Meat isn't magical. There's nothing supernatural about a brain. It's all clockwork machinery all the way down.

A digital copy of a mind is no less alive than your children. They are, after all, nothing more than lossy copies of yourself.

Then make a brain without access to other brains or things made by other brains.

So why not just have a kid or two? A chatbot that sounds kind of like you did is no more 'you' than your kids are.

But a digital copy of you isn't you.

I find I'm actually happier accepting a little nihilism in my life, knowing that at some point, I will die, and within a couple generations of my death, I will be completely forgotten.

This isn't depressing, it's freeing. It means there are no long term expectations of me, so I should I just spend as much time as I can doing the things I enjoy.

Distinction without a difference. My consciousness, my sense of self continues uninterrupted. There's no meaningful difference to me. You might care, but your opinion has zero weight on my own opinion of who and what I am.

One fudamentally cannot know the mind of another. Your opinion is based on incomplete observation and assumptions. Your insistence that a digital copy isn't me holds as much weight as the assertion that you aren't real because you exist only as text on my screen.

> My consciousness, my sense of self continues uninterrupted.

That's the part I directly dispute.

I don't dispute that a computer could become conscious, but I'm not convinced you could transfer your consciousness to a machine. If a brain scan copied your brain, that would not be the same consciousness that you have now. It would be like having a twin, and twins don't share a consciousness.

Exactly this. Personally I would dispute a computer becoming conscious, but it's inconsequential to the argument. Even if it does become conscious, that consciousnesses is not you. You haven't transferred anything. You still die, and then have a chatbot in your likeness.

For a technical issue I'd also add that this entire thing becoming increasingly absurd given advances in understanding of human biology. Discoveries like the gut-brain axis emphasize that the concept of brains in a shell is mostly naive. Your body and your brain are completely interdependent to create 'you'.

But again I think the objections around consciousness or possibility are completely inconsequential (if not also strong arguments in their own right). Even if we accept every single point and desired outcome, you still die.

I suppose parent comment is addressing the version of you that doesn't wake up inside a computer. If a biological vetsion of you exists, then that version won't be the same instance as the one in the machine. There will be two copies.

Machine-you would no doubt be thrilled. How does bio-you cope with not being made immortal? If your answer is "It doesn't matter, throw the original in the trash" is that murder or suicide?

That doesn't mean that uploading is possible. The algorithm implemented in neurons likely depends heavily on specifics of neurons. One could implement something non-biological that would be similar, but similar isn't identical, and identical is what you'd need for uploading to look like "me going into silicon" and not "something that's kind of like what I was is now in silicon".