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Originally Posted by gmw
But I always found Pratchett rather convincing around this idea: form shapes function. (eg: Granny Weatherwax occupying the mind of other creatures.) This is one reason why I've found SF that talks of uploading minds into computers unconvincing; much of what makes us who we are stems from the constraints of the body. Remove those constraints and how long would we remain recognisable? Given that, how are we to define, let alone recognise, an intelligence formed under totally different constraints?
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Bauhaus: Function affects form
But I largely agree with most of this. Except even if we take memories, it's obvious to experts that human memory is nothing like either video recording or computer memory. There are many roadblocks to the idea (supported by Musk) of uploading memory, never mind whatever it is that makes us be, to a computer. SF isn't a blueprint. Most of it isn't even predictions or warnings, it's entertainment, a different flavour of fantasy and there is a continuous spectrum of story telling between High Fantasy and Hard SF. Also in one sense Hard SF simply ends up being an expert extrapolation of what exists now to a near future. A lot of what people think is hard SF simply has more convincing technobabble and isn't thought "hard" by any qualified person the same field.