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[Angle]

Hmm, lets see. I too am an atheist humanist trans-humanist, but I think I have a slightly different interpretation of the whole thing. I'm not particularly interested in brain uploading, I'm more interested in cybernetic enhancement, though I think we should focus more on the really basic stuff first: good diet, good exercise, good education, and further moral & intellectual development. The last one there is especially important - it's the cause of pretty much all of our problems. Technology is just a tool, nothing more and nothing less. The problem is that we insist on using it poorly. If someone runs around smashing things with a hammer, you don't blame the hammer.

The reason we use it so poorly is pretty straight forward - we're a bunch of damn dirty animals, with all the selfishness, poor impulse control, short-sightedness, and general foolishness that implies. You can find numerous examples of other animals doing similar things - birds learning to snip the stems of flowers and drink nectar directly, but in the process sterilizing the flowers and leading to a minor die off among themselves, just about any example of an invasive species running amok and cause ecological chaos, etc, etc.

The solution is also quite simple - we just need to develop our intellects and morals more, especially on a societal scale. There's even a fairly straightforward process that does this - people talking to each other, exchanging ideas, modifying them, synthesizing them, etc, etc. That's one of the things I want Agora for - Speeding this whole process up significantly.

[Vilanat]

Personally, I believe the self and the body are separate. This might change if/when I understand the brain better.

What is the "Self" that you think is separate? what are his characteristic/qualities? what is it composed from?

My body is not what makes me myself. That's the sum of my experiences, thoughts, impressions, that kind of thing. If I were a brain in a jar, I'd still be me. If my hand gets cut off, it's not less a part of me because it was never a part of me in the first place.

I am acutely aware at almost all times of the fact that I'm just a brain in a complicated self-balancing system that acts as a jar, and the brain is just a jar for the thoughts, experiences, and memories that make up my self. My soul, if you will.

So what you are saying is that basically, there is no "true" Self? at least not a unique, independent, permanent "Self"?

What happens to that Self as you defined when the body dies?

I'm saying my self is my soul, and my soul is my self. My self-soul-self will persist after my death, independent. I may have phrased my previous post poorly; to clarify, my self is the sum of my consciousness, thoughts, memories, and experiences.

If you want to take it to another meta-level, my soul is the vessel for my self in a similar way as my brain is. Or possibly my brain is the interface between my soul and my body, which is the interface with the world.

When I die, that will be in stasis until the Day of Judgment, but that's organised religion and I won't get into that.

Soul is such a loaded word that i am not entirely sure what you mean. does that Soul as you believe has a unique, independent quality? what i mean by that is whether this soul can remain unaffected by the memories of the body, retain its uniqueness and has qualities of its own which in turn affects the body?

When you die, does all of your "Self" gets to go to the stasis, or does the material stuff like Memory, for example, dies with you?

The brain as simply a vessel is also bit misleading, since 1) its a vessel which creates the liquid (Thoughts, Memories, 2) its a vessel which can be changed by the liquid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity) 3) Its completely unique, meaning, if you take all the liquid from one cell and pour into another in some magical way, that Self will still not be the same, since the miniscule differences in the brain will affect that copied Self to a very large degree.

[That Wolf]

I have always though that if the soul exsited that it would just be an essential ingredient for life but isnt eternal, so your memorys would die with your body.
Btw nobody here has derailed at all, its all part of the wider disscusion and will eventually lead to a good place.
The word immortal is like perfection, it cannot be achived unless you start that way.
If the longevity pill was invented in our lives we would see the earths richest only getting it. Do we really want a bunch of compulsive, vain, hoarding rapists that smoke high quality methanphetamines and cuban cigars running the world?
We need to fucking fix the criminal issues, our moral compass is fucked as a whole, or we could have serial killer terminators waltzing around shooting up the population for fun.
Before you say this is an insane notion. So are thoughts of immortality, and if you did live forever... wouldnt you try everything at least once?
Immortality would make you a god, and we all know how that turns out.

No I havnt been drinking!..

[Arx]

Soul is such a loaded word that i am not entirely sure what you mean. does that Soul as you believe has a unique, independent quality? what i mean by that is whether this soul can remain unaffected by the memories of the body, retain its uniqueness and has qualities of its own which in turn affects the body?

When you die, does all of your "Self" gets to go to the stasis, or does the material stuff like Memory, for example, dies with you?

The brain as simply a vessel is also bit misleading, since 1) its a vessel which creates the liquid (Thoughts, Memories, 2) its a vessel which can be changed by the liquid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity) 3) Its completely unique, meaning, if you take all the liquid from one cell and pour into another in some magical way, that Self will still not be the same, since the miniscule differences in the brain will affect that copied Self to a very large degree.

I'm just going to pretend this has nothing to do with organised religion, since it only has a little to do with it and is mostly personal.
I'm also going to have to explain a bit about how I see the world, but it's all really inter-connected, so there is no simple progression I can think of to explain it. Apologies if it's difficult to make sense of.

I have a possibly unusual, possibly not, view of the perception of time: there is no present that we perceive, only the memory from a moment ago. The memories are very recent, vivid and retrievable, but fundamentally memories. It is impossible (for me certainly) to perceive the present. This may help explain some of my concept of the self-soul.

I'd like to clarify something: your self and your soul are more-or-less indistinguishable. The soul is the spirit of/from God, breathed into humanity. It is impressed with your self, which is the sum of your memories, i.e. the sum of all your non-physical parts.
Your self is thus in essence your soul and goes into stasis. Some stuff is lost eventually (gender identity, for instance).

1. Hence the interface metaphor. The brain feeds reality to your self imprints it on your soul. The nature of the imprint is dependent on your older memories: I get a shock from balloons popping, but a friend of mine will have a nervous breakdown from PTSD. It's the same stimulus, interpreted differently.
2. Yes.
3. I don't see how this changes anything. Moving the soul-self into another vessel will change it, yes. Damaging the interface of the self-soul with the world will result in perceived damage to the soul-self.

Does that make a bit more sense?

[That Wolf]

Ok its unlocked.
Arx let me warn you the religion rule 
Its there to steer the conversation into other areas.
You have done nothing wrong so theres no need to keep bringing it up.
Your own spiritual beliefs are yours and im sure that nobody from any religion has the same.
Mentioning god or a god is fine. Im pretty relaxed, just dont bring scripture and rule in here and itl be fine.

I would actualy like to hear what your and all religions persons veiws on the transhumanist and anti-deathisim ideas.
Lets not it get out of hand though 

[Arx]

I'm cool with transhumanism. Serious opposition to death strikes me as... naive or short-sighted, something like that. If we attain immortality, we'll have to stop reproducing or otherwise sacrifice quality of life, in which case what's the point? The only caveat would be interstellar colonisation, but I don't think we're particularly close to that right now, except possibly for things like Project Orion which even so don't fix everything.

I suspect many people will choose to die eventually anyway, like yourself. I'd probably play around with it for a while (supposing we find a way in my lifetime anyway), but ultimately I don't think I'd want to live in this universe forever.

Religiously, I have an obligation to keep living for as long as I could be aiding Christianity (Edit: although if my death would be a greater help, I'd do it). I suspect many Christians feel the same way.

[scrdest]

I'm cool with transhumanism. Serious opposition to death strikes me as... naive or short-sighted, something like that. If we attain immortality, we'll have to stop reproducing or otherwise sacrifice quality of life, in which case what's the point? The only caveat would be interstellar colonisation, but I don't think we're particularly close to that right now, except possibly for things like Project Orion which even so don't fix everything.

I suspect many people will choose to die eventually anyway, like yourself. I'd probably play around with it for a while (supposing we find a way in my lifetime anyway), but ultimately I don't think I'd want to live in this universe forever.

Religiously, I have an obligation to keep living for as long as I could be aiding Christianity (Edit: although if my death would be a greater help, I'd do it). I suspect many Christians feel the same way.

It's not opposition to death qua death, but being given a ticking clock and even then not having even a warranty that you have that much - voluntary suicide is fine, ferex.

And from my 'official' Catholicness, I recall the idea is more along the line that you live until God decides you shouldn't anymore, but that might be a Catholic thing.

Also, by the same metric, what's the point of reproducing if you can live forever?

If the longevity pill was invented in our lives we would see the earths richest only getting it. Do we really want a bunch of compulsive, vain, hoarding rapists that smoke high quality methanphetamines and cuban cigars running the world?

We need to fucking fix the criminal issues, our moral compass is fucked as a whole, or we could have serial killer terminators waltzing around shooting up the population for fun.

Before you say this is an insane notion. So are thoughts of immortality, and if you did live forever... wouldnt you try everything at least once?

Immortality would make you a god, and we all know how that turns out.

Added linebreaks for clarity.

And your proof for that happening is...? It didn't happen for Penicillin, it didn't happen for vaccines, there is no particular reason why it would happen this time. Even if a dose costed a jillion dollars for some reason, you'd need to pass clinical trials, and signing up for an untested drug with potentially lethal side-effects is hardly a thing that makes sense for any random billionaire who wants to live LONGER, which means some random people who are willing to be experimented on would end up getting that for free.

Your idea of rich people is somewhat amusing. Most people, no matter the income bracket, are not criminally insane; the distribution is skewed between the brackets, as psychopaths do well in competitive environments, but even psychopaths are not *crazy* in common parlance - they are very self-interested, amoral, and easily bored, but not kill-happy.

If anything, being able to live however long you want unless you die violently would make people less likely to randomly kill people. There's this new thing called legal system, and if that fails, vigilante justice and self-defence in the case of the person being attacked.

Tangentially, I think you're muddling the terms here - 'full' immortality is pretty damn unlikely; even with brain-inna-jar with a remote-controlled body, you can still destroy the brain, or if it's electronic, the machine.

Why would you want to try everything? It's not like the offer is time-limited if you can live forever - and even then, again, most people are not criminally insane. Claiming that anyone would just go up to their neighbor and shoot them in the face is the kind of misanthropy that is rather easily disproved by the majority of people not doing just that.

[Arx]

Also, by the same metric, what's the point of reproducing if you can live forever?

The urge to, mostly. My mother has observed that when she was on birth control she really wanted children, for whatever reason.

[Angle]

Eh, immortality is impossible - Entropy says "Fuck off!". You might be able to get another few thousand years, though, which is probably close enough.

[i2amroy]

Eh, immortality is impossible - Entropy says "Fuck off!". You might be able to get another few thousand years, though, which is probably close enough.

Unless it turns out the many world hypothesis is true, or other universes exist, in which case we could conceivably rip open and cannibalize other universes to solve our own entropy problem. Or alternatively if it turns out that our universe is truly infinite (which is still a possibility in current science), in which case we could constantly cannibalize the infinite outer area of the universe to keep a finite inner portion running infinitely.

[Reelya]

The entropy limit is only for closed systems, if you can export your entropy you can keep a system going as long as you like. Also, remember that entropy is only a likelihood of things breaking down. There are just many more ways for something to break than to fix itself. The idea that we can cheat entropy isn't impossible. If we can find a mechanism that stacks the dice, that's not impossible, it's just that the particular configuration is very unlikely compare to the shitty configurations. With enough computing power, we might discover configurations of matter which are entropy neutral or can reduce entropy.

If you've lived thousands of years there's no reason you can't live thousands more after that. So the limit of technological "immortality" is the heat death of the universe, since at that point you won't be able to drive processes off energy differentials.

Of couse immortality as a concept means different things: there is being impossible to kill, god-like immortality, living literally forever, and then there's just not getting older, which is what most people mean when they say "immortality". I think attacking the concept of life-extension "immortality" because you will die if e.g. the planet blows up or something is semantic quibbling. That's just not what people were talking about in the first place. You do need to keep in mind the context people use a word, so it's a non-sequiter to bring in definitions that were never intended.