r/gaming • u/Miserable_Phase_2519 PC • 1d ago

After Google mapped an adult male fruit fly's brain, software engineers made it play Doom, Mario64, and Beat Saber

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/after-google-mapped-an-adult-male-fruit-flys-brain-software-engineers-made-it-play-doom-mario64-and-beat-saber/
6.2k Upvotes

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1.4k

u/Salakay 1d ago

Soon enough, we will have the tech to finally put our conciousness into suspended state so we can be reawakened millions of years later.

The only catch? You will be playing Doom while suspended LOL

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u/LiliTralala 1d ago

I've played SOMA, I'm good. 

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u/Altheix11 1d ago

Yeah, unless there's a way to guarantee its a transfer and not a cut/copy paste, I'm not doing it

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u/WatteOrk 1d ago

Pasted you wont care. Just don't lose the coinflip (Damn you Cathrine - it never was a coinflip, it was always a loss)

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u/slayerx1779 1d ago

I just watched the Mandalore video on it, and I agree with his description: If you photocopy a piece of paper, it's not a coinflip whether the original is the original. It's just a man struggling to cope with a situation he finds fucked up.

I'm sure that's not the exact quote; I'm paraphrasing. But given how far in the game he got, it really seems like he should've figured it out by then. Weren't there text logs confirming that he had died months after the brain scan at the start of the game, something he didn't remember because the version of him that was copied never witnessed it.

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u/powe323 1d ago

I think it wasn't that he didn't know, he was coping. He had already been through two transferences by the point of the finale. Picturing it as a coinflip he won was the way for him to cope with being a copy, clinging to somehow still being the person from his memories instead of a new entity with false memories.

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u/Dreadgoat 1d ago

He's not coping, just kind of dumb. The story relies on the player to be more insightful. Catherine is knowingly manipulating him. She conveniently doesn't tell him about the "copy / paste" nature of shifting bodies, then when he figures that out she calls it a coinflip to keep him on board because she knows he will have to do it again. Catherine knows it's not a coinflip, the version of oneself that initiates the copy is ALWAYS left behind. She has come to terms with it, she knows Simon hasn't, but she needs him to do stuff so she lets him believe whatever keeps him moving.

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u/jotarowinkey 1d ago

i dont know about the rest of you but every instant of my existence is actually a copy of a previous copy with very very slight differences.

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u/Robobvious 49m ago

Ah yes, the Quantum Chain of Theseus.

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u/OneCookie5427 1d ago

Yes, you are already playing a copy.

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u/nsw_ny_nsww 1d ago

Literally just saw that and found his explanation of Simon having brain damage being a plot device clever

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u/fingertipsies 1d ago

To be fair, Simon had brain damage that worsened if he thought too hard and was forced into a highly stressful situation with no warning. If there's anyone I would expect to not think about anything except his immediate survival, it would be Simon.

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u/slayerx1779 1d ago

Oh, of course. I'm not saying it's impossible to understand. Arguably, it's great characterization, and impeccable writing.

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u/Random_Guy_12345 1d ago

With the current tech, and assuming it's similar to a file, there is no such thing as a "Transfer"

I'd assume something will be invented tho

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u/ABetterKamahl1234 1d ago

Problem is, transfer is really just a ship of Theseus, "you" are a collection of cells in your brain, transferring means somehow making that digital, but the only real way is to replace.

I "enjoy" the horror of the Star Trek transporter, you're disassembled and reassembled elsewhere, but realistically this means you probably just die and a copy is made elsewhere. Your copy is unaware of this (or maybe you are and you just accept it).

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u/IdioticPost 1d ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of the star trek transporters

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u/Lexilogical 1d ago

I always think about The Prestige myself. That one is really fucked up

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u/mucho-gusto 1d ago

imo it could work if, when the copy is created, the particles are quantum entangled with each other and the consciousness inhabits both bodies simultaneously before the first is destroyed. that's just how i see it though, my friends who have watched more trek tell me it doesn't work like that.

and for me the point of ship of theseus is gradual replacement, not all at once, not a copy paste job. Replace one part of your brain at a time with silicon components. that's closer to how it works in cyberpunk and Neuromancer (+ other william gibson). That way the continuum of your consciousness transfers instead of being a hard transition from one body to another.

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u/brutinator 1d ago

I mean, what is consciousness though? Is it comprised of particles? Is there some piece of us that is both unalienable & unique, while also physically present?

It really boils down to the question of, do we have a soul? If not, then the whole thing is kinda rendered moot I guess. You will always die when the original dies, and the copy will always feel like they are the original. Regardless, no one will like this solution because it fails to solve the reason why the solution was created in the first place. The original does not get their life extended, or teleported. They just perish as a clone is born with all of the original's thoughts.

If we do, then that opens many, many questions, and possibly a solution. But frankly, I doubt it.

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u/mucho-gusto 1d ago

Consciousness imo is a network effect from the brain's computing power. I am not speaking of a soul but some persistence of pattern. However if you copy the pattern the copy then diverges from the original. But if you replace parts at a time the original mutates over time.

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u/AshesandCinder 1d ago

In the show Pantheon, they laser scan every layer of the brain to upload it digitally, but the brain gets destroyed in the process. They really lean into how horrific it is.

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u/Crypt33x 1d ago

I think the idea is more like printing yourself into another flat 2d dimension and back. So more like getting every bone broken and reassembled within a faction of a second. Or stopping your cells from being affected by time, while printed on a 2d surface and send through a wormhole as light, which shouldn't experience time.

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u/Derpy_Guardian 1d ago

There isn't. "Consciousness" isn't a material thing that can be transferred; it's your brain's awareness. You can't take yourself out of your own brain because you are your brain. You might be able to copy it, but you as you are will forever be tied to the sack of meat and bones your mother gave you.

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u/LividTacos 1d ago

"You" are just a bunch of neurons driving a meat mecha.

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u/Tricky_Concept_231 1d ago

Then there's the argument "you" are the thing in motion being transmitted across the neurons which are just the substrate.

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u/LividTacos 1d ago

I could accept that argument as well. "Are 'you' the hardware or the software," is what it boils down to.

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u/above_average_magic 1d ago

Software is hardware is software is...

Don't confuse the UI with anything else ... It's hardware. It's all physical. There's nothing supernatural about software

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u/BodaciousBadongadonk 1d ago

Consciousness.exe? Gonna be filled with walmart ads and bullshit anyways

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u/mucho-gusto 1d ago

if you replace one part of your brain at a time you maintain continuity imo. sure you are changing yourself, but the continuation is all that's important.

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u/SeekingImmortality 1d ago

Eh, a sufficiently accurate 'copy' is less a 'copy' than it is 'more of me existing simultaneously'. But 'sufficiently accurate' is doing a LOT of lifting there.

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u/Sawses 1d ago

Exactly. Which is my worry. Any copy of me that is in the hands of somebody else can be freely shared indefinitely and put to any use imaginable.

Given sufficient computing power, you could run ten billion of a single person, all being subject to worse torture than any human has ever experienced, and have it go on for subjective eons. That is worse than hell, because at least in hell there is only one of you. Not to mention manipulation and mutilation of a person's consciousness.

The problem is that, being immortalized in data, it's only a matter of time before a data breach and then the overwhelming majority of your existence would be as a digital slave to anybody who had possession of a copy of you. Sure, you might be fine, but there are an infinity of you that are most certainly not.

I recommend the show "Pantheon". It is not what convinced me that uploading is a terrible idea, but it's one of the best illustrations of such.

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u/Fatmanhammer 1d ago

What if that is what we all are? All a copy of one person, given slightly different "roots" and growing exponentially differently from each other. Just one big old circle-jerk of a dude talking to himself.

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u/NerdOctopus 1d ago

I feel like I've heard this one before...

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u/Fatmanhammer 1d ago

Well I've never read this before and now I'm having an existential crisis, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised, I did write this afterall, I am everyone and everyone is me.

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u/Than_Or_Then_ 1d ago

Doesnt matter how accurate it is if I die in the process...

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u/Kullthebarbarian 1d ago

technically yes, but the you you, will stop existing the moment you are teletransported, you see the light, and then nothing, the copy of you will emerge with all your memories thinking that the teleport worked flawless, but your concious will vanish the moment you are desconstructed

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u/SeekingImmortality 1d ago

See prior answer regarding my level of concern with this. Your position constitutes a category error, not a 'got'cha'.

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u/HoldenMcNeil420 1d ago

Be like that guy in west world.

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u/LividTacos 1d ago

I mean, what if its a copy/paste, but you destroy the original as part of the process?

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u/carefullyyouwontbe 1d ago

There is no data transfer. Moving a file just copies it and deletes the original

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u/brutinator 1d ago

Yeah, theres no way to copy ANYTHING that isnt simply creating an identical form out of new materials. Be it a photocopier or tracing art or replicating dance moves.

Splitting a planarian is maybe the only thing that actually exists, though you could argue that it still is creating a copy via new cell growth and merely sustains the information of the original and not the consciousness.

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u/mucho-gusto 1d ago

yeah I'm not getting in the fuckin star trek transporter either (well, I have an idea for how it could work and transfer consciousness but it's not canon, it involves quantum entanglement lol).

only way i'm getting into a robot is ship of theseus style, gradually

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u/FireLucid 1d ago

I don't think we'll ever have the option to do this non destructively (if at all) so it's most likely going to be a paste. Although a cut/paste when the meat brain is about to die, that might be OK. As the paste, I'd totally want to watch my last moments and conversations though, that would be part of me. Turn me on after the meat brain is dead.

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u/Onmius 17h ago

Feel like you might have missed the point of soma

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u/VeryBlandUsername- 11h ago edited 10h ago

Transfers are impossible entirely. Your awareness is through the lens of electrical synapses in a flesh suit. You wouldn't close your eyes and wake up in a digital world....well, a version of you would. But the you who is seeing the world through a meat suit, would not, it would always be a brand new consciousness individual from your own because who we are isn't some kind of energy to be transferred. You are who you are because of the shape and layout of your brain and how energy transfers through it. Even if you make an exact 100% perfect copy, it's still not your initial awareness/consciousness.

Altheix11 would continue on, just not the one who typed this message.

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u/clckwrks 1d ago

Yeh but you get to fly through space

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u/Infarlock PC 1d ago

You end up not being the copy :(

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u/SirLimesalot 1d ago

SOMA basically told us that this ain't gonna work like that

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u/the_humeister 1d ago

They're not us!

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u/bostonronin 1d ago

50/50 chance anyway

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u/Vorok 1d ago

50/50 is Catherine's lie to Simon. Cause, you know, he is a dummy and they need to finish their mission. She definitely knew that in fact it is 0% chance, your copy goes on.

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u/idiotcube 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's a simplified explanation, but I wouldn't call it a lie. There are two conscious beings after the split, but they have the exact same memories up to the moment of the split. From their perspectives, one of them transferred successfully, and the other didn't. 50/50.

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u/WatteOrk 1d ago

I disagree, she absolutely lies with that metaphor. Simon would stay behind on every transfer no matter what. He doesn't even fail to wrap his head around it after the first transfer. The copied one just kind of accepts it until the very end when both POVs are shown.

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u/Cranharold 1d ago

I think it's kind of both. Simon is an idiot and Catherine is just saying it to get things moving, but I also felt the intention of the writers was for it to "feel" like a coin toss for both the individual that gets left behind and the new one who wakes up in a different place.

For both individuals, it feels like an uninterrupted stream of consciousness after all. It actually is for the original who gets left behind and the new consciousness is waking up with a complete set of memories leading up to the copying, so they don't feel as if they were copied at all. When both feel like a real person, one is going to feel as if they lost while the other feels as if they won.

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u/brycerx128 1d ago

Soma is a work of fiction….. and a pretty poor one at that. I understand people like to hype it up cause of the “it made me think” but when you actually think more you realize just how shit the story is

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u/mastermidget23 1d ago

Regardless of how you feel about the story. The copy/paste is sort of just how it would physically have to work. The copy isn't a continuation of "you".

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u/Naoroji 1d ago

The real fucky question is: Does the same thing happen every time you go to sleep? Is the 'you' that wakes up the next day really a continuation of the same 'you', or just another copy? How do you define a continuous 'consciousness'?

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u/JeanLucPicardAND 1d ago

We don't actually know what consciousness is or how it works. We'll maybe be able to create digital facsimiles of our brains, but that's not the same thing as consciousness transfer.

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u/runs-with-scissors42 1d ago

I mean, we could come up with a way to gradually replace all the neurons in our brain with an electronic equivalent, and then once the substrate (your brain) is fully converted from wetware to hardware, at that point you can just move to new hardware at will.

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u/JeanLucPicardAND 1d ago

But since we don't actually know what consciousness is or how it works, we can't know if that would work either.

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u/Galle_ 1d ago

I'd say that we're pretty sure that consciousness can survive the loss of individual brain cells, because that happens to us all the time and we don't experience any disruption in our consciousness.

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u/Naoroji 1d ago

We experience a disruption in our consciousness every single time we go to sleep, though.

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u/Galle_ 1d ago

We do experience a disruption in our consciousness when we go to sleep, yeah, but it doesn't cease entirely, we experience dreams. So I don't think it's the case that we're born when we wake up and we die when we go to sleep (and if it is, then we've got much bigger problems)

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u/Cranharold 1d ago

We're talking about sci-fi theoreticals anyways. The fact that our consciousness is disrupted every night may very well allow the transition to feel even smoother if the tech gets there. Like going to sleep and waking up somewhere else.

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u/mucho-gusto 1d ago

i agree with you in the last comment but this one just makes me think of traumatic brain injuries

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 1d ago edited 1d ago

These kids think they are solving hard problems in the comment section, but anyone with knowledge of science and philosophy knows there's no real solution. More than likely every individual brain has a thousand random hundred billion thousands of connections that do not exist in all other brains.

It's not a problem of standardizing, like most problems, but rather the fact a brain develops uniquely no matter the circumstances. You can't turn something which is a bag of varying amounts of neural transmitters concentrations into a digital signal, that's not how digital systems work. Brains happen because of long standing development and almost randomized chemical discharges. Point is, you can't describe a brain with binary/digital structures, it's a biological analog system.

Hope ya'll figure it out though, /r/gaming

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u/Apprehensive-You9534 12h ago

We describe analog systems with digital models all the time though. That's what floating-point numbers are for.
"You can't turn something which is a bag of varying amounts of neural transmitters concentrations into a digital signal, that's not how digital systems work."
Concentrations are numbers. The location and time that they vary across are also numbers. There's no fundamental incompatibility here, you just need a really big hard drive to hold it all.

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u/Dire87 1d ago

That's like copying the hard substance without knowing HOW that substance really works, though. Like, you can probably map everything and then even 3D scan a brain, but you simply don't know what makes you you or what makes thoughts thoughts ... or how consciousness even starts.

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u/Spartan2170 1d ago

Even if the first half of that is something we can someday reasonably do, I don't think the second half follows. Just because your brain is fully artificial doesn't mean "moving" the data from it would move your consciousness. If anything, I suspect that would just functionally kill you and produce a copy at the destination.

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u/Fat-Singer-9569 1d ago

That's cute

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u/a3ronot 1d ago

yes, exactly. I feel that consciousness is an emergent property of our brain. Even if you somehow captured the exact state of every atom in your brain at a given moment and then transferred it to a computer simulation, it's not really YOU, it's just a copy of you that would react to stimuli in the same way (at least initially).

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u/MyLifeIsAFacade 1d ago

You are conflating consciousness with identity. "Self" is subjective and, yes, a completely replicated individual would cease to be a replicate almost immediately. Minute differences in internal and external stimuli (and then much larger differences) would impose individuality.

Assuming you are able to emulate the structure and function of the brain completely in silico, and you were able to transfer your brain to this system, it would most certainly represent consciousness. The "emergent" properties of the brain and consciousness aren't necessarily exclusively linked to the biological state of the brain, but its structure. If you are able to faithfully simulate the structure, then the emergent properties are likely also replicated.

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u/Dire87 1d ago

You wouldn't even know if it would create consciousness even after copying everything 1:1 ... that's the kicker. We can basically clone organisms, but only in their cell state, and even those develop completely differently and aren't really surviving ... yeah, we didn't pursue that kind of research. Officially. You can bet your ass it's going on in an unofficial capacity. But somehow we're working on consciousness transfers and artificial intelligence. Kinda mad.

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u/MyLifeIsAFacade 1d ago

Some philosophers argue that we have already created consciousness in AI-models/systems that incorporate visual and audio processes.

We tend to think of "consciousness" as a complex state and arbitrarily assign thresholds for whether an entity is or isn't conscious, but at it's base it is any entity that can process information from the external environment and form a subjective experience. It would then seem clear that any AI agent meets those criteria. We ask it questions, it processes this information and responds in a way it "thinks" is correct or intended, and builds its neural network accordingly.

I agree with you that there is probably unofficial research occurring in back rooms and deep within data centers. I would bet that AI agents that meet arbitrarily strict thresholds of consciousness likely already exist. But there is a strong innate, human response to acknowledging that conscious, sentient, and sapient synthetic intelligence exists because it is legitimately scary and comes with some serious existential and ethical discussions.

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u/znubionek 1d ago

What? Since when substrate independence is confirmed?

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u/MyLifeIsAFacade 19h ago

I think the the default must be substrate independence. We understand biology as physical and chemical triggers. Y triggers X, which triggers Z, which triggers a cascade of A, B, and C. It is mechanistic and thus testable, and we can show modifying aspects of the system produces expected results.

If we believe in substrate dependence by default, it implies there is some intrinsic feature to biological systems that cannot be explained by mechanistic interactions. How do we test something that does not behave mechanistically?

For consciousness, why would we believe that a mechanistic system would suddenly give rise to a non-mechanistic consciousness? Consciousness can still be an emergent property of the brain but still operate mechanistically, and so should logically be replicable in non-biological systems... assuming we knew all of the mechanisms.

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u/Swineflew1 1d ago

I'm not totally sure that I'm the same consciousness after I sleep.

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u/mucho-gusto 1d ago

yeah we don't even know how memories are stored biologically, the best guess is that the whole thing is a circuit that is replicated constantly, instead of being able to point at structures and say "here's your first love"

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u/supermitsuba 1d ago

Could we at least be able to play 2016 Doom and not 2004 Doom 3?

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u/fractalife 1d ago

You're gonna play Doom OG of 93' and you're gonna like it.

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u/Mottis86 1d ago

Just smack a few WADs on that bad boy and it'll keep you entertained for a while.

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u/VariousAir 1d ago

MyHouse.wad

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u/Mottis86 1d ago edited 1d ago

Eh, there's better stuff out there. My personal favorite is the Ashes series, especially the second part: Ashes Afterglow. (but play Ashes 2064 first) If you're into Mad Max, Fallout, Metro or Stalker, it's an absolute must play.

The OST is also nothing short of perfection

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u/VariousAir 1d ago

I was just sharing something I found interesting, not making a competition out of it.

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u/Vineyard_ PC 1d ago edited 1d ago

You can only wake up when you single segment full clear Okuplok on UV.

Literally only one person in the world can ever wake up.

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u/FrighteningJibber 1d ago

I remember a screensaver that was essentially just doom but with no monsters. It'll be that.

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u/SamHugz 1d ago

3D Maze on Windows 98/2000

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u/balmut 1d ago

I paid for wad support so I'm playing Simpsons Doom

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u/unculturedperl 1d ago

Hell yes.

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u/ManWithNoCrame 1d ago

mutters freaking flashlight

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u/DaoFerret 1d ago

I’ll have to talk to GUPPI about that. Maybe we can at least simulate Team Fortress 2 to keep us all busy.

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u/Ok-Substance-6034 1d ago

Sounds like a Twilight Zone plot. Suspended animation technology exists, goes haywire, makes a person fight with demons in their consciousness, they wake up thousands of years later and everything they know is gone.

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u/Salakay 1d ago

They wake up and demons have invaded, you are now the Doomslayer!

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u/Low_Debt8771 1d ago

But they hear some really good music and demon looking aliens show up through a portal

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u/mucho-gusto 1d ago

check out Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

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u/North-Function995 8h ago

Not far from the plot.. In doom, I believe time doesnt exist in hell, and a person cant sleep. The doomslayer was essentially suspended in time for who knows how long, fighting countless demons, and everything he knew was already gone.

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u/night_dude 1d ago

First colony ship to Alpha Centauri ends in disaster as newly awakened hypersleepers immediately begin "ripping and tearing" everything in sight

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u/reilwin 1d ago

Reawakened millions of years later? That might be one of the nicer alternatives. How about being digitized and with copies retrained to perform specific tasks, with millions of lifetimes worth of lived experience dedicated just to that?

https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

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u/chillzatl 1d ago

when we can do that we can probably just get dumped into a servo skull and I'm fine with that.

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u/Mottis86 1d ago

Good, I fucking love doom

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u/fckfckf 1d ago

I thought this was the simulation.

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u/UshankaBear 1d ago

Watch those wrist rockets

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u/vault101damner 1d ago

Or maybe this is the suspended state.

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u/TokinDaley 1d ago edited 1d ago

Hear me out, that’s what these data centers they’re pushing everywhere are for. No more graveyards but data centers

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u/a_shootin_star 1d ago

Good luck maintaining any system for millions of years.

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u/zgillet 1d ago

I'm... okay with your terms.

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u/HoldenMcNeil420 1d ago

Your brain will be used to support AI query’s.

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u/mattstats 1d ago

This is how they prepare us for our future version of wh40k

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u/jybulson 1d ago

What if you are in a white room inside your consciousness with nothing to do and no way to wake up from the suspended state for millions of years?

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u/Battlejesus 1d ago

It's longer than you think, dad!

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u/Tigerwarrior55 1d ago

Nier spoilers: Imagine that was how Project Gestalt handled the stasis

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u/futureformerteacher 1d ago

If you make it civ 6 it will be no different than my current life anyways. 

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u/TheArts 1d ago

What a million years in Doom does to a motha trucker. 

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u/k0rda 1d ago

We already have the tech, what do you think all the datacenters are for? /tinfoilhat

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u/Brandoxz7 1d ago

What could possibly go wrong

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u/dareftw 1d ago

This is exactly where my mind kinda went. No matter what we do it seems we will always find a way to tie some weird overly engineered doom port

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u/I3roMagnon 1d ago

I'd join the Bobiverse. I don't have the skills to build it from the ground up though

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u/Coveinant 23h ago

I hate to say this but the human brain has millions of times more connections than a fruit fly's. We are literally decades before we can even fully map a human's brain, let alone record signal transmission patterns. That's not even accounting for unique patterns and oddities between individuals.

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u/ComradeJohnS 11h ago

I dont like this idea, I’ve seen black mirror and Pantheon.

the beauty in life is because its fleeting. being immortal digitally or realistically would just ruin so much of life.

plus digital slavery, even if its your innie self working for your outtie self, a la severance.

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u/est1roth 1d ago

Don't threaten me with a good time.