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Originally Posted by The Batlord
My question is if your consciousness gets uploaded to a computer would that be me or just a perfect copy of me? It's like the idea of a transporter. Your body is basically being destroyed (killed) and an exact replica is being created somewhere else.
If we're talking about some magical form of immortality where I can't opt out, then I'd have my reservations, but if I can kill myself whenever life became too miserable, then I'd do it in a heartbeat. **** death.
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from what i gather - and it's been a long time since i've read the book and at least a year or two since watching Transcendental Man - kurzweil seems to be under the impression that time will essentially make anything that we can dream up with our minds possible in reality. it's almost as though his outlook implies that everything which we imagine is an inevitability. so in his mind there are really no limits, and what we perceive as boundaries in the realm of how far we can go are really just stepping stones for those of us who refuse to stop pushing. he believes it's an inherent characteristic of the human spirit to feed our curiosity by way of creation. which is to say that in a way, it seems logical that creating copies would be a milestone of sorts, only to be succeeded by the eventuality of a total biological transcendence or reformatting of the human experience.
all of this of course does raise questions about the definitions concerning what it is to be alive. as in, just because it is a perfect copy, is there any difference, being that our memories and abilities and mannerisms and so on and so forth would all be included in the transfer? very interesting questions indeed, none of which i'm able to jump off the fence for as of yet.
and i would assume that there would naturally be a kill switch, even it meant getting a jetpack and flying into the nearest star. i really can't see (within some sort of democracy anyway) a member of humanity being obligated to stay alive and conscious for the rest of eternity. that just wouldn't make any sense.
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Originally Posted by Trollheart
There are of course a lot of pluses and minuses to essentially becoming immortal (how threads evolve, huh?)  the most important in some ways of which is the question of boredom as the years, centuries, millennia pass. HG Wells already tackled that in one form in the book "The time machine", where Man was so lazy and had everything done for him in the future that he basically became a slave to the tougher races that evolved along different lines. Star Trek of course built on this idea, but the central warning is that without anything to challenge or stimulate us, we may just bore ourselves out of existence.
There is of course, the "Vampire theory", where you get to see everything, do everything there is over the course of hundreds or even thousands of years, but again bordeom is likely to set in. Perhaps if we could manage to project our consciousnesses out into space and explore the galaxy without need of our bodies, but again, I don't know. Immortality definitely has its drawbacks.
But then, using these robot body things, certain fears and dangers are eliminated: no hunger (one would assume) no death, no disease (other than maybe rust!) and you would also hope no prejudice, though don't bet on it. Mind you, it would seem implicit that there would be no procreation and perhaps either no sex drive or unbridled sex, depending on how things worked out, so in my case I'd say the jury is spending a few more years in that hotel before coming to a verdict.
Must look for that doc, PAN, seems like it would be very interesting... |
i would seek solace in creation and exploration. we are basically talking about converting what it is to be a person into a data set. so as time went on, the need for a body or a vessel might altogether disappear, as you say, and any physical experience - in literally any part of the universe - could be travelled to via some sort of laser which would send said data set at the speed of light to an intended destination. and physical experiences themselves might be perceived quite differently at a point in our evolution such as this. i don't really see boredom becoming an issue when i could hang out on asteroids watching undulating nebula or stars being born... or a neutron star obliterating entire solar systems, which i must say, was some pretty awesome sh*t to see in that doc, trollheart.
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Originally Posted by stp
Somehow I think he is overestimating our capabilities. I can certainly see that we can enhance our abilities but to transfer our consciousness I find a bit fanciful. An interesting concept though. Much like the existence of an afterlife it's not something we will ever truly know. Even if we created a robot that mimicked us perfectly we would never know if it were truly conscious because we would remain in our fleshy coffin.
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something to consider is that we just refuse to stop digging deeper, and we're mapping out the intricacies of such statements as "we are all just light and vibration." according to kurzweil, all of what exists can be expressed digitally, and nanotech will pave the way to expressing the subtleties of that digital arrangement in a way we can work with, augment and manipulate as we so desire.
i don't want to hijack this thread, but it's all very interesting to me. ray kurzweil (he's ALSO the same guy responsible for kurzweil synthesizers, and is a major player in real-time translation tech for cell phones enabling people speaking any language to speak in real time) is one interesting cat to keep an eye on if you're interested in future tech, and his imagination (although one never knows whether or not to jump on board with him for the sheer fact that some of the stuff her says seems like it's coming straight out of left field) is kind of amazing, and his accomplishments are many and testament to this. i kinda wish we could have him here on this thread to add to this conversation which trollheart has started.
it's all very sci-fi, which is always neat, but it's also kind real feeling, because as they say in the doc TH posted, it's been a good long while since outer space has decided to throw a real challenge our way... so long the odds may not really be in our favour. :/