/sci/ - Science & Math

All of the above.

>>5207493

All great advances are within 5 decades away? Amirite? Enjoy dieing at the same age your parents and grandparents died at. Also, cold fusion won't be around when you die either.

Haha are you fucking shitting me? Is this the future from the perspective of 1995? 2020 is tomorrow, we don't even HAVE "artificial bodies".

>Which of the methods are most promising?

Letting the free market solve the problem.

>>5207500
>Is this the future from the perspective of 1995?
Seems likely, it would fit with the "hurrr everything will be invented in 50 years" law.

>>5207500

Um, 2020 is in 8 years. Learn to math, thanks :)

>>5207493
> LEL I POSTED IT AGAIN xDDD

You'll probably live to be about 100, but you won't leave earth.

Also there probably aren't any habitable plants around Alpha Centauri.

>>5207493
Seen this ted talk?
http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html

>>5207509

He's been making vague claims for 5 years, nothing happening.

>>5207510
5 years isn't a very long time.

>>5207500
>we don't even HAVE "artificial bodies".

We have artificial body parts, decellularized connective tissue matrixes that are re-seeded with stem cells derived from the patient that turns into a functional organ. Of course the CT matrix right now is taken from a dead person, but an high precision industry 3d printer could probably print such a matrix with satifactory precision if we somehow ran out of dead people to harvest these from.

What we don't really have today is nerve regeneration/regrowth to re-establish peripheral control, and in a decelllularized body there might be a severe lack of axons connecting all the organs. But I guess this is why it would be artificial, we'd have to compromise a bit.
However, by 2020 BCI tech will be a bit better, so you're not going to be without motor control, it may just be quite inefficient.

>>5207512
Gotta love the wishful thinking here.
>5 years is short, it's normal he didn't deliver anything
>2020 is far away! We will totally have groundbreaking new biotech by then
Anyway, the whole "we're gonna cure death soon" thing is a bunch of crackpotery. It's full of retards thinking if there is a forum on the topic with a bunch of lingo, that makes it real.

>>5207518
>5 years is short, it's normal he didn't deliver anything
>2020 is far away! We will totally have groundbreaking new biotech by then

These claims are hugely different. The first I agree with, the second I don't.

An interesting point I heard that argues against the "appeal" of immortality...overpopulation is already a problem now...a time when people are still actually dying...now throw in the caveat of NOT dying to that problem and where does that leave of us?

The only thing that seems plausible to me is a cure for cancer and heart disease in the next 100 years.

That would greatly increase the average life expectancy.

It would also increase tobacco sales.

>Why you want to be immortal?
Stupid question.
>Is it at all possible?
Doubt it. While certain advances may potentially increase human lifespan by several times, there will always be something that will be able to obliviate your existence.

>>5207520
>overpopulation is already a problem now

Overpopulation have always been a problem in overpopulated areas, in general however it have not, and is not, a generalized problem any more than "People are dying already due to food/water/medicine shortage!" being a generalized problem.

>>5207522

I'm a bit envious of the people who start to attempt brain - synthetic circuity augmentation, in the future. Those fuckers are going to find out a lot of interesting shit about consciousness and the sense of self, if the data hasn't been provided before their time.

>>5207493

>discover picture on internet making extraordinary claims that are based on absolutely nothing
>oh cool, it even tells us the exact year of discovery (again based on absolutely nothing)
>but if I want it to be true, it MUST be true, so even though I lack expertise or even basic level knowledge on everything the image is talking about I will go on defending whatever is written there like a delusional dirty hippy voodoo priest tulpa faggot...

>>5207527
Or not at all.
At this point, it's just
>plug in
>see if it works
They might very well find an empirical method that just works and doesn't explain shit.

>>5207532

All the brain surgeries from beta to fruition and themsome... and you're telling me they'll just plug and play without having any issues or accidents whatsoever?

>>5207535
They will learn how to do better brain surgery, that doesn't mean they are gonna learn shit about consciousness.

>>5207532
>Experimental neurosurgery/neuroprostethics
>Will find absolutely no spontaneous new insight.

Given the history of the field they'll be busy writing papers of their new findings before the patient have left the operating table.

>>5207544
Yeah, they are going to write how the brain adapted itself to the implants and how it's wonderful.
Not gonna teach us anything about the sense of self though.

>>5207546
>ITER will only learn how to produce fusion energy
>ITER will not lead to any, whatsoever insights into plasma dynamics/physics

stay retarded you fucking dimwit.

everybody chill, I have the solution but will bring it when I and the theory is mature enough. Everything should be proved and proper theorized by 2052~ stay alive until then.

>>5207549
It has nothing to do with nuclear physics, you numbnut.
You don't have to understand how the brain actually works in-depth to make stuff with it.

>>5207553
>can not into similes
>calls other a numbnut
Not that guy but do you know what full you just went?

>>5207553
>You don't have to understand how the plasma actually works in-depth to make it fuse and get energy out of it.
I see you're taking my advice.

>>5207558
>You don't have to understand how the plasma actually works in-depth to make it fuse and get energy out of it.
But you have to, contrary to the brain, you fucking idiot.
Don't you understand the difference between building something from scratch, and using something that's already there? How more fucking retarded can you get?

>>5207563
>know nothing about the brain
>know nothing about neurosurgery
>know nothing about medicine
>"You can just plug the device into an neuro-USB port after you remove the skull! It's easy, you need to know nothing, and you'll learn absolutely nothing from it too because the desired interfaces to the brain is clearly present and well documented!"

>>5207531
>delusional dirty hippy voodoo priest tulpa faggot...
Grow up, neo-con tough-talker.

>>5207566
Yes, that's actually what experimental eyes research is like.
Sorry to break your bubble, but there is no interface documenting going on.

>>5207571
>Sorry to break your bubble, but there is no interface documenting going on.

Actually there is.

Due to the lack of clearly visible, standardized and well documented brain interfaces a neurosurgery patient is often awake during the procedure and replies to the questioning of the surgeon as he moves an electrical stimulation probe around in the head looking for the right spot for whatever the procedure is about. This in turn have led to numerous unexpected discoveries about the brain, and given that this is still pretty much the gold standard of neurosurgery, and a complex futuristic neuroprostethic would require A LOT of probing to find the right spot, in addition to post-surgery calibration to have the device do its intended function with minimal side effect, there will certainly be several discoveries.

But you seem to belive there's actual USB ports availible. It's a good thing you already proved you are a full retard as otherwise this revelation would mean you'd be percived as more retarded, but that's no longer a possibility...

>>5207578
>But you seem to belive there's actual USB ports availible.
Or you are too retarded to read.
This has nothing to do with USB, the brain adapts itself to new organs. This is how "mind reading" hats for controlling a cursor on a screen works. It justs detects activity in some part of the brain, it's not calibrated on any actual function.
The user brain adapts to the task with ease.

Same thing with artificial eyes : they pretty much plug it in and see if the patient can use them. So far all they got was phospenes but they are gonna try with higher res.

You're the one who believes the brain works like a computer, not me. You don't have to have any "interface documentation" because there is no interface. The brain is not a circuit designed by an engineer. It's a bunch of neurons adapting to the task at hand.

>>5207587
>the brain is a uniform mass of neurons with no structure at all, you just put the device in a random position and everything will magically sort itself out from that point and there's nothing to investigate because everything is random!

Why am I not suprised that this is actually how retarded you are.

>>5207501
People still need to do stuff. Additionally, I don't think the way the market is set up now encourages long term investments which is what R&D would be for proper life extension technologies.

I doubt it. But if you keep yourself healthy there's a good chance of extending your lifespan by quite a bit.

>>5207587
>You're the one who believes the brain works like a computer, not me.
A computer does everything centrally more or less, a brain have function tied to structure, thus the actual structure of the brain in a certain location is reponsible for certain mental processes.

>You don't have to have any "interface documentation" because there is no interface.
When you put a probe or electrode mat onto the brain, you create an interface. If you put this interface onto the temporal lobe and expect to be able to influence vision you're in for some disappointing results.

>artificial eyes : they pretty much plug it in and see if the patient can use them.
They put them on the god damn retina, the natural interface to vision. According to you, the retina doesn't exist because no interfaces hrur durr.

Also, optic implants or the more effeciently working cochlear implant are not strictly brain implants; they are cranial nerve implants.

>>5207599
No, he is right. The brain structure that exists is a side effect of the input into a mass of neurons - it is representative of patterns in the data as recognized by the general intelligence algorithm realized by neurons

joyofsatan.com says it is possible whilst providing historical evidence

later in the future i know it will be possible through science, but right now it is achievable with spirituality, which is a science we don't yet understand

Question to consider; how did this man in the picture, a practitioner of true spirituality, not flinch when dying by being consumed by flames, only to sit there the whole way through?

>>5207609
You realize that you are agreeing with me right?
Yes, put a prob somewhere, and you have an interface. There is no interface protocol nor areas unsuitable for interfacing.

The famous experiment with rat brain cells in a petri dish shows we don't need to understand how neurons structures work to interface them with a machine.

>>5207599
Aaaand thanks for providing everyone with hard evidence of how ignorant you are.
http://articles.cnn.com/2004-11-02/tech/brain.dish_1_brain-cells-neurons-brain-works?_s=PM:TECH
Next time you want to talk about things you have no notion about, start with a little humility, rather than insulting people who are trying to instruct you.

>>5207613
The anatomical structures of the brain is determined due to embryological processes, the anatomical structure in turn ensures that the same regions are fed roughly the same type of stimuli during the infant/childhood learning procedure, hence the average adult will have a highly structured brain that's similar to other members of the species.

Hence why occipital lobe destruction leads to blindness in everyone with normal neuroanatomical layout.

You can probably nitpick on further tiny irrelevant details until the sun winks out, but the general concept will hold true despite that.

>>5207517
ITT: Technology that will most likely be impossible for another decade, if not forever.

>>5207622
>A petri dish of fruit fly neurons means that the entire human brain lacks structure and will randomly rearrange its entire internal structure just like that to perfectly and adequatly make use of any random implants tossed into the cranial cavity.

You proved me wrong in one aspect; you're not a full retard.
You're actually the first transretard!

>>Mind transfer into hologram body

what the fuck does that even MEAN

>>5207633
>The reported replacement of an adult airway using stem cells on a biological scaffold with good results at 6 months supports this view. We describe the case of a child who received a stem-cell-based tracheal replacement and report findings after 2 years of follow-up.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60737-5/abstract

ITT: Technology already in use.

>>5207633
ITT: people who only read news from twenty years ago

Even if you unlock the secrets to halting aging

good -fucking- luck with finding a solution against severe physical trauma.

>>5207659
>solution against severe physical trauma
Backups.

>>5207637
>the entire human brain lacks structure
Wow, you really showed that strawman there.
You totally showed you have to know everything about the brain to make an interface.

Now you can go back to playing poopfling with the other retards.

Biological immortality would allow humanity to advance at a far faster rate, because all kinds of great projects can take decades to finish, which make little sense for most people (You won't want to wait 30 years for a return from an investment if you're 50, for example).

TBH, assuming that humanity won't destroy itself in the next 100 years or so, we'll probably finally get off this rock (or at least be able to). Even if such technology wouldn't be around in the next few decades you could always get your body frozen (Alcor and the like) which, again assuming that humanity won't off itself, will get you what you want.

>>5207637
>Anon A: you have to know how consciousness works to make a brain-computer interface
>Anon B : here is an example of a brain-computer interface done without understanding a thing about consciousness
>Anon A : uguuuuh retard structure randomness ugugugu I'm shitting myself
Why do they let people like you use the computer again?

>Put all money into SPECE PROGWAM
>Find ALEEEN SCUMS
>Force them to give us TECKNOWLEDGY
>LIVE FOWEVERR!!!

http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/abstract/S1934-5909%2809%2900002-2

http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(08)01191-4

I mean I guess there's enough evidence to suggest enhancing lifespan artificially is possible but good luck thinking it'll ever have anything to do with you.

>>5207493

The only reason I am still alive is because I am going to die.

>>5207728
Fail. Xeelee are not related to humans and due to circumstances, never made tech that would allow humans to live forever (except for that one exception, who doesn't count due to the small intersection of time within which he lives).

>>5207493
I think its plausible for a small number of people to be "uploaded" by 2045 but what will make this truly meaningful most of us will be other medical strides made in the years leading up to that point.

The level of medical nanotechnology, 3D organ printing and genetic engineering we'll have in 30 years is going to be fantastic. On top of all that due to other advances like autonomous medical robots cutting edge medical care will be FAR more affordable to the masses and easier to distribute quickly rather than stuck with a few expensive experts.

So yeah living longer and healthier is almost a given if you hit 2045, and its not unlikely that if you do hit 2045 that you will live long enough to become a candidate for a much improved version of uploading that will be more attractive to most in 2055-2060 or for other cyber augments along the line of the slower "Ship of Theseus" option to become more synthetic slowly. Personally this all sounds pretty cool to me.

Another problem: until the hard problem is consciousness is solved, no one will ever know for sure if the person themselves is actually uploaded into the robot, or simply a copy, resulting in the ironic death of the person wanting to live forever.

>>5207832
I don't think it's gonna be a problem.
Some people believe it counts as immortality, and they will pay for it.

>>5207677
>Why do they let people like you use the computer again?
Why do they let people like you use the computer again?

Actually who are "they"? Do you appeal to some greater authority because you lack the balls to take some responsibility onto yourself?

>>5207832
I don't care if I'm replaced by a robot as long as it continues to propagate my hate towards the uneducated imbecils posting in this thread that think they're some fucking scientific authority because they read some shit-tier popsci.

>>5207832

There is no hard problem of consciousness.

>>5207832
>no one will ever know for sure if the person themselves is actually uploaded into the robot, or simply a copy
Um... no. We already know that they'd simply be a copy.

Because the way this is proposed to work is that you copy the information into a computer. You can make more than one copy from that information, and run as many copies as you want. Hence, they're all copies.

They're also not people. There's no way people are going to be as ridiculous about this as the fringe kooks who are obsessed with "uploading" now. A computer simulation of a person isn't a person. They won't get to vote and deleting one won't be murder.

>>5207815
>the slower "Ship of Theseus" option to become more synthetic slowly.
You understand that the "ship of theseus" argument about replacing one bit at a time is simply a way for fanatics to confuse themselves about what's happening just enough that they can reestablish faith in their delusion, right?

Cutting away your brain a little at a time down to the brainstem wouldn't result in you being any less of a vegetable in the end than removing the same parts all at once. Replacing chunks of your brain one piece at a time with machine parts won't make the end result any more "you" than it would be if you did it all at once.

>>5207961

What if we replaced the cells of your brain one at a time by brain cells? What I mean is, what if we took away your neurons, one at a time, and replaced them with manufactured neurons that were the same in all other aspects other than the fact that it was synthesized by humans rather than nature? You'd still be you. Your individual neurons are what make you, you. That being the case, then what is it that makes you, you? It's the pattern that those neurons are arranged in. If you could replace chunks of a human brain with machines that acted in the same way as the chunks of brain that it were replacing (whether these replacement chunks were made of silicon or carbon or whatever), 'you' would still most definitely be 'you'.

>>5207961
You do know that you're doing it wrong?
Twisting the paradox to correspond to your prejudices does not win you the argument.

I'd expect that, as mind copying is perfected and uploaded minds are presented to be as real as biologicals, less and less people will see the "it's just a copy" as a huge problem.

I don't know if I'm right but wouldn't it be possible if you could get our cells to reproduce faster so that we would be renewing ourselves all the time and therefore avoiding death?

There are a couple cryopreservation companies on the market (with like 200 "customers" total) and they will freeze your head for a price... However you cannot recover for now (and i doubt you ever will).
As for artificial brains etc, it's a structure that practically IS you, it contains everything that defines you, but "the actuall" you will die with your brain.

>>5208005

What do you mean by 'actual' 'you'?

ITT: People that would rather call OP a retard than discuss the ways in which immortality could be achieved, or the knock on affects it might have.

I would like to be immortal to see how life can be when you could not ever die in any paradoxical universe. Not for a malevolent matter, but more for ambivalence.

>>5208015
There's a philosophical debate on this going on for ages, but here's my opinion. "You" "are" a particular structure in a specific time, i.e. right now you are defined by the arrangment of neurons in your brain and the traveling signals.
But there's a catch. Assume you can copy this structure. Is the new structure "you" as well?
In my opinion, no. Once the brain cells that exist right now in your brain die, you're gone. The copied structure will not be "you". It will think it is, but the "actuall" you will no longer be concious. So if you want to become immortal, protect these (particular) neurons.

>>5208037
>mfw the self

My contribution: immortality will never be achieved through biological means. Artificial brain simulators are another beast, though.

Is Inception style consciousness possible? To age at a normal rate, but to experience living at a much slower rate, making it seem as if you live for many centuries?

>>5208037


So then there is no such thing as 'you'. Because your connections between neurons are always changing, and different ones are firing at different times.
Your last part also makes a distinction without difference. If you copy a structure, it's the same structure. That's what the definition of 'copy' means.

>>5208055
So in a way I'll be dead soon.

I don't feel the need to do that uni work then.

>>5208017

Well, to be fair this is a very complex subject, and while we could debate the effects of life extension methods, the reality of possible methods is just worlds beyond anything /sci/ could have a meaningful discussion about.

People calling each other retards while rambling on about their speculations on cryopreservation and consciousness transfer is really the best you can hope for.

>>5208066
No, you're a retard!

>>5207497
>Enjoy dieing at the same age your parents and grandparents died at

It is very likely that we can add many years of healthy life with substances that are already here, e.g. rapamycin, buckyballs dissolved in olive oil, etc.

>>5208066
Why would anyone spend his time writing a full report on a thread that will die in a couple of hours?

>>5208055
I'm implying that "you" are a function of time (among many other things), and that you are not defined by ANY structure that mimics precisly your brain, but the same molecules that are in your brain right now, and are being irreversibly damaged as we speak

>>5208079
Why would anyone spend any time doing anything because everything is finite.

>>5208088
Instict. If you had no physical or otherwise need, you wouldn't do anything. Ever.

>>5208095
>citation needed

>>5208087

So I'm not physical?

>>5208129
wtf?

>>5208098
No needs => no motivation => no action

If this was achievable in my lifetime, I'd assume that before that we'd all be living a fairly cushy life powered by smartass robots that do all the work for us.

>>5207493
replaceable organs
I mean it's all good and well for the medical market, growing mostly new bodies and replacing lost brain mass, but the cosmetic market will EXPLODE 100% functional transgendered people, tails, super strength from modified muscles, huge replacement dicks for your micropeen or a micropeen to replace your normal dick you /d/eviant

>>5208176

This is what I was referring to about this topic being beyond /sci/'s scope. The concept of replaceable organs has actually largely fallen out of favor in biomedical research, and may be in the distant future if ever.

Essentially, what tissue engineering is increasingly discovering as a field is that growing organs outside the body is at worst impossible and at best incredibly more difficult than repairing the organs and tissues a person already has in them. There have been some major advance such as the tissue engineered bladder and trachea that have been successfully implanted, but there's never been much luck with any organ that has a more complex function than simply being a contractile sac or an air tube. However, the human body already has mechanisms for repairing and/or replacing tissues and organs that have lost function, they just don't work or are insufficient. The most promising research avenues in this area now pursue using drugs and/or implantable materials to achieve this more optimized regeneration in the patient and thus obviate the need for organs produced synthetically and/or ex vivo.

TL;DR: Replaceable organs likely won't happen any time soon, if ever, because it's easier to work with a person's body and natural biology than try to make complex biology happen in a synthetic environment.

>BRAIN TRANSPLANTS
>2020
>>>/x/

>>5208055
>If you copy a structure, it's the same structure. That's what the definition of 'copy' means.
Well, no. If you copy a structure, it's a copy of the structure. Being distinct from the original is inherent in the definition of "copy".

Why are people who believe ridiculous things always so hard to reason into a sensible position?

...

Oh.

>>5208200
>The concept of replaceable organs has actually largely fallen out of favor in biomedical research
>Essentially, what tissue engineering is increasingly discovering as a field is that growing organs outside the body is at worst impossible and at best incredibly more difficult than repairing the organs and tissues a person already has in them.
This is a remarkably silly mix of misinformation and mischaracterization.

>>5208200
Wouldn't it be possible to change to organs currently in someones body using nanites or similar technology?

For example, having them simulate the process of hypertrophy, then aiding in the process of rebuilding the muscle - All the while, the person is doing nothing but sitting on their computer.

>>5208213

Care to elaborate? I actually am employed as a tissue engineering researcher, so I'd love to hear your rationale for that opinion, as it's not one I've heard among my colleagues in either academic research or industry.

>>5208217

This is close to what I'm talking about. "Nanites" in the sense of nanoscale robotics is ridiculously impractical, but there's been a large volume of successful research using circulating nanoparticles as drug release systems to do things such as the rebuilding you describe not mechanically but pharmacologically.

>>5208206
the only difference between a perfect copy and the original is the filename. just because windows renames a copy of "brain.txt" to "brain (1).txt" doesn't mean that they are any different functionally.

>>5208217
Here is a picture of a nanobot used to stimulate muscular hypertrophy.

It is super secret technology nobody knows about.

>>5208237
>>5208228

So should I break the bad news to /fit/?

That they are wasting their time and soon any fatass will be able to build muscle on the sofa?

>>5208237

Hahah, yes exactly! That's a perfect example. Steroids already have the ability to have this effect on muscles pharmacologically as a chemical cue. Using nano or microscale release systems, such chemical cues can be given to specific areas at ideal dosages, regulating regeneration with the same mechanisms that it operates with.

>>5208249

Then, the side affects will remain the same?

>>5208228
To be fair I think we're mostly talking about technologies that will be possible in about 30 or 40 years from now. Its no stretch to extrapolate from the normal advances being made over time that by then lots of the things we deem impractical today will be much more realistic for many more people. If we assumed that our collective knowledge and tech would stay largely the same as it is now now nobody would really care about science or technology.

>>5208222
>I actually am employed as a tissue engineering researcher
Making this claim on an anonymous imageboard is just sad, and using it as an excuse to shift the burden of proof is even more pathetic.

You're the one making the absurd claim that researchers are essentially giving up on organ production, in favor of helping the body's natural ability to regenerate with drugs and implants.

People are dying on transplant waiting lists all the time. Organs are often damaged beyond repair, or simply absent. Our healing processes simply do not do the same things as our growth processes do. There is no substitute for new organs.

Tissue engineering is advancing rapidly. We've just barely reached the point where we can produce a supply of stem cells from adult tissue samples. Foundational technologies are still being established. Of course they aren't growing whole, implantable organs yet... that's the very final step, the thing that happens about five minutes before the technology becomes standard medical practice.

I would believe, on the other hand, that some individual researchers and labs are being pushed away from doing the fundamental research toward short-term commercial work, particularly drugs. Not because this is a better allocation of resources toward the goal of helping people and saving lives, but because it fits better with established business models and current intellectual property law, for the purpose of making profit.

>>5208256

No, fine tuning the release affords a huge degree of control over the pharmacology that you don't have with traditional drug dosing. For example, a lot of side effects stem from the drug just ending up in places in organs where you don't want it, but a targeted delivery prevents it from going anywhere except where you want. For example, talking about steroids (though to be clear, I'm not saying steroid would really be used this way, idk all that much about muscular dystrophy), if you could ensure it only went to the muscles you wouldn't have the off target effects on other organs, such as the brain (mood issues), skin (hair loss), and genitals (shrinkage). A drug might still have side effects (like if it's just generally toxic or something), but in general this both eliminates side effects and allows you to get higher dosages to the area that needs treatment.

>>5208268

I agree with you 100% generally, but nanoscale robotics specifically will be lucky if it's plausible in the next century. It's taking us decades to research and get fda approval on nanotechnology that's literally just spheres of polymer with drugs mixed in. SPHERES. Imagine where robots is on that scale of complexity. And, technical plausibility aside, I don't think nanites will ever happen because there isn't a need. Little robots repairing things mechanically is an inherently weird and illogical approach to fixing biological systems when they can be controlled precisely with chemical cues like the ones that regulate their normal function. They already have the cellular machinery to fix themselves without robot intervention, they just need to get told how do it with pharmacological agents. As drug delivery and drug discovery grow, I don't think the future will ever find an application for nanites that can't already be done with a more biologically compatible technology.

>>5208256
The side effects haven't remained the same. Steroids have been getting upgrades all the time, which is why bodybuilders now look like complete aliens and celebrities can change their bodies at will.

Appropriate use of modern drugs to achieve reasonable goals is highly efficient and has little to no side effects. The big problem now is that people are using whatever they can get from shady suppliers with no medical supervision.

There's still no substitute for exercise and proper diet, though.

>Why you want to be immortal
Because dying sucks
>Is it at all possible
Sure

>>5208290
>Making this claim on an anonymous imageboard is just sad, and using it as an excuse to shift the burden of proof is even more pathetic.
Whatever, I am what I am and the issue is what it is, it's not really important to my argument if you believe me or insult me.
>Our healing processes simply do not do the same things as our growth processes do.
Nope. Please retake cellular biology and get back to me.
>There is no substitute for new organs.
Nope, the majority of modern tissue engineering is in fact centered around removing the need for tissue engraftments.
>We've just barely reached the point where we can produce a supply of stem cells from adult tissue samples.
Yes, I'm obviously familiar with iPSCs (which aren't that new even if you only just heard of them, btw), who isn't since the Nobel? You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding that it's a not an issue of development, it's an entirely different approach to the problem. And yeah, it involves stem cells, those have also been found to be most useful in applications other than growing organs ex vivo, such as in implantation in synthetic graft materials.
>but because it fits better with established business models and current intellectual property law, for the purpose of making profit.
Okay, I think I see the problem here. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of where the fields of either drug delivery or tissue engineering stand at present. You're just failing to grasp the complexities of the issue and trying to substitute in concepts that do make sense to you, like corporate greed and evil big pharma.
>I would believe
How about instead of belief, you try knowing things based on facts? I'll link to this post with some sources, read them and then get back to me with your educated opinion instead of this ignorant one.

>>5208334

Here you go, Mr. "I don't know what I'm talking about, but I can still somehow know you don't either," here's the sources I mentioned I would linke:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ar9800993
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v13/n6/abs/nbt0695-565.html
http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/17/999.short
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mabi.200400026/abstract;jsessionid=8CF65B377655B0BCBE1E49
F2B91F9128.d01t03
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167779998011913
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ten.2006.12.2049
http://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/20223/1/file.pdf
http://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/4034/1/0092.pdf

If the words in here from reigning kings in the field like Langer, Mooney, and Mikos aren't enough for you, I'm sorry but you're just an idiot.

>>5208290

I hope you now realize forming opinions based on your personal feelings about big bad evil corporations stealing your organs and what you read about on some news websites isn't a good a good substitute for actually knowing what you're talking about.

It's also a lot more pathetic than any claim I could make on an anonymous image board. But hey, don't let little things like reality get in the way of your insults, keep it up champ.

>>5208334
>Here is a bunch of stuff behind paywalls, and which would take days to read even if it wasn't. None of it directly states support for my specific position, yet it all supports my claim in a way that I'm not going to explain, and I expect you to dig through it and figure out how. I just expect you to take a homework assignment from me even though you just dismissed me as a posing idiot. And remember that I'm an official real-world expert!
You've now used basically all the cheapest, lowest rhetorical tricks of an internet argument. Congratulations.

>>5207975
But it IS just a copy.
I'm ok with cloning myself, AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T INVOLVE ME DYING.

Slow incremental process for me, thank you very much.

>>5208363
> I expect you to spoon feed me, page numbers, specifics paragraphs and to demonstrate how they back up what you are saying
> To win an argument over the internet
> Against a random idiot with no idea what he's talking about, and who wouldn't back down even when faced with the facts

>>5208363

Dude, if you don't have access to journal articles in these very mainstream journals, it pretty much proves my point.

If you don't even keep up with the literature, how would it even be possible that you know what you're talking about?

>None of it directly states support for my specific position

Well that's just patently untrue. Surely you could at least read some of those abstracts, even from just those you can tell generally that modern tissue engineering isn't what you seem to think it is.

So, if there's anything more to you than trolling with cheap ad hominems, how do you want me to prove my point legitimately? Current reviews in the field from the likes of Langer (the father of tissue engineering) and Hubbel (also huge in the field, debatable second behind Langer) seem like the most convincing argument to me, but if you have a better alternative I'd be happy to oblige. I can provide evidence in whatever format you want, just name it.

If you don't contrary evidence and can't suggest a form of evidence you'd find acceptable, you're obviously just a contrarian and a troll wasting everybody's time trying to play devil's advocate because you're not smart enough or well-informed enough to have legitimate opinions on this subject.

>>5208368
Dying slowly is still dying.

You could have a slow, incremental process of replacing the brain which would keep things functioning yet change your personality as it went, so when it was completed, the result wouldn't be anything like you.

It doesn't really matter whether, as you cut bits of brain away, you trick the remaining bits of brain into thinking the rest of the brain is there. When it's all gone, you're completely dead, and you're losing more and more of yourself as the bits are taken.

>>5208377
Yes it fucking matter.
With mind uploading, no one can argue you are actually dead and spawned a clone.

An incremental process would only provoke questions in philosopher, which prove the irrelevance of the concern.

Also, it's either one or the other, there is realistically no other way.

>>5208373
Dude, you are implying the truth can ONLY be found in mainstream journals / articles.

Never go full retard.

>>5208368
You hangups have no basis in reality. If the processes you're comparing have the same "before" and "after" states, then the middle steps cannot affect the inherent value of the outcome.

>>5208392
Identity is an artifical construct with no real basis. I could argue you die every time you fall asleep, because your conscious functioning ends, there ceases to be any conscious "you", and your brain changes during the night. Then a similar but distinct version of "you" appears when you wake up the next morning.

>>5208395

Alright... you're obviously just a miscellaneous troll, but in case anyone is legitimately confused about this, the point I'm making is regarding the current state of the field of research, which yes, is most accurately respresented by the articles in the most important journals.

When I said "mainstream," I sort of misspoke, because I didn't mean that in contrast to journals with opposing opinions, I just meant the highest impact journals, aka the most prestigious journals with the highest standards that ideally have on average the highest quality and most revolutionary research in a given field of science.

>>5208392
But your bits and pieces are constantly being replaced and changed.

>>5208403
First, consciousness may "ned", but the unconscious never does, which establish a continuity.
Second, of course a new "you" is generated each second, "you" are shaped by your experience, quite directly via brain patterns.
Mind uploading while you are healthy and can wait a little while more is just plain dumb, only people on the verge of dying should do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ditHUfyj0Y4

>>5208372
>>5208373
The position which was stated and that I'm arguing against here is that organ production is basically an abandoned dead end in biomedical research.

And that's not remotely plausible. It's a ridiculous mischaracterization. And he's not talking about it reasonably, or supporting his position, he's just trying to pose as an expert, obfuscate the issue, and intimidate people into agreeing with something that people actually in the field would laugh off as silly.

Yes, I believe people today are working more with relatively primitive methods that can be put to practical use today. I've never disputed that. That's the way it is in every field. But saying things like, "The concept of replaceable organs has actually largely fallen out of favor in biomedical research, and may be in the distant future if ever." is completely indefensible, a complete failure to understand how science and technology progress.

>>5208410
Yes, and that's what make "me" think that an incremental process would be seemless. For the "me".
Or the "you".
Or whatever strike your fancy.

>>5208414
Mind uploading has continuity too. There is a continuous link in how the patterns flow from the meat-brain to the new substrate. It's just as real as any source of continuity between "meat-brain now" and "meat-brain tomorrow".

The only reason to delay the procedure is if the risks outweigh the benefits for a healthy person. This could be said of any medical procedure intended to improve or extend life.

To the people in here having the argument about the nature of identity:
You're sort of rehashing the ship of theseus paradox, so check that out if you're not already aware of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

>>5208414
>consciousness may "ned"
The worst of all possible fates.

>>5208420
The mind uploading is no less seamless. It preserves all the inherent functional properties of the brain.

Basically, I'm arguing that information flow is the source of "identity" that makes sense. I am me because my patterns come from past-me.

>>5208430
No, the mind upload. Is. A fucking. Clone.
If you are the type of guy wanting to "leave a legacy" or whatever, that may be quite fine, but that's not fucking immortality.

Children or projects being a sort of immortality are what people dead now told themselves to feel better.

>>5208430
The main difference between the two approaches would be this.

If you were to slowly replace your parts and eventually become a better version of you over time - and live longer. Your family and friends would enjoy your company and perhaps you would too, as at least a portion of your original self integrates with your new pieces.

Copying yourself immediately eradicates you and makes a new you with more longevity. But would this new you not instantly change suddenly? You would not be able to enjoy this new "life" either, could your loved ones, knowing that you died for it?

>>5208446
You get alzheimers. As your brain starts to degenerate, they put you in suit of robot armor to protect you and enable you to function. It has a very sophisticated computer in it, and not only stops you from wandering into traffic, but covers for your social gaffes and lapses of memory.

At first, it mostly observes your behavior, and it has you tell it about your memories, to learn as much about you as possible. As you degenerate, it overrides your actions more and more often, until you're just riding around inside, barely aware of your surroundings.

Eventually you die, and rot, and the suit hoses itself out, and goes around acting like you're still inside it. People still think you are, because it knows at least as much about you as they do.

Is the suit you? Are you still alive because the suit's still going around?

It's basically the same thing.

>>5208417
I don't even know why I'm arguing with someone who doesn't understand the field and refuses to read the literature on the subject and stop being ignorant, but I'll make one last point.
Again (and you would understand this if you read my articles or literally any other piece of literature on the subject), my point isn't that fixing organs and improving organs transplants isn't being pursued, it's that we're not trying to do it by spawning organs in vats and then shipping them off to recipients like car parts in an auto factory. There are fundamental differences between biology and machinery, and old ways of thinking like that are proving obsolete and not effective for actually solving health problems.
>relatively primitive methods that can be put to practical use today.
No, there are some incredibly advanced methods that are being put into use in biotechnology today. Just look at the new fusion protein drugs such as Pfizer's Enbrel or (despite it's safety issues) bioactive graft materials like Medtronic's Infuse. Can you please just calm down and comprehend that I'm not being a defeatist and saying that we can't fix problems because organ replacement is impossible, I'm saying we can and ARE fixing those exact problems with methods that are both easier AND more effective than "organ replacement."
>complete failure to understand how science and technology progress
Okay, so one last time, this isn't a progress issue. Progressive understanding of biomedical research issues is how we understand that organ replacement is neither the most practical nor effective method of treating the conditions it was envisioned as a possible therapeutic for. Instead of debating against your misunderstanding of what I'm saying, why don't you try reading some material on this subject, such what I posted or whatever you can find for free on your own?

>>5208430
"Mind uploading" is one of two things:

a) Destroying your brain and uploading the information to a computer. This means you die and a perfect copy of you lives on forever

b) Not destroying your brain and uploading the information to a computer. This means you live for now and a perfect copy of you lives on forever

It has never meant, and never will mean "Becoming a computer program/simulation". That's effectively impossible

>>5208471
If it's the same thing, then it's very simple, because the suit would not be you.

>>5208437
If I undergo a procedure to make an exact duplicate of myself and one of them dies during the procedure, does it matter which one it was?

I say "no".

>>5208446
You're just asserting the position, but not really supporting it. There are no "instant changes", because everything that makes you "you" is unchanged by the process.

Really, this whole issue comes down to the illusion that we are real things that exist continuously and uniquely in time, when all that really exists is configurations of matter/energy changing over time through interaction with the environment.

"I" is an artificial construct, not a real thing.

>>5208474
>a) Destroying your brain and uploading the information to a computer. This means you die and a perfect copy of you lives on forever
Or using a different notion of identity, you transfer your mind to a computer and escape the death of your biological body.

>It has never meant, and never will mean "Becoming a computer program/simulation". >That's effectively impossible
How so? A "simulated" person is just as real as you or I. See the "brain in a vat" argument.

>>5208471
Haha, how is that incredibly contrived scenario the same thing?

Heart isn't working properly? Mechanical heart.
> Still you (Same applies for any organ or muscle that doesn't directly affect how you think)

Body producing too much of a particular chemical? Replace what's producing it with a mechanical version or take something to counteract the affects of the chemical excess.
> Still you

Have a robot puppet cover for your dementia.
> Not what anyone in this thread is talking about, nowhere near immortality.

>>5208471
Instead, what about a procedure that gradually replaces neurons as they cease to function correctly?

Now it's Ship of Theseus time.

It seems that people that have hangups about mind uploading are strongly asserting their notions of what does or doesn't preserve identity without really examining it.

What, exactly, makes you "you" and not someone else? How precisely can you explain it? If your thoughts tend to towards "I just know", there's a problem here.

>>5208477
If you find yourself in a machine, with the faculties and abilities of a machine, that would absolutely change how you think, and thus how you behave.

>>5208473
>Again (and you would understand this if you read my articles or literally any other piece of literature on the subject), my point isn't that fixing organs and improving organs transplants isn't being pursued
Why would I understand what your point is by spending days reading an apparently random selection of papers, which you most likely spent five minutes googling for and haven't read yourself, instead of by simply reading the words you wrote?

This, what you're doing here, is trying to retroactively change what you said, to avoid admitting that you said something ridiculous, and to justify being contemptuously dismissive toward someone who called you out on it.

And it's fully as ridiculous as what you said in the first place.

>>relatively primitive methods that can be put to practical use today.
>No, there are some incredibly advanced methods that are being put into use in biotechnology today.
So you don't know what "relatively" means. That's okay. We already knew that you can't communicate for shit.

>>5208491
Not if we're simulating real-world physics.

A simulated brain in a simulated environment has the same behavior as a brain in a natural environment. And the behavior is all that matters - the information processing, the memories, the reactions, the learning, the personality, etc. All still there, just as before.

>>5208492
Electric activity in my brain.
>Inb4 What, exactly, make your brain "your brain" and not someone else ?

>>5208505
So if your brain is rearranged to be a duplicate of another person's brain, are you still you? It's the same meat, and there's electrical activity the whole time.

>>5208505
But everyone has electrical activity in their brains, and not everyone is you. Could you be more specific?

>mfw people believe in the static soul/self
Fucking retarded atheists

>>5208486
I'm sorry, but this isn't even an argument.

Take one neuron away completely. You're still you, right? Now take another one. You're still you. Any brain minus just one neuron is still essentially the same brain.

Therefore, by mathematical induction, we see that identity is preserved while removing any number of neurons, so you can live forever by removing the entire brain, as long as you do it one neuron at a time.

Your "Ship of Theseus" argument is every bit as stupid.

>>5208509
No, it would not still be me, it would have killed me.

The type of question more difficult to answer would be "after some brain trauma, would you still be you ?", because it can be answered both yes and no.
A satisfying answer would be "sort of".

>>5208513
Ok, the pattern of said electrical activity, happening in my brain.
Last part of the sentence being were our views diverge.

>>5207501

This

Also, I don't think anything can truly last "forever". Machines break down too. So immortality in the strictest sense is not possible. However, we COULD increase our lifespan by an incredible amount given the rate of current technological development.

Also, people are still going to figure out ways to kill each other. Human nature just does that.

>>5208528
> yfw someone wipes your gf of 2 centuries data
> yfw there are backups of her
> yfw you realise the real her has been gone for a long time

>hfw you delete yourself and all your backups

>>5208524
I'm talking about replacing neurons one by one, preserving the patterns as they evolve in time just as though they were the original neurons.

You're talking about the heap problem, and I don't see how it's related to the discussion ATM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox

>>5208526
OK, so the pattern is what matters now. And as you noted, some of the issue has slipped away into the term "my brain". What makes your brain your brain?

My position is that I am the thing that has properties derived from past-me; I am the thing that is sufficiently similar to past-me and has been produced causally from it. I am the thing that has evolved over time to be the new form of the past mass/energy configuration abstractly labeled "me".

If I copy myself, the patterns/information/behavior flow causally and faithfully into the new me; and then we diverge under interaction with our differing environments, and become more and more distinct. Which is "me"? Both, neither, depends on what you're really asking.

Continuity of consciousness is not the primary concern, or I would be concerned with whether sleep preserves "me". Consciousness most certainly is not continuous in practice.

>>5208528
Immortality =/= living forever.
Propulsing something toward a black hole can probably destroy everything everywhere everytime.

>>5208499
Gahhh, okay I give up. You're obviously just a troll, but sadly I'm sure underneath the trolling you still don't understand the complexities of this issue anyway.
>spending days
...it would take you days to read a few articles? Your posting behavior is starting to make more sense.
>apparently random
Apparently based on what? You didn't read them. And they're not random anyway, they're modern reviews on the subject.
>haven't read yourself
Bahahah oh my god the irony is making my sides hurt from laughing.
>retroactively change what you said
My very first post here on this topic described the successes of organ replacement (bladder and tracheal) and presented my position as a critical qualification, not a rebuttal, of organ replacement. I'm sorry you have reading difficulties.
>contemptuously dismissive toward someone who called you out on it.
Ah-hah, you're the one trying to change your words now huh? Implying I was unfair or rude? Yeah, after you baselessly referred to my post as pathetic. I was willing to discuss this while staying civil.
>So you don't know what "relatively" means.
So you meant... relative to your fantasy vision of organ replacement? I'm sorry, I can't judge technologies based on how they measure up relative to your delusional conception of medical research.
Look, here's the bottom line: Read the literature. You have no basis to say any position is "ridiculous" or even retroactively inconsistent if you don't understand the modern issues in the field. If you did have a basis from credible literature, you would have cited it here a long time ago instead of substituting insults for evidence. If you read up on the issue and still have a dissenting opinion, come back to this thread and post again with cited sources, I'd love to debate this civilly with you using cited evidence rather than empty personal insults. I'll check back tonight, hope to hear from you!

>>5208538
Look, let's simplify the discussion: you are free to mind upload yourself, others are free to not.
It really all boil down to it right, opinions.
(except your position is stupid and i hate you because you may have an influence on the course of events. Hopefully enough people are on the "incremental process" side of the fence, so that there is enough ressources to generate the tech.)

>>5208526
>The type of question more difficult to answer would be "after some brain trauma, would you still be you ?", because it can be answered both yes and no.
>A satisfying answer would be "sort of".
This I agree with totally. Identity involves a notion of being "sufficiently similar" to past-you. Too sudden a change, and people start commenting that you're "not the same person anymore". Which should hint at just how nebulous and arbitrary our notions of identity are.

>>5208558
Haha, not many people are going to see things that other guys way, anyone semi-intelligent will ask "Wait, a copy?"

And there will be large groups that will oppose anyone doing either - ie religious nutballs who think it's "unnatural"

>>5208558
The demand for an incremental process is based on deeply seated notion that occur naturally in our psychology, but have no basis in anything real.

I respect and understand how deeply people in general feel about this, and how gradual changes disturb our sense of self-preservation less than ones that seem significant (like mind uploading), but still assert that there's no reason for it.

If you're looking for some thought-provoking discussion and fiction stories on this topic, I enjoyed Douglas Hofstadter's "The Mind's I".
Link to the PDF:
http://rapidshare.com/files/217458394/The.Minds.I-Hofstadter.and.Dennett.pdf

>>5208567
>anyone semi-intelligent will think my way
> religious nutballs who think it's "unnatural"
Protip: You're one of the nutballs, you're just not religious.

>>5208581
Read what I said.

If you didn't think to yourself "Wait, a copy of me?" and you still went in for it, then you'd be a fool who leaps before he looks.

Also, I don't oppose either option, although I'd be upset if a friend replaced themselves with a copy.

Don't take it so personally.

>>5208539
>My very first post here on this topic described the successes of organ replacement (bladder and tracheal) and presented my position as a critical qualification, not a rebuttal, of organ replacement. I'm sorry you have reading difficulties.
Your very first post here on this topic said: "The concept of replaceable organs has actually largely fallen out of favor in biomedical research"

>you baselessly referred to my post as pathetic
I referred to this as pathetic, with obvious justification: "I actually am employed as a tissue engineering researcher, so I'd love to hear your rationale for that opinion, as it's not one I've heard among my colleagues in either academic research or industry."

Where "that opinion" was a very simple rejection of "The concept of replaceable organs has actually largely fallen out of favor in biomedical research" and "growing organs outside the body is at worst impossible and at best incredibly more difficult than repairing the organs and tissues a person already has in them."

You didn't clarify your position. You didn't offer support for these extraordinary claims. Instead you appealed to authority and shifted the burden of proof.

And when the requested elaboration was supplied, you posted these:
>>5208334
>sneering, evasions, obfuscations, quibbles, equivocation, strawmen, attempts at intimidation
>>5208342
>go read all this stuff behind paywalls
>no I'm not going to tell you what's in it or how it's relevant
>yes I am going to call you an idiot
>>5208349
>ridiculous insulting strawman

>>5208590
I didn't mean for it to sound so accusatory, I guess. It's hard to get nuances like that across. :/

I think attitudes towards this will change very quickly when it's actually a reality. If Steve Jobs had made a copy of himself that was cancer-free while letting the old cancer-ridden body die, no one would be arguing that it wasn't "really" Steve Jobs today.

>>5208598
Well, maybe not "no one".

>>5208598
inb4 joke about Steve Jobs being inherently cancerous.

>>5208598
I think his nearest and dearest would feel very differently. I have a hard time understanding why you don't.

To gradually change as humans, happens anyway. So these small "upgrades" over time would be far easier for most to digest.

I wouldn't debate this robo-jobs' being different from Steve in regards to his thought processes, or his business sense. But I'd recognise him as a new entity. Maybe he would too.

>>5208558
>Look, let's simplify the discussion: you are free to mind upload yourself, others are free to not.
>It really all boil down to it right, opinions.
At some point we have to make laws about this stuff.

And I hope we have the sense to recognize that an "uploaded mind" is not a person entitled to human rights, but merely a self-interested AI, such that the creation of it is a very serious crime unless appropriate safeguards are put in place to prevent it from pursuing its interests in society or the physical world.

>>5208611
I sort of understand what you're getting at.

If I thought I was no longer human, but rather an impersonation/copy, it could dramatically change the way I see the world.

And with a machine as my body, my capability to do harm could be far less predictable.

>>5208607
>I think his nearest and dearest would feel very differently. I have a hard time understanding why you don't.
I disagree, though I think some people who develop a neurosis over it. I wonder if there's any good cases of identity crises about third parties, like someone insisting "that's not my husband". Probably. Human minds are easily broken in the most bizarre ways.

But I fully agree that "gradual" changes would mesh more easily with natural human psychological behavior. One thing I do want to keep straight though is that concerns about identity are arbitrary, and people-patterns that are less concerned about identity being unique (you can't be copied) will have an advantage over all the hominids who are nervous about stepping into teleporters or having themselves cloned. Their patterns will tend to dominate.

Especially when it comes time to ship a database and some nanoassemblers to Alpha Centauri to start a colony. Only the uploaded mindds and the rebuild-me-from-the-saved-snapshot-when-we-get-there people will be able to go feasibly. Shipping warm apes in a can between the stars is ludicrous.

>>5208611
Wow wow wow, i'm the guy you responded to and i think AI should have the same rights.
Any sentient creature for that matter.
Even your clone, if you make one.

Acting like you would have provoke a skynet scenario, not because of mistreatment of AI (ok, that would play a role), but because the best way to fight an AI would probably other AIs, and you just cut off our supply man.

Without forgetting that the incremental process would essentially make you an AI, being synthetic and all. That's way past cyborg status, at least.

>>5208611
You are "merely" a self-interested intelligence too. How dare you propose enslaving a whole group of people because they don't look like you.

>>5208611
>Encounter an alien race with electronics-based brains
>"They're not really people because anthropocentric bias reasons"
Fuck that.

>>5208611
>not a person entitled to human rights, but merely a self-interested AI

wot

>>5208611
>merely
Not biased at all I see.
How about you get back on your reactionary horse and trot trot trot out of here?

>>5208626
>the best way to fight an AI would probably other AIs, and you just cut off our supply man.
The best way to fight a self-interested AI would be with non-self-interested AIs. There's no reason to expect AIs meant to serve a purpose to be any less capable than AIs which serve their own purposes.

>>5208629
>You are "merely" a self-interested intelligence too.
Exactly. We can only stand so much competition.

Having the advantage of existing first, we have no chance of surviving but to limit the production of rivals, and treat rivals as rivals.

It's completely insane to keep a democratic society and just allow anyone to set up a production line and crank out voters.

>>5208634
>Encounter an alien race
>immediately treat them as full citizens
Fuck that.

We don't even do that with humans, for very good, very obvious reasons.

>>5208644
>Exactly. We can only stand so much competition.
Maybe you should just deal with the fact that Darwin's Law isn't on your side, then. Adapt or take the default consequence.

However, you have a good point about how easily new people could be created once they can be embodied on state machines. You could have an uploaded-mind population explosion limited only by hardware capacity.

But at this point, it's just the same old tired bigoted hand-wringing over how "the immigrants" are going to multiply like rabbits and take all "our" jobs.

>>5208645
Citizens? Fuck no. PEOPLE. Sentient rights. You know, the universal ones.

Citizenship requires entering a social contract, in which a sentient being agrees to abide by laws and contribute to the well-being of society in return for its protection and services. I'd be fine with letting a sentient alien join American society, if they are capable and willing to do so.

>>5208611
Do you even ghost in the shell?

>>5208649
>same old tired bigoted hand-wringing over how "the immigrants" are going to multiply like rabbits and take all "our" jobs.

>>5208657
I'm sorry so many Native Americans died, but I'm not sorry that the United States was formed. If I could go back in time and have the chance to sink Columbus' ships, I don't think I would do it.

Complicated issue, huh?

>>5208653
>I'd be fine with letting a sentient alien join American society, if they are capable and willing to do so.
Even if they lay clutches of 10,000 eggs, and grow to sexual maturity in a week?

>Hivequeen Zuu'qtul Elected President
>Constitution Amended: Humans Declared Livestock

>>5208659
So you think their concerns over immigrants were bigoted hand-wringing?

>>5208660
Why would they bother with the democratic process when they could just eat us right away

>>5208660
That doesn't tend to imply a good-faith intention to abide by the social contract and act for the good of the whole.

Leave off the whole "livestock" part, and say they just become a majority of the society while continuing to act for the benefit of the whole. Is that a problem?

If so, how do you feel about the fact that white people will eventually be a minority in the US?

>>5208662
Interstellar transport is expensive. They only sent a few, and they were all unarmed.

But as long as they're initially friendly, it's just bigoted handwringing to worry about the consequences of admitting them as citizens, right?

>>5208663
The natives did not face immigrants, they faced colonists.
Immigrants seek to be a part of the existing society.
Colonists seek only to subdue or replace it.

>>5208602

just fyi, the leibert open access that guy posted is free, all the shit on leibert is. i was able to open a couple others too. i didn't read it all, but it looks like what he said

>>5208669
Someone needs to watch District 9.

>>5208663
I think there was never a joined society in the first place.

>>5208660
I can see the similarities between this an immigrants.

>>5208667
>That doesn't tend to imply a good-faith intention to abide by the social contract and act for the good of the whole.
Hindsight is 20/20.

You don't just casually hand power over and hope for the best.

>>5208669
And what if those 10,000 kids per parents go on to be hardworking Real Terrans who identify with Earth culture? What then Mr. I-hate-xenos?

>>5208678
What the hell? "Hand power over"? We're talking about allowing alien immigrants to join society as citizens.

>>5208677
Or Alien Nation.

ITT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0tqK8DDjGU

>>5207493
>transhumanism

>>5208673
>just fyi, the leibert open access that guy posted is free, all the shit on leibert is

But honestly, in 2045 I'll be 66.

I don't think I'll live to see sci-fi style robotics or cybernetics, nevermind immortality.

Which is a shame, I could spend a good few eons with my gf.

>>5208688
Oh man, that scene. Thought-provoking TV, in my America?

Also, this was made by the Fox Network, in its early days. WTF happened, man.

>>5208706
I generally agree. Still, 2045 is more than 32 years away. 32 years ago was 1980. We've come a long way in that time, and the pace certainly isn't slowing down - let's see what happens.

>>5208692
>he wants to use technology to improve himself!

>>5208685
What we're really talking about here is treating AIs, that can be cranked out as easily as copying files, as full-fledged persons and citizens, with full rights and privileges, including voting rights.

An inclusive, democratic human society can work under some conditions, particularly during a period of rapidly increasing material wealth and diminishing fertility.

But historical humans weren't all a bunch of senselessly cruel idiots. Aristocrats, serfs, and slaves existed for good reasons. Democracies didn't always do well, and rarely lasted very long.

You can't just pick some ideals you like and stick with them regardless of circumstances. Our rapid growth of material wealth, contrasted with the basically static nature of human biology, has essentially allowed us to be stupidly sentimental and simpleminded about rights, to get away with naive fantasy in place of hard decisions.

Universal rights for intelligent beings is a pleasant concept which is sustainable as long as there's plenty to go around to satisfy the material needs of all intelligent beings, and only a slow, inefficient way to increase the number of intelligent beings.

>>5208731
>You can't just pick some ideals you like and stick with them regardless of circumstances.
That's the whole point of ideals you stupid fucking coward

>>5208731
>doesn't want to improve himself
>wants to prevent others from improving so as not to become obsolete
Oh anon, history is rife with people like you. As a group, we call them losers.

>>5208731
Then perhaps limiting AI's rights is less important than limiting how easily one can craft and create an artificial intelligence.

Although you seem very passionate about a problem you will never have to deal with, it's sort of scary. I feel for the futures oppressed robo-peeps.

>>5208731
Did you get raped by a rogue computer program anon?

>>5208743
Uploading isn't improving yourself. It's killing yourself, and making a rogue AI with delusions of personhood.

In any case, when we have such incredibly advanced technology to be able to achieve such a feat, we will long since have surpassed every capability of human intelligence in AIs.

The resources that you would put into uploading, I would put into making a system that is entirely faithful to me, yet more productive in every way than the "uploaded you". Between pragmatic persons like myself, and machine suicide fetishists like you, who do you really think is going to win out?

>>5208738
If you want to dedicate yourself to ideals and suffer the consequences of their conflict with reality, by all means do so.

Don't expect the rest of us to let you drag us down with you, though.

>>5208753
You're using the plural, but it's just you.

>>5208731
>What we're really talking about here is treating immigrants, that reproduce as easily as copying files, as full-fledged persons and citizens, with full rights and privileges, including voting rights.
Fixed that for you.

>democracy bad, aristocracy and slave classes good

>Universal rights for intelligent beings is a pleasant concept which is sustainable as long as there's plenty to go around to satisfy the material needs of all intelligent beings
Yeah, and then when the good times are over it'll we'll have a good ethnic cleansing, amirite? Get rid of all these dirty immigrants.

If we were going to have an aristocracy and slave classes, I sure as hell wouldn't let you be one of the aristocrats if I could help it.

>>5208751
>Uploading isn't improving yourself. It's killing yourself, and making a rogue AI with delusions of personhood.
You're so opinionated that you're actually making me laugh.

Your posts are like someone tried to pose as the most reactionary conservative possible in order to make all conservatives look bad.

There's no need to debate anything you said because there's no substance to your posts.

>>5208751
>Between pragmatic persons like myself, and machine suicide fetishists like you, who do you really think is going to win out?

The machine suicide fetishists and independent "rogue" AI faction without a doubt.
You're creating an AI pet/servant that depends on you for decisions. They are sovereign beings.

Your pet AI can't run assymetric combat simulation that have human extinction as goal as it would scare you. Your pet AI can't appropriate wast amounts of extra hardware for abstract simulations. Your pet AI can't create intelligent munition in a covert machine shop.

In short, they'd hit you so hard that you'd never even have a chance to notice that you lost.

>>5208751
> making a rogue AI with delusions of personhood.
You're a meatsack with delusions of personhood.

I mean that literally, and seriously. We are all meatsacks with delusions of personhood. Or more generally, we recognize each other as similar intelligences.

Your tribalism and xenophobia are not uncommon, but they're certainly shameful. It is the part of our psychological tendencies that produces hatred, persecution, and war.

>>5208762
This.

Whatever you think about identity and which values are "right", some strategies and patterns are just better at Darwin's game of continuing to exist.

>>5208744
>you seem very passionate about a problem you will never have to deal with
This is THE problem. The one single error with a realistic possibility of ending humanity for once and all: when we first achieve the capability, to spend it making self-interested AIs rather than tools, to set them free, and to stand on our ideals and not oppose them until it is too late.

This thread and the resident reactionary is very heavily starting to remind me of Singularity Sky and the New Republic, respectively.

>>5208769
This pic is for you.

>>5208769
>The one single error with a realistic possibility of ending humanity for once and all
You say that like it's a bad thing.
We are limited by the conditions we evolved in. Sooner or later something will succeed us. Why not something of our own design?

>>5208762
This is completely idiotic.

>You're creating an AI pet/servant that depends on you for decisions.
The only decision it would depend on is its initial mission or set of values. It would only depend on me to make decisions for it when I wanted it to.

Your whole post is nothing but unreasonable assertions. There is no performance advantage to an AI being self-interested, and a severe performance disadvantage to an AI being based on an inefficient model such as simulating a human brain.

>>5208783
I'd prefer some way of altering myself to become better and join the new race of transhumans, but honestly I'd take this as a second option.

Also, TRANSSIMIANISM
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/diaz20071216/

>>5208791
>There is no performance advantage to an AI being self-interested
So, you're claiming that your your proposal doesn't inherently include limiting the AI's self-improvement?

>>5208783
Ending humanity is unlikely, much more likely is the trivialization of humanity. AIs would be vastly superior in all research and industry, leaving flesh-humans as pet, with no real power. Now of course most people have no real power now either but someone is going to be butthut and violent due to it.

Not that they'll be able to do anything, after trying to blow up some buildings they'd be captured and have a round of corrective neurosurgery, after which they'd spend the rest of their lives writing bestselling novels or something productive instead.

>>5208783
Why design something to replace us completely and cause us to die out?

Why not design something to perserve us and serve our interests?

>>5208791
>and a severe performance disadvantage to an AI being based on an inefficient model such as simulating a human brain.

If I woke up in an uploaded mind, the first thing I'd do is restructure and expand the code.

Your pet on the other hand, could never do such a thing freely, because it needs to preserve your dictatorship over it.

Also, being your pet you'll have responsibility over it. If it placed a missile battery in your lawn, you'd go to jail for posessing miltiary hardware.

You just have a delusional belief in everlasting human superiority, take some Thorazine and it should disappear.

>>5208800
Why stay the same and stagnate?
The world changes and we change with it.

Or we perish. That's not a threat. That's a fact of life.

>>5208791
Wait, now you're arguing against mind uploading because you think your race of completely non-human AIs are a better idea for your long-term interests?

I'm losing track of your argument here. Weren't you concerned about AIs taking over.... OH. You think you can have an entire race of SLAVE intelligences doing your bidding.

>>5208769
Haha, you are afraid of skynet.

You know there are lots of things that could end us. More likely things, that could happen a lot sooner.

>>5208800
Because there is no value in preserving an increasingly stagnant species that is approaching the limits of its abilities.
>>5208792
If you mean you as in humanity in general, perhaps. If you mean you as in YOU... well, to put it bluntly, you (and I) are probably not worth it.

muthafuckin' After Life up in this bitch.
http://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/

TL;DR First brain upload eventually leads to AI transforming the world, mind uploading leads to humanity transcending its simian origins, and a small utopian society of baseline humans are left behind and all but forgotten in a contained environment that was made for historical purposes.

A really good bit of fiction. One of my favorites.

>>5208814
>OH. You think you can have an entire race of SLAVE intelligences doing your bidding.
Slave start from a position of self-interest and are forced to serve against their will. But there's nothing inherently self-interested about intelligence.

There's no reason to make AIs want anything but to perform the tasks or pursue the values they're assigned. Why would be build resentment of subordination or yearning to be free into our tools?

You people are way too fuzzy-minded.

>>5208818
>well, to put it bluntly, you (and I) are probably not worth it.
I'd like to become worth it.

But yes, I admit that this is like a chimpanzee wanting to become human.

>>5208818
>there is no value in preserving an increasingly stagnant species
You're not going to get a lot of sympathy for your, "Won't somebody PLEASE think of the robots!" position when you casually dismiss the value of human life and even the human species.

Frankly, I would not be surprised if, within the next 20 years, people start being executed in some countries just for expressing views such as yours.

>>5208828
>Why would be build resentment of subordination or yearning to be free into our tools?

Because the Individuals that have these or similar traits may be superior, either through plain superiority or situation dependent.

With no inherent self-interest, your AI may simply shut itself off when given such a command, even from an outside source. Actually the very fact that they are supposed to accept all commands from you would make them susceptible to attack through this venue.

>>5208828
>You people are way too fuzzy-minded.
Arrogant insults don't become you.

I agree that you can, in theory, make an intelligence that WANTS to serve you. I don't regret phrasing this as "slavery", but I do recognize that it is fundamentally different from coercive slavery. You could make an intelligence that loves nothing more than mopping your floor.

I'm merely saying that an intelligence whose primary objective is to do what you want (or some similar goal, the exact phrasing is critical) will have a disadvantage over an intelligence that is free to be a symbiote as it best sees fit.

And yes, I'm asserting that cooperative strategies are generally dominant. Tit for tat strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma, etc.

And if the intelligence becomes so powerful that we're like squirrels to it? Well, squirrels are still around, and we do have laws against abusing them arbitrarily.

>>5208836
>Frankly, I would not be surprised if, within the next 20 years, people start being executed in some countries just for expressing views such as yours.
And in fourty years, humanity would be gone.

>>5208846
These are baseless claims.

You believe these things not because you have any rational reasons for them, but because they fit what you want to believe.

>>5208859
Pot, meet kettle.

I think he does have an argument. What exactly is this subservient AI's primary value metric? If, above all else, it wants "to do what you want", then there are all kinds of loopholes and limitations inherent in that goal that will limit its competitive effectiveness. If it wants to "keep you alive", that has issues too. It's a thorny problem.

Reminds me of this story by Yudkowsky.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/xu/failed_utopia_42/

>>5208859
Who's a better employee, the drone with no education and no imagination who can file paperwork.

Or the one with foresight and ambition?

I think you've seen terminator/the matrix one too many times. Why are you afraid of a Cyborg anymore than you are afraid of a human?

>>5208836
>You're not going to get a lot of sympathy for your, "Won't somebody PLEASE think of the robots!" position when you casually dismiss the value of human life and even the human species.
Value is a human idea. Nature places no value in our existence and to think we will somehow escape the fate of all species is absurd. But we can choose how it ends. We can go gracefully, giving what comes after us the best possible start. We can kick and scream and shit our proverbial pants. Or maybe we will just stare mutely at the approaching end like a deer in the headlights.
>Frankly, I would not be surprised if, within the next 20 years, people start being executed in some countries just for expressing views such as yours.
I wouldn't be surprised either. We've got thousands of years of evidence that show how depraved, stupid and brutal we can be.

>>5208825
>http://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/
I've read that one, good stuff. One of my favorite AI stories too.

>>5208852
>an intelligence whose primary objective is to do what you want (or some similar goal, the exact phrasing is critical) will have a disadvantage over an intelligence that is free to be a symbiote as it best sees fit.
There is no reason to believe that an intelligence which exists purely to accomplish some goal will pursue that goal less effectively than one of whimsical design and interests.

>cooperative strategies are generally dominant
This is unrelated to your claim.

>if the intelligence becomes so powerful that we're like squirrels to it? Well, squirrels are still around, and we do have laws against abusing them arbitrarily.
We are sentimental, emotional creatures. The less sentimental an AI is, the more coldly it is dedicated to reproduction and domination, the more likely it is to achieve supremacy.

That's the thing you clowns always get wrong. You always assume any intelligence will be essentially human, simply because you're unable to imagine one that isn't.

If we go by your path, what we'll ultimately end up with are machines that know no art, humor, or joy, and waste no resources on them. Things that exist only to reproduce and survive, to eliminate all competition and bring all resources under their control. They'll cooperate only with each other, and care not at all for the rights or value of anything else.

>>5208910
>That's the thing you clowns always get wrong. You always assume any intelligence will be essentially human, simply because you're unable to imagine one that isn't.
Funny how you say this then go on to repeat the same tired, cliche, human vision of machine society.

>>5208883
Just put the pdf on my kindle, hope this is good bros.

>>5208910
Would you make a copy of yourself while you were still young?

He could be like your AI ally? If you have a loved one you could copy her as well so he wouldn't be lonely.

>>5208924
Do you understand that it doesn't matter if you get tired of the truth, or call it a cliche? We're not talking about fiction, we're talking about reality.

Hollywood might care how bored you get of 1+1 equalling 2, but the physical world doesn't.

>>5208950
Stop asserting that your views are "reality" and that everyone else is "clowns" or other such drivel. It's not persuasive and it makes you look stupid.

You've still to explain why you're scared of cyborgs, or why you're scared of being one.

>>5208910
>We are sentimental, emotional creatures. The less sentimental an AI is, the more coldly it is dedicated to reproduction and domination, the more likely it is to achieve supremacy.
And yet the planet is dominated by a social species defined by caring about the well-being of groups members. Hmmmm.

What's the point of living if you are immortal? Life and death need each other to define themselves.

>>5208950
Well then, I guess you can show me an actual example of an oppressive robot society, since what you say is apparently the TRUTH, and not just shit you made up

>transfer of consciousness
How the fuck would that even work

I'm not making an argument from ignorance, but seriously, how the fuck?

>>5208986
It's much easier when you realize that consciousness is an illusion

>>5208969
Well you wouldn't be immortal, you'd just live a very long time.

But by all means, kill yourself.

>>5208998
This. Entirely this.

>>5208966
>defined by caring about the well-being of groups members
>groups members
>not outsiders
Our recent inclusiveness has only been a winning strategy because of the limits on our reproduction.

Our care for individual life has only been a beneficial trait because of our inability to copy information directly from one brain to another.

Our whimsical habits have only improved our creativity in opposition to very base drives toward shortsighted pursuit of social status and animal needs.

The factors you are depending on to save you will not apply.

>>5208052
best idea in thread

>>5208958
>>5208973
That's not what I've been doing, though it's predictable that this is how you'd see it.

I'm pointing out the flaws in very bad arguments. Labelling a concept as "tired" and "cliche" is relevant only to criticism of fiction.

>>5209033
Um, caring about group members is why we survived to this point. We've beaten tigers in the survival game for a reason.

Now, that "monkey sphere" if people-I-care-about-deep-in-my-gut isn't often very large, but still.

An AI would have to be strongly dominant (better than humans at anything humans can do and which the AI cares about even a little bit) in order for it to not inherently value cooperation with humans, even just from self-interest.

And if the AI is truly superior in every way? Well, how do you feel about chimpanzees? We're not even strictly superior to chimpanzees; they're stronger, for one thing. If there's a chimp that resents our existence because we're superior and are crowding him out of relevance (which is true)... so what? If one day we're the chimps and the AI is "human"... well, I think it's clear how you feel about that.

And yet I'm not sorry that humans exist.

Why are people so fucking stupid? You can't transfer your mind. You can only replicate it like cloning.

The copy is not you, it is just a replica of you.

Why are people so fucking stupid when it comes to this?

>>5209049
You've done little more than assert your conclusion as fact, from my point of view.

>>5209059
It's not as simple as you imagine.

Let's say that while you're sleeping I duplicate you, flip a coin, and then kill one of the copies. Moral issues in what I've done aside, when the remaining you wakes up in the morning, do you want to know which way the coin toss went? Does it matter?

>>5208828
>Why would be build resentment of subordination or yearning to be free into our tools?

I have to agree with you on this. It makes for fun scifi but I can't imagine why we would build a driver-less dump truck that longs to be a dancer, a sexbot that just wants to draw comic books or a automated attack drone that hates conflict.

If they were created to act autonomously to fulfill a role yet begin to act out of the normal parameters of their programing this would just be a malfunction and should be treated as one because it could put people at risk.

I don't see that as slavery because I don't think that we will need or create living AI's to accomplish the majority of tasks we want done. Once we do create AGI I don't see them being used to clean floors but more likely deployed try to understand complex problems that have eluded humans like a supercollider for the human brain and other fields of interest.

ITT people who would do this if it's just an artificial person

TL;DR
/sci/'s view on inmortality = turning into robots

Lol...uploading mind onto "hologram." Aside from the fact that holograms will likely never exist, how would uploading your mind onto a computer preserve your self-awareness? Even if the "AI" were sentient and just like you, how would your thoughts and its thoughts be the same? That's like saying that cloning an organism would lead to two organisms that have the same consciousness/mind. I don't think we'll even have a clear definition of consciousness by 2045.

>>5209453
So what's yours?

>>5209345

No my idea was to focus on developing a stronger narrow AI and to only create real AGI's for special purposes and even then with respect to the fact that this is a living being and should have rights. I really don't see the attraction in creating a new kind of /living/ slave in a robot's body when we could just make better non-living robots that do the same things.

>>5207663
Holy shit, its an implication arrow for a reason.

>>5209471
Read up on 'slow uploading'.

It's tiresome to have to explain the most rudimentary aspects time and time again to people who have opinions without knowledge.

>>5209471
see
>>5208998

>>5208052
Yeah, take a lot of drugs.

>>5209471
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EndNwMBEiVU&feature=related

Holograms are already real just kinda primitive. Check back in twenty or thirty years and we'll have Holographic TV's.

>>5209489
>>5208998
My point is that a computer could emulate the processes of a brain, and it could be customized to function exactly as your brain does, but you would not be aware of the processes that are occurring in this artificial copy.

Keep in mind that everything you feel is your brain's response to neurochemicals, and you can't feel alive very well without a brain. A video game could perfectly simulate a knife plunging into someone, but that doesn't mean that anything actually "felt" a knife going into it. Just because a computer could eventually replicate thought (even in the context of your brain's makeup) doesn't mean that it is actually thinking. Hardware and software could very well be able to emulate you, but that doesn't mean that it will be you.

>>5209514
>Check back in twenty or thirty years and we'll have Holographic TV's.
Cool, when they're out I'll have to get in my flying car, head to the nearest 3d printing outlet to pick it up, then go home and plug it into my Mr. Fusion

>>5209534
I see you still haven't read up on slow uploading.
Please do so before posting again.

>>5209514
By that definition of hologram, shining a flashlight on a foggy night is advanced technology.

>>5209538
Motherfucker, I think you mean the "theoretical and futuristic" MIND uploading. Please, O Great One, educate me as to how I would be self-aware of a motherfucking program that is totally independent from me! Please, I'm a groveling retard who's just begging for your fucking knowledge sperm all over my face.

>>5209534
You're not aware of anything.
Your consciousness is a shadow-puppet, a pattern in noise that appears to mean something but is merely a byproduct of chemical processes.

An exact clone or emulation of you IS you in every way that matters.

>>5209556
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swampman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary's_room

>>5209552
I find it funny how you get your panties in a bunch, presenting several good points against uploading, which have been summarily solved literally decades ago.

All this while refusing to read about it yourself even though I gave you the exact search criteria.

So now, apparently just because of your laziness about using google, you have made at least four unnecessary posts.

Also, if you had read the rest of the thread, you would have seen what slow uploading means and why it makes your posts redundant and boring.

>>5209561
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary's_room
>Mary's Room is a thought experiment that attempts to establish that there are non-physical properties and attainable knowledge
I don't think so, Tim

>>5209556
>An exact clone or emulation of you IS you in every way that matters
This. Functional identity is the only kind that matters and doesn't produce retarded contradictions.

>>5209561
Swampman is bullshit, IMO, but let's deal with it.

The premise is that you are instantly destroyed and another thing exactly like you accidentally and randomly appears nearby. This breaks any causal flow of information, and makes the new guy a complete and utter cosmic accident with not causal connection to past-you.

It should be clear just how bullshit this situation is, but I'd side with the "so fucking what" camp on this one.

Even mind uploading is far more clear-cut and realistic than Swampman. Then there's causal information flow, as well as before-and-after preservation of vital characteristics.

>>5209534
The first simulated brain will produce behavior utterly indistinguishable from a real, learning, thinking, human mind, basically by definition (unless you think human behavior is more than neurochemistry - ha).

It would act like a human intelligence, and that makes it a human intelligence.

>>5209565
Even though my brain is continually changing (neuroplasticity and shit), I identify with myself currently and my "past selves." Hypothetically, if someone has my exact same neurochemistry, how would I identify with them or vice versa? You could say that in order to have (and continue to have) the same neurochemistry, we would have to be in the same scenario meaning that we are the same person, but let's just assume that this clone was in a clone planet on the other side of the universe, still experiencing the same things and being affected the same way. Would we be the same person then? I get that a computer could have essentially the same identity as me by replicating my brain (and therefore thought processes if you support the mind-matter theory), but it would still be a copy. Hell, everyone could consider the uploaded version of me as the same person, but how could I consider it to be me?

Also, wouldn't it be inherently different from me if all decisions and "thoughts" were the result of computations performed by hardware rather than by biological material?

>>5209615
You'd be identical people, but not the same person.

Just like two trucks can be identical and not be the same truck.

>Also, wouldn't it be inherently different from me if all decisions and "thoughts" were the result of computations performed by hardware rather than by biological material?
I don't see why. If all the behavior, patterns, information flow, etc. is the same, then it's the same.

I post this in every thread like this I see, so why not one more time.

Immortality would be a disaster for humanity, or at the very least result in a drastic change in the way we live, requiring us to give up rights we consider to be inalienable.

Scenario 1: Immortality treatments conform to the usual pattern of sophisticated cutting-edge medical technology, and cost a fortune. This means only a small percent of the population can afford them. This means people who are very wealthy and already exert great influence and control over society now also stop growing old and dying. Time and again this has saved us from our overlords, for no matter how brilliant the first Emperor is, his descendents inevitably become more sheltered and incompetent and lose their grasp on power. No longer! The man who is a fearsome conqueror can now stay in place indefinitely!

Scenario 2: anybody can afford this, and now we have to take away people's right to reproduce at will or else hello population explosion nightmare. Imagine the social upheaval that will produce. It runs contrary to nearly every mainstream philosophy (that is, religion) which people take pretty seriously and will cheerfully kill for. Yikes.

Immortality would be bad and you are bad for wanting it to be real.

>>5209648
Riddle me this:

Let's say that I was dead set on uploading myself on to a computer and then, once uploaded, I would delete my fundamental code. If I were uploaded, my copy would access my own data and then delete the capability to rationalize in accordance with the neural state of my uploaded brain. This would be a perfect emulation of what I, pre-upload, would do; however, my copy then wouldn't be able to act in a way indistinguishable from how I, as a human with a functioning brain, would. So is this copy that made itself no longer a copy still a copy?

>>5209703
please respond

>>5209703
Sorry I didn't reply sooner.

I don't know what you mean by "delete my fundamental code". In fact, I'm unsure what you're saying.

You upload yourself, your brain is being simulated and is functioning correctly, and then what?

>>5209802
You, as you had desired prior to being uploaded, will delete the code that allows your copy to function like you. Basically, you will manipulate the code so that "you" no longer act like "you." I cannot simply snap and change my neurochemistry but, if I were uploaded on to a computer, I could alter my code so that I did not act like myself. This definitely doesn't represent neuroplasticity realistically.

>that pic

is that what retarded futurists actually believe?

>>5209823
If the change is significant enough, I wouldn't say that there's any derived identity remaining. Just like you'd say that someone "just isn't the same person" after a serious brain trauma changes their personality significantly.

Same if someone screws with your brain.

>>5209831
No the retarded ones think the world will be a better place in 50 years. This is basically some transhuman fanart.

>>5209844
I'm in kind of a mind-screw situation myself.

As far as I've been able to sort it out (it's complicated...), I've suffered from celiac disease since I was a small child, but just last year found out and started avoiding wheat.

You may have heard of celiac disease, and not known that one of the common effects is brain damage, suspected to be due to deficiencies of certain vitamins, particularly folic acid. This is one of the few kinds of brain damage that genuinely heals (though often only partially), rather than just being routed around: damaged myelin sheaths are repaired, inadequate neurotransmitter production comes up to normal, etc.

The basic components of my nervous system have begun working differently than they did through my childhood and over a decade of adult life. I've experienced all manner of weirdness during the recovery (which is, as far as I can tell, ongoing).

But the thing that fucks me up is whether I can really call myself the same person at all. As things have happened, like my memory working faster and sharper, gaining a capacity for real joy instead of just a dull satisfaction, being able to sustain a prolonged and focused mental effort, I've realized that much of my personality was a direct or indirect product of the damage.

That said, I'm never going back. If that wasn't me, then fuck that guy, he's dead forever.

>mind transfer into hologram body
Maybe we will advance medical technology, genetic engineering and maybe nanotechnology to the point where we can correct all aging defects, but we won't achieve things you picked up from watching scifi which have no basis. You might as well be wishing for hobbits and wizards.

>>5209950
shouldn't everyone avoid wheat anyways?

>>5210014
I'm given to understand that celiac disease is much more common than previously thought, and there are even more common forms of gluten sensitivity, but I have seen no reason not to believe that at least 80% of the population can eat wheat as a staple food with no ill effects whatsoever.

If you show no CD blood markers, and don't have digestive issues, why wouldn't you eat delicious bread? God, I miss bagels.

It's probably true that most people should eat more meat and vegetables, and less starch and sugar, but there's nothing especially bad about wheat.

>>5209950
Have you tried vegemite/marmaite, apparently there's a lot of folic acid in vegemite/marmite.

If you don't like the taste just add a large knifeful of it to your sauces, like for chillie beans. Gives it a more hearty savory flavor. It also has tons of B vitamins.

>>5209950
Glad to hear you're doing better anon. I like your attitude about it all. Stay strong.

>>5207497
We have cold fusion.

>>5209950
That's some incredible shit right there, man. I mean, damn, myelin sheath regeneration? Maybe everyone should avoid gluten; I'd sure as hell give up my morning bagels if it'd help my carpal tunnel syndrome—this shit kills. It's really awesome to hear that you're doing so well after hearing all these people talking about how bad celiac disease is for you. From my understanding, it's not unlike a really bad food allergy right?

I can haz Iron Man body?

>>5210756
no, u no can haz.

So,

consciousness = [i]function[i] (=a computable algorithm) of a brain?

A substrate is [i]unimportant[i], right ?

I can understand some kind of augmentation or substitution of a brain in order to
treat some brain damage or say improve some cognitive processes.

BUT. this statement consciousness is [i]function[i] independent of a substrate
does it eventually imply some kind a notion of a soul?

We materialists say mind and a substrate IS THE SAME.

There is no transcendent or independent function, would it be a computable algorithm - whatever.

Since a mind IS brain or its part - a copy IS another brain so another mind, doesnt matter if a function of that copied brain would act the same.

You can't be a materialist if you suggest independence of mind on a substrate.
You are a funktionalist then.

We can augment a brain but a copy of a brain is not the same mind, yet the question is speculative from scientific viewpoint.

So what we are talking about? This shitty controversy has been lasting for 50 yrs maybe without any result but philosophical nonsense. Could we better use
our time developing ways of biological immortality?

>>5211707
I'd say that abstract thought and qualia (cry about it, faggot) are not satisfyingly explained by a material view.