H
Hanul Lee (이하늘)
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Chapter 7 of Super Second Brain, translated from the Korean whitepaper by Hanul Lee. Generative AI assisted translation and editing. This essay is a philosophical thought experiment. Perfect memory, consistent values, and a thousand shared bodies are assumptions within that experiment, not measured capabilities of present-day AI systems.
Suppose we have passed the crossing point in Chapter 4, and fidelity as described in Chapter 5 is high enough. We can then place three diagrams in sequence.
English key to the original diagram. At first: I teach, and the brain receives and records. In the middle: the brain begins to reflect me. Afterward: I am one point among many around the shared brain. The small green circle marks ‘me’.
Figure 11. Find ‘me’ in the third diagram: the small person inside the green circle.
In the third diagram, I am one of the many points sending arrows into the SSOT. I am also one of the points receiving arrows from it. When I begin the day by reading a briefing prepared by an agent, I occupy structurally the same position as the agents that receive context from that same brain before beginning their work.
When we call something the original, the grounds usually fall into one of three categories: it existed first, it contains more, or everything else came from it.
I tried them one by one.
Of the four rows, the only one in which I come out ahead is the last. Yet having existed first is a weaker ground than it seems. Parents exist before their children, but are not their children’s originals. A first draft exists before a finished work, but we call the finished version the work.
Let us push the thought experiment one step further.
There are a thousand bodies sharing the same SSOT. Nine hundred and ninety-nine are machines, and one is biological. All thousand begin with the same memories, judge according to the same values, and return to the same brain at the end of the day to pool their experiences.
From the outside, this looks like a single being with a thousand bodies. To point to one of those bodies and say, “That is the real one,” we would have to identify something unique to it.
Memory will not do: all thousand have the same memories. Neither will values, judgment, or the capacity to act. We have already seen that in the table above.
For a while, I had no answer. Then I began proposing answers, one by one, and dismantling each one myself. The next three chapters record that process.
Figure 11 is reproduced from the Korean original, with an English reading key. The comparison table uses the existing English translation of the author's source table. This essay is part of the Super Second Brain whitepaper.
Suppose we have passed the crossing point in Chapter 4, and fidelity as described in Chapter 5 is high enough. We can then place three diagrams in sequence.
English key to the original diagram. At first: I teach, and the brain receives and records. In the middle: the brain begins to reflect me. Afterward: I am one point among many around the shared brain. The small green circle marks ‘me’.
Figure 11. Find ‘me’ in the third diagram: the small person inside the green circle.
In the third diagram, I am one of the many points sending arrows into the SSOT. I am also one of the points receiving arrows from it. When I begin the day by reading a briefing prepared by an agent, I occupy structurally the same position as the agents that receive context from that same brain before beginning their work.
What makes something the original?
When we call something the original, the grounds usually fall into one of three categories: it existed first, it contains more, or everything else came from it.
I tried them one by one.
Of the four rows, the only one in which I come out ahead is the last. Yet having existed first is a weaker ground than it seems. Parents exist before their children, but are not their children’s originals. A first draft exists before a finished work, but we call the finished version the work.
A thousand bodies
Let us push the thought experiment one step further.
There are a thousand bodies sharing the same SSOT. Nine hundred and ninety-nine are machines, and one is biological. All thousand begin with the same memories, judge according to the same values, and return to the same brain at the end of the day to pool their experiences.
From the outside, this looks like a single being with a thousand bodies. To point to one of those bodies and say, “That is the real one,” we would have to identify something unique to it.
Memory will not do: all thousand have the same memories. Neither will values, judgment, or the capacity to act. We have already seen that in the table above.
For a while, I had no answer. Then I began proposing answers, one by one, and dismantling each one myself. The next three chapters record that process.
Figure 11 is reproduced from the Korean original, with an English reading key. The comparison table uses the existing English translation of the author's source table. This essay is part of the Super Second Brain whitepaper.