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[RAM]

Unless there is a spiritual 'you' that maintains a connection to your physical body and does not attain a connection to the computerised copy.

OK, give me even a remote reason to assume such a thing exists, and then we'll talk.

Lots of people seem to agree with the suggestion and even wishful thinking has to come from somewhere...

Given the lack of decisive proof on the topic it seems to be a valid argument...

You're not familiar with the flying spaghetti monster, are you?

The flying spaghetti monster doesn't prove anything, that is the whole point...

Copying your consciousness onto a computer (one that could also simulate all the hormonal and perceptual processes of your body) would change your consciousness less than, say, having a stroke that wipes out half your personality, or a bout of amnesia. But while nobody would argue the stroke or the amnesia change "you," lots of people think copying the consciousness would.

Have you never heard the phrase "they were a completely different person after that"? Lots of people argue that stroke or amnesia result in the loss of the subject.

Of course the real killer is the fact that the copy and the original could co-exist, it isn't easy to persuade someone that the person they are looking at is themselves...

The person isn't "themself," but not any less so than "themself" from a year ago is not themself.

I am not saying it makes sense, but I think it would make gaining acceptance of such technology a ridiculous challenge. And a year is a long time, some people do say there were a different person back then...

If you scan your brain into a computer, you still exist. You are not in the computer.

But maybe the computer is an extension of yourself. But it would be most convincing if the process drained the electrical charge directly from the brain and into the computer. It would, of course, kill the donor, but it would look really good on a diagram...

I'll worry about the afterlife as it comes. Life is for living. I suggest you focus on the current place in which you live.

Good point, all we really know is what happens here when someone dies. At death one loses their ability to interact with the world, and they are lost to the world...

[Eagleon]

A thought I've been entertaining recently starts with your basic Simulationist reality - We are living in a simulation created by a more powerful entity in a universe capable of simulating our less complex one.

Think about this: If we wanted to make an AI with capability approaching and eventually surpassing our own into Singularity Land, how would we do it? Would we introduce it to the real world, or would we put it in a virtual machine where it couldn't do any damage, and see how nice it becomes?

Now imagine these "higher" entities are just AI researchers, or even a plain corporation of AI creators. They're using our universe to pull out exceptional individuals into their own so that they can become what we want from AI - entities capable of improving themselves, bootstrapping themselves into a higher level of existence. Or they're just making friends for themselves. Or we're a culture farm, producing art and music for their enjoyment. Or we're colonists, if their laws of physics prohibit exploring space with biologicals (as ours almost does). Essentially, they'd be culling the "bad" ones (ethically, personality-wise, intellectually?) after death, and preserving the "good" ones, perhaps only "awakening" one or two exceptional humans or aliens every few years.

It has eerie parallels with a couple world religions. Christianity is the obvious one - the AI researchers are judging whether we get sent to "heaven" (their place) or "hell" (oblivion? reincarnation?). Buddhism is easy - the selection process could recycle some core they see as important to the individual into that sim or another one. Judgement day?....

Well, what happens when we start to make an AI, and their resources are strained by its growth within the VM?

[Jude]

Lots of people seem to agree with the suggestion and even wishful thinking has to come from somewhere...

Neither of those are good reasons. Lots of people believe global warming isn't real...I guess that makes it a valid position to hold? Lots of people don't believe in evolution. I guess that makes not believing in evolution a reasonable view.

There is no reason whatsoever to believe in a "spiritual essence" or "soul" or anything else. That doesn't mean you can't, but it does mean that if you bring it into an argument, I am justified in not taking you seriously.

The flying spaghetti monster doesn't prove anything, that is the whole point...

The flying spaghetti monster is a reductio ad absurdum of the position, which you seem to hold, that just because there is no concrete evidence that something DOES NOT exist, it's somehow acceptable to argue on empirical grounds that it DOES exist, despite lack of any evidence whatsoever for its existence.

Or if the FSM doesn't do it for you, how about this. I have a unicorn sitting next to me right now.

How do you know I'm lying? Because there is no evidence for unicorns existing or ever having existed, so you assume they do not. Now, there is the vaguest possibility that I really do have a unicorn, but given that nobody else has ever seen a unicorn, and there has never been any sign of unicorns ever having existed, it is reasonable to conclude that unicorns do not exist, and that I do not have one next to me.

Same goes for a soul or spiritual essence or ghost. Get it?

I am not saying it makes sense, but I think it would make gaining acceptance of such technology a ridiculous challenge. And a year is a long time, some people do say there were a different person back then...

Well there you go. A step in the right direction.

[Duke 2.0]

 Being beings that live in four dimensions, one could argue that the you from a year ago is the same you now as much as your left arm is as much you as your right.

 But this is nitpicking.

[Psyco Jelly]

^ I've always thought about that. If you were looking from a four dimensional perspective, we would look something like snakes, long in one dimension but short in the others, depending on how long a year is in relation to meters. we could compare memory with the snake's nervous system, with the head being the main bunch, and being able to 'sense' what is going on behind it.

Of course, there are 11 dimensions. Or 10. Depending on whether you count from zero. That ruins the analogy.

[Armok]

1 year = 1 lightyear, 8 minutes = ~distance to the sun.

VERY long snakes.

[redacted123]

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[Duke 2.0]

1 year = 1 lightyear, 8 minutes = ~distance to the sun.

VERY long snakes.

What? A lightyear is merely the distance light travels in a year. And while light has been shown to have some special properties and I am not a physicist, I find it somewhat arbitrary. Like saying five minutes is the same as the distance a snail can go in five minutes.

[Armok]

*sigh* Does none here know a bit of relativity? The speed of light is basicaly defined as a 45 degree angle, hence the distance through the fourth dimension to some point in your past is abaut eual to the distance light could have travelled in that time. So yea, more like nonexistant lines.

The speed of light is NOT arbitrary in any way what so ever, it's the least arbitary thing outside of pure math, and it is more or less from this discovering this alone that Einstein gained his gargantuan fame. The speed of light is C, it governs matter and energy, time and space... I'm dumbfolded by the fact people didn't know this.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Actually, didn't the speed of photon is also a variable? I remember reading a report where it said that there was a differences in speed between current photon and old-photon (Big bang old)

And... nearly all theory we have now are not perfect, and will be replaced when the time comes.

[Emperor_Jonathan]

The Speed of light is C only in a vaccum.

:|

EDIT2: No yeah it is.

[Armok]

well, yes light slows down in certain materials, but as far as I understood it that simply meant you had light travelling slower than the speed of light, not that the speed of light changed.
This is what causes refraction by the way.

[redacted123]

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[Rilder]

I think the reason time, if viewed spatially, would be measured in light years is because the speed of light is the fastest thing in the universe, as far as I know. Our perception of time can only be viewed in the way things change and the fastest way of measuring such things is through electro-magnetic radiation, which travels at the speed of light. Therefore, our perception of time is defined by the speed of light. This may all sound like crap, but it makes sense in my head.

Pretty sure the less it makes sense, the more logical it is. 

[redacted123]

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