Options for recording memories and 'surviving' death

[mojoey]

It's all with regard to how one was brought up to view death, or how death shaped their childhood. Normally we live with little regard to those living around us, until they die. Why? It's because some believe that there is an afterlife, and the disembodied souls of those who died are omnipresent, watching them. So we make up for being idiots to them by showing them respect (albeit false) after they die.

 

[PennyBlack]

Not god, just open thinking...

I don't mind running from death. I know death will meet me, but how it meets me is of more concern than dying itself.
I don't carry anything dead. A hollow shell, a husk. I feel it is dead more than know and it's a terrifying sensation. I can pick up anything dead that has less than two legs or more than four, ordinarily I don't ussualy approach them when their alive, Spiders and the like. But I have a natural fear of death I think is common place amongst sencient mortals.
I look at the death of the body like heat escaping from a car engine when it's idle, the body dissipates it's electrical energy when the journey is over, the driver has already left the vercle. Where did he go? Or like the cars AI, did he just go dark.
To fantasise about the concept of imortality is something we all enjoy, I desire it, who wouldn't?
Whether we inplant our minds in a virtual world on a server or clone a younger version of ourselves for mind transfer, it's a case of, "everybody want's to go to heavon, but nobody want's to die". (Just a expression.)
And why should we when one day we can create the perfect virtual world or extend organic mortal life, a clone. (I wonder if that's why you never see a grey alien wearing underpants.)
Is it wrong, to break the natural cycle? I think we do this everythime we pickup a scaple or prescribe an antibiotic. But what if there is life after death, I mean the universe is far more complex with differing layers and dimentions apparently, with alternate variations of life. What if this life is mearly a gestation period for another path, from the organic to the inorganic, the spirit and by altering the release mechanism, you fail to pass the original essence, the soul perhaps, to the other side if there is one.
This bugs me alot when I think about having those chioces should it come in my lifetime. Maybe it's because we know there is nothing there and that makes us very afraid, perpetuating the desire and until we acquire it, we may always believe or fool ourselves into thinking that maybe, just maybe there is something there. I wonder if it's a constant within all alien sentiant beings that are aware of death.?

(sigh)
Oneday, I will know. I also predict that will most likely be the unluckiest day of my life.

 

[Andy44]

Is it wrong, to break the natural cycle?

It's in our nature to try to improve and extend our lives. The same intelligence that makes us aware of mortality also makes it possible for us to ward it off through technological advancement.

I know a guy at work who says he doesn't want to live to be very old. "What for?" he asks. I think he's nuts. Waking up in the morning to see the sunshine is one of the best things there is, why would I not want to do that for as long as possible? Maybe he's worried about getting old and infirm; well, staying healthy and fit goes up there with living longer on my list of nice-to-haves.

The notion of transferring to a robot body is interesting, but it brings up all the philosophical questions we've seen in this thread, for starters. Is that robot really "you", or did the real you die and is it just a copy, etc.

Then there is the problem of changing your fundamental nature, your identity as a person. Being human is more than just being a soul inside a mortal body; experiencing all the senses, the physical pleasures and pains of a living body are part of who you are. Hormones have a huge effect on who are are and how you behave, your sexual identity as a male or a female, who you find attractive or not, etc. It's not all just "in your head".

Could a robot body really preserve all of that "animal" part of what it feels like to be a living human? I guess if the alternative is permanent death, it's enough to preserve your mind until a better solution can be found, like a Cylon-style clone, with a fix thrown in so I won't need glasses anymore.

 

[jedidia]

Ah, the good old question of what makes "me" "me". Strange that I just finished reading Revelation Space, where Calvin seems to define the answer as "I'm the only me currently being self-aware". It seems at both times a too objective and a too subjective view on the issue.

It makes, of course, perfect sense from a perspective that understands the essence of a human as pure information. And for what it's worth, objectively it makes a lot of sense: Would I love my wife any less because I know that she's been rebuilt, and while the atoms in her body might not be the same anymore, she's still very much my wife?

From a subjective point of view, it also makes sense: If I leave my cloned wife she would react the same way my wife would have reacted if I left her. If she doesn't know she's a clone, she would even not understand it any better and probably call me insane for me thinking that she's not my wife.

The whole thing only ever really becomes a problem if there's multiple subjective points of view, because now the whole thing falls terribly appart: Would my wife be pissed if she's still alive and I sleep with clone-wife? Damn sure she would be. She'd had any right to be too, I'm supposed to sleep only with her, after all, not with someone that might be exactly like her, but isn't her none the less.

I think it is far too easy to say that as long as there is only one sentient instance active at any one time everything is good. The fact that there is a rather confounded problem as soon as you have several instances points to a problem that must also in some way have consequences to the optimal case. Namely, the subjective view of the instance that is no longer active. Which might be considered inconsequential, but somehow that doesn't quite strike me as... can't put a finger on it... human, maybe?

 

[Artlav]

while the atoms in her body might not be the same anymore

Look at your monitor.
Suppose we pick two silicon atoms somewhere in it.
Now, imagine that these two atoms got swapped.

What changed?
Have anything even happened?

I think it is far too easy to say that as long as there is only one sentient instance active at any one time everything is good. The fact that there is a rather confounded problem as soon as you have several instances points to a problem that must also in some way have consequences to the optimal case. Namely, the subjective view of the instance that is no longer active. Which might be considered inconsequential, but somehow that doesn't quite strike me as... can't put a finger on it... human, maybe?

That is just so far out of the baseline environment for a human mind design, that we have no reasonable reaction to it.
Once you can make copies of people, all social interaction and morality stuff simply breaks down.

But keep this in mind: making a good enough copy is like cell fission - you get two originals, but the instant it's done, the two start diverging.
I.e. one finds himself on the left, the other - on the right.
So, neither are the original person any more.

The rest is how society evolves to deal with it.

Could a robot body really preserve all of that "animal" part of what it feels like to be a living human?

A lot of memory is body-bound. It would be hard to remember many perceptual things when your body now perceives everything differently. A lot of memories bound to caring after the body would start to fade, and so on.

It will certainly change you to some extent.
Probably like living through a violent event - you lose a bit of a limb and a bit of your character, and end up be basically the same, only more cynical, more unfazeable and with an eye patch.

But what if there is life after death, I mean the universe is far more complex with differing layers and dimentions apparently, with alternate variations of life.

Any such life after death should be outside regular material world - the matter making the body break down after death, there is nothing left to work you.

So, we must have another kind of substrate that can carry a human existence.
By definition, it has to be a part of the universe.
Such being the case, there should be evidence for it.
Either there should be an entire set of new laws of physics to describe it, of which we have no evidence what-so-ever.
Or it should be hidden among the interactions of regular matter, of which we have no evidence what-so-ever.

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
And if such evidence appear one day - there is plenty of high places to end an immortal life from.

 

[Ghostrider]

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Well, actually no. Absence of evidence is just absence of evidence. You cannot prove something does NOT exist, but until one proves it DOES, one shouldn't need to worry about it. You don't have to take my word for it, but I happen to make a living out of finding evidence, so that equation doesn't fly for me. Neither does with the courts, the serious ones at least.

 

[PennyBlack]

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
And if such evidence appear one day - there is plenty of high places to end an immortal life from.

Place a hand over the hot plate and feel the warmth, the radiation. We know it's hot because we feel the sensation of it. The only way to see the heat is with a heat sensative camera, exposeing the visual existence of it giveing us another way of detecting it. Maybe over time, we could also learn to see what others believe and sense, the layers and dimentions. It would help if we knew what to look for. Invention has allowed us to see across an ageing universe, see light that isn't visable to us. Wavelengths that harmonise the structure of the atoms that contruct it. We have used theory to prove the impossible, possible.
However implausable this appears to me and others, before the heat sensitive camera, we only had our touch to rely upon to detect the heat. And what if this evidence is presented, as suggested, how many would actually self terminate to escape one life for another. Would this not also negate any reason for extending this life if there is another. Afterall, I think we would be postponing the enevitable and what would be lost from the next life if you remove perticular assets that are possibly essential for it.

Clones... I wouldn't want two of me around and I know the missis wouldn't for sure. A world with no more me is as unacceptable and horrific to me in as much as a world with two of me in it. Conflict of personality and not everybody likes to think alike and it's even worse if another looks identical to you. How much more cheap would I want to feel. How expendable would that make me. If she decides she likes the other me better than me, what becomes of me. How love torn would she be. I'm very selfish with her love, why would I want to share myself without feeling it also. No clones, no way.

At this stage, I would be happy to share my memories upon my death if it were possible. To have them scanned and copied into an archive showing my life from the cradle to the grave. Nothing is taken, only replicated. I wouldn't preserve anything else of myself though fear of being wrong.

Wrong about what, I wonder... Why, the unknow of course.

 

[Artlav]

Well, actually no. Absence of evidence is just absence of evidence. You cannot prove something does NOT exist, but until one proves it DOES, one shouldn't need to worry about it.

You can't prove that there is no elephant in your room, but lack of evidence for him makes you behave like there isn't one.
It's a matter of picking the best decision - if there is no evidence for Earth's gravity field plans to disappear tomorrow, why bother bolting everything to the floor?

More generally:

You don't have to take my word for it, but I happen to make a living out of finding evidence, so that equation doesn't fly for me. Neither does with the courts, the serious ones at least.

For every crime there are about 7 billion possible perpetrators.
How do you pick a suspect from all of them?

You need evidence first, some connection between the person to be picked and the crime and related activity.
Absence of evidence for each of the remaining billions is evidence for their absence in the crime.

So, why pick the idea like afterlife in the first place?
There are innumerable alternatives, some of which have actual evidence pointing at them.

before the heat sensitive camera, we only had our touch to rely upon to detect the heat.

Or, you know, placing a hand over the hot plate and feeling the warmth.
Which is the evidence that led to the idea of the thermal radiation and then thermal imaging cameras.

If she decides she likes the other me better than me, what becomes of me. How love torn would she be.

Why not just have a threesome?

That's what i call patterns breaking down.
If you can copy people, society will change radically, along with common sense and all the patterns.

Imagine being born and living in a fundamentalist religious place, where women are treated like sub-sentient property.
If you go from there to our emancipated "first world", you will be in for quite a shock - not so much for objective right or wrong, but for sheer cultural difference.

Ability to copy people is about this kind of change.

I wouldn't preserve anything else of myself though fear of being wrong.

What exactly are you talking about?

 

[PennyBlack]

What exactly are you talking about?

You'll have to read my previous posts again as I would only be repeating it. I had difficulty writeing it the first time around and any irrational thinking on part, is what comes from such a subject.

Imagine being born and living in a fundamentalist religious place, where women are treated like sub-sentient property.
If you go from there to our emancipated "first world", you will be in for quite a shock - not so much for objective right or wrong, but for sheer cultural difference.

Here's another imagine the difference...

When a sperm fertilises the egg, cells grow and divide following a coded system determined from stored data held the DNA. At some point, no further development can be achieved within the womb and an another stage of existence has to be invoked, birth. From one world to another, the world in which we currently live. It's so much of a culture shock, we block it out. Life is alien, new and yet another stage in our state of existance. No longer the warm protective world of fluid, but a grubby, wild and unreasoning wilderness of the modern world where you live exposed. You may have years to reach adulthood, but already you are dying. Your just going through the programing laid out by your genetic codeing. How alien it is, going from one world to the other thinking about it.

 

[Deleted Orbinaut]

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.

China Mieville's spec-fic novel Kraken deals with this explicitly. There is a character who can teleport and does so for many years for money. But he eventually becomes haunted by the ghosts of all of his former selves who have died during the teleportation process.

---------- Post added at 05:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:56 PM ----------

Here's another way to look at Artlav's perspective. It's quite possible that human consciousness is an illusion; that what we experience as "me-ness" is momentary. That "you" exist only at the very present moment, and have the subjective experience of having existed continuously only because you have access to your memories. It's possible that your "self" "dies" continuously every moment; you would never be able to tell. If that's the case, your clone's subjective experience of waking up in a warehouse with all the memories leading up to the last recording would be a totally valid one. That clone would be as "you" as you are, and there's no reason to assume that the experience of one or the other is more objectively valid.

 

[Ghostrider]

You can't prove that there is no elephant in your room, but lack of evidence for him makes you behave like there isn't one.

If the elephant in my room exists, then it's an elephant that does not occupy any relevant space. Now it's up to you to prove there's an elephant in my room that doesn't occupy any relevant space. There could be one trillion elephants with those characteristics in my room, I cannot prove their nonexistance.

Now if you're telling me a full-sized live adult elephant is in my room right now, I can safely tell you it's not there. However, the statement "there is a full-sized live adult elephant in your room right now" is easily falsifiable because all it takes is observation.

Now if you say "there is no intelligent life in the Universe besides on Earth", this is hard to falsify. You would need to observe the whole of it. So, until we find it, it's of no immediate concern.

As for any form of afterlife, it hasn't been measured, witnessed or proven yet. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it also means you shouldn't ask people to think it does, or behave like it does.

More generally:
For every crime there are about 7 billion possible perpetrators.
How do you pick a suspect from all of them?

Possible, yes. Probable, not. The vast majority of those 7 billion persons cannot even be placed at the crime scene in the timeframe the event occurred.

You need evidence first, some connection between the person to be picked and the crime and related activity.

First of all you need to narrow the suspects down and this depends on the nature of the crime, the time elapsed between the crime being committed and the beginning of the investigation, the state of the crime scene and the people possibly being involved. In a house burglary case, for instance, you're going to have a number of suspects - most already known to the authorithies - so you will have a number of people to "pick".

Absence of evidence for each of the remaining billions is evidence for their absence in the crime.

Wrong. Evidence needs to be positive: X was at Y when Z occurred, X handled item A which was used to kill B. Item A was found at Y. You need to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. And it still doesn't mean X murdered B, which is another can of worms entirely.

Can you prove I'm not Jack the Ripper? I could be immortal, or exceptional long-lived, or a time traveler. But if you want to say that I am Jack the Ripper you need a way to connect me to the murders, and I have an alibi for at least four of them.

And this is why cold cases are hell to work with...

So, why pick the idea like afterlife in the first place?

Did I pick it? I simply stated that the statement "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is not true. Absence of evidence won't lead to trial, which in everyday's life means "do not bother about it until further notice", not "it doesn't exist".

Why not just have a threesome?

Flattered, but not my thing. Too crowded. But I have a bi friend who could be interested, if you can get Julianne Moore, Morena Baccarin or Jensen Ackles to join in.

If you can copy people, society will change radically, along with common sense and all the patterns.

What has this to do with evidence? The ability to copy people would be a shock, yes, but I think we'll eventually adapt. We humans have forgotten how adaptable we are.

What exactly are you talking about?

The fact that you should never, ever be your own lawyer. :lol:

 

[PennyBlack]

I stated that at this moment in time, I don't mind handing over my memories at death. I think it is more reasonable to assume at this current level of technological achievement, that this may indeed be possible. I'll go with what's possible and probable. Not what is currently improbable and impossible, although a few years down the line, full conscience may be mapped and transfered and if these articles are anything to go on... We won't be waiting long.

How we are useing microchips to hold memory...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...s-generate-memories-human-brains-2-years.html

Reading some of these articles can make for a sinister future. Why does the expression "Chimps and chips don't mix" spring to mind. And being primates ourselves, we shouldn't exclude ourselves from the expression either...
http://mind-computer.com/category/micronano-brain-implant/

A little light reading. How Neural Implants are pathing the way...
http://www.terasemmovementfoundation.com/neural-implants

Flip the switch on, and the rats remember. Flip it off, and the rats forget. So keep up those monthly payments or you could be wiped...
http://www.popsci.com/technology/ar...hip-rats-can-remember-and-forget-touch-button

 

[Artlav]

Here's another way to look at Artlav's perspective. It's quite possible that human consciousness is an illusion; that what we experience as "me-ness" is momentary. That "you" exist only at the very present moment, and have the subjective experience of having existed continuously only because you have access to your memories.

Imagine a cellular automaton, like the Game Of Life, only fully reversible.
Every state leads to one next, each state have one previous.

It's called a block universe.
And the concept of time does not exist in it.
There is no now that sweeps along it, every interaction is defined relative to every other.

You can remember yesterday, but can't remember tomorrow, so you have a feeling that time flows. At each point the decision engine that is your mind operates with the facts of the past to generate the actions being performed now.
At each point it have a now to work with, the sum of memories that is contained in it at that point.

If you're thinking "but, free will?", think carefully - what does choice mean?
By choosing the curtain to be closed at 18:00, do you change a curtain open state at 18:01 to curtain closed state at 18:01, or do you determine the state of your mind which follows into a result of curtain being closed at 18:01?
Simpler said, do you ever seen something actually change in time, rather than change over time?

If you wonder how can a decision or computation or cause and effect be defined in such a world, look at probabilities in the causal chain. One way an egg hits the floor and scrambles, the other way the pieces of the egg fly together and unscramble. One is hugely more probable than the other.
In technical terms, entropy increases one way and decreases the other way, which allows to differentiate the arrows of time.

This is the universe we live in, if you want my perspective.
And if you're looking at the country flag to the left, then no, i'm not drunk right now.

From one world to another, the world in which we currently live.

Except it is the same world. And both sides are easily observable from each other.

First of all you need to narrow the suspects down and this depends on the nature of the crime, the time elapsed between the crime being committed and the beginning of the investigation, the state of the crime scene and the people possibly being involved.

Which is correlation between these people and the crime.

"Evidence of absence" is not "proof of absence".
I mean evidence in scientific sense.
A is evidence for B when probability of B happening given A is higher than probability of B given no A.

So if a person is a burglar, then the probability of his involvement in the burglary case increases, but only slightly.
If he lives away from the area but not too far, then it increases a bit more.
If he was seen near the crime scene at the right time, it increases a lot, but not to a 1.
If he, on the other hand, was in a hospital at the time, it goes down a lot, but not to a zero.

Most of the people would have some sort of correlation to the crime, but only few would have enough correlation to warrant attention.

As you said, first you have to pick suspects out of the whole population, narrow it down.

And i guess we are discussing completely different things in a case of example backfire.
What i wanted to say by "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is basically your "Absence of evidence won't lead to trial, which in everyday's life means "do not bother about it until further notice", not "it doesn't exist"."

 

[Deleted Orbinaut]

And the concept of time does not exist in it.
There is no now that sweeps along it, every interaction is defined relative to every other.

This sounds quite familiar

 

[Artlav]

This sounds quite familiar

That book is already on my to get list, next time i get to an english-speaking country or accumulate enough of the list to justify an Amazon order.

The idea itself is much older than that - you can find these ideas as far back as the Sufi stories and Buddhist texts, modern physics just give it a reasonable base.

 

[PennyBlack]

Except it is the same world. And both sides are easily observable from each other.

To the developing child, the womb is the only world it knows. It maybe easy to observe from both sides, but I suspect the child knows little of the next step on it's path of developement, birth. It hasn't seen our world, it doesn't understand the vibrations through the fluid, the sound waves of daily life outside the dome. From movement of the mother, her heart beat which I bet can be annoying. It's in a world of it's own but, yes... albeit the host dwells in this one. I can't imagine the shock of haveing your food supply deliberatly cut or haveing to use your lungs for the first time to get air when everything you required to live, was on tap. It's got to be the ultimate eviction. It's like the welfare state in a bubble.

I'd like to have a memory chip for my brain, I would have more leg room with my alternate personalities. I could certainly do with one though. I bet She'd insist on a one way interface chip for sub-rutines. Don't be suprised if your chip fails and you stand there suddenly self aware with your hands in the sink, washing up. Freaky science. Dangerous territory too.

 

[Andy44]

This kind of stuff rarely leads me to any conclusions, but it's fascinating. Me and a couple of engineers I work with often wind up discussing it over cubicle walls all afternoon while working; drives the non-nerds in the office nuts.

A related idea is that depicted in the movie Dark City, where the aliens change your surroundings and memories without your knowledge. Five minutes ago you were a pauper living in a tenament; then suddenly you are wealthy living in a mansion. You have the same physical body and even same wife, but "you" has been completely reprogrammed. Is it even "you" anymore?

Philip K. Dick stories often focused on these questions of self and identity. Total Recall (the Arnold version), besides being a cheesy action movie, was also a really thought-provoking adaptation of a PKD story. The ending was wonderfully ambiguous. Did the main character actually know who he was after all? Did it matter?

 

[PennyBlack]

A related idea is that depicted in the movie Dark City, where the aliens change your surroundings and memories without your knowledge. Five minutes ago you were a pauper living in a tenament; then suddenly you are wealthy living in a mansion. You have the same physical body and even same wife, but "you" has been completely reprogrammed. Is it even "you" anymore??

We call that winning the lottery here, people can become very different when his happens, almost as if they have been reprogramed. How many say, "This has changed you, I don't recognise you anymore."

Philip K. Dick stories often focused on these questions of self and identity. Total Recall (the Arnold version), besides being a cheesy action movie, was also a really thought-provoking adaptation of a PKD story. The ending was wonderfully ambiguous. Did the main character actually know who he was after all? Did it matter?

If a person is happier with the reprogram even after they learn it has been performed I would consider that a fruitful excersise. After all, I think the person who truely knows it is you, would be you. But what about relatives, friends? Even if your happier, would they be and would it matter to the reprogramed. We always say "what ever makes you happy", but how often do some mean it when it includes a change in habit and circumstance or the loss of that person through distinct individual identity. Total Recall (the Arnold version), was he alone? He had people in his life before he became somebody else and they wanted him back. Somebody to miss him, he was'nt isolated and alone even though the viewer wanted him to remain the hero and not the appressor. Those before the change, became irrelivent and those he meet after, his new family. To me it was a case of what I wanted him to be, moreover what he should originally be. How dark is that, when I am willing to say that I want the hero, when it involves any aspect of his previous life being destroyed to make it so. Completely ignoring the friends and family including their emotions for him. I know it's just a film, but reality could or can often be emulated or created from it.

Such technologies as seen in Total Recall can be used with say, a person with a drug habbit that would ultimatly cause distruction to themselves and others. In reality, they are often haveing their mindsets reprogramed to bring them off the habbit. Either by the word, the chemical or isolation from the group, or all three dependant on the strength of that habbit. If successful, to those that shared the habbit, they may feel rejected and fail to recognise the person they shared the habbit with while others not associated with that group will agree with the program and be more accepting of that person now they are "clean". It's just an example of how I see such a tech in application. I can use other examples, but this is the most positive application I can think about without residing the thread to the basement. (I am voluntarily programed by the forum administrator to aviod the religious and political, another example of how words set the rule and minset when constructing a post, delivered by the chip in my pc.)
We are often preprogramed with the words of another, which has the power to alter our path and minset and we are open to that because we know it to be a natural development, it's how we opperate. We require it in so many ways.

In the Invasion, with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. humanity ceased to be the war mongering species when they where infected with with a chemical. In many Sci-Fi's, chips where used to achieve the same effects while in "Hot Fuzz" starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, there was no infection, no chips, just a minset and it was all done for the greater good. Different and distinct control mechanisms, the chemical, the chip and the word and all delivered to try to achieve the same effect upon society, which is governed by the word at it's current state.

I've been reading alot and there are many warning signs about the inplimentation of such tech, but it may be inevitable. Instead of thinking on a natural plane... the organic to the inorganic, the spritual, I'm suprised to find myself thinking that another possible path is open and equally unsettleing, from the organic to the digital. Hmm...

 

[Ghostrider]

What we should really fear is Alfred Bester's "Demolished Man" future. When they can rewrite your personality, what is stopping them from doing it? Remember when transocular leucotomy was considered a viable medical practice for "troublesome" kids? The same kids we now drug into normalcy? I'd stock up on needlegun ammo if I were you guys.