You have to take into account the presently unimaginable pressure of immortality.
A human's entire span of existence has traditionally been ~40-50 years. It's only recently that it has become feasible for any given person to expect to live for 80 years or so. Discounting the jarring transition from having a body to having only thoughts, how long could your mind really tolerate persisting?
Would you run out of things to think about after 200 years of being able to do nothing but think? And you wouldn't be wasting any time sleeping either. I feel like the human psyche would need to be significantly altered to deal with existence on the order of centuries rather than decades, especially with the risk of death coming from so many fewer quarters. Would a human mind, transferred this way, survive for all that much longer without losing a grip on sanity? Would a mind that can successfully last in this state be recognizably human at all?
Selling eternal life! Is anyone interested?
You guys are trying to talk about a subject using an inappropriate jargon.
You're arguing about "identity".. whether you are still the same "person" if your brain contents are transferred to another medium. The concept of "identity" and "personhood" assume a world where it's not possible to duplicate a mind. These concepts would have to be extended to accommodate such a world, and how you extend the concepts (i.e. redefine the words) would determine whether two mind copies would be considered the same "identity".
I like to think that the second you create a copy (assuming that copy is not static or "paused"), you now have two unique identities that happen to have a shared past. Let's say your mind was copied into a robot. The robot would say "Back when i had a human body" and human would say "I've always had a human body".
That's just my definition. Alternate definitions of "identity" are perfectly possible.
You're arguing about "identity".. whether you are still the same "person" if your brain contents are transferred to another medium. The concept of "identity" and "personhood" assume a world where it's not possible to duplicate a mind. These concepts would have to be extended to accommodate such a world, and how you extend the concepts (i.e. redefine the words) would determine whether two mind copies would be considered the same "identity".
I like to think that the second you create a copy (assuming that copy is not static or "paused"), you now have two unique identities that happen to have a shared past. Let's say your mind was copied into a robot. The robot would say "Back when i had a human body" and human would say "I've always had a human body".
That's just my definition. Alternate definitions of "identity" are perfectly possible.
A Brain in a Vat just posted what I was gonna say
if u copy yourself (say its possible & will last forever) i.e. u hold a chip in your hands & declare now I will live forever.
How much comfort is that for you, would you stick a bullet through your head (cause you know you will still live on) the answer is NO it doesnt change anything at all, your soul (not used religiously) dies when your body dies
If you want to live forever the better method is nanobots (or something)
cruising through your body removing all aging effects/disease etc
A Brain in a Vat just posted what I was gonna say
if u copy yourself (say its possible & will last forever) i.e. u hold a chip in your hands & declare now I will live forever.
How much comfort is that for you, would you stick a bullet through your head (cause you know you will still live on) the answer is NO it doesnt change anything at all, your soul (not used religiously) dies when your body dies
If you want to live forever the better method is nanobots (or something)
cruising through your body removing all aging effects/disease etc
How do you feel that your body differs from any other vessel that might hold your mind? It's fine to say that you aren't using the word soul in a religious sense. Then how are you using it? What if it's not a copy-paste operation, but a cut-and-paste? The first causes a bifurcation of identity, but the second doesn't.
It's true that even if there's only a single, persistent entity before, during, and after the mind-digitization process there will still be a pretty significant event which will likely alter that entity afterwards. But is that fundamentally different from any other significant event, even if the body (as a construct of constantly changing components) persists along with the mind? There are lots of anecdotes about people who are quite different after a near-death experience than they were prior to it; are these different people under your (and Brain in a Vat's) conceptualization?
Living forever is such a waste. I do think though, that this could be useful in a manner such as We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (aka Total Recall) once you can figure out how to implant brain images.
Then again, this could lead to not so great conclusions. While being able to have an entire life's knowledge & education implanted within a young child sounds good, this is heavily exploitable.
Then again, this could lead to not so great conclusions. While being able to have an entire life's knowledge & education implanted within a young child sounds good, this is heavily exploitable.
Author
A Brain in a Vat just posted what I was gonna say
if u copy yourself (say its possible & will last forever) i.e. u hold a chip in your hands & declare now I will live forever.
How much comfort is that for you, would you stick a bullet through your head (cause you know you will still live on) the answer is NO it doesnt change anything at all, your soul (not used religiously) dies when your body dies
If you want to live forever the better method is nanobots (or something)
cruising through your body removing all aging effects/disease etc
Actually I may put a bullet in my head if it were beneficial! You need to realize that to you it may seem undesirable but to me it's actually more desirable then maintaining my current body.
Copying yourself into a computer, and then shooting yourself is pretty much the same as having kids (and giving them to foster parents) and then shooting yourself.
In both cases, you still die. A new organism lives on in your place. There's no connection between you and the copy.
In both cases, you still die. A new organism lives on in your place. There's no connection between you and the copy.
Author
Copying yourself into a computer, and then shooting yourself is pretty much the same as having kids (and giving them to foster parents) and then shooting yourself.
In both cases, you still die. A new organism lives on in your place. There's no connection between you and the copy.
I agree, that's why I said only if it were beneficial.
Copying yourself into a computer, and then shooting yourself is pretty much the same as having kids (and giving them to foster parents) and then shooting yourself.
In both cases, you still die. A new organism lives on in your place. There's no connection between you and the copy.
That's just not true - anything that carried all your experiences and memories would fully recognize itself as you. Sure it would be disorienting if it now had a robot body to adapt to, but it would still have inherent signatures like parents calling it a certain name, ex-girlfriends, education, loss, success, in all forms "identity".
Identity in this sense is not a singular term. It is a collection of memories that may or may not be unique. Therefore if two "anythings" had the same collection of memories, and operated on them the same, they would literally be the same "person" - certainly giving "person" a modified definition as well.
I mean in regards to shooting yourself though --- whether or not there is another organism out there that recognises itself as having the same identity as you is irrelevant.
The outcome of your suicide is that you die. Just as before your death, you and the copy did not occupy a merged conciousness, after your death, your own conciousness will still be disconnected from the copy's.
[edit]Just as that morning how you would wake up in your own body (not the copy's), the morning after shooting yourself you still won't wake up in the copy's body[/edit]
The only definition of identity that matters here is as "an instance of conciousness". When the copy process occurs, your instance is cloned so there's now two instances. At that point they instantly fork and become distinctly different identities (albeit with a shared history). When you die, you're still destroying your own identity / conciousness -- and at the point of death there's no connection between your current identity / conciousness and the clone's identity / conciousness.
The outcome of your suicide is that you die. Just as before your death, you and the copy did not occupy a merged conciousness, after your death, your own conciousness will still be disconnected from the copy's.
[edit]Just as that morning how you would wake up in your own body (not the copy's), the morning after shooting yourself you still won't wake up in the copy's body[/edit]
The only definition of identity that matters here is as "an instance of conciousness". When the copy process occurs, your instance is cloned so there's now two instances. At that point they instantly fork and become distinctly different identities (albeit with a shared history). When you die, you're still destroying your own identity / conciousness -- and at the point of death there's no connection between your current identity / conciousness and the clone's identity / conciousness.
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