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[That Wolf]

I was speculating what future humans could think is all.
You never until now actualy said you had signed up for cryo, you just said to sign up for it and I thought of it as a joke.

What happens if you die suddenly and unexpectedly, what would Alcor do then?
What also makes you think them making a future replica of your brain will make it you? Sure it will say its you and most probably have your memorys, but what makes you think you will be reincarnated into this body?
I could make a clone of myself, but I wouldnt be this clone.
So what do they do with the original brain after they make a new one??
Do they tell it that it is going to be destroyed?
Its kinda like the teleporter to mars debate.

HugoLuman: that meant new humans to evolve not destroy the human race entierly.

It seems im quite controversal. But in my social circles this thinking is normal, where fringe sciences like cryo, brain copying and immortality are treated with a grain of salt, problems living in backwater areas I guess.

[Grek]

I am officially done with this thread. That Wolf thinks cryonics is a joke and a "fringe science". He keeps making bad, easily refuted arguments. Ones that he'd know are bad and easily refuted if he had done any amount of investigation into the subject at all. It's perfectly clear to me that, despite his insistence that people be respectful about the beliefs of others, he has no intention to take any sort of anti-death thoughts seriously. It's disrespectful and not a discussion I am going to continue to be a part of.

[i2amroy]

Since Grek is apparently done I'll do my best to answer what I can:

What happens if you die suddenly and unexpectedly, what would Alcor do then?

AFAIK if any part of you is left they freeze that (or just your brain if that's all you paid to have frozen). If you a re totally reduced to a mash I don't think they bother to freeze you though. For the most part cryogenics teams will have someone there within a couple hours of your death to freeze you (barring unless you die in a way where legal problems stop them) even if it was a totally unexpected death. In general it actually costs extra for them to have a team on "standby" for you, for the most part they just wait until you die before sending their team out.

What also makes you think them making a future replica of your brain will make it you? Sure it will say its you and most probably have your memorys, but what makes you think you will be reincarnated into this body?
I could make a clone of myself, but I wouldnt be this clone.

In general we are, as I mentioned earlier, of the belief that the particular setup of your brain == you. In that case there's no need for "reincarnation" or anything similar. You never leave your brain when you die, so there's no need to be "put back" into it once you are brought back. It's identical to if you were in a deep vegetative coma or something similar, the you that wakes up is the same as the one when they froze you (though current methods do introduce some damage that would need to be repaired first). The cloning statement doesn't apply, since in this case it isn't a copy, it's actually your brain.

So what do they do with the original brain after they make a new one??
Do they tell it that it is going to be destroyed?
Its kinda like the teleporter to mars debate.

Depending on the method of saving a person, it's totally possible that we could restore them back to their biological brain before moving them to another material. Something like stem cell therapy or other advanced treatments could hypothetically restore your biological brain back to a functioning condition without the need for an actual "copy" to be made. As I've noted before in the thread, there are a couple of different ways to sidestep the "is the copy really you" question, each with their own drawbacks and advantages. In the event of most of these methods the eventual bits and pieces left of the original brain are discarded because they were removed or replaced one at a time much in the same way that your skin cells are replaced over time.

It seems im quite controversal. But in my social circles this thinking is normal, where fringe sciences like cryo, brain copying and immortality are treated with a grain of salt, problems living in backwater areas I guess.

I highly advise looking into the subjects more if you feel the desire to. While it might still seem like science fiction or fringe science in many places, many of these subjects are reaching the point where they are beginning to be taken very seriously in the current scientific world. The internet is a wonderful place for gathering information on cutting edge subjects, and I highly suggest that you use it to take a look at some of these, you might be surprised by what you find.

[That Wolf]

Thanks roy.

Im afraid of not dieing. Im afraid I wont end and that because of this I would become insane.
Its most probably due to not understanding myself and eternity properly.
Thats why I like the idea of memory loss and reincarnation.
I really didnt expect this thread to turn into one about anti-deathisim and all that, I just let it go that way because it concerned issues of consciouness and if it can continue.
Im really begining to dislike that my posts in these types discussions are thought of as disrespectful and trolling.
I genuinly try to share my ideas without any disrespect intended.
Fuck I dont know I feel like an idiot.

I am certainly doing my research on it now though

[Reelya]

And even if you want to play the long game I'd be just as willing to argue that there will be some day, billions of years from now, when we crack the universe to save it from its own end. When we jump from this universe to the next one to dodge the universe's end, or drain energy from the infinite area beyond what we can see to power the little that we can, or hell, maybe we all evacuate the future and take refuge in the past through time machines. There are plenty of ways that aren't prohibited by (current) physics to essentially "turn back the clock" on the universe's lifespan and buy ourselves even more time to work on solving the problem of the universe's eventual demise.

On this topic, I highly recommend the book Biocosm, by James N. Gardner. It's pretty speculative, but it speculates from the starting point of hard science rather than woo. The guy is closely connected with the SETI foundation and researchers at Los Alamos. It's pretty much the most plausible book on "what will happen billions of years from now".

[That Wolf]

Cryonics costs alot, even the company sites dont guarantee it to be succesful often using our lack of knowledge of how death works, like cardiac arrest and that legaly counting as death when its not an actual dead heart its just not beating properly, new techniques using a chemical formula like antifreeze (used in car radiators) to prevent the cell walls breaking during freezing of water crystals by replacing the water with the formula, in the sites it doent say anything about the time it takes to get you to the hospital and the team to get there, even still they wait until your heart stops and tgen try to keep you alive by artificialy keeping your heart going so the brain stays 'alive' they then pump your brain full of said formula and then freeze it.
If any damage was done in the procces theu say the future tech will be able to repair the damage done to the brain, still doesnt say anything about the revival of the repaired but still dead body.
 
I can now understand how one could get upset considering the costs. Alcors brain preservation cost are $80,000 and $500 every year. Wow money that could help so much more right now invested in a possibility of life after death.

I will also mention that its a very small amout of people that actually sign up for it and the preservation cost are quote high so its not a very profitable business.

I will also state that if this all worked you can still die in the future.
The possibility of you being revived in the future is also debatable because why would somebody do it to all of the patients? It was a contract made long ago.

[SirQuiamus]

@Grek and Roy:
Your transhumanistic techno-optimism is unwavering enough to be called properly spiritual, which is all fine and well, considering the topic of this thread. The problem with such entrenched beliefs is that no-one can challenge them on a rational basis without disrespecting your religion, which does not bode well for constructive discussion. I don't agree with you, but all I can say without hurting your feelings is the commonplace vacuity: "You have your views and I have mine."   

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

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

+1


Also I like how the rules directly say "respect others beliefs even if they are incorrect", I like how it assumes a right or wrong for spirituality

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

For me, explaining that would break the rule of no, correct me of I'm wrong, larger group spiritual things. It's partly religious and partly personal. I'll skip religious since we've got another thread for that and it's not too welcome here.
Personal on the other hand,I've had moments where my body is doing something (maybe monotonous task, brushing my teeth, simple homework, laying down trying to sleep, etc etc) and another part of me (I suppose you could say my thoughts and that sort of stuff) just feels entirely seperate and I don't feel as though this body is me. Think of a pilot sitting in a machine, he knows all the controls and how to work it but he'll never feel like the machine is him because he knows he's seperate from it. That's how I've been feeling about my body and my (shoot me for saying it) soul.

[Vilanat]

Most people feel like "they" are separate from their body to some degree. that feeling you get, is it not part of the brain function? (The sensation that you are not the body that does the stuff you do)

If you are driving a car and while doing so think about your homework, does that means that you got two selves?

[That Wolf]

Cryxis: could you build on this? Elaborate some more, its interesting.



For the transhumanist immortality seekers: you continue to refer to science and its powers, but still avoid the inevitibility of death, even if all your proposed science works who says you dont blow up in a hover bus crash? or some such incident that destroys your brain and body?
Is there a repairable science in the future that can fix you?
If so why dont you just store a bone and hair in a facility for cheaper rent? Or is this too far fetched..

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Most people feel like "they" are separate from their body to some degree. that feeling you get, is it not part of the brain function? (The sensation that you are not the body that does the stuff you do)

If you are driving a car and while doing so think about your homework, does that means that you got two selves?

Well it's not like that
It's not that I'm doing one thing and thinking about something differs (almost anyone does that regularly) but I mean real feeling of seperation. You can be driving and thinking of homework and still feel like one body and not two separate things. I think the best example I can think of for it is while I'm brushing my teeth infront of a mirror and I'll feel seperate from my body, I stop feeling and I sit there watching as this person stares back at me brushing their teeth like nothing's happening

[XXXXYYYY]

@That Wolf:
As for the just storing bone and hair, I'm pretty sure that is impossible from any point of view. There's just not enough information (if any) to recreate a brain from a completely different part of the body.

As for death from the body pulped by a crash, I think the idea is that it should be possible to not have to have the body and mind in the same place, avoiding the possibility of that happening. It wouldn't be fun, in that case, but you could survive. Or y'know, keep them both in the same place (for faster, better connection) and just keep a backup and reload to that if the body (and accompanying mind) dies. Ofc, that option would have to be a digital version, instead of the fleshy version we have now.

I'm alright with death, if the technology to extend my life doesn't come around in my lifetime. I do see it on the horizon though, and I will gladly give up my weak organic flesh if I get the chance, provided that the tech's tested first.

[TempAcc]

Anyone here heard of biocentrism? Its basically a rather recent theory that establishes that the mind is a manifestation of an energy source that is the driving force behind reality, because there are observable phenoma of particle phisics that imply this, IE some particles act in certain ways depending of how they're observed. All of this is related to the many worlds hypothesis, which says there is an infinite number of universes that allow for every possible outcome of every single possible event. Biological death in biocentrism is not death, per se, because the energy source from which the mind manifests, like all energy, cannot be destroyed, but merely transformed, and keeps on existing in other universes, or something.

Yes, I suck at explaining things, so here's the wikipedia article.

[Reelya]

I've heard the concept, but I'm not sold on it. The idea is that consciousness creates the thing we're looking at (reality). But then you just have the question of why consciousness was needed in the first place, and also with all the pre-historical gunk left over from before consciousness seems to have arisen. You can say that consciousness created fake fossils etc, back-created the reality needed to create itself, but this is just so ... bullshit basically.

If consciousness really came first and didn't need a material reality, I can't see why consciousness would need to "make" a physical reality like the one we see at all. It's much like a God argument then, consciousness created all the stars and inaminate stuff to self-justify itself, just because, so the logic is entirely circular. Why would pure consciousness have needed to create planets and stuff? Since consciousness would be setting the rules, there would be no "consistency" to maintain, and Occam's razor would imply that it should have created just the most simplistic system that can maintain itself.

~~~

One step better is the old Weak Anthropic Principle, coupled with the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics. This states that there are infinite worlds, with different rules, and only those which can, or have, allowed for consciousness have people like us, able to debate about things. It's really extending basic common sense to the idea of many alternate dimensions. In our universe we can ask the same thing, why aren't there philosophers on Mars? Well, there are no (higher) lifeforms on Mars, so they can't give rise to those who can philosophize. The Weak Anthropic Principle just extends that concept to the idea of different universes with different physics.

[TempAcc]

Well, if we consider the concept of the soul and that there may be counciousness that does not require a biological basis to exist, then it becomes possible, altough there's no scientific proof of anything soul-like, so yea, the theory is a bit eh, but there are particles that behave differently based on observation, and current phisics has no real explanation for that just yet.

This kind of reminds me of a really interesting book on spiritism I read quite a while ago. In fact, out of every religion I've read about or known, spiritism seems to be the only one that never specifically positions itself against science in any way I've seen, but rather fills the gaps in scientific knowledge with explanations on how the spirit world affects reality. The fact its also the only religion I've seen that has never condoned the killing or harming of people also makes it quite attractive.