It's a fun bit of speculation to imagine one's self not existing. Honestly I find the prospect comforting, this God likes the notion of the world going on without him. Especially if bits and pieces of it remember him. Granted that's not what you meant, but it's a field of interest for me.

Back to the subject, there are plenty of reasons I'll choose death. Missing the cure boat is a classic irony but not one I need to worry about, simply because if I die and they find a cure the next day I won't be around to suffer the cruel twist. I am too selfish to live in absolute pain for the benefit of those who survive me. If they cared for me at all I doubt they'd even want to see me like that.

I'm all for a living will and DNR. I don't know if that's an unSatanic quirk in a Satanist or a common thing among people here.

Regarding the computer brain backup:

Of all the clever ways people find to preserve themselves, the brain back up is one of the most intriguing and compelling. It plays a major role in one of my sci-fi stories. But people keep mistaking the reliable long term preservation of themselves for a guarantee of rebirth or eternal life.

A backup of one's mind offers no promise that it will be reintegrated, no promise that you will come out the same person, no promise of anything but a computer file with your brain on it. To date, computer files tend to be far shorter lived than people, and more susceptible to corruption, theft, misuse and deletion than human brains. That should change, but darned if the possibilities aren't daunting: I once accidentally overwrote a file full of funny quotes my friends had said over the years. A very sad day, but nothing compared to the day I deleted my grandmother's brain. I really should have locked the damn thing. Not as bad as Uncle Sal's, seems I saved a game of "Yoshi's Island" over it and the poor guy keeps trying to lay eggs.

Anyhow, shit happens. It happens to live people and it will happen to preserved people. It would be a critical error to mistake any life extension technology for the infallible promise of eternal or even long life, and an ever greater error to act or think as though one were going to live forever.

Just as brutally as ever, with more ways to kill and be killed.

The two major causes of death in the future? War and accidents.

Yeah that orgasim I have with my girlfriend would sure get boring after a while.

Exactly!

Each person has limits and those who are more in tune with their nature will be much more capable of survival than those who ignore it. Unlimited potential equates to the bullshit belief all are born equal. All are not born equal and some have more potential than others.

The topic does concern transhumans, after all.

Well just because you can change the human body does not make one not human. Human nature will always remain the same.

Trans- (prefix): From the Latin meaning across, over, or beyond.

Human nature will always remain the same.

Are you absolutely certain of this?

Good question.

Time will tell.

I am speaking of that old feeling in the gut..the natural instinct of man. If you put a moron in a new body then guess what? He is still a moron.

Wow, I left this thread for dead too early.

I would say in all of the life or death scenarios Magister Nemo described, I would undoubtedly choose to live. I suppose I should have been clear however what I meant by taking the meaning out of a vital existence. I do not believe that death gives my life meaning and I do want to live forever.I certainly enjoy the great party of life for the time being and want to continue to do so. I guess I was trying to say that living for all of eternity might get boring if we could do everything there is to do many times over,and might create some kind of situation where I'm miserable and can't end my misery. But then after reading the posts in this forum and thinking about it myself I realized I was being idiotic.I already enjoy doing many things over and over again and in a future where I could live forever, I could only imagine there would be an almost infinite number of things I could enjoy doing again and again.

To Vitaeviternus, what I found disagreeable about Kurzweil resurrecting his father was that Ray Kurzweil's father's consciousness has been dead for quite some time now. Just because there may someday be a man that looks like, acts like, and has similar memories to Kurzweil's late father, doesn't mean it will be the same person that already died.I also worry about this with my own future augmentation, like Hagen von Tronje pointed out, we can't exactly be sure that it will be the same stream of consciousness throughout the entire process.

I must smile just a little at this. I hope you will shortly smile a little too as I explain.

If Kurzeil clones and installs the memories of his father, then the clone who awakens will see himself as Kurzeil's father.

He won't assume he might be "the same person".

He will remember that he is "the same person".

To demand that there be a continuity of identity (which is what you are looking for) is to assume that there must be a "ghost" who is the real Kurzweil's father who will be usurped by the "fake" father cloned with memories installed by Kurzweil.

It doesn't matter whether we call the "ghost" a "stream of consciousness" or "the same person" or by any other name you might choose.

If you are not your memories, then the "real" you must be something else.

And what would that be?

(And if the "real" you did not have your memories then that won't help either, as we can see in amnesia victims who have lost their memories and therefore their identity).

So if you are your memories and we create another physical body through cloning that has your memories, the clone who opens his eyes will certainly think that he is you, just as certainly as you do right now.

After all, isn't that how you know you are you right now - because you remember that you are you?

If not, then we are looking for a "ghost" of some kind by whatever name is applied to it.

And who is to say that if that is what you are assuming to be true, then that "ghost" would not be identical to the memories of the clone that opens his eyes?

All of this stems from not having these experiences in our current biological set up. Soon enough if they happen, then the assumptions of "ghosts" (the need for continuity of identity rather than simply the memories which create identity) will vanish.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, tells you it is a duck, and there is nothing else to look at to determine if it is the same duck or not, there you are.

You either go quackers or assume it is the same damn duck!

Then my question is just how much memory is needed to make you you ? Obviously anything such as Emotional Erotic Crystallization will play an important role in your development of an identity. What of those memories that seemed to have been lost or replaced by new data? Some may argue that the old data was insignificant and that is why it was replaced by the new data. Well the old data was important for the time being and it did help make you who you are. We obviously would not be capable of building a brand new computer or even improving the old ones if we simply tossed out data of the old and forgot everything about them. Memory from what I understand has very little capacity for storage so the old data is obviously deleted or overwritten with the new data. And the new data as well as some, what would seem to be very old data is all based upon association. So if we were to transfer data from one computer (brain) to the next and some of that data was lost then how much of “you” is actually preserved?

Another factor that is an important one to consider is the human brains potential to mistake some data as its own. For example you know that you know you placed your keys in your pocket yet you never did. Yet you have such a strong belief that you did. Memories can be misplaced, manipulated, misidentified, and lost. Also not to mention that if things such as psychic ability really does exist then distinguishing through the complexities of your own memories as well as other data entered would make it twice as complicated.

Perhaps you have seen the film Demolition Man where the criminals were confined to cryogenic-hibernation or simply put, immortality. (An aside note, what is up with all these films displaying immortality as if it is such a bad thing?) In the future they were given special skills that they had implanted in their memories so that on the day they were thawed out they would be capable of surviving in the future. So if memory is so easily transferred from one computer to the next then implementing additional data would not be so far-fetched. So if you give yourself the ability to recall how to build a rocket ship and yet you did not know how would that make you a better and more improved you or a different you?

Anyways these are just some fun questions.

I'm going to have to go with Unknown on this one.

If you're memories are what makes you,you,then riddle me this?

If your memories could be placed on a "backup file" and inserted into another organic body (virtually identical to yours here),in the event of your death,and that makes the new body "you". . .
What were to happen if this same process were to happen with you perfectly healthy and well.Your memories,standing right next to you in a new body.

Would there be two you's?

There is and can only be one you,everything else is just a carbon transfer.And if I MYSELF (in THIS consciousness) can't get pleasure out of a carbon copy of myself,then whey would I do that?To comfort others with the continuity of an artificial me?I'm too selfish for that

That is an interesting thought, and one even done up by Hollywood well. Suppose such a scenario did transpire.

Is it safe to say that both yous would not have, from that moment forward, the same exact experiences?

The point I am trying to make clear here is that both yous would only be you at that moment. From that point forward, you would both go on to have different experiences. At some point, neither you, nor the duplicate you would be the same person. The point at which you were both the same person would only be a common thread of experience manifest.

For instance, me and many people I know share memories of certain events. I can think of at least one other person, nearly exactly my age, who was sitting on the floor of his Philadelphia row home living room watching the Challenger explode on TV, thinking that the explosion was cool, not realizing the ramifications of the disaster at that age. Perhaps it is a stretch to say that we experienced these moments exactly the same, but suppose we did. Suppose there was some kind of memory technology that could prove we did. None of us would conclude we were the same person, even at that moment, would we? I think we would all conclude we were unique despite the common thread of experience.

You would only have a doppleganger for a short time. Eventually, your duplicate you would cease to be anything like you. You other you would not have parents, would not date the same person, may or may not have the same friends, and etc.

But, this is my opinion. What do you think now?

Why not?

I am not suggesting that you would experience living simultaneously in two bodies any more than identical twins do.

However if two or more human beings with all of your memories up until yesterday woke up at the same time tomorrow each and every one of them would self-identify as being you.

If I copy a computer program and install it in three computers and start them all up, which is the "real" program?

All of them are.