Preserving your brain might kill you, but it could help you live forever - Sensationalist Headlines

Because fundamentally we've spent 2000, 3000 or so years on this question as a species, and are no closer to answer than we were then. It's a question that plagues humanity and may very well never be answered satisfactorily. We can't even figure out what makes the "Ship Of Theseus" paradox in all honesty, so taking a very extreme example of that (Human conciousness) is natural grounds for us to go wild imaginng shit around it.

Black Mirror anyone?

I just want to live inside of a computer and dilate time to be 1,000 years vs. 1 minute in reality. I could learn a lot and wake up here scoring a high paying job, curing cancer, and point out things that are about to happen.

in the end it doesn't matter as long as we can send von newman probes out to the galaxy with copies of us ready to be installed into new copies of us, the legion of me spread across a thousand stars is good enough for me

With the little we know about how consciousness works we don't even know if the physical structure of the brain at cellular level is really needed to create and keep the ego in the long term. No human factor after dumping your brain info into a hard disk could mean having a wrong or unstable perception of what you think of yourself. And having your brain handled by someone else for the process means you could not "wake up" being the same person, remembering who you were before the process, and you possibly couldn't trust yourself anymore after thinking if your memories are being invented and pushed into you by a drunk guy with a keyboard. Altough it would ensure a funny conversation with the store clerk after asking you why you bought a box full of hard disks.

I'm imagine some billionaire dictator being alive for so long that they wind up looking like The Master after so many modifications. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/237814/66fc9f03-a54e-4ba7-84b7-11e0a2588a0c/hqdefault.jpg

Because that's not really an issue that isn't already there. Conglomerates are much worse than individuals. Thanos doesn't exist, people only have power because others give it to them.

Unless said copy of you is conscious and making memory of it's own, then it's still you. The moment it becomes conscious and creates memories of it's own is the moment that it's a different being and is simply similar to you. I'm all down for creating backups of "me" however I would rather not have clones of myself running about and given enough time they''ll more differences to me that not. I've never understood why people have such a problem understanding if that clone of you is you. It's not.

rich people already live much better longer lives as they have access to the best healthcare, are removed from much of the environmental pollution they cause, and can afford to live fairly stress free. of course cancer is a dick still as is any number of incurable diseases, but the writing is already on the wall that any cures will be concentrated for the rich who can afford them

Who cares? Like, actually? Rich people get better stuff first. That's why people want money. This may seem like a pretty basic stance, but honestly it pretty squarely covers the cause for that.

I'm assuming that in the United States that said cancer cure would probably be restricted to those who can afford it? You're also forgetting that drug prices tend to fall when they become a generic which given enough time said cure will become.

https://gizmodo.com/the-price-of-this-drug-went-up-100-000-percent-since-20-1825819643 No, and I'd take immortality any day, being able to see the rest of humanity is a gift. Being able to never put your loved ones through the pain of you dying on them is a gift you can give.

I think that is more a case of your fucked up health system than anything else given that you can buy the same drug for pennies in Canada. I'm more concerned with how living a very sheltered life can affect your personality, I'm not saying I want to see my loved ones die because no one does however it's those bad and frustrating experiences that shape the people we are today and makes us stronger.

Automatically jumping to optimistic thinking is even more silly imo because we're kind of suffering from a post-truth era because of its rampant misuse.

It's absolutely not, the concept of having a private doctor is absolutely not something that was invented this century.

Threadshitting that lasts for 500 years straight.

Not a car person myself, but if there are redundant bolts could you replace one of them without affecting the function of the engine too much? In any case that was sort of my point as well. You can wax lyrical about the ship of Theseus all you want but without including the requirement that the ship/brain/engine functions continuously throughout the replacement process, it's a useless thought experiment.

Except for the fact that we wasn't modified, he was mutated by floating in a Vat full of F.E.V, then merged with computer parts and other organics.

Sounds modified to me fam

Unintentionally modified, I'll accept that at least.

What if you become a ghost and possess your copy?

what if you get soul trapped where half of you is in the afterlife and half in reality, like Shadow of Revan? stuck between worlds

And why does the brain needs to continuously function for you to remain yourself? That's an arbitrary line as well.

Because, as far as we can tell, consciousness arises from brain activity. When the brain is damaged, annoying things happen like amnesia, loss of motor functions, and death. That last one in particular sort of gets in the way of consciousness.

And what exactly suggests that said brain activity needs to be continuous for the so-called "consciousness" to be preserved?

Why should it? Everything we know about the brain and consciousness (which admittedly isn't much but that's all we have to go on) points at consciousness being an emergent property of brain activity. Disrupt the latter and the former will suffer a similar fate.

I don't think that was the point he was trying to make. Even if you were to make new friends, those relationships would end eventually.

Why shouldn't it? You say that "Everything we know about the brain and consciousness points at consciousness being an emergent property of brain activity." (by the way, we don't know anything about consciousness because nobody has even defined what it is), if it's an emergent property of brain activity, and brain activity resumes after a pause, then so should consciousness. There's no reason to believe otherwise.

It's also baseless to claim that a replicated consciousness is the same consciousness even in the case it's identical. Didn't we have this argument before?

It's only baseless if you entertain the possibility that there's something other than the material world that characterizes consciousness. Otherwise, it's just basic logic. Yes. Wasn't exactly resolved, simply turned around in circles.