[Scotty]

Quick question:  If each "copy" starts at exactly the point in the original's life they were created, how does that prolong life and consciousness?

[General Battuta]

What do you mean? You're just a flawed copy of yourself from five years ago. How have you remained alive and continually conscious?

(See what I'm saying? We're always copying. An arbitrarily similar artificial copy - say, by teleporter - is indistinguishable, even to itself, from the original. So you cannot assign any special privilege to the original. We're in the habit of doing it, since it convinces us we're the same person we were ten years ago, but it's an illusion.)

Whoa hang on. You're misunderstanding something. Each copy's brainstate is causally directly connected all the way back to the moment of the original's conception. It has memories, cognitive structures, skills, every little neural scar, from all the way back to day zero. Everything that is recorded in the original's brain is recorded in its brain.

Heck, we have to go to sleep every so often just to work out the glitches in our brain, or we ****ing die! If you stayed the same person all the time, you'd go extinct!

[Scotty]

What do you mean? You're just a flawed copy of yourself from five years ago. How have you remained alive and continually conscious?

That's kind of what I meant.  After a while, the body starts to not be able to replace itself like normal.  If the "copies" start at the same point as the original is at that point, is there any noticeable effect on life expectancy?

[The E]

If you have a technology that can do mind uploading and downloading, I think it's safe to assume that technology to avoid aging would be available as well.

Another thing that you seem to oversee: It could also be possible to download a consciousness into a body that was not originally your own.

Finally: Read Altered Carbon. It deals with a lot of the issues that are discussed here.

[Kosh]

You don't get it. The original Kosh has been destroyed hundreds of thousands of times. You are now a copy.

Really? I suppose a part of it is the replacement is much more gradual so that overall you don't even notice. I never actually realized that. Like the ship analogy.

say, by teleporter

The teleporter wouldn't be quite the same because (as least as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong) it will preserve your quantum state, so you wouldn't actually notice anything. At least that's my understanding.........

[General Battuta]

What do you mean? You're just a flawed copy of yourself from five years ago. How have you remained alive and continually conscious?

That's kind of what I meant.  After a while, the body starts to not be able to replace itself like normal.  If the "copies" start at the same point as the original is at that point, is there any noticeable effect on life expectancy?

Ooh, okay. Fair point. I imagine you'd put yourself into a young body anyway. No more shocking than yonder rejuvenation drugs The_E suggesteth.

And, seriously, read Altered Carbon! It's fantasmic.

The teleporter wouldn't be quite the same because (as least as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong) it will preserve your quantum state, so you wouldn't actually notice anything. At least that's my understanding.........

Yep, the replacement is a gradual thing.

And I'm not sure any effects of quantum states on consciousness have ever been verified.

[Mongoose]

Is 'Me' a physical thing or a conceptual thing? Personally, I see it more as a concept than a physical entity, so to my mind, the recepticle for 'Me' is no more than some technology used to move my brain around, be it an organic construct or a non-organic one, the perception of 'Me' would not change as long as the mental identity has been transferred 100%.

See, that's the fundamental point that I'd personally disagree with.  To me (heh), the "Me" is me, the complete physical entity that comprises my body and the consciousness that has arisen from it.  I am not just a vessel meant to hold some intellectual structure.  I am my relative lack of athletic ability, my slightly-protruding gut, my blue eyes.  I am a self-contained biological entity with a sentient consciousness.  I was born, and I am able to die.  This defines me as human...were I anything else, human I would not be.  This isn't a statement of fear; it's embracing my true human nature and condition.

And see, here's the kicker: I do believe in a "soul," a "true me," something that cannot be represented by a mere physical structure of atoms and cells.  I believe that consciousness arises from the physical brain, not that it is limited by it, transcending the physical to something more metaphysical.  I do not believe that science can re-create that exact physical structure and, by doing so, "fork" me perfectly...even if the physical remains the same, something essential is lost.  I believe that, when my own original physical body expires, the true "me" does as well in our physical world, no matter what sort of "anti-entropy gun" is employed on my physical remains afterwards.  I am more than the sum of my parts, even as those parts make me who I am.

I don't expect Battuta or anyone else in here to agree with any one of those statements, but that's fine by me.  When the Robo-You ten thousand years from now takes part in the Great Robot War, my physical self will be happily rotting into dust in the ground, and who knows what will become of my consciousness, but I wager it'll be better off.

[General Battuta]

But what's the latest point at which you could be resuscitated before your not-quite-a-soul-thing departs?

[Mongoose]

A few minutes, give or take, unless I happen to be one of those lucky sorts who winds up at the bottom of a frozen-over lake for an hour or so.

[Flipside]

Exactly, this assumes that your soul somehow knows when you are dead beyond the point of rescue, and also knows whether you are going to get revived or not.

That's just a little too close to a religious belief to be acceptable as a scientific argument from my viewpoint.

[General Battuta]

I agree.

[Mongoose]

I agree.

As do I, which is why I had the "things science can't do" caveat in my post.

But if you do want a scientific definition, let's pin it at complete, irrevocable brain death.  The moment my brain ceases to show any function whatsoever, my soul/what-have-you has departed, and I'm essentially a hunk of meat.

[General Battuta]

Ah, but what about when the threshold of 'irrevocable' gets moved back by science?

I mean, people can came back after zero brain function, with all electrical activity extinguished. These days you have to wait for necrosis of the cerebral neurons!

[Mongoose]

But if you push back that line any further, who's to say that what comes back is what was there in the first place?  If your "anti-entropy gun" becomes a reality, you may get something that walks like me and talks like me, but from my perspective, the true "me" has already left the building.  Who knows, maybe a replacement sets up shop, or maybe all that's left is the physical brain structure.

[General Battuta]

Well, that's the question, isn't it...though you're gonna have a real hard time arguing that if you run into a cute girl who got pulled back and neurally reconstructed after a few days dead or something.

But I'm gonna stick to hard science here, and as far as us physicalists are concerned, there's nothing but the brain structure. Anything past that is non-empirically-verifiable and up to individual imagination. So far as empirical reality is concerned, if it walks like you, talks like you, and has a neural network exactly like you, it's still you.

No offense.

[Mongoose]

None taken.  I view that as a rather limited take on things from my perspective, but I still recognize it as a valid viewpoint.  I'll definitely stick around and keep reading what you have to say, because it is admittedly very interesting.

(This whole thing is rather amusing, come to think of it...my bachelor's degree is in physics, yet I'm the one pushing this particular view. )

[Scotty]

Exactly, this assumes that your soul somehow knows when you are dead beyond the point of rescue, and also knows whether you are going to get revived or not.

That's just a little too close to a religious belief to be acceptable as a scientific argument from my viewpoint.

I'd like to poke in here.  It isn't that the "soul" knows when you are dead.  Not anymore than the brain knows you are dead when it stops working from lack of oxygenated blood.  Call it the end of the body shutdown or what have you.

And I just realized this point has been argued for several posts now.

[Kosh]

And I'm not sure any effects of quantum states on consciousness have ever been verified.

Well my point was you would be preserved as you were, assuming thoughts included because all the quantum states of all your atoms would be exactly the same as before.

As do I, which is why I had the "things science can't do" caveat in my post.

We don't actually know what science can or can't do. Even in the last 200 years the border has been pushed back to a large degree, and everyday it keeps getting pushed back that much more. Imagine what we will be able to do in the next 200. I, Kosh0 would like to see it all.

[General Battuta]

Let's stop the thread, I want to get off. My head hurts.

[TrashMan]

You know what's funny? In all of this I never never brought the issue of soul.
But then again, I didn't need to.

It really simple. You experience things trough a certain point of view...a certain lense.. a certain sense of self. That cannot be duplicated. You can only be at one point in place at time.

Bob1 goes to a cloning/forking facility. He lies down on the table, closes his eyes and several hours later his copy is ready. Bob1 walks out of the faciltiy happy.

If Bob1 is shot, Bob1 will experience the pain, feel the life slowly trickling away, close his eyes and be faced with...well either eternal darkenss of afterlife (depending in what you belive in).

Bob2 wakes up in the facility, but something is not right. Bob is in a tube, but he clearly rememebers being on the table. Holy schnitzel! He relises he's the copy! But nevermind, why should he care? He walks out of the facility and lives happily on.

Bob1 and Bob2 have different experiences. They have different points of view. Ergo, they are not the same. They are different entities.

Bob1 didn't achieve immortality by forking. He's dead.

And no, you don't die constantly. Your perception of self, your life , your point of view - they are constant untill you die.

Aaargh...why do I even waste my time on this?