You Cannot Cheat Death

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[NexAngelus]

I agree with this view. This is a problem known as the Continuity Flaw. Basically, mind uploading isn't like going from one room to another or pouring the contents of one jar into another, it is making a copy. While the copy may live on, the original will die and that renders the whole thing pointless. The only way I can think of to become immortal is to gradually replace our brain cells with more robust artificial cells so that the electrochemical processes in our brains go on uninterrupted.

[domzbu]

All the dislikes are spods who know very little about psychology and the unconscious, the 99% of oneself. Not to mention the depth of bodily connection the brain has.

[MrJerrySadowitz]

John Gray said - "Indefinite longevity is not immortality"

Yes it is.

[juliomarco]

In Japan they created the Tamagotchi in order to simulate the experience of having pets for children who lived in small apartments that had no space for real cats and dogs. It did not work.

One thing is to perform the tasks of parenthood and another, very different thing is to have a child depending on you. Simulations will not cause the same emotional response or fill the hole.

[RobbieShark]

The fear in singularity is actually about death and the loss of identity. Identity and consciousness cannot be disentangled. My identity in part is my physical form and the loss of this - through death etc - will change my identity and therefore my consciousness about myself. Therefore what exists in a virtual world is not me.

[annemarietobias]

Val, you are appealing with logic. In a place where people have beliefs, faith, axes to grind, opinions and a few with ego disorders. But thank you for the brilliant clarity and concise observation, its incredibly refreshing.

[amichair]

exactly. i wanna live untile the universe dies. it's much better than just dying after 80 years.

[annemarietobias]

Just as an aside, my Father taught me Algebra when I was in third grade. By Fifth grade I was building DC motors, experimenting with descrete DTL logic and shortwave radios (I had an ARRL novice license.)

[juliomarco]

I see by your posts that you are comfortable in different areas of knowledge and this is very good to see. What is your formation?

[SkwerlBergamot]

I am also under the assumption that our discussion topic is focused mainly on the issue of whether or not the idea of "uploading" our minds into some sort of "central mainframe" is a plausible and reasonable idea in the first place

[annemarietobias]

I'm an IT engineer, I love sciences. I've been lucky enough to have done research on brain structure, gender, I've done work with JPL on different areas (including optical computing.) I've strong interests in astronomy, cosmology, biology, xenobiology, ecology, climate science, material science (in fact I'm applying for a prize for best use for nano grain Titania.) Doing work with another group developing a cheap 3D scanner (using photometry.) I'm also an artist. I believe in being well rounded.

[juliomarco]

There is another point in it: if the Universe is actually a Multiverse, there is always the chance that we find a way to survive, even it is by abandoning our Universe and colonizing another, becoming nomads that travel from Universe to Universe using them as a home until it dies...

...by the way, very nice theme for a sci-fi novel! :)

[juliomarco]

Two points: first: our technology has evolved in 60 years from the point of a multi-room-sized IBM 1400 with 400 MFLOPS to that of a pocket-sized cell phone with 1.2 GFLOPS in mere 60 years. Do not underestimate technological development.

Two: The singularity is about machines thinking better than us, not about us transferring our minds into machines.

[Xadreos]

"Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world" - Arthur Schopenhauer

I think the entire mind works like a machine, and already scientists are creating an artificial hippocampus. If you gradually replace it with machine counterparts, getting it to interface with a microchip and then upload it is a lot more gradual and doesn't disrupt the electrical patterns within the brain which seems to be our consciousness.

[juliomarco]

Marie, the emergent consciousness is a hypothesis... but only a hypothesis. We have to learn a lot more before we can actually say "that is as such".

The mystery remains... much to our happiness, for there are still countless frontiers to explore. :)

[annemarietobias]

You're so right, we've so far to go. We can now see NOx form and vanish between living synapses, a process lasting barely a millisecond. We've identified the layers of visual systems that comprise the singular phenomenon we call vision. We've seen the visual cortex at work. We now understand the fractal folding of the nuclear DNA and how it exposes whatever structures it needs in a differentiated cell to give that cell it's particular behavior. The fact we're down to the quantum is just amazing.

[VanKlaunch]

Every someone changes his mind, essentially he is reprogramming his brain and, in at least a small, gradual sense, becoming someone else (relative to his past self). This means that when we change our minds, we override our old selves, and this continuity of consciousness is an illusion. If we can get to the point where we can upload our consciousness digitally, that entity will feel just how "you" feel. If you're destroyed while the copy is made, it will feel continuous, just as thinking does.

[annemarietobias]

To paraphrase Einstein, "Science without Philosophy is lame and Philosophy without Science is blind."

[CaptainComposte]

I got a feeling that if we lived in a virtual reality where we could immediately achieve anything we wanted then life would quickly turn into a living hell, I can't explain way, it's just a feeling.

[juliomarco]

elbow, it is not a question of whether it is or not real. It is a question of a person knowing something to be false.

You can theoretically create a virtual world so real that a person could believe that it is true, but if you place that person inside it and tell her "Your are now entering a virtual world", than her emotional responses will be those towards a virtual world. As immersive as it can be, knowing it is not true will block many emotions that exist in true parenthood.