Then again, there's almost nothing I would not do for immortality. This is not necessarily because I do not believe in an afterlife (I don't, really, though I won't say I know for sure one way or the other)--but there is little doubt in my mind that if there's an afterlife, it's nothing like this one, and I'm not done with this one yet. There are still way too many things to see, do, learn, and experience. The afterlife can wait, preferrably until the heat death of the universe.
Which, on a scale of eternity, isn't really all that far away.
So, out of curiousity, two polls. The first: What would you do for immortality? The second: How attached are you to your body?
Ready, kids? Here we go:
Poll #262326 What would you do for immortality? Would you do:
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All
A drug regimen (eg, a daily assortment of pills to halt ageing and boost the immune system)
23 (79.3%)Replace your organs with mechanical devoces as they fail (eg, replace your heart with an artificial heart)
Replace your entire body with a mechanical equivalent that worked like the original and could not be detected as mechanical except with an X-ray
Replace your entire body with an obviously mechanical, but humanoid, equivalent
Replace your body with a completely non-humanoid mechanical replacement (eg, transfer your brain into the central control system of a spacecraft)
Be injected with nanoagents--self-replicating, self-determining, microscopic machines designed to repair tissue damage
Non-destructive uploading (copying your consciousness into a computer--you would still age and die, the computer copy of your memories would continue)
Destructive uploading (transferring your consciousness permanently into a computer, during which your body is destroyed)
And, somewhat but not entirely related:
Poll #262327 How attached are you to your body? Would you:
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All
Change your body permanently in a decorative way (eg, piercings, tattoos)
Use a temproary mechanical device, like an artificial pancreas, for six months while your body healed from an injury
Use an assistive device that compensated for a faulty organ or limb (eg, eyeglasses)
Use a permanent mechanical device, like an artificial heart, to replace a failed organ, assuming that your quality of life was not impacted
Use a strictly decorative, non-functional prothesis in place of a body part lost to injury
Use a mechanical prothesis in place of a mechanical limb lost to injury
Use a mechanical prothesis to replace an intact, undamaged limb, if the mechanical one were better (stronger, more sensitive, etc)
Replace undamaged structural parts of your body--your torso or legs, say--with mechanical versions that were better or more reliable
Replace your entire body with a mechanical body, even if your body was not dying, damaged, injured, or ill
Give up your body completely, if your mind and consciousness would continue
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tacit- Franklin
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I'll lose, but what do I have to lose?
I hate all "æsthetic" bodymods. All tattoos and piercings etc. are quite loathsome and absolutely no-one ever looks any better in any way whatsoever for them. Period.
IMO, natch.
Meanwhile, I have a pierced arm and a pierced leg; I can locomote because of prostheses. Two of my limbs are structurally pretty much all prosthesis. Who could object to that? But I'd rather they weren't.
Immortality? Hell yeah. Get bored? Well, no, I doubt it, but if I were, I could always simply choose to die. I don't see the problem here.
I do agree that having the ability decide when to end it is important if you are shooting for immortality.
It's interesting that we're in such a hurry to fix and replace parts of us, when we keep learning more and more to what a large degree we are defined by our biology. In an epistemological turn, would you still be you, were you to upload yourself into a computer? Or would it be more akin to Flatline (Neuromancer ref.)? Not necessarily lacking a long-term, nonvolatile memory but rather unable to share experiences with your human ex-self.
I think that our biology does help define and shape us, but that doesn't bother me; I am the result of more than just my biology. Everyone changes as a result of their experiences, and with the exception of certain senators from North Carolina and some Southern Baptists, nobody sees that as a bad thing; who you are as a person is malleable, and adding another dimension to that malleability by changing your physiology need not erase the notion that you are still you. I can no longer relate in significant ways to the person I was, say, 20 years ago, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all; I'm still me.
If I were uploaded into a computer, I have no doubt but that the experience would change me profoundly, just as the experience of, say, fighting in Viet Nam profoundly changed people a generation before mine. For all that, though, the experience of death would change me more significantly still, and in a way that's a whole lot less interesting. :)
What is left of you when every experience you have ever had is no longer replicable or even remotely similar in the sensory input it generates?
I submit that being dead also alters one's ability to feel the wind on my face or see the sun shine, but in a much more permanent way. :)
Seriously, though, there are people who as the result of accident or injury are deprived of the ability to feel these things, and yet they continue living anyway. I believe that life is more than just the sum total of physical sensations; and that my life is ot defined by my perceptions of the world around me. My self-awareness, my own consciousness, is at least as important.
And who's to say that if I were in a completely different body, that body would not provide sensations that are just as wonderful? Would a sunset seen in ultraviolet and gamma rays be any less wonderful than a sunset seen in the visible spectrum? It's the perception of the stimulation, not the mechanics of the sensory apparatus, that give the sensations their value...
Having left that behind us, now...
The point here is to extend existence as a human being, not simply to extend existence, right? It seems our primary difference of opinions is on what exactly *defines* a human being as such. I shall try and set down some rules that are absolutely necessary, in my opinion.
Of these, only the last two define humans as humans. All others can apply to pretty much any sentient being. However, without the last two, I would argue that what you have is alive and sentient, but isn't human.
Is your proposed extropian consciousness transfer going to violate any of the above rules? Not necessarily. I'm sure technology can accomodate all of my demands, but I'm curious about a fine point for my rule no. 6: Is someone who can no longer share experiences with a living, "normal" human still capable of adopting an empathic point of view sufficiently close to that human's? It's an extreme case of the generation gap, if you will. It's harder for the older generation to relate to the younger one, mainly due to different experiences in each generation's lifetime. What would it be like if the older generation also had a completely different set of sensors and perceptions?
Still, there is an interesting question posed in here: "Is someone who can no longer share experiences with a living, "normal" human still capable of adopting an empathic point of view sufficiently close to that human's?"
I think we see examples of such people all the time. A quadraplegic, for example, is no longer capable of many of the most basic activities that dfefine the human condition, yet such a person, is, I believe, inarguably human. Our empathy is shaped by our experiences and our past in a way that I do not believe any changes in our physical form can erase; a person in an artificially constructed but realistic body is no less human in his experiences and his daily life than a person confined to a wheelchair, and is arguably more so.
Would the same be true of a person who, say, had had his consciousness uploaded to a computer? I don't know. I suspect, though, that such a person would, if he carried the memories and experiences of being human with him, still retain the habits of human though; a sapient computer created from an uploaded human being would be identifiably human in a way that, say, a true artificial intelligence would not. A lifetimes' experience as a human being is going to leave an indelible mark; you do not lose the effects of those experiences by changing form any more than you lose the effects if you become permanenly paralyzed by injury or disease.
Of course, the other thing to consider from a transhumanist perspective is the idea that a mechanical replacement body may very well be upgreadeable as technology improves; if version 1.0 doesn't have a good facsimilie of touch, version 2.0 might...
I suspect this is similar to my viewpoint on dreams. I know that dreams are a viable conciousness state but I'm currently focusing on the waking world right now. This could change in the future. I'm all about maybe...
By "alive" I mean "with neural patterns more or less intact". If your brain is turned to pudding but your body continues to function then it's all over. The synaptic patterns are the key.