The implications of your identity being copied into a new, improved body and what that means when the original you is dead, or what happens when you get copied more than once, etc are explored in depth in Jasper Scott's excellent Dark Space series: http://www.jaspertscott.com/p/dark-space-v-avilon.html
A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
21–30 of 172 posts
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#22Some reading material for those interesting in the current state of cryonics development and research, starting with an overview and moving on. Modern cryopreservation aims for vitrification, not freezing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm http://www.brainpreservation.org/competitors/ The evidence assembled to date provides a reasonable expectation that the fine structure of the b…
Not very satisfying from the continuity identity perspective; a copy of you is not you. Neither are you, you you from yesterday or the day before - conscious continuity is illusory. How do you know that your body isn't replaced with a new copy each night (thought experiment)? restoration of the original tissues...Advanced molecular nanotechnology and complete control over cellular biology You run into a Ship of These…
> Neither are you, you you from yesterday or the day before - conscious continuity is illusory. How do you know that your body isn't replaced with a new copy each night (thought experiment)?
Conscious continuity "might be" illusory. (Unless you have a proof or evidence; unlikely).
And favoring mind uploading over bio-longevity based on a "might be" is a very unsafe bet.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not very satisfying from the continuity identity perspective; a copy of you is not you. Neither are you, you you from yesterday or the day before - conscious continuity is illusory. How do you know that your body isn't replaced with a new copy each night (thought experiment)? restoration of the original tissues...Advanced molecular nanotechnology and complete control over cellular biology You run into a Ship of These…
Neither are you, you you from yesterday or the day before - conscious continuity is illusory. How do you know that your body isn't replaced with a new copy each night (thought experiment)? Because the workmanship keeps getting worse and worse. ;-)
The copy process isn't perfect. There is a bit of corruption each time, that limits most people to less than 100 years of copies.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#24It's fascinating that this is so close to reality, at least in terms of preserving the information that encodes our memories and identities.
Of course there is the issue of reviving the person, either biologically or digitally. As computing power grows, I don't see any barrier to simulating an entire human brain. Sure it will take time: according to this[0] and applying Moore's law, it will take about 60 years before we can simulate a brain in real time with a single machine.
This whole field makes me very uncomfortable. I'm not saying it's wrong, but the potential for harm (particularly to those being simulated) is very great. There's a Greg Egan story where reanimated humans live as "AI" characters a game simulation, waiting for when society will wake up and grant them rights.
[0] http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/163051-simulating-1-secon...
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once you're dead you'll miss out on all the cool stuff that's happening. It's bad enough we missed out on all the stuff that happened before we died.
You don't miss anything because you don't exist anymore. Missing things is considered a bad thing when you can experience the frustration of not being able to do things you would like to do. But if you don't exist, you can not experience this frustration, thus not being able to do stuff does not mean anything to you because nothing does. The only frustration you can feel is the idea that in the future you won't be ab…
> You don't miss anything because you don't exist anymore.
But I can miss things while I do exist. I miss 'doing things as a healthful immortal' already! And I'll miss them more and more as my health declines and I age.
Also pekk is correct. You would totally "miss out" on doing things if you're dead. Because you were alive at some point and could make it far into the future to enjoy commercial space travel or something more, but instead you died.
Only a universally non-existent human would not miss out. By 'universally' I mean one who never existed in the past and never will in the future (like an imaginary human). But you and I are not imaginary. We've already had 'the taste of existence', and we can never be the same again!
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#26Consider the idea that this is a vector into the idea of machines being possibly equally important, or considered even more important than living humans, based on their capacity to accurately represent the continued presence of deceased humans. That a machine is permitted to occupy and consume resources, that might otherwise be used by actual living people who are also trying to live meaningful lives. Which one wins?
no worries. The human emulator uses just 1% of a 2050 EC2 mini compute instance.
The occasional stuttering is actually due to GC pauses.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#27The implications of your identity being copied into a new, improved body and what that means when the original you is dead, or what happens when you get copied more than once, etc are explored in depth in Jasper Scott's excellent Dark Space series: http://www.jaspertscott.com/p/dark-space-v-avilon.html
Some of Greg Egan's books explore this as well. I recommend Diaspora and Permutation City.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#28Why are we so scared of death, to be nothing. Why do we have to cling on to someone's memories,is it because it gives some sense of security? It is just bizarre to reduce the beauty of life to some some little affair of holding on to someone's memories. Death is as beautiful as birth. We should break past the ridiculous taboos surrounding death and discuss it openly as to what it means to die. Edit: Jiddu K on death,…
The only people not afraid of death are delusional or suicidal.
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#29It's fascinating that this is so close to reality, at least in terms of preserving the information that encodes our memories and identities. Of course there is the issue of reviving the person, either biologically or digitally. As computing power grows, I don't see any barrier to simulating an entire human brain. Sure it will take time: according to this[0] and applying Moore's law, it will take about 60 years before…
Which Greg Egan story is that?
Re: A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future
#30The implications of your identity being copied into a new, improved body and what that means when the original you is dead, or what happens when you get copied more than once, etc are explored in depth in Jasper Scott's excellent Dark Space series: http://www.jaspertscott.com/p/dark-space-v-avilon.html
Also see Greg Egan's short story, "The Extra" (http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra) and others, e.g. "Closer" (http://eidolon.net/?story=Closer)