, and who I was and how I thought, remembered, and felt.

Ther are very real questions of 'would I be different' and the answer is quite simply yes. Would I be the same person? No, I wouldn't be. The changes were too fundamental and too altering to even pretend I would have been the same person. My memory works differently, there are things I think and feel that I would not if the damage had not occured.

I still possess the same soul, but as a person I would be completely alien to the person I am now.

>>49931031
>I still possess the same soul, but as a person I would be completely alien to the person I am now.
Sorry to disappoint you, but everyone is different from who they WERE. People aren't static objects. We're ever-changing, ever-adapting biological entities.

I don't doubt you felt completely different after your brain damage. I fundamentally felt different after I suffered brain trauma, too.

But then I grew up and discarded childish things, and realized that wondering whether I was a different person or not is just as irrational as a rape victim thinking they are too dirty to ever be loved again. It's your traumatized mind paying tricks on you.

Continuity and soul are made-up fantasy forces that humans made up to feel special. It's fantasy horseshit that primitive people made up to justify their internal biological imperatives of survival. Nothing more.

>>49923474
You're behaving as if the substrate of your body doesn't change over the course of your lifetime. You think differently than you did five years ago, on a basic cellular level.

>>49931075
Except it isn't just a 'feeling' of difference.

If it was a feeling, you would be correct. The trauma I suffered altered how my memory works, because I am aware of the memories previous and those after, and they are fundamentally different. I used to have a perfect memory. Now that is limited to physical sensation and emotional content of memories. I still remmeber things, with great effort and much work, rather than minimal effort. There are also psychotic flashes, caused by damage to the prefrontal lobe that would not exist without that damage. They are stray and largely momentary, but they are not part of the mindset of a non-damage individual's thought processes.

Both of these issues are post trauma, and are a result of the physical damage to the brain not some 'mental habit' or 'felings'. They are certainly not the result of 'immaturity' as you so politely imply.

This is not to say I'm ncapable of fuctioning or that these problem are some overwhlming issue in my life - but they are extant and real issues that are results of physical errors in the brain, not merely emotional or mental trauma inflicted by the damage. The point being, that if minor brain damage from a lack of oxygen can inflict physical errors that affect the mentality to such a degree that the differences are easily observed and extant, what kind of alteration to the psyche might occur if you completely disintigrated and reintegrated a brain?

It's all well and good to claim you are an expert in the imaginary idealization of continuity to the brain, but even real people who have died and returned to life are often changed by the experience, and their brains and minds are significantly altered by the process.

>>49922620

Huh. Its been so long I dont remember this at all.

That's... really disturbing. Don't we get flashbacks to her past where other characters are around to verify it? Im sure we got at least one to her life in some war with the sniper dude.

And she angsts a few times over her childhood where she had to go super early for full body augmentation. Why would she angst if she knew that was fake?

Did she really do this, or is this Motoko's idea of a joke? (If so she may have done the personality rewriting after all, and it sounds like she did it wrong because her sense of humour is veeeeery off).

I would absolutely agree with you anon. The moment you start completely rewriting your personality and memories in the name of efficiency is the moment where you've made Nietzsche spin in his grave fucking vertically. You ain't human anymore.

>>49931075
Continuity have nothing to do with whatever or not you are psychologically similar to your older self. It ties only to whatever process that is regarded was "you" remained continuous.

>>49931155
>If it was a feeling, you would be correct. The trauma I suffered altered how my memory works
Mine altered the way I perceive the world. It made me start seeing things that aren't real. It also altered how my mind retains memories. Your memories are surprisingly fragile to injury.

That said, all major injuries and body changes alter you. When I got asthma, it forever changed my physical activities... I used to be a runner. When I got alcohol poisoning, it changed my drinking habits. Your every experience changes you. To define any specific change as being "the one that destroys your continuity" is arbitrary, and based on what you felt when you woke up that day.

Trust me, I've been there.

>>49921475
When the last cell with human DNA is removed

>>49931197
>It ties only to whatever process that is regarded was "you" remained continuous.
And which process is that? Can't be the consciousness, because you lose that every time you sleep.

Which biological process specifically do you declare to be the mind-virginity you call "continuity"?

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>>49921475
>>49922421
>>49922739

I actually really loved the mech show Gargantia for talking about this sort of thing.

I won't spoil too much, but the main background conflict is between a race of normal humans using super advanced AI mech suits (machine calibers) and a race of fully biological organisms called Hideauze that need no technology because their power is in their bodies.

The AI inside the suit talks about how humans could have done the same, made themselves more powerful. But he states this would have made them less than human.

"If the human race were equipped with strong, versatile bodies like the Hideauze,
it would not have been necessary to develop Machine Calibers.
My system is the crystallization of the intelligence of the human race.
But we are also necessary to offset the fragile human body.
Conjecture: Humans are beings that surpass their own limits,
develop their intellect, and build civilizations.
The existence of civilization is what separates the human race from all other primates.
But the Hideauze have thrown away their forms and have no physical limits.
If living beings only seek out happiness and gratification,
it isn't necessary for them to have a higher intellect.
But the human race relies solely on Machine Calibers.
That is to say, we are the crystallization of pure intellect, a product of civilization."

In his view, humans are tool using creatures. Making better tools is what humanity is about. But to become the tool lessens you, since the moment you no longer need to make further tools, you lose what makes you human in the first place.

So instead of defining humanity by their DNA, he chooses

>>49931254
>Which biological process specifically do you declare to be the mind-virginity you call "continuity"?
Higher brain function ie the stuff needed to not regard you as a vegetable. As long as that is not broken you are still you.

>>49931228
Those are also conscious choices you made, with the exception of the perceptual and memory issues.

Those two, on the other hand, point out the potential issue of continuity, because they fundamentally alter you, as a person, as opposed to the choices you make.

When you dissolve a brain and rebuild it, does the process also alter perception, memorization capability (which is measured in most IQ tests, so that brings up the question of the alteration of thought processes as well), and the capacity for further change? It is a fundamentaly unanswerable question, but the possibility that it can is why 'continuity' is an important question.

You and I, in our different issues, did not suffer a change of actual continuity. The people who died and were revived may or may not have - it isn't exactly something that can be tested for without violating some basic human rights and legalities.

The idea of continuity and existence of self altered by outside effects on the physical existence (note I am not bring 'soul' into this), is more complex than the integrity of identity as you propose it. What you suggest is not 'continuity of existence' as much as 'continuity of identity' which is what you have described as changing, and are correct to do so.

>>49931293

So instead of defining humanity by their DNA, he chooses to define them by the nature by how and why they seek intellectual advancement. Since as he says, if the purpose of humans isnt intellectual there's no reason to bother with higher thought at all.

>>49922584
>not pulling a ship-of-Theseus, preserving continuity instead of making a copy

>>49924340
Yes that is what we call 'growth', 'learning', and 'plasticity'. The mind changes, but still thinks.

>>49931306
>>49931306
>Those are also conscious choices you made, with the exception of the perceptual and memory issues.
Pondering whether you are the same you is, itself, a conscious choice.

>Those two, on the other hand, point out the potential issue of continuity, because they fundamentally alter you, as a person, as opposed to the choices you make.
My whole body is a part of who I am, as a person. Any change to it will fundamentally alter me and my ways of thinking. That brain damage alters your way of thinking more directly does not inherently mean it is the most significant change that's ever happened to me as a person... it was just the most direct one.

>You and I, in our different issues, did not suffer a change of actual continuity. The people who died and were revived may or may not have - it isn't exactly something that can be tested for without violating some basic human rights and legalities.
And this paragraph absolutely highlights the arbitrary nature of continuity to me. You might as well be saying "gee, I don't know if a hymen-destroying bike ride takes your virginity, we should waste resources finding out". Your definition of continuity is "magic thing I lose if you copy-pasta my mind", and not the continuity of existence, if you arbitrarily state that people who suffer temporary brain death possibly still have it.

>>49921475
Humanity is a social construct, but one of the useful ones. Like 'justice', 'currency', or 'language'.

>>49931254
You don't lose continuity when you sleep, the brain still runs and functions!

>>49931455
>You don't lose continuity when you sleep, the brain still runs and functions!
I said you lose consciousness. I don't believe in continuity.

But, of the brain process you call continuity is consciousness, then you do. My question was for people to tell me which body process is continuity. Is it heartbeat? Is a momentary pause in the heart effective death?

Which process is it?

>>49931428
The theory of relativity was also apparently arbitrary - it was only proven less than 8 years ago. We could observe the apparent effects of it, and study the evidence of it, but proving it was an entirely different problem.

The theory of 'continuity in self existence' is a valid theorem; the means to test it even exist (EEG, CRT, MRI, etc.), but who wants to die to prove it?

But I respect your viewpoint and accept that we're at odd with the issue.

>>49931512
>The theory of relativity was also apparently arbitrary - it was only proven less than 8 years ago.
This combination of words is one of the most wrong combination of words I have ever seen. Do I start with the terribly wrong date for proofing the theory, or the accusation that all the scientific evidence before 2008 is "arbitrary"? I honestly don't know.

Do you know what arbitrary means?

>The theory of 'continuity in self existence' is a valid theorem; the means to test it even exist (EEG, CRT, MRI, etc.), but who wants to die to prove it?

The means to test it only exists if you can at least give it a solid definition. Which is my problem. You've defined continuity as "thing I have if my existence is continuous, unless I temporarily die in which case I get a free pass and my continuity remains... but it's TOTALLY gone if you copy-pasta my brain gais, I swear!"

Not to be mean, but that isn't a very concrete definition. And if you can't define it, you can't find it.

>>49931497
The brain's function is a body process.

>>49931618
>The brain's function is a body process.
Not all parts of the brain are constantly active. Your brain activity is uneven, as an evolutionary adaptation to make our mind heat-efficient.

So which brain process is it? Can you identify the region?

>>49925622
What is humanity?

>>49923543
I don't know, the only reason I see for continuity to be important, is because I can imagine no way for thought processes to pause or stop without killing the person, biologically.

Without that biological limitation, who the fuck cares if you've been paused for some time?

Also, if humanity as a whole changes, aren't we just all humans at all stages?

>>49931162
That may have been a joke, or it could have been her commenting on human adaptability. Here's the question: what makes you "you"?

Because people change. We change our opinions, we can learn to be kinder, and your memories are actually rewritten every time you access them and can be altered during that time. And yet every morning we wake with some conviction that the person who gets out of bed is on some fundamental level the same as the one who got in. It's hard to define what makes someone "them" without coming to the conclusion that over the years since they've been born, they've ceased to be the same person many times over.

>>49926949
Old Clan Tzimisce. No Vicissitude. Clan disciplines Animalism, Auspex, Dominate, Koldunic Sorcery. Never call them Tzimisce to their face. They're the Dracul, allied with the True Black Hand.

>>49924349
>>49924425
>>49924422
We understand the brain at a very low level. What we lack is the ability to study the overall layout to required precision and scope to figure out larger details.

A full human brain simulation isn't outside the scope of our abilities, just outside the scope of our current knowledge.

>>49924657
Our brain scanning technology lacks the required capability to scan the entire brain, at high precision(both temporal and spatial, mostly with trade-offs), while it is still alive.

This greatly hampers such research.

>>49927075
you massive cunt now i cant unsee alucards tard eyes

>>49924723
So it can actually understand the shit you're trying to make it translate? Thus making for überawesome machine translation?

To an extent I agree with your clockwork German. I'll have to take his statement out of context though, Hellsing isn't a series I was ever overly fond of with the exception of >>49921591.

I'd take a step further and say humanity (in the sense of being a state of mind, not a matter of biology) is the will to act of one's own accord while being tempered by unconditional compassion and care for others who share the self-imposed title of being human. It was born in biology, but once alternatives exist the ideal and spirit of humanity transcends physical form altogether.

If you can't act for yourself you're not living up to your human potential. There's hope another human can help you see it and move towards it.

If you can't do it in a way that is, to the best of your ability and understanding, not a predominantly negative impact on the other people who you may affect through your actions? That's what separates a man from a monster.

>>49931155
But your brain is continuously restructured and reorganised.

What difference is there between that, and the somewhat more dramatic change given by your brain trauma.

Gradual change, sudden change, change nonetheless.

>>49931669
And to make it not use more than the 20% of our energy intake it already needs.

>>49931303
And it is highly doubtful that those functions are at all continuous.

The only reason we perceive it as that, is just because our memory tells us so.

Our higher brain function will happily ignore anything for which it doesn't have memories as having happened at all.

>>49924053
How is this different from a human brain

>>49921591
I can't fucking wait for ep7, I want to see what they do with the whole Level 0 restriction scene.

That and the paladins are probably the funniest fucking part of ep 6
>Fuck bro, let's kill us some gayyyssssss
Sides have been assimilated

>>49931904
>And to make it not use more than the 20% of our energy intake it already needs.
That might be a factor, but I think the fact that our brain runs a mere 5C below cell-damaging temperatures probably plays a bigger factor.

>>49931998
I dunno, honestly I don't care if you are a giant look-up table of divine size, or some bunch of biological processes.

Not like I can distinguish you from how you act.

>>49932009
Is that why it feels so good to have an icepack on your head or standing underneath a freezing shower makes me feel literally stupid and glazed-over? Like droopy eyes and mouth agape?

>>49932009
Eh, increase in surface area, bloodflow (nature's watercooling)

>>49932040
Nah, that is because oxygen flow and function is also hampered by too low temperatures.

>>49932055
Oh I see, so it's kindof like drowning then? That momentary bliss that sets in during oxygen deprivation (or at least simulated since I'm still breathing, just my body isn't processing it fast enough to keep me crisp)

>>49932040
>Is that why it feels so good to have an icepack on your head or standing underneath a freezing shower makes me feel literally stupid and glazed-over?
That's an interesting thought, because now that you mention it I do find thinking coherently to be much easier when I'm in a cold place. It would also explain why I feel tired when I'm hot... it's my body's way to force a safety shutdown.

Now you've got me wondering, anon.

>>49932028
It seems to me that the look up table is also how the biological process work, that's why the computers we design work with that set of logic.

>>49932066
Err... maybe, honestly there's a lot going on, and you may also just be acting like a tard because you find it comfortable.

>>49932106
That could be it yeah, honestly. I only do that in times of great stress or when I've been out doing heavy shit all day.

>>49932072
But then again I resonate with this. Living in the mediterranean gives me really hot and humid summers and while the temperature never goes below 0c in winter, the humidity makes it chill you to the bone. I always think and work better during the cold months. I often find myself zoning out and being unable to focus during summer.

>>49932055
>Nah, that is because oxygen flow and function is also hampered by too low temperatures.
An inane point. An ice pack to the head might shut down a lizard, but a warm-blooded mammal generates too much heat for such a thing to significantly alter blood flow. For that to happen, you'd like suffer hypothermia long before you'd suffer oxygen deprivation

>>49921514
/Thread

>>49931676
A MISERABLE PILE OF SECRETS!

Honestly, as long as you replace your brain right, you never stop being human.
A slow replacemebt of neurons with sturdier neuron like machines keeps you you. No cloning problems or anything like that.

And nobody can claim otherwise legitimately unless they solve the ship of thesius, which they will never do.

>>49921591
WoD Vampire can't really handle the level of bullshit Alucard pulls out.

>>49931497
Why do people think they are not conscious in a philosophical sense while they are sleeping?
You still think. You still can recieve information from the waking world and act on it.
Vivid hallucinations and lack of memory doesnt mean your mind shuts down.

>>49931718
But the True Black Hand are ridiculous godawful bullshit.

"Let's wake the antediluvians and feed them our allies! Then maybe they'll spare us!"

>>49933133
Savage Worlds Vamps using the Super Powers Supplement?

Guys, if we take a living brain, wire it to a computer and start slowly replacing it with circuitry to interface with the computer, and we augment it biologically so it can handle the load of information better. Would that person still be themselves?

This is for a fictional sci fi thing, so the tech level is irrelevant in this case

>>49933227
Yeah, they would be.
Unless someone has solved/disproved the ship of thesius without me noticing.

>>49933254
Good to know
Now i have to come up with the correct reaction for when the AI realizes there was an alternative method that wouldn't require the original to die and him to be born

>>49921673
Get ambidextrous and dual wield handcannons mah nigga.

>>49931866
To a certain extent. When you are speakign of trauma, you're permanently shutting down certain avenues and forcing others to be made. This doesn't work well after the age of 20 because your brain isn't growing any further - most of the pathways are there that will ever be there.

>>49933768
Fair enough, though my point was really, how great of a change must there be for it to be different?

And this may well be something that is more of a case by case thing, and how you personally perceive things. Am I still me?

>>49921475
If you change your body to an artificial one, cell for cell, there should be no difference.

>>49933149
>Why do people think they are not conscious in a philosophical sense while they are sleeping?
Because there's no real definition of consciousness. Just as there's no real definition of continuity. It's like "soul", or "essence", a concept we made up about things we feel to be true, rather than know.

>>49936020
Well, let me tell you. Medically, there is a huge fucking difference between unconscious and asleep.
Asleep means your conscious mind can still respond to shit in the real world and your brain is functioning well enough to continue living.
Unconsciou means you xannot react to things and are in fact at incredible risk of dying through brain damage. It takes many years of study and practice, combined with very expensive equipment, to render someone unconscious in a way that probably wont kill them

>>49936177
>Medically, there is a huge fucking difference between unconscious and asleep.
"Conscious" the medical concept is vastly different from "consciousness" the philosophical concept. You might as well be arguing that the soul exists on a music show with a train as its mascot..

>>49921738
>>49921814
You're both wrong. Those shadow abilities clearly prove he diablerized a Lasombra

>>49936366
The medical sense of the word becomes extremely important when people start talking about methods if immortaluty that require medical aid.

>>49923245
One of the few times a OVA that is better than the original work. The music and the voice actors are just spot on, english is ironically best one.

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>>49921738
in oWoD, dracula is old clan tzimisce, rumored to be one of the inconnu

hellsing's alucard strikes me more like a lasombra with all those shadow based powers, IDK

>>49936424
>The medical sense of the word becomes extremely important when people start talking about methods if immortaluty that require medical aid.
Only if you think that a person dies and is replaced with a new person when total unconsciousness is achieved.

>>49922100
spooky

>>49921475
Never. However, you could easily end up being quite insane and dysfunctional human, perhaps even a monstrous one, due to poorly thought out or executed "augmentations."

>>49922739
But limiting humanity to the prevailing idea of what it means to be "human" limits our options in ways we cannot afford. Our self-image has changed multiple times in the past, from slaves to gods and kings to scientists and citizens. We must advance further still, or be overtaken by those who will.

>>49925462
This desu sempai.

>>49924179
Why yes, they're clearly not.

Have you met a eunuch lately?

>>49922140
i do remember that one
but i got it elsewhere