I agree it seems like a horror story from where we’re sitting, but at the same time, I could see how our conception of integrating brains with computers could become an outdated way of thinking. In the future uploading your mind to a computer might be a casual thing you do to play a video game.
The best analogy would be showing someone from the 17th century a modern prosthetic device. There is a realistic chance that they would hang you for witchcraft. A mere digital camera would be considered interfering with the laws of nature and the work of the devil or something. We may be harboring similar biases in the present day we don’t even realize.
I agree it seems like a horror story from where we’re sitting, but at the same time, I could see how our conception of integrating brains with computers could become an outdated way of thinking. In the future uploading your mind to a computer might be a casual thing you do to play a video game.
Mind uploading has the same philosophical problem as....teleportation. That is why some people think Star Trek teleporters are actually death machine.
That's not the issue that the OP is concerned. He's concerned that the device will cause irreversible damage to the information substrate that is the brain.
The best analogy would be showing someone from the 17th century a modern prosthetic device. There is a realistic chance that they would hang you for witchcraft.
The problem with using analogies is that the logic might not apply. We can conceive or think certain things will be different in the future doesn't mean it will be.
For example, it is unlikely that we can travel beyond the speed of light, because the speed of light is the speed of cause and effect. You would need to show that cause and effect still hold when we travel faster than light or that our most fundamental assumption about reality is wrong.
The imagination of the 21st century and 20th century has explored the vast conceptual space of technology. It is unlikely that new technology 23rd or 24th century will likely get you hanged for witchcraft in the 21st century.
See for example the 1979 story Newton's Gift, where a man is troubled by the thought that the scientific greats from hundreds of years ago had to waste months or years of their lives doing manual calculations.
So he invents a time travel machine, and goes back in time to give Isaac Newton a modern electronic calculator.
The best analogy would be showing someone from the 17th century a modern prosthetic device. There is a realistic chance that they would hang you for witchcraft. A mere digital camera would be considered interfering with the laws of nature and the work of the devil or something. We may be harboring similar biases in the present day we don’t even realize.