I was rather surprised by the number of people answering my last poll who thought that replacement mechanical bodies are sucky rather than cool. Perhaps it’s my perception of the Void, or perhaps it’s my attitude about change, but I’ve always thought that was a gimmee–a better, immortal, mechanical version of my body? Yes, please…where do I sign?
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:
And, somewhat but not entirely related:
I answered “no” to all the immortality questions. I don’t *want* to be immortal (that would suck). I answered “yes” to the body questions where it seemed the item would improve the quality of my life, and “no” to the questions where it seemed the item would extend my life.
I answered “no” to all the immortality questions. I don’t *want* to be immortal (that would suck). I answered “yes” to the body questions where it seemed the item would improve the quality of my life, and “no” to the questions where it seemed the item would extend my life.
Found you through a friend. Added b/c of your magazine and maybe a chance to play correspondence chess.
I’ll lose, but what do I have to lose?
Found you through a friend. Added b/c of your magazine and maybe a chance to play correspondence chess.
I’ll lose, but what do I have to lose?
Never thought about cybernetics in terms of my own personal immortality. Bottom line is that I have no desire for immortality, just as I have no desire to procreate (which are often conjoined desires). I think that in many ways the planet will be better off after humans die out. Hopefully something or someone better will come along to replace us.
Never thought about cybernetics in terms of my own personal immortality. Bottom line is that I have no desire for immortality, just as I have no desire to procreate (which are often conjoined desires). I think that in many ways the planet will be better off after humans die out. Hopefully something or someone better will come along to replace us.
I’d conditionaly answer most of the first set with a “yes” just s long as I could have control over my life ending. I don’t want to be immortal, but I might want to extend my life for a lot longer.
I’d conditionaly answer most of the first set with a “yes” just s long as I could have control over my life ending. I don’t want to be immortal, but I might want to extend my life for a lot longer.
Like Heinlein wrote in Time Enough for Love – I would imagine immortality eventually gets boring. Extended life? Sure. Cybernetics to acheive it? Sure… bring it on baby. But I don’t want my life to go on forever… at some point, I’d just be repeating the same old shit and having nothing better to do than travel back in time and fall in love with my parents. Not something I really want in my experience book.
Like Heinlein wrote in Time Enough for Love – I would imagine immortality eventually gets boring. Extended life? Sure. Cybernetics to acheive it? Sure… bring it on baby. But I don’t want my life to go on forever… at some point, I’d just be repeating the same old shit and having nothing better to do than travel back in time and fall in love with my parents. Not something I really want in my experience book.
Interesting questions. I answered “yes” to far fewer of part 2 than part 1, which was all yeses.
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.
Interesting questions. I answered “yes” to far fewer of part 2 than part 1, which was all yeses.
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.
Not all yes/no questions….
For a lot of the questions, I’d really want to answer “maybe”. Would I want to replace my entire body with a mechanical one, even if my body was not dying, damages, injured, or ill? Well, show me a mechanical body, explain the plusses and minusses of the body, and I’ll give you a better answer.
I do agree that having the ability decide when to end it is important if you are shooting for immortality.
Not all yes/no questions….
For a lot of the questions, I’d really want to answer “maybe”. Would I want to replace my entire body with a mechanical one, even if my body was not dying, damages, injured, or ill? Well, show me a mechanical body, explain the plusses and minusses of the body, and I’ll give you a better answer.
I do agree that having the ability decide when to end it is important if you are shooting for immortality.
Provided I could commit suicide or go to sleep for a few decades if things just got too horrible or poignant or boring, sure, bring it all on.
Provided I could commit suicide or go to sleep for a few decades if things just got too horrible or poignant or boring, sure, bring it all on.
Well, “yes” to every single one, but then, I’m a borderline exrtopian.
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.
You too, hmm? I’d be an extropian if it weren’t for the fact that I’m an evil genius. (My archnemesis is an extropian, and has a personalized license tag reading “Extropy”.)
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. 🙂
Oh, it’s not the change which worries me. It’s losing the ability to change in certain, very crucial, ways. In the words of one of the Batman villains, “to never feel the wind on my face, to never see the sun shine.”
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>”Oh, it’s not the change which worries me. It’s losing the ability to change in certain, very crucial, ways.”
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…
Well, first let’s open with the cheap shot that you don’t know for sure death deprives a person from feeling those things 🙂
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?
I would argue that your last two points do not define humanity, at least not unless you are prepared to argue that sociopaths and people with attachment defecit disorder–eg, serial killers–aren’t human.
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.
Re: “those last two points”
Whether those last two points do or do not constitute being a human, I’d have to say that I wouldn’t want to continue in this life without such. Being isolated so that I could not form such attachments would be the worst hell possible for me.
Well, “yes” to every single one, but then, I’m a borderline exrtopian.
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.
You too, hmm? I’d be an extropian if it weren’t for the fact that I’m an evil genius. (My archnemesis is an extropian, and has a personalized license tag reading “Extropy”.)
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. 🙂
Oh, it’s not the change which worries me. It’s losing the ability to change in certain, very crucial, ways. In the words of one of the Batman villains, “to never feel the wind on my face, to never see the sun shine.”
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>”Oh, it’s not the change which worries me. It’s losing the ability to change in certain, very crucial, ways.”
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…
Well, first let’s open with the cheap shot that you don’t know for sure death deprives a person from feeling those things 🙂
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?
I would argue that your last two points do not define humanity, at least not unless you are prepared to argue that sociopaths and people with attachment defecit disorder–eg, serial killers–aren’t human.
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.
Immortality / attachment to the body
I’d have to say that I’d only be willing to do these things if I could continue to have the sense of touch and still be cuddlable. If replacing my body meant that I was no longer someone comfy to hold against/be held against, I don’t think it would be worth it. If in being uploaded into the central control system of a spacecraft, I could no longer engage in touch as I know it, it wouldn’t be worth it. I’m sure that the senses gained would be quite fantastic but I’m a bit too invested in touch to want to continue without it.
Re: Immortality / attachment to the body
There are many things which can happen without replacing your body which can destroy your sense of touch and/or ‘cuddleability’–for example, an accident which leaves you completely paralyzed. In that kind of situation, would you be willing to commit suicide rather than live as a quadraplegic? This is the sort of decision faced by people in the real world all the time, and most people faced with that kind of decision find a way to go on living regardless.
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…
Re: Immortality / attachment to the body
I do think there are certain quality of life issues that I don’t want to live without. I’ve got a living will that is supposed to keep me from being hooked up to machines to maintain life if there is no chance of consciousness…
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…
Re: Immortality / attachment to the body
My feeling is that as long as you’re alive then there is a chance of your quality of life improving. Once you’re dead and unrecoverable then it’s over.
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.
Immortality / attachment to the body
I’d have to say that I’d only be willing to do these things if I could continue to have the sense of touch and still be cuddlable. If replacing my body meant that I was no longer someone comfy to hold against/be held against, I don’t think it would be worth it. If in being uploaded into the central control system of a spacecraft, I could no longer engage in touch as I know it, it wouldn’t be worth it. I’m sure that the senses gained would be quite fantastic but I’m a bit too invested in touch to want to continue without it.
Re: “those last two points”
Whether those last two points do or do not constitute being a human, I’d have to say that I wouldn’t want to continue in this life without such. Being isolated so that I could not form such attachments would be the worst hell possible for me.
Re: Immortality / attachment to the body
There are many things which can happen without replacing your body which can destroy your sense of touch and/or ‘cuddleability’–for example, an accident which leaves you completely paralyzed. In that kind of situation, would you be willing to commit suicide rather than live as a quadraplegic? This is the sort of decision faced by people in the real world all the time, and most people faced with that kind of decision find a way to go on living regardless.
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…
Re: Immortality / attachment to the body
I do think there are certain quality of life issues that I don’t want to live without. I’ve got a living will that is supposed to keep me from being hooked up to machines to maintain life if there is no chance of consciousness…
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…
Re: Immortality / attachment to the body
My feeling is that as long as you’re alive then there is a chance of your quality of life improving. Once you’re dead and unrecoverable then it’s over.
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.
I’m late to the party, but I wanted to clarify something. In your cool/suck options, it’s not really related to immortality. Would I take a mechanical body to avoid death? You betcha. Would I be thrilled about it? Not really. By all means it’s cool compared to ending, but not so cool compared to continuing with the body I’ve got. Eventually I’d probably be more open to it. After I’ve more fully experienced what this body can do, maybe I’ll be ready to try a different kind. But I still picked suck, ’cause I like this one just fine for now, and I’d be sad to give it up.
I’m late to the party, but I wanted to clarify something. In your cool/suck options, it’s not really related to immortality. Would I take a mechanical body to avoid death? You betcha. Would I be thrilled about it? Not really. By all means it’s cool compared to ending, but not so cool compared to continuing with the body I’ve got. Eventually I’d probably be more open to it. After I’ve more fully experienced what this body can do, maybe I’ll be ready to try a different kind. But I still picked suck, ’cause I like this one just fine for now, and I’d be sad to give it up.