Underneath it all, this is a manifestation of an important split in the cryonics community. One group is (I think overly) critical of present vitrification approaches and the planned future of those approaches. They believe that these approaches are broken, and nothing of value is preserved. I think this is just as ridiculous as saying there is no room for improvement - it is clearly the case that, e.g. nematodes vit…
The philosophical difference between the two groups is very interesting. I tend to agree with your take, and would greatly prefer to see advances made in reversible vitrification so it can be widely used.
This is going to sound a bit out there, but what if your brain is simply an antenna for your consciousness to come through from wherever. Has anyone actually tried to boot up an artificial brain derived from a real organism? I'd like to see a proof of concept that your brain IS indeed the seat of your consciousness, and not just a fancy quantum antenna.
The range of different effects that a brain injury can have on your mind is too great, IMO, for this to be true. Consider cases where people forget very specific classes of things, or gain or lose specific faculties, in response to neural trauma. Damage to the brain affects the functionality of the mind itself, not just how clearly the mind can see its inputs and convey its outputs.
Especially when you think about the studies on split-brain patients. That's hard to square away with the idea of our mind being somewhere else transmitting to us ... unless you hypothesize that for every person, there's two minds out there, each transmitting to half of your brain, and then your brain meshes their thoughts together ... but if your brain is capable of integrating the thoughts together, then the argument is weakening as clearly the brain has some thinking ability.
This is going to sound a bit out there, but what if your brain is simply an antenna for your consciousness to come through from wherever. Has anyone actually tried to boot up an artificial brain derived from a real organism? I'd like to see a proof of concept that your brain IS indeed the seat of your consciousness, and not just a fancy quantum antenna.
The trivial dismissal of most of these problems is to realize that whatever features we have must have evolved, and it would be a statistical miracle for the substrate that evolution discovered to just happen to be uniquely capable of dualism.
Also, does every animal with a brain have a dualist mind out there too? What's the limit? Does a worm with a few hundred neurons have a non-physical mind connection? Does your digestive system with its millions of neurons have its own non-physical mind out there too?
This is going to sound a bit out there, but what if your brain is simply an antenna for your consciousness to come through from wherever. Has anyone actually tried to boot up an artificial brain derived from a real organism? I'd like to see a proof of concept that your brain IS indeed the seat of your consciousness, and not just a fancy quantum antenna.
This idea has zero basis. It's a mind-brain version of Russell's Teapot: I claim there is a teapot floating between Earth and Mars, and I challenge you to prove otherwise! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
It's what the majority of the world believes, and science has no idea what consciousness is. So, there is zero basis parent is wrong.
Plus, there are all kinds of problems and contradictions if the mind reduces to matter.
If folks really want to make sure they come back from the dead, they might also think about setting up proper incentives for performing the potentially highly laborious process that resurrection might entail even 100+ years from now. It might be helpful to place a sort of back-to-life bounty on yourself, to be held in escrow, and only to be paid out upon successful resurrection. The bigger the bounty, the higher your…
This would be difficult with the current legal system in most of the United States because of the rule against perpetuities[0]. Of course, jurisdiction shopping makes this easier in certain locales. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities
perhaps we need to classify people as not dead but "heisen" :)
What probability of restoration would be high enough to consider it? The future timelines in which restoration does happen are probably extremely interesting to be part of, given how far tech would have progressed. (There are lots of sucky future timelines too, say with nuclear holocausts, where you'd be unlikely to be restored.) No: 100% chance of death. Yes: 100-X% chance of death, X% chance of getting to see a sup…
There's no chance of you getting to see a "super-interesting future". This comment is as weird to me as confusing a book on Relativity with Einstein. If you had a terminal disease, and a twin, would you expect to wake up in the body of your twin after death?
If I had a terminal illness, and I had the option of having a healthy twin come into existence with all of my memories, goals, and creativity, I'd spend anything on that option. It's a shame if there's some sense it's not "really me", but what I care about is that my friends don't get a me-shaped hole in their lives, that my responsibilities continue to be taken care of, and my goals keep getting met in the way I hoped I could do.
Seems like a big bet on the concept that the physical structure of the brain preserves enough information to resurrect a consciousness. If electrical transmissions are at all required, then this would render a brain nothing more than an amusing curio. Although, given that their target market is already those planning to be euthanized, I suppose the tradeoff of one's brain being an amusing curio vs. one's brain being…
Clearly, morality and the greater good of humanity requires that we proactively euthanize any genius who hits 60. Even against their will. All assets should go to the euthanasia team to cover costs.
Or, you know, you could just clone them, like Riker. Or make a copy without invasive means.
And anyway, if people have cybernetic implants, I wonder what being human will mean.
This would be difficult with the current legal system in most of the United States because of the rule against perpetuities[0]. Of course, jurisdiction shopping makes this easier in certain locales. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities
According to Larry Niven ( Rammer ), the courts will find the dead cannot own property. I observe there's a certain prejudice, in that law is written by the living. The other ideas of cryptocurrency/escrow/private keys would escape the law... until you tried to spend it legally. You might as well bury gold in a chest.
I observe there's a certain prejudice, in that law is written by the living.
Until the "dead" uploads outnumber the living, at which point they vote in a bloc to expropriate and enslave the meat-humans, as in the novel The Uploaded.
Why would people 200 years into the future believe your assertion?
If the crypto network is still around then the balances can be publicly verified.
What if you claim to reveal the password once you're alive, but don't? Or can claim you don't know it even if you do? What will people do then - kill you off again?