Options for recording memories and 'surviving' death

[Artlav]

those last moments would be so absolutely surreal. tipping way back, then watching the ground come into view and falling at it ... shudder

In a perfect world that would be followed by waking up in a clone warehouse with the last thing you remember being doing the backup before the trip to Afghanistan.
Alas, this is not the world we live in.

 

[Linguofreak]

In a perfect world that would be followed by waking up in a clone warehouse with the last thing you remember being doing the backup before the trip to Afghanistan.
Alas, this is not the world we live in.

No, it wouldn't be followed by waking up in the clone warehouse. Making the backup would be followed by waking up in the clone warehouse. The person who made the backup might be alive, depending on how you view things, but the person who was in the plane would still be dead. Only if you were doing a continual backup to a crash-hardened black box would the person who was in the plane survive the event, and in that case they would remember the crash. Even then, if any such thing as a soul exists (which I myself tend to assume), your backup might well be incomplete and the person who woke up in the clone warehouse would still be a different person.

---------- Post added at 17:40 ---------- Previous post was at 17:36 ----------

those last moments would be so absolutely surreal. tipping way back, then watching the ground come into view and falling at it ... shudder

That video didn't instill that reaction in me so much as a video of a small plane suffering a structural failure of the wings and plummeting nose-first into the ground did. Imagining the inside view and feel of that is absolutely terrifying.

 

[RisingFury]

In a perfect world that would be followed by waking up in a clone warehouse with the last thing you remember being doing the backup before the trip to Afghanistan.
Alas, this is not the world we live in.

Unlike the Cylons. They don't live in a perfect world, since they remember everything up until the last moment before their guts are blown apart and used as bomb site decoration.

 

[PennyBlack]

Clones, we have them... there called "Stereo Typicals" and the're everywhere. :hunter:

 

[T.Neo]

If I had a perfect copy of myself made and activated in Brisbane, Australia, the clone would experience everything exactly as I would- but I, still sitting in South Africa, would not share those experiences. This would not change if the clone were activated only upon my death.

It's an attractive belief but it doesn't make sense. A copy lives on, but 'this' you still dies. Might be better than dying without a copy though.

Poor Cylons though, sometimes it's better not to resurrect...

 

[Artlav]

Might be better than dying without a copy though

Exactly my point - it's better to lose last few weeks/months of memory than to die completely.

But that "world" would be far from perfect anyway - it will be a terrible mess of identity wars, abuse, slavery and mind piracy.

Only if you were doing a continual backup to a crash-hardened black box would the person who was in the plane survive the event, and in that case they would remember the crash.

If I had a perfect copy of myself made and activated in Brisbane, Australia, the clone would experience everything exactly as I would- but I, still sitting in South Africa, would not share those experiences. This would not change if the clone were activated only upon my death.

Hm?
Didn't i say "with the last thing you remember being doing the backup before the trip"?

I sort of assumed that the legal right of being-this-person-ness would be transferred to the last known backup.

 

[Linguofreak]

Hm?
Didn't i say "with the last thing you remember being doing the backup before the trip"?

The point is that it wouldn't be *you* waking up. Somebody would wake up with memory of being you and being backed up before the trip, but *you* would be completely dead.

I sort of assumed that the legal right of being-this-person-ness would be transferred to the last known backup.

But legal right is different from actual fact. It would be nice for your friends and family, but you yourself would be no less dead.

 

[Artlav]

The point is that it wouldn't be *you* waking up. Somebody would wake up with memory of being you and being backed up before the trip, but *you* would be completely dead.

"Me" is the content of my brain, nothing else. So, if that content was backed up and then restored (with sufficient precision), it would be undistinguishable from hard amnesia of the time that passed in between.
I'll only be a little dead.

The core of the paradox here is that a human can't imagine his own non-existence. Try as hard as you might, there is still the thing that do the trying and cannot disappear by definition. This tend to produce illusions like "i think therefore i am" or "i have a soul that is separate from my body".

To avoid this pitfall, you should perform any mental experiments involving people backup-restore/duplication/beaming/alteration/uploading/etc strictly from third-person view, not from first person.

 

[T.Neo]

The core of the paradox here is that a human can't imagine his own non-existence. Try as hard as you might, there is still the thing that do the trying and cannot disappear by definition. This tend to produce illusions like "i think therefore i am" or "i have a soul that is separate from my body".

To avoid this pitfall, you should perform any mental experiments involving people backup-restore/duplication/beaming/alteration/uploading/etc strictly from third-person view, not from first person.

If humans truly cannot imagine their own non-existence, then surely the inability to realise that the experiences of two different copies are not interlinked is an example of it- and not considering things from a first-person perspective would exacerbate the problem, not avoid it.

If I were to experience waking up in a clone factory as a clone after dying in a plane crash, then I should surely be able to experience waking up as a clone in Australia while still being alive in South Africa- but that makes no sense. There's no way that SA!Neo can have Aus!Neo's experiences, because SA!Neo isn't in Australia. Likewise, Dead!Neo can't have Backup!Neo's experiences, because Dead!Neo is, well... dead.

 

[Artlav]

then I should surely be able to experience waking up as a clone in Australia while still being alive in South Africa- but that makes no sense.

Indeed it makes none.
Problem is, you're jumping to conclusions on the "Evolution is apes suddenly giving human babies" scale.

Likewise, Dead!Neo can't have Backup!Neo's experiences, because Dead!Neo is, well... dead.

Exactly.
There is no mysterious "I" that should jump from the dead one to the clone, PLUS the set of backed up memories/neural patterns.
The memories is what defines the "I".

And by trying to imagine it from first person, you're trying to get the "sense of self" i mentioned to transfer to the clone, which is an invalid operation.

 

[T.Neo]

I said nothing of a mysterious sense of self, which makes your claim that I am the one jumping to ridiculous conclusions pretty problematic. I'm talking about the fact that two identical but otherwise unconnected individuals cannot share a single experience, much in the same way that if one of two identical computer files were edited, the other would remain unchanged.

 

[Artlav]

I said nothing of a mysterious sense of self, which makes your claim that I am the one jumping to ridiculous conclusions pretty problematic.

I never said that the dead guy and the clone would share any experiences post-backup, that was your idea.
Where did you get it?

 

[T.Neo]

Why are you saying that I had that idea? I've been pretty clear that I don't think that would be the case. The clone goes walking off but you are still dead; they experience waking up in the warehouse and you don't.

 

[Artlav]

I've been pretty clear that I don't think that would be the case. The clone goes walking off but you are still dead; they experience waking up in the warehouse and you don't.

Let's clear it out.
There is a set of memories before the backup, shared, there is a set of memories after the backup till the crash, lost.

Case A: The clone is made from the backup.
Case B: The current one is magically teleported from the moment before the crash to the warehouse, and gets his memory erased up to the point of the backup.

What difference do you see between the two cases?
Besides the trivial stuff like clothes/body stress/wear/etc.

 

[Linguofreak]

"Me" is the content of my brain, nothing else.

"You" (if there is no such thing as a soul) is the set of processes operating on and changing your brain state from moment to moment. When you die, those processes come to an end.

In other words, the clone may have all the data from the earlier state mmap()'ed, but the PID is different and the original process is gone for good.

 

[Artlav]

In other words, the clone may have all the data from the earlier state mmap()'ed, but the PID is different and the original process is gone for good.

That assumes there is an operating system that tracks these PIDs and makes them meaningful, i.e. a soul space.

Lacking that, the data is all that matters.
The code, to to continue the analogy, would be the laws of physics, and these are the same everywhere.

 

[Andy44]

This is a version of the old debate about the Star Trek transporter: Does the device

A. Physically move you from point A to point B, similar to the way an airplane does, or

B. Destroy (ie. kill) you at point A and construct an exact copy of you at point B

From the third party's point of view these are both identical, but if B is the case, than each time Captain Kirk steps onto the transporter pad, he experiences death (whatever that means to you), and his copy has no knowledge of it, which is why he continues to kill himself over and over everytime he uses it.

Odd that on a TV show that often explored so many philosophical issues, no mention was made of this, even by Doctor McCoy, notorius for his dislike of the transporter for safety reasons.

All moot for the poor crew of that transport jet. They should've been so fortunate as to be able to participate in this debate...

 

[Hielor]

As they said in The Prestige -- no one cares about the man in the box.

 

[Melvin]

As they said in The Prestige -- no one cares about the man in the box.

... and apparently nobody here cares about the dead flight crew anymore either. Kind of twisted really.

 

[PennyBlack]

... and apparently nobody here cares about the dead flight crew anymore either. Kind of twisted really.

Everybody is twisted in one degree or another. I should have been born shaped like a spring, I'm so twisted. :bananadance:

Seriously... I have have always found death to be a cold affair. I always wonder why people care and respect the dead so much when little care and respect is given to the living. Personally, I only feel minor shock and depression, which quickly passes when someone I don't know has died. Closer to home, a relative, obviously has a more severe effect upon me.

No, I don't feel sorry for the dead, they are dead. It's the living I often feel sorry for.

A little emotional detactment is an evil neccessity, in this life.