Cool idea, but it's science fiction.
If this intrigues you, try some really good science fiction on the topic, like Neal Stephenson's "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell".
‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
281–290 of 499 posts
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#282“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…
Hans Moravec had a suggestion on how to do this in Mind Children: instead of examining the whole brain, you measure a layer, then replace it, layer by layer, until the last. There is never a copy and an original, it's just a ship of theseus self where the neurons are individually replaced with new ones, albeit electronic ones.
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#283One of Don DeLillo's later good novels is about this stuff (Zero K). I always think people's attitude toward possible future worlds is interesting. You can see a wide spread of opinion in this thread -- whether you think functional immortality would be a good thing says a lot about who you are. Ditto for colonizing other planets, automating all work, building AGI, and so on. I suppose I'm on the side of the technolog…
I'm certain immortality is possible, and it's also likely to be achieved, because we always do everything we can do, regardless of consequences. But I think this is the acme of selfishness. I don't want to be immortal, and I wouldn't want to live in a world with 500-year-old know-it-alls running around "oldsplaining" everything to everyone else. I have, thankfully, a fairly good chance of dying before that happens.
How is immortality selfish? Selfishness requires taking from other “selves” who have unmet needs of their own. But there’s every reason to believe a society of immortals could either function perfectly well without producing new selves, or that it could choose to reproduce at a slow rate sustainable with its ability to extract resources to support itself. Any new selves that were born would be provided the same opportunities that we provide new selves in the present day—breastfeeding, education, healthcare. How would that be “selfish?”
Is it selfish when a centenarian lives past 100? Is each additional year of life obtained by a centenarian “selfishly” stolen from some hypothetical unborn self?
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#284As usual, it must be warned that living forever means you can be tortured forever. Interesting that an article on Dante is getting upvotes today...
Catholic theology actually justifies the belief in Hell by arguing that an eternity of suffering in Hell is a blessing, because it admits the one benefit of existence itself, while total annihilation has no redeeming factors whatsoever.
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#285“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…
This makes sense if you believe in a non-materialist self, like a soul. That model wouldn't be falsifiable- we can't measure it, so it can have whatever properties are convenient. You could then rule out the possibility that your soul would inhabit the copied 'you' by fiat. Scientifically, though: of course an exact copy of you is you. If you don't believe in souls but still feel like this is not the case, that indic…
> Scientifically, though: of course an exact copy of you is you. If you don't believe in souls but still feel like this is not the case, that indicates your model of 'you' is incorrect.
How is that "scientifically" an "of course"?
How is it more "an exact copy of you is you" than the alternative claim, "an exact copy of you is 'you (1)'" (to borrow from file manager nomenclature).
The trivial example of that seems to be that if you make an exact copy, put it in a different room, and then something happens to the exact copy, that thing does not happen simultaneously to the original copy.
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#286I wonder how much of a relief the belief that when you sit on your deathbed you will be woken up again would provide. Even if the tech doesn't work, I wonder how much relief from suffering the idea that it will in a hundred years could be
Probably similar to the relief that the belief you will wake up from general anesthesia provides prior to surgery.
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#287Ultimately, I am going to quote one of my favorite writers [0] and say that I am not afraid of a life that ends. I don't want to be a brain in a jar. Or in a computer either. I enjoy experiencing physical sensations and interacting with the world in meatspace. And if I can't enjoy either, then just let me die. And I apply this to not just brain preservation, but any attempt to artificially prolong the quantity of my…
This seems a bit extreme. Chemotherapy and its effects can be a very temporary thing, and your quality of life can go back to normal after you've finished your course and the cancer has gone into remission. Certainly there are aggressive cancers where you'd be fighting a painful battle of attrition, but there are many cancers where prognoses are good, and quality of life once treatment is done is more or less the same as before. A blanket personal ban on chemo is reckless and shortsighted.
The prohibition against amputation and sensory organ removal is a bit nuts too. You'd rather die than have someone remove one of your eyes or ears, or say a hand or arm or foot or leg? That is profoundly sad, and intensely insulting to anyone who has had to deal with that sort of thing and has nonetheless lived a full, rich life.
I get that many medical interventions do actually have a terrible, permanent effect on quality of life, but these seem like pretty extreme views that ignore reality.
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#288“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…
As the article says, a book is not the ink, but the words. I am not my physical atoms, but the connections that form my thought patterns and memories. If it were possible to make a perfect copy of those things, the copy would be "me". If the original still existed, that would also be (a different) me.
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (…) and a prohibition against anyone amputating any of my limbs or sensory organs even if it's necessary to save my life. > I will make sure I die with my autonomy and my dignity intact. Amputees have autonomy, dignity, and rich lives. To believe that the loss of a limb is so severe that death is preferable is absurd and insensitive. What if instead of requiring an amputation, he loses faculties by accident like su…
> To believe that the loss of a limb is so severe that death is preferable is absurd and insensitive. No. Denigrating someone expressing their personal opinion seems absurd. Since the commenter did not impose their opinions on other people you had to put those words in their mouth to call them insensitive. I prefer to die with autonomy and dignity as well, meaning I would like to pull my own plug. That other people m…
If someone else is free to decide that they'd rather die than lose an eye, or rather die than have to experience a few months of chemotherapy in order to be cancer-free, then I am also free to decide that those views are absurd and extreme, and reflect a deep misunderstanding of medical outcomes.
> Denigrating someone expressing their personal opinion seems absurd.
There's a difference between saying someone is foolish and saying their beliefs/opinions are foolish. The former is not what the GP did.
Re: ‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’
#290“Take very high resolution scans of brain structure to characterise how someone’s neurons work, recreate it in a digital format then put it in another robotic, virtual or biological body.” This isn't preserving, it's copying. A copy of your brain/personality/you... isn't you... it's a copy. It's a cassette tape playing back the radio you recorded onto it. It's really kind of odd that people talk about brain transplan…
I'm not a huge Trekkie but I recall the reason Bones McCoy wouldn't go in a transporter was he believed it killed the person and created a copy.