The Expensive Art of Living Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#11

Post by philipkglass » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

monktastic1 wrote: post #6

"Advanced artificial intelligence, they hope, will allow us to make exact copies of our minds that will live indefinitely in networked computer systems." I've never understood this mindset. If I asked you: "hey, here's proof that all the data that comprise your personality, memories, etc. have been copied to a computer, may I now give you a lethal injection?", why on earth would you say "yes"? It's not the particular…

A lot of what I fear about death isn't the end of my experiences but the fact that the things I was doing while alive will cease. I won't be able to earn a living to support my loved ones any more. I won't know if anyone will continue the lines of research that I consider interesting. I can't be sure that the investments I have will still be managed well.

A "backup" of myself that retained my memories and abilities would solve these problems and others even though it wouldn't solve my personal existential dread over cessation-of-experience. (Though if someone did develop gradual replacement mind uploading I'd get to maintain continuity of experience too.)

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#12

Post by arebop » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #9

arebop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensations you call your body change over time, until there's nothing but fatigue and pain left. If someone offered to let you resume consciousness on artificial hardware after your body had ceased to function, you might take them up on it. In fact, some of my eldest relatives are in high spirits but also looking forward to death, because they have religious convictions about a wonderful, energetic, pain-free aft…

If I make a perfectly identical clone of you, and then shoot you dead, will you resume your consciousness in that clone? Why? Alternatively, if I shoot the clone, will the clone resume its consciousness in you? By what process?

I wasn't attempting to realize the top commenter's fear of

> unproductive debate about what consciousness is or is not

I'm just addressing the question of why you'd say yes: you might be ready to be put of your misery, and at that point, why would you say "no"? The resumption of "you" gets an afterlife, and nothing gets worse for the you that's about to die either way.

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#13

Post by monktastic1 » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:05 PM UTC

arebop wrote: post #8

monktastic1 wrote: post #6

"Advanced artificial intelligence, they hope, will allow us to make exact copies of our minds that will live indefinitely in networked computer systems." I've never understood this mindset. If I asked you: "hey, here's proof that all the data that comprise your personality, memories, etc. have been copied to a computer, may I now give you a lethal injection?", why on earth would you say "yes"? It's not the particular…

The sensations you call your body change over time, until there's nothing but fatigue and pain left. If someone offered to let you resume consciousness on artificial hardware after your body had ceased to function, you might take them up on it. In fact, some of my eldest relatives are in high spirits but also looking forward to death, because they have religious convictions about a wonderful, energetic, pain-free aft…

"Resume your consciousness" does not apparently mean to me what it does to others -- hence the thought experiment I gave. Just because there's a computer out there churning out bits that match mine (for some acceptable definition), in what sense would my consciousness "resume" if you killed me? Whatever sense that is, it doesn't interest me in the slightest. If I proved to you that such a machine already exists for you somewhere, would you feel fine being put to death?

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#14

Post by vkou » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

chr1 wrote: post #5

dgllghr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is good reason to be concerned about moving into a future where the wealthy get to live forever (or at least for a very long time) while the poor live short lives of labor. I don't think the author is saying that what they want is wrong, just that we should think through the implications of such a future when we already have such high inequality. "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distri…

The future where only wealthy get to live forever is indeed very bleak, but there is a future worse than that: the one where everyones life is short (like now).

You're assuming that:

1. A world where Ghengis Khan or Emperor Tiberius, or Joseph Stalin were still alive today....

2. Would be no worse from the world we have, except a few powerful people would have not had to die.

The interests of the wealthy and powerful are not aligned with those of the rest of us. Death is one way in which dynasties and despots lose power - moreso if they have multiple successors.

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#15

Post by theothermkn » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #9

arebop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensations you call your body change over time, until there's nothing but fatigue and pain left. If someone offered to let you resume consciousness on artificial hardware after your body had ceased to function, you might take them up on it. In fact, some of my eldest relatives are in high spirits but also looking forward to death, because they have religious convictions about a wonderful, energetic, pain-free aft…

If I make a perfectly identical clone of you, and then shoot you dead, will you resume your consciousness in that clone? Why? Alternatively, if I shoot the clone, will the clone resume its consciousness in you? By what process?

The strange places this leads arrive almost immediately. Are you the same person after you take a nap? Doesn't your consciousness basically dissolve and then reconstitute itself when "you" wake? What about from second to second, between moments of inattention? Are we relying on the "stability" of your constituent atoms? On some "arrangement" of them? On a particular locus of sensation (the goo in your brain pan)?

What if we "clone" you by copying every other atom into a "left" clone, leaving the original in the right, and doing the reverse on the alternating atoms? Which resulting "clone" is you?

This way lies madness. Possibly twice.

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#16

Post by monktastic1 » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:08 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #11

monktastic1 wrote: post #6

"Advanced artificial intelligence, they hope, will allow us to make exact copies of our minds that will live indefinitely in networked computer systems." I've never understood this mindset. If I asked you: "hey, here's proof that all the data that comprise your personality, memories, etc. have been copied to a computer, may I now give you a lethal injection?", why on earth would you say "yes"? It's not the particular…

A lot of what I fear about death isn't the end of my experiences but the fact that the things I was doing while alive will cease. I won't be able to earn a living to support my loved ones any more. I won't know if anyone will continue the lines of research that I consider interesting. I can't be sure that the investments I have will still be managed well. A "backup" of myself that retained my memories and abilities w…

Thanks, that's an angle I hadn't considered before. (I still don't follow the argument about continuity of experience by gradual mind upload, but we can probably chalk that up to different intuitions about consciousness).

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#17

Post by szemet » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #9

arebop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensations you call your body change over time, until there's nothing but fatigue and pain left. If someone offered to let you resume consciousness on artificial hardware after your body had ceased to function, you might take them up on it. In fact, some of my eldest relatives are in high spirits but also looking forward to death, because they have religious convictions about a wonderful, energetic, pain-free aft…

If I make a perfectly identical clone of you, and then shoot you dead, will you resume your consciousness in that clone? Why? Alternatively, if I shoot the clone, will the clone resume its consciousness in you? By what process?

If you wake up from deep sleep in the morning your consciousness from yesterday is resumed?

What makes it the same consciousness as the yesterday one, if not all your memories, and past experiences? If my pure consciousness wakes up tomorrow in your body, with all your memories, will it be your consciousness then?

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#18

Post by ansible » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:14 PM UTC

dgllghr wrote: post #3

wonderwonder wrote: post #2

"In a world where a growing class of retired Americans are living in poverty and perpetual, insecure, backbreaking labor during what should be their retirement years, transhumanist visions of a future of “infinite abundance” (We’ll just 3-D-print food! Everyone will move to space!) aren’t inspiring, but perverse. Transhumanists are also almost exclusively white, as is borne out by the older, moneyed demographic at RA…

I think there is good reason to be concerned about moving into a future where the wealthy get to live forever (or at least for a very long time) while the poor live short lives of labor. I don't think the author is saying that what they want is wrong, just that we should think through the implications of such a future when we already have such high inequality. "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distri…

I think there is good reason to be concerned about moving into a future where the wealthy get to live forever (or at least for a very long time) while the poor live short lives of labor.

That really isn't going to happen. For good or for bad.

Either practical immortality will be widely available and low-cost, or it won't. And if it isn't, then robots will be doing the work instead of people. The poor masses will just be killed off, because there won't be a benefit to the wealthy to keep them around.

I'm hoping we will (as a society) address issues of infinite expansion (which doesn't work in the long run), but are able to extend practical immortality and high quality of life to everyone currently alive at the time. But there are a number of obstacles in our path.

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#19

Post by chr1 » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #9

arebop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensations you call your body change over time, until there's nothing but fatigue and pain left. If someone offered to let you resume consciousness on artificial hardware after your body had ceased to function, you might take them up on it. In fact, some of my eldest relatives are in high spirits but also looking forward to death, because they have religious convictions about a wonderful, energetic, pain-free aft…

If I make a perfectly identical clone of you, and then shoot you dead, will you resume your consciousness in that clone? Why? Alternatively, if I shoot the clone, will the clone resume its consciousness in you? By what process?

The question in this case is "what is a perfectly identical clone" and what is time.

If the thing works like a computer, that is clone is truly identical, and time is just a counter, then there is nothing to resume the clone won't know that it was cloned, and the whole thing won't be much different from the normal passage of time, (except for seeing yourself killed won't be pleasant).

But if there is something else that you can't clone, like quantum state being impossible to clone perfectly, or a soul, then the clone is not you but that's because the assumption of a `perfectly identical clone` is wrong

Re: The Expensive Art of Living Forever

#20

Post by CapitalistCartr » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

ansible wrote: post #18

dgllghr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is good reason to be concerned about moving into a future where the wealthy get to live forever (or at least for a very long time) while the poor live short lives of labor. I don't think the author is saying that what they want is wrong, just that we should think through the implications of such a future when we already have such high inequality. "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distri…

I think there is good reason to be concerned about moving into a future where the wealthy get to live forever (or at least for a very long time) while the poor live short lives of labor. That really isn't going to happen. For good or for bad. Either practical immortality will be widely available and low-cost, or it won't. And if it isn't, then robots will be doing the work instead of people. The poor masses will just…

Attempts thus far in history by the wealthy to "manage" the poor have worked reliably only insofar as the poor believed they were OK. Beyond that, violent revolution with massive bloodshed is common.