Raise the Retirement Age to 67?

[mistermack]

By the time I'm 67, I should be able to upload my brain into cyberspace and spend a few centuries enjoying my time in a virtual paradise.

I trust you do realise that it would be a copy of your brain uploaded. It is impossible, even in theory, to actually upload your brain. The upload process will require your death, while your electronic twin sibling lives on.

Fine by me. My thought processes will merely transfer from one medium to another.

Yeh, but that just means your TWIN lives on, and you die.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It is still seems to me to be an unbelievably naive thing to wish for. A 'copy' of his brain in a computer is not him. If that is what happens, he dies, and a different individual with a different consciousness lives in a computer. Either way, he is dead.

Even if the computer consciousness remembers being Ian in his organic body? a smooth continuation of consciousness?

That's the issue here. There is no continuation of consciousness. There is another consciousness that thinks it's him, but it's not him. If you replace your old car with an identical car after the old one is totaled, you don't your old car back.

Yes, his body would be dead, either way. But I'm not so sure the computer version (or versions) wouldn't be him.

It wouldn't be, not without some mystical transference being involved.

[Ian]

By the time I'm 67, I should be able to upload my brain into cyberspace and spend a few centuries enjoying my time in a virtual paradise.

I trust you do realise that it would be a copy of your brain uploaded. It is impossible, even in theory, to actually upload your brain. The upload process will require your death, while your electronic twin sibling lives on.

Fine by me. My thought processes will merely transfer from one medium to another.

Yeh, but that just means your TWIN lives on, and you die.

My "twin" won't know the difference, since it'll be me closing my eyes in one body and waking up in a different one. But it'll be the same person with the same memories. Sounds like you have concern over where one's soul is going to go, as if 1) the soul is perpetually attached to the physical body and 2) there is such thing as a soul.

[mistermack]

By the time I'm 67, I should be able to upload my brain into cyberspace and spend a few centuries enjoying my time in a virtual paradise.

I trust you do realise that it would be a copy of your brain uploaded. It is impossible, even in theory, to actually upload your brain. The upload process will require your death, while your electronic twin sibling lives on.

Fine by me. My thought processes will merely transfer from one medium to another.

Yeh, but that just means your TWIN lives on, and you die.

My "twin" won't know the difference, since it'll be me closing my eyes in one body and waking up in a different one. But it'll be the same person with the same memories. Sounds like you have concern over where one's soul is going to go, as if 1) the soul is perpetually attached to the physical body and 2) there is such thing as a soul.

No, I can see where you're coming from, it's got it's own logic, but I wouldn't agree.
What you are saying is that if something is identical to me, it IS me.
I'm saying it's a twin.
If I have a computer, and it broke, and the maintenance man got an identical model, and cloned the software onto it, you wouldn't say, "that's your original computer".
You would say, "that's an identical copy".

The theoretical clone of you would THINK it was you. As far as IT was concerned, it would be you.
But if you hadn't been destroyed, and YOU still existed, would YOU say that it was you, or would you say it's an identical twin? Can you look at someone else, who's thoughts you can't hear, and say, "that's me"?

If it's not you, if you were not destroyed, then it's not you, if you ARE destroyed. It either is or isn't you. Destruction of the original changes nothing.

[amused]

Once there was a copy of you though, the two of you would start having different experiences and would diverge based on those experiences.

[Ian]

Once there was a copy of you though, the two of you would start having different experiences and would diverge based on those experiences.

That where ethics come into play. I suppose this practice would be illegal except when making a move permanent, rather than a copy. Maybe it would only be allowed prior to death, with the understanding that the original body would not be allowed to wake up.

I wonder if it would be possible to periodically "save" one's mind into cyberspace and have it inactive until something happens to the actual person. Then the pre-saved "person" could be activated as a way of ensuring some degree of immortality.
I might be getting a bit carried away here...

[hadespussercats]

I just wanna move to California and get glaucoma.

I don't get it.
I hate it when I don't get it.
I feel like an elephant with no arms.

Anyway, I've got glaucoma, and don't want to move to California. I just put one eyedrop in each eye at bedtime.

Glaucoma is one of the ailments that can get you a weed card (approval to buy/use marijuana legally) in the State of California.

[hadespussercats]

Once there was a copy of you though, the two of you would start having different experiences and would diverge based on those experiences.

That where ethics come into play. I suppose this practice would be illegal except when making a move permanent, rather than a copy. Maybe it would only be allowed prior to death, with the understanding that the original body would not be allowed to wake up.

I wonder if it would be possible to periodically "save" one's mind into cyberspace and have it inactive until something happens to the actual person. Then the pre-saved "person" could be activated as a way of ensuring some degree of immortality.
I might be getting a bit carried away here...

Ick-- what if you agreed to not "wake up" but they screwed up the install?

[hadespussercats]

Once there was a copy of you though, the two of you would start having different experiences and would diverge based on those experiences.

That where ethics come into play. I suppose this practice would be illegal except when making a move permanent, rather than a copy. Maybe it would only be allowed prior to death, with the understanding that the original body would not be allowed to wake up.

I wonder if it would be possible to periodically "save" one's mind into cyberspace and have it inactive until something happens to the actual person. Then the pre-saved "person" could be activated as a way of ensuring some degree of immortality.
I might be getting a bit carried away here...

Having a saved version that people can interact with after you're gone isn't really any different than writing a book people want to read after you're gone. The you that's in your body might be happy knowing that will continue after you're gone, but the you that's in your body won't directly experience it.

[amused]

Once there was a copy of you though, the two of you would start having different experiences and would diverge based on those experiences.

That where ethics come into play. I suppose this practice would be illegal except when making a move permanent, rather than a copy. Maybe it would only be allowed prior to death, with the understanding that the original body would not be allowed to wake up.

I wonder if it would be possible to periodically "save" one's mind into cyberspace and have it inactive until something happens to the actual person. Then the pre-saved "person" could be activated as a way of ensuring some degree of immortality.
I might be getting a bit carried away here...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216216/

[mistermack]

Once there was a copy of you though, the two of you would start having different experiences and would diverge based on those experiences.

I suppose the thing is that no human has ever been cloned in that way, so we are just used to thinking of a human as one single entity. And when you argue which one is the real me, you are clinging to that viewpoint.
I can certainly see Ian's point. But I don't think it's that clear-cut.
Up to the point of cloning, there is one individual. After cloning, there are two. From the moment of cloning, they would be two similar, but separate individuals.

I think the confusion arises because we are thinking of a person as an immutable object, whereas a person really is a constantly changing event.

On that basis, they are BOTH the original person. Because they both have a real history of existence, involving the original person, from birth to the present day.

But Ian thinking that HE would still be alive, if his identical clone is still alive, is hard to take.
Ian could be sat at a table, opposite his clone, and say, I'm going to blow my brains out, and it doesn't matter, because I'll still be alive, sitting over there.

It's a bit like a fire. If you light a fire, and divide it into two, which is the original fire?
The real answer is that neither are. Fire is a process, not a thing.
The original fire no longer exists, it's in the past.

It's the same with a human. The person you were, no longer exists. Only the present exists.
But just like a fire, if a human is an event, it can be split into two separate events.
It's impossible to say which is the original. They both are. And neither are. They both stemmed from the original.

[mistermack]

I just wanna move to California and get glaucoma.

I don't get it.
I hate it when I don't get it.
I feel like an elephant with no arms.

Anyway, I've got glaucoma, and don't want to move to California. I just put one eyedrop in each eye at bedtime.

Glaucoma is one of the ailments that can get you a weed card (approval to buy/use marijuana legally) in the State of California.

Wow, thanks for that. I didn't know.
I've had it for years, I didn't know that weed helped. The eye drops work ok anyway, my eyesight's field of vision is still excellent, and not getting any worse.

[hadespussercats]

I just wanna move to California and get glaucoma.

I don't get it.
I hate it when I don't get it.
I feel like an elephant with no arms.

Anyway, I've got glaucoma, and don't want to move to California. I just put one eyedrop in each eye at bedtime.

Glaucoma is one of the ailments that can get you a weed card (approval to buy/use marijuana legally) in the State of California.

Wow, thanks for that. I didn't know.
I've had it for years, I didn't know that weed helped. The eye drops work ok anyway, my eyesight's field of vision is still excellent, and not getting any worse.

It lowers the fluid pressure inside the eye, takes stress off the optic nerve. And you feel less anxious about having glaucoma, to boot!

[Warren Dew]

Having a saved version that people can interact with after you're gone isn't really any different than writing a book people want to read after you're gone. The you that's in your body might be happy knowing that will continue after you're gone, but the you that's in your body won't directly experience it.

One could also pass on one's values and knowledge to one's child. It wouldn't be a perfect copy, but neither is a book. And the advantage is that the child can continue to learn and refine the wisdom after one's original body is gone.

[hadespussercats]

Having a saved version that people can interact with after you're gone isn't really any different than writing a book people want to read after you're gone. The you that's in your body might be happy knowing that will continue after you're gone, but the you that's in your body won't directly experience it.

One could also pass on one's values and knowledge to one's child. It wouldn't be a perfect copy, but neither is a book. And the advantage is that the child can continue to learn and refine the wisdom after one's original body is gone.

Yeah, but having kids is soooo 2000 late.