The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
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The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
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Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#2Being mummified was a clever move. If his brain were preserved long enough, then he may hypothetically have been brought back to life. A bit like cryogenics.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#3Being mummified was a clever move. If his brain were preserved long enough, then he may hypothetically have been brought back to life. A bit like cryogenics.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#4Being mummified was a clever move. If his brain were preserved long enough, then he may hypothetically have been brought back to life. A bit like cryogenics.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
And I'm sure you have a rigorous evidence-backed argument backing that up.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#5Being mummified was a clever move. If his brain were preserved long enough, then he may hypothetically have been brought back to life. A bit like cryogenics.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
No need to bring the brain back to life. When memories and the connectome are finally understood, simply scan the brain, even by destroying the original if needed: cut it into slices, scan it, then upload it to a robotic body, or even a simple computer simulation (good enough for me!)
I do not want to be "flesh and bones" when we will have better alternatives.
I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what we are? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
And I'm sure you have a rigorous evidence-backed argument backing that up.
Just as rigorous and evidence-backed as the people claiming they will save your head for the future to bring it back (or some construct of you).
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
And I'm sure you have a rigorous evidence-backed argument backing that up.
I think the chances are close to zero - desiccation of the brain tissue destroys the proximal and distal dendrites and therefore the connections that represent our memories and consciousness.
Freezing causes the water to expand and rupture the cell membranes, which also causes irreversible damage and information loss.
I hope we can discover a better preservation technique until we get neural uploading sorted, I think we are closer than ever in history, and I'm optimistic!
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
No need to bring the brain back to life. When memories and the connectome are finally understood, simply scan the brain, even by destroying the original if needed: cut it into slices, scan it, then upload it to a robotic body, or even a simple computer simulation (good enough for me!) I do not want to be "flesh and bones" when we will have better alternatives. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I wa…
> When memories and the connectome are finally understood
IF.
> simply scan the brain
Simply?
> I do not want to be "flesh and bones" when we will have better alternatives.
IF.
> Do you see the absurdity of what we are?
We are no more absurd than your vision of what you wish to become, with the one note that we are what we are and your wishes will very likely remain just that.
The whole cryogenics movement is strongly reminiscent of a religion: it costs lots of money, it makes vague promises of an afterlife and 'freethinkers' are relentlessly attacked by the true believers.
Show me the proof, until then it's just another scam.
> and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me.
There is some hot air involved here, but not that one.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
No need to bring the brain back to life. When memories and the connectome are finally understood, simply scan the brain, even by destroying the original if needed: cut it into slices, scan it, then upload it to a robotic body, or even a simple computer simulation (good enough for me!) I do not want to be "flesh and bones" when we will have better alternatives. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I wa…
I mean, okay to the second part, but as to the first part, who is going to pay to run your simulation?
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#10Being mummified was a clever move. If his brain were preserved long enough, then he may hypothetically have been brought back to life. A bit like cryogenics.
I'd give it roughly the same chance that I give the heads sitting in cryogenic storage being brought back to life: 0.
Looking back ~125 years, if you said to the average person that we could identify him decades later from an object he touched, before the idea of fingerprint identification was well known, it would have sounded ridiculous. These days, decades old murders are solved with DNA -- hypothetically needing nothing more than a single cell. In both examples, we assumed simply that the information (fingerprints or DNA) was preserved. The technology for cryonic retrieval might be very far off, and the economics might not make sense, but if the mental information was preserved, then a possibility exists.