Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a thought experiment, if you knew for certain that in a hundred years an individual who was long dead was brought back to life, and you had to guess whether the recently deceased was a cryogenic patient from 2018 or a mummified Emperor from antiquity - would you be ambivalent about the choices? If not, then you don't really think they're equally good paths to extra life.
Your thought experiment got me thinking (which I guess is the point lol!): Imagine you knew for certain that in a couple hundred years individuals could be brought back to life at great expense , AND that it was at least 1/100th as feasible for mummified remains as it was for cryopreservation. Who do think scientists would put more effort into bringing back? Another 'Joe Blogs' from 2018, or a mummified Emperor from…
The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
31–40 of 81 posts
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#32Being 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.
0 probability means that even infinitely many pieces of evidence will not change your assessment: no matter how many heads you see restored from cryogenic storage, you will still believe that the probability is 0, and will have to find other, increasingly unlikely, explanations for the evidence.
For a more in-depth and slightly more rigorous discussion, see 0 And 1 Are Not Probabilities: https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/QGkYCwyC7wTDyt3yT/0-and-1...
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#33On a very basic level, if I feel myself to be entitled to live forever, then I couldn't rightfully deny that to anyone else. So at some point this would mean less new births. If it didn't, it would mean an even more crass explosion of the human footprint, an even more extreme choking out of other lifeforms -- and it could very well mean both. But that would suck, since being healthy and alive isn't just great because I can see 5000 million particles rendered in 3 lines of CSS, or watch the clouds go by, it's also because of the flora and fauna, and because of other people. Beings that surprise me, that come into the world and "become". Knowing there will be future question marks born is something way more sublime for me than "attack ships on fire" or having this one video that got 7234 million views.
Life isn't just me, it's also a river in which I am a drop. If I want to not be a drop, so I can keep seeing the river, well... if everybody does that, there is no more river, and if I want to reserve immortality for just myself, I am an asshole. I don't mean to brag, but I figured that out as a kid, and no immortality advocate I read or heard or saw so far managed to put a meaningful dent in it.
Yes, I am for medicine, I think it's great when people can live longer and stay healthy longer (even though we then ignore their wisdom when it's inconvenient, e.g. [0]), but no, I cannot draw you an exact line, except that I know "immortality" as extreme and as espoused by technophiles or emperors or preachers does not interest me, at all. If anything I'm curious about the biographies of the people looking for it; they point at some clouds that may or may not have a moon behind it, but I can't help but look from the finger to their arm to their shoulders to their head. I feel that's where the majority if not all of the action is.
Last, but not least: even if you managed to completely overcome all aging and disease, assuming no asteroids and other surprises: the only way to ensure you will live "forever" is to severely restrict the agency of anyone else but you. Other humans acting would be a potential threat, in infinite time it would become an infinite threat, while at the same time you have an infinite lifetime to lose. Nothing might be too crazy and machavellian, and like junkies people might just keep going down the spiral long after they lost all joy in it.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17721280 <-- 99 years...
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This doesn't the answer the "how does cloned consciousness work" question. For re-vitilization, I don't give a fuck if it's a perfect copy of me walking around. I want it to be me , the current stream of consciousness. To the abyss I say, no thank you.
Your "the current stream of consciousness" idea requires existence of something beyond all the information you have conscious access to and the procedures your brain performs. Namely, some "marker" which makes this particular realization of your consciousness unique, and which cannot be copied in any circumstances.
What do you think this "marker" is?
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#35To me fear of death is a sign of not really having been born yet. If you can't make 50 years worthwhile, you can't make 50000 years worthwhile, and if you can't cope with being limited to 80 years or so, you will not be able to cope with the heat death of the universe. It also stands to reason that if you feel it's impossible to give up 100 years of grown personality and memories, it will be even harder and more pain…
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 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. For anybody that does not g…
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#37To me fear of death is a sign of not really having been born yet. If you can't make 50 years worthwhile, you can't make 50000 years worthwhile, and if you can't cope with being limited to 80 years or so, you will not be able to cope with the heat death of the universe. It also stands to reason that if you feel it's impossible to give up 100 years of grown personality and memories, it will be even harder and more pain…
I think by becoming ageless we can gain many advantages of immortality and avoid many of the problems.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This doesn't the answer the "how does cloned consciousness work" question. For re-vitilization, I don't give a fuck if it's a perfect copy of me walking around. I want it to be me , the current stream of consciousness. To the abyss I say, no thank you.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
This doesn't the answer the "how does cloned consciousness work" question. For re-vitilization, I don't give a fuck if it's a perfect copy of me walking around. I want it to be me , the current stream of consciousness. To the abyss I say, no thank you.
I agree – if the cloned/copied/othewise renewed consciousness is not that which is currently residing in my head right now, there’s really no point to it, no matter how much philosophically it might be “me”. The only situation I can envision a clone/copy being satisfactory is that in which I had some grand goal larger than myself that I wished to complete and could hand off to the clone.
I am making a bet, that is better than the alternative of 0 chances. If I did everything I could, why should I be concerned about the actual outcome? A bet is a bet, not a guarantee.
Re: The Art of Not Dying: the First Emperor’s Pursuit of Immortality
#40Being 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.