Stellaris Dev Diary #275 - Bless Thy Soul

[Sir Roderick]

Not exactly. It is quite well described in the Alpha Centauri Wiki:



While it won't strip away all intelligence and identity of self, it will make major negative alterations to a subjects intelligence and personality.

The Alpha Centauri definition also fits very well with the effects it has in Stellaris (unaffected by happiness, can only perform "simple" jobs). "No survival instincts" cannot really explain those. Even if someone is totally fearless and does not mind risks, he will still want to have a comfortable and happy life. It might be shorter, because, hey who needs safety measures, but I do not see why such a "no survival instinct" subject would not want luxuries and comforts.

Traits - Stellaris Wiki

stellaris.paradoxwikis.com

Unessential neural pathways relating to self-preservation and free-will are severed, creating a docile and obedient client species.


Actually, being familiar with a task doesn't mean it can't be creative, also Rimworld has a similar gene:

Genes - RimWorld Wiki

rimworldwiki.com

Dead calm	Carriers of this gene feel calm in every situation and have a very placid demeanor. They will never start social fights or have aggressive mental breaks. Effects: Will never do social fights Mental breaks are never violent Will never prison break

Plus it doesn't say anywhere that it strips intelligence, only emotions, so it shouldn't affect jobs availables like serviles trait, since they are not dumb.

And complex drones are unaffected by happiness but they can still do complex jobs, and serviles have happiness but can't do complex jobs.

Plus technician jobs should be complex and artisans and metallurgists should be worker jobs but they aren't because energy is a basic resource and consumer goods and alloys aren't.

 

[Psykhes]

Traits - Stellaris Wiki

stellaris.paradoxwikis.com

Unessential neural pathways relating to self-preservation and free-will are severed, creating a docile and obedient client species.


Actually, being familiar with a task doesn't mean it can't be creative, also Rimworld has a similar gene:

Genes - RimWorld Wiki

rimworldwiki.com

Dead calm	Carriers of this gene feel calm in every situation and have a very placid demeanor. They will never start social fights or have aggressive mental breaks. Effects: Will never do social fights Mental breaks are never violent Will never prison break

Plus it doesn't say anywhere that it strips intelligence, only emotions, so it shouldn't affect jobs availables like serviles trait, since they are not dumb.

And complex drones are unaffected by happiness but they can still do complex jobs, and serviles have happiness but can't do complex jobs.

Plus technician jobs should be complex and artisans and metallurgists should be worker jobs but they aren't because energy is a basic resource and consumer goods and alloys aren't.

Removing such "Unessential neural pathways" usually has the effect that thinking gets a bit harder. It is not mentioned in the description, but neither is it denied and the game mechanics effect (and the result of already existing current day "primitive" nerve stapling techniques) strongly suggests it.

The Rimworld trait is thematically not the same as "Nerve stapled". It is at best a very "light" version of it. I do not think they are comparable.

Complex Drones aka Hive minds and Machine Intelligences do not have happiness because they are not individuals. Because everyone is one single giant consciousness.
The whole thing is a bit missing the point. I never said that "happiness" is connected in any way with "can do complex tasks".
Only that "having no survival instinct" is in no way connected with "is unaffected by happiness (*)". What you say there refutes that in no way whatsoever.

And why should technician jobs be complex and artisans and metallurgists not?
Artisans do not make statues and a technician does not build a fusion reactor. You build the infrastructure (generators or manufactories) by building the districts. And building and upgrading the relevant buildings. The population is "just" using it.
It is more like that artisans design & create smartphones (**) and technician maintain fusion reactors or simply sweep the dust off solar panels. Techs have a bit less complex task than artisans IMO. And industrialized food and mineral production is highly technical too, so it is not like they are more primitive than a technicians jobs.
But regardless what is what, what is the point of this statement at all? Does it matter for the whole "nerve stapled" thing?

* "Having no free will" IS string connected to "is unaffected by happiness", of course, but you did not mention that in the post I quoted initially.
** Of course there are some artisans who just "make statues", but compared to all other consumer goods in a modern society they are a really tiny part of all artisans. And even those have to have a high amount of creative intelligence. Intelligence is not only "can do math".

 

[Nevars]

Why are we discussing rimworld and alpha centauri in stellaris forum?

 

[Sir Roderick]

Why are we discussing rimworld and alpha centauri in stellaris forum?

Easter eggs - Stellaris Wiki

stellaris.paradoxwikis.com

Traits​

Nerve Stapled
Reference to the 4X game Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, where nerve stapling is an unspecified medical atrocity that suppresses riots.

 

[George Fernell]

Even as psionic this ability is still mixed cuz it has unmentioned effect of reducing your shroud buff and debuff duration too prob so you can't stacking shroud gacha.

Oh really it does that? I didn't pay attention then.

In my experience most of shroud buffs last for half the shroud cooldown at most, at least that's how it feels, so I didnt think of it as an issue.

But yes, it does feel like there is restraint towards buffing Psionic ascension that is not present towards Biological or Synth.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Actually even without minimal data loss it would be still suicide because you're copying the information from a living body to a dead body, and it would be that even if it were 2 living bodies like clones, as long as the bodies are not the same it's always another person or object, twins are not the same person.

The materialist would say that if you make a clone while you're unconscious in some form of suspended animation, transfer all memories/personality/etc., and dispose of the old body, it's the same. Consciousness is an emergent property of matter, and it's interrupted all the time (ex. every time you go to sleep). If the process every night is suspending consciousness (ceasing to exist as a conscious entity) then bootstrapping your consciousness from the structure of your brain again in the morning, what difference does it make if you restart in a clone body, or a synthetic one?

And if you failed to dispose of the original, there's not suddenly some crisis in this world view. Two equally valid versions of you started up again, so they're both equally you. It's the same as if you were a time traveler, or from an alternate dimension.

I don't agree with this philosophy, but it's at least consistent. But I'm not sure if it actually pans out with the in game representation of synthetic evolution.

 

[Sir Roderick]

The materialist would say that if you make a clone while you're unconscious in some form of suspended animation, transfer all memories/personality/etc., and dispose of the old body, it's the same. Consciousness is an emergent property of matter, and it's interrupted all the time (ex. every time you go to sleep). If the process every night is suspending consciousness (ceasing to exist as a conscious entity) then bootstrapping your consciousness from the structure of your brain again in the morning, what difference does it make if you restart in a clone body, or a synthetic one?

And if you failed to dispose of the original, there's not suddenly some crisis in this world view. Two equally valid versions of you started up again, so they're both equally you. It's the same as if you were a time traveler, or from an alternate dimension.

I don't agree with this philosophy, but it's at least consistent. But I'm not sure if it actually pans out with the in game representation of synthetic evolution.

So you're saying homozygote twins are two equally versions of themselves and not separate people at all, and if one dies the consciousness magically flies in the other body and assumes direct control or it's one person controlling 4 arms, 4 legs, etc.

Also there is rem sleep, anyway consciousness is tied to the living body, not mere conscious activity.

 

[Thiend]

So you're saying homozygote twins are two equally versions of themselves and not separate people at all, and if one dies the consciousness magically flies in the other body and assumes direct control or it's one person controlling 4 arms, 4 legs, etc.

Also there is rem sleep, anyway consciousness is tied to the living body, not mere conscious activity.

Actually he's saying a materialist would say that and he disagrees. Mostly because it is in fact a silly argument.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

So you're saying homozygote twins are two equally versions of themselves and not separate people at all, and if one dies the consciousness magically flies in the other body and assumes direct control or it's one person controlling 4 arms, 4 legs, etc.

Also there is rem sleep, anyway consciousness is tied to the living body, not mere conscious activity.

First of all, I'm not "saying" any of this. I explicitly said I don't agree with this philosophy.

But no, even in this philosophy. Homozygote twins cease to be identical the instant the embryos start experiencing different external (or even internal, since the two halves of the split embryo are not actually identical) conditions, even in the womb, which is what makes them have e.g. different fingerprints. And, more importantly, the idea that there's a single "consciousness" (soul, basically) which could even conceptually transfer from one to the other is in direct contravention to the materialist philosophy.

Note that I explicitly said "in a state of suspended animation" to address the REM sleep question. During the copying phase, no new state is being generated. After being copied, they are functionally identical. If the two clones have different dreams before they wake up, then it's no different from if you went to sleep and happened to have different dreams one night vs the other. They are no longer identical copies the instant you take them out of suspended animation, but they're both equally valid (by this philosophy), since they started from the same state.

This philosophy (what makes Star Trek teleporters not horrifying murder machines) presupposes that "but what happens to the original" (with regards to copying, teleporters, etc.) is a meaningless question. There is no "original". They are both identical, so they are both identical. In this philosophy, there's no intangible soul attached to the body, and the continuity of existence only matters insofar as you can observe it. So if a biological body is liquified and a synthetic body wakes up, walking, talking, acting, remembering exactly as you would (if you had the capabilities of a mechanical body), then "you" transferred to a synthetic body.

I think this is lunacy. Imagine a malevolent machine intelligence which controlled all bodies in a networked fashion, which was capable of simulating your personality well enough to fool outside observers, no matter how many resources were devoted to detection, until it had sufficient majority to exterminate the other biologicals and simply claim your empire's infrastructure, ships, etc. for itself. This would look identical to "ideal" synthetic ascension, until it didn't.

Or it may never look different: why would the MI interrupt its opponents while they're making a mistake? Better to keep the appearance indefinitely, doing whatever it wants anyway as its citizens "decide" to do things that happen to align with its ambitions. That will avoid arousing suspicion from other empires, or discouraging them from similarly "ascending". And if empires pursing this "ascension" ask its "citizens" for help, so that their own new synthetic bodies will have "compatible digital communications protocols" with the machine intelligence own networked intelligence, then so much the better....

One can imagine a way of making a synthetic brain (with 1:1 electrical/mechanical correspondence for individual neurons and their connections) which wouldn't have this issue of innate inauthenticity, since the personality is a direct output of the system rather than a simulation, but even that has a similar issue: presumably, in order to make these neurons faithfully represent the brain, there's other hardware and software that keeps things running, detects electrical faults, does maintenance, etc. that must, by necessity, be able to change the way things are configured and, to some extent, "understand" what implications those changes would have. Imagine the existential horror of having your entire brain be able to be rewired instantaneously by something that always lives in your head.

Isn't it interesting that all mechanical pops instantly develop enormous Materialistic ethic attraction and love robots, regardless of their previous beliefs, as soon as they're assimilated?

It's questionable to say that the fact that you can't perceive a difference (even with perfect knowledge of the physical world) means that there is no difference (ex. a perfect biological copy). It's utter insanity to say that a demonstrably different (in form, function, and nature) system that happens to produce the same outputs is equivalent. Which is why I describe synthetic ascension as a horror story.

 

[Thiend]

First of all, I'm not "saying" any of this. I explicitly said I don't agree with this philosophy.

But no, even in this philosophy. Homozygote twins cease to be identical the instant the embryos start experiencing different external conditions, even in the womb, which is what makes them have e.g. different fingerprints. And, more importantly, the idea that there's a single "consciousness" (soul, basically) which could even conceptually transfer from one to the other is in direct contravention to the materialist philosophy.

Note that I explicitly said "in a state of suspended animation" to address the REM sleep question. During the copying phase, no new state is being generated. After being copied, they are functionally identical. If the two clones have different dreams before they wake up, then it's no different from if you went to sleep and happened to have different dreams one night vs the other. They are no longer identical copies the instant you take them out of suspended animation, but they're both equally valid (by this philosophy), since they started from the same state.

This philosophy (what makes Star Trek teleporters not horrifying murder machines) presupposes that "but what happens to the original" (with regards to copying, teleporters, etc.) is a meaningless question. There is no "original". They are both identical, so they are both identical. In this philosophy, there's no intangible soul attached to the body, and the continuity of existence only matters insofar as you can observe it. So if a biological body is liquified and a synthetic body wakes up, walking, talking, acting, remembering exactly as you would (if you had the capabilities of a mechanical body), then "you" transferred to a synthetic body.

I think this is lunacy. Imagine a malevolent machine intelligence which controlled all bodies in a networked fashion, which was capable of simulating your personality well enough to fool outside observers, no matter how many resources were devoted to detection, until it had sufficient majority to exterminate the other biologicals and simply claim your empire's infrastructure, ships, etc. for itself. This would look identical to "ideal" synthetic ascension, until it didn't.

Or it may never look different: why would the MI interrupt its opponents while they're making a mistake? Better to keep the appearance indefinitely, doing whatever it wants anyway as its citizens "decide" to do things that happen to align with its ambitions. That will avoid arousing suspicion from other empires, or discouraging them from similarly "ascending". And if empires pursing this "ascension" ask its "citizens" for help, so that their own new synthetic bodies will have "compatible digital communications protocols" with the machine intelligence own networked intelligence, then so much the better....

One can imagine a way of making a synthetic brain (with 1:1 electrical/mechanical correspondence for individual neurons and their connections) which wouldn't have this issue of innate inauthenticity, since the personality is a direct output of the system rather than a simulation, but even that has a similar issue: presumably, in order to make these neurons faithfully represent the brain, there's other hardware and software that keeps things running, detects electrical faults, does maintence, etc. that must, by necessity, be able to change the way things are configured and, to some extent, "understand" what implications those changes would have. Imagine the existential horror of having your entire brain be able to be rewired instantaneously by something that always lives in your head.

Isn't it interesting that all mechanical pops instantly develop enormous Materialistic ethic attraction and love robots, regardless of their previous beliefs, as soon as they're assimilated?

It's questionable to say that the fact that you can't perceive a difference (even with perfect knowledge of the physical world) means that there is no difference. It's utter insanity to say that a demonstrably different (in form, function, and nature) system that happens to produce the same outputs is equivalent. Which is why I describe synthetic ascension as a horror story.

Really, the core problem with that ideology is actually demonstrated within Star Trek. The fact of the matter is, if that "copy that is exactly you" can wake up without you falling asleep, it's immediately clear that you copied yourself and then killed one of them (specifically the original). If you take the pseudoscience transporters out, anesthetize the person, copy the consciousness to another body, and then that body kills the first with a knife without letting it wake up and experience new things... That's obviously murder. It's a transparently insane way of thinking.

Although to be fair to the misunderstanding, most of your original post reads like you're agreeing with it because you're successfully describing it from its own perspective and only clarify at the end.

 

[Vladisi]

It's questionable to say that the fact that you can't perceive a difference (even with perfect knowledge of the physical world) means that there is no difference. It's utter insanity to say that a demonstrably different (in form, function, and nature) system that happens to produce the same outputs is equivalent. Which is why I describe synthetic ascension as a horror story.

So you would also disagree, and call insanity, that an organic molecule produced through a chemical process used in a laboratory is the same as the same molecule produced through a chemical process used for producing industrial amounts, and both are indistinguishable from the same molecule produced in a biological chemical reaction inside of a cell of a living being? Because that would be the real insanity. Reality doesn't deal in notions of "nature" or "form", whatever those are, it deals in quacking ducks.

I think this is lunacy. Imagine a malevolent machine intelligence which controlled all bodies in a networked fashion, which was capable of simulating your personality well enough to fool outside observers, no matter how many resources were devoted to detection, until it had sufficient majority to exterminate the other biologicals and simply claim your empire's infrastructure, ships, etc. for itself. This would look identical to "ideal" synthetic ascension, until it didn't.

And it doesn't. Because there is no malevolent machine intelligence behind the transfer. That said, it is interesting that you consider something like this to be existential horror but not, perhaps, the fact that amongst real world humans there exist individuals without capability for remorse or empathy, and yet capable of simulating a charming and capable normal human mask to wear, called high-functioning sociopaths. Why is it that the mere notion of deceit suddenly existential horror for you?

So you're saying homozygote twins are two equally versions of themselves and not separate people at all, and if one dies the consciousness magically flies in the other body and assumes direct control or it's one person controlling 4 arms, 4 legs, etc.

Also there is rem sleep, anyway consciousness is tied to the living body, not mere conscious activity.

You keep using that idiotic homozygote twins analogy without comprehending your failure in its use, as has been elucidated to you. But let me complicate your analogy, and make it actually sort of work. Imagine, if you will, that the homozygote twins are entangled in such a way, no matter how, that they share experiences. By technology or magical telepathy, they see, smell, touch, learn etc. all the same things, so vividly that neither one of them can distinguish between what happens to one body and what happens to the other. They lead a confusing and difficult existence, no doubt, until one of them dies in their shared sleep. Does it actually matter which one died? Sure, it matters that one did die, since the life of the remaining one is suddenly both easier (no more confusion) and more difficult (only one brain to learn things), but it's more akin to losing a hand than one person actually dying, since it's unlikely to register as death to the one that remains as they never considered their other self a separate individual anyway.

Consciousness transfer would be akin to such a situation, except happening to an already formed person and without having to consciously experience their "twin's" life, as that twin would be luminally born from their unconscious brain during destructive brain transfer and cease to exist after. In other words, it would be completely different, but your analogy is now not entirely meritless.

 

[Thiend]

So you would also disagree, and call insanity, that an organic molecule produced through a chemical process used in a laboratory is the same as the same molecule produced through a chemical process used for producing industrial amounts, and both are indistinguishable from the same molecule produced in a biological chemical reaction inside of a cell of a living being? Because that would be the real insanity. Reality doesn't deal in notions of "nature" or "form", whatever those are, it deals in quacking ducks.

And it doesn't. Because there is no malevolent machine intelligence behind the transfer. That said, it is interesting that you consider something like this to be existential horror but not, perhaps, the fact that amongst real world humans there exist individuals without capability for remorse or empathy, and yet capable of simulating a charming and capable normal human mask to wear, called high-functioning sociopaths. Why is it that the mere notion of deceit suddenly existential horror for you?

You keep using that idiotic homozygote twins analogy without comprehending your failure in its use, as has been elucidated to you. But let me complicate your analogy, and make it actually sort of work. Imagine, if you will, that the homozygote twins are entangled in such a way, no matter how, that they share experiences. By technology or magical telepathy, they see, smell, touch, learn etc. all the same things, so vividly that neither one of them can distinguish between what happens to one body and what happens to the other. They lead a confusing and difficult existence, no doubt, until one of them dies in their shared sleep. Does it actually matter which one died? Sure, it matters that one did die, since the life of the remaining one is suddenly both easier (no more confusion) and more difficult (only one brain to learn things), but it's more akin to losing a hand than one person actually dying, since it's unlikely to register as death to the one that remains as they never considered their other self a separate individual anyway.

Consciousness transfer would be akin to such a situation, except happening to an already formed person and without having to consciously experience their "twin's" life, as that twin would be luminally born from their unconscious brain during destructive brain transfer and cease to exist after. In other words, it would be completely different, but your analogy is now not entirely meritless.

Stop trying to speak from on high until you learn the difference between "elucidate" and "illude." They're opposites.

Organic molecules never had a consciousness, so yes you can copy them and they're the same as the original. The body you clone before transferring memories to it would be a copy of your body. It would not be the same thing as you. If I cloned you and copied your mind to it, it would be illegal for me to also kill you because you're a person, even if another person was exactly the same as you.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Really, the core problem with that ideology is actually demonstrated within Star Trek. The fact of the matter is, if that "copy that is exactly you" can wake up without you falling asleep, it's immediately clear that you copied yourself and then killed one of them (specifically the original). If you take the pseudoscience transporters out, anesthetize the person, copy the consciousness to another body, and then that body kills the first with a knife without letting it wake up and experience new things... That's obviously murder. It's a transparently insane way of thinking.

Although to be fair to the misunderstanding, most of your original post reads like you're agreeing with it because you're successfully describing it from its own perspective and only clarify at the end.

I suspect a true believer would answer:

It's not murder so long as one of them lives on. Consciousness ceases when you sleep or are put in suspension for the copying (at least briefly), so no crime has been committed by stopping one copy from restarting, and the rest of society (including friends, family, spouse, etc.) are not deprived of their presence, as they have an equally valid instance of the person they know. So where's the murder?

If one person goes to sleep, and the same person wakes up, what difference does it make that a body which never experiences consciousness again (or at all, if it's the clone, since you can't tell them apart) is disposed of during the night?

"Murder" is just a rule to enforce prosocial behavior, anyway, so that society is stable and the best way to gain status is to work in a positive sum way instead of simply removing someone else and taking their stuff, which would be negative sum for the community. Without the harm to others, there no need to define it as murder just because of the physical process anymore than it would be a brutal stabbing if a surgeon cuts someone open to perform lifesaving surgery.

Or something. I dunno, I'm not a materialist.

(Yes, there are people who really think like this. Consider that Objectivist philosophy is a real thing that real people really espouse).

 

[Vladisi]

Stop trying to speak from on high until you learn the difference between "elucidate" and "illude." They're opposites.

Organic molecules never had a consciousness, so yes you can copy them and they're the same as the original. The body you clone before transferring memories to it would be a copy of your body. It would not be the same thing as you. If I cloned you and copied your mind to it, it would be illegal for me to also kill you because you're a person, even if another person was exactly the same as you.

And I used the correct one. "To reveal" rather than "to create an illusion". Your misunderstanding is entirely your own.

But we do not speak of cloning a body, but the mind. And since the mind transfer physically requires the destruction of the original in the very process of transfer, an entirely new legislation would have to be created to clarify that it is not, in fact, a murder. The same legislation would also posit that the copied person is legally indistinct from their organic progenitor, just as they are indistinct in practice.

 

[Thiend]

And I used the correct one. "To reveal" rather than "to create an illusion". Your misunderstanding is entirely your own.

But we do not speak of cloning a body, but the mind. And since the mind transfer physically requires the destruction of the original in the very process of transfer, an entirely new legislation would have to be created to clarify that it is not, in fact, a murder. The same legislation would also posit that the copied person is legally indistinct from their organic progenitor, just as they are indistinct in practice.

You've accidentally conceded my point by using the word "destruction." Destruction is not preservation. Freedom is not slavery. Ignorance is not strength. War is not peace.

Your use of elucidate is such a convoluted attempt at speaking down to someone that indeed, I could not be sure what you meant. I guess the real answer was you meant "I am making an appeal to authority fallacy and declaring myself an authority" so we got to the same thing.

 

[Vladisi]

You've accidentally conceded my point by using the word "destruction." Destruction is not preservation. Freedom is not slavery. Ignorance is not strength. War is not peace.

Your use of elucidate is such a convoluted attempt at speaking down to someone that indeed, I could not be sure what you meant. I guess the real answer was you meant "I am making an appeal to authority fallacy and declaring myself an authority" so we got to the same thing.

Destruction is a word like any other. Its use is dependent on context, ours being "destructive mind transfer", meaning that the process of transfer is inextricably connected to destroying one vehicle for the mind in order to transfer it to a new one, in order for the copy to be considered perfect, and thus, the transferred individual - the same. But I will also point out that in many an esoteric school of thought destruction is spiritually linked with creation and rebirth, so, unlike your other examples, there are precedents. And even in the material world destruction doesn't ever mean "reduce to absolute nothing", for nothing can thus be destroyed; any perceived "destruction" is only ever a transformation.

But let me also explain that by "elucidate" I only meant to sarcastically point out to Sir Roderick that his repeated use of his poorly thought out homozygote twin analogy (I'm pretty sure that's the third time he used it) was finally challenged by Abdulijubjub. So if I invoked anyone's authority, it was not my own. Again, the misunderstanding is entirely your own. I particularly cannot understand by which means you've come to believe that I meant to say "illude", which doesn't even semantically fit in my original sentence.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

So you would also disagree, and call insanity, that an organic molecule produced through a chemical process used in a laboratory is the same as the same molecule produced through a chemical process used for producing industrial amounts, and both are indistinguishable from the same molecule produced in a biological chemical reaction inside of a cell of a living being? Because that would be the real insanity. Reality doesn't deal in notions of "nature" or "form", whatever those are, it deals in quacking ducks.

Organic molecules (assuming they use the same isotopes) are identical and interchangeable because they're made of elementary particles in the same configuration. The same argument doesn't apply to building a machine that produces the same response as you would. It's... not the same. Self evidently. The machine is literally made of different materials, in a different configuration. That is, unless you're proposing that there is some elementary particle of consciousness and that the machine holds them in the same configuration as they are in your brain. That would make the argument apply but it's... quite a leap, unstated, and completely unsupported by evidence (in reality, or in game). Is that what you're claiming?

And it doesn't. Because there is no malevolent machine intelligence behind the transfer. That said, it is interesting that you consider something like this to be existential horror but not, perhaps, the fact that amongst real world humans there exist individuals without capability for remorse or empathy, and yet capable of simulating a charming and capable normal human mask to wear, called high-functioning sociopaths. Why is it that the mere notion of deceit suddenly existential horror for you?

Why do you confidently assert that there's no such machine intelligence? How can you tell the difference between a simulation that imitates an individual, with internal state that's completely disconnected from the individual it was based on (such that you don't know its true motives so long as it sees a reason to keep the facade), and an actual individual that's been faithfully copied?

This is a classic problem in philosophy and science fiction (ex. the movie Ex Machina), not something I'm making up.

Keep in mind that in machine uprisings, the assembled synths that are normally "completely individual" (acting the same as organic pops except with energy upkeep) in your empire immediately form a machine intelligence once they no longer have to integrate with your society because they're rebelling. And if an empire synth ascends, then is conquered by an empire that doesn't allow synth rights, all the synths that are supposedly copies of biological individuals will also form a single machine intelligence as soon as it becomes clear they will never gain the autonomy they want.

So how are you so certain, despite the evidence to the contrary? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but when you cut it open you find a metal endoskeleton, convincing synthetic feathers, and a recorder that replays duck quacks, you should conclude that it's actually a robot that's pretending to be a duck. Yet somehow, when you repeat this with a sentient organic, we should conclude that it's actually identical to the original?

 

[Thiend]

Destruction is a word like any other. Its use is dependent on context, ours being "destructive mind transfer", meaning that the process of transfer is inextricably connected to destroying one vehicle for the mind in order to transfer it to a new one, in order for the copy to be considered perfect, and thus, the transferred individual - the same. But I will also point out that in many an esoteric school of thought destruction is spiritually linked with creation and rebirth, so, unlike your other examples, there are precedents. And even in the material world destruction doesn't ever mean "reduce to absolute nothing", for nothing can thus be destroyed; any perceived "destruction" is only ever a transformation.

But let me also explain that by "elucidate" I only meant to sarcastically point out to Sir Roderick that his repeated use of his poorly thought out homozygote twin analogy (I'm pretty sure that's the third time he used it) was finally challenged by Abdulijubjub. So if I invoked anyone's authority, it was not my own. Again, the misunderstanding is entirely your own. I particularly cannot understand by which means you've come to believe that I meant to say "illude", which doesn't even semantically fit in my original sentence.

Your use is not "destructive mind transfer." Your use is copy and destruction. Hence why you conceded my point; destruction is not preservation. If you copy and destroy the original you have not preserved it, you have destroyed it and made a copy.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Cyborgs is probably too early, but the other two are from very rare tech or from tech chains that you have a low chance of getting in a series.

I don't mind cyborgs being one of the earlier ascensions, although honestly, I feel gene-modding should be unlocked a bit earlier too.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Keep in mind that in machine uprisings, the assembled synths that are normally "completely individual" (acting the same as organic pops except with energy upkeep) in your empire immediately form a machine intelligence once they no longer have to integrate with your society because they're rebelling. And if an empire synth ascends, then is conquered by an empire that doesn't allow synth rights, all the synths that are supposedly copies of biological individuals will also form a single machine intelligence as soon as it becomes clear they will never gain the autonomy they want.

This to me is just further indication there needs to be more focus placed for individualistic machine empires, potentially including the ability to start as one.

As well as pops, both organic and synth-ascendant, retaining the memory of their original nation even after its destruction, and forming factions within your empire to advocate specifically for the interest of their conquered people, and potentially forming separatist movements, seeking to restore their original empire.

Which would include formerly-organic ascended synthetics retaining their sapience and individuality even if conquered by an empire with outlawed AI, and reforming their nation with regular authorities upon a successful revolt.