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[Armok]

This thread has gone to places...

Seiusly thou, vating is not very intresting. I'm all uploading.

Abaut the nicotin/sex: Thats just ineficent, if you're gona do that just skip the middleman and wirehead yourself.

[Nilocy]

Heh, why bother going to the moon kinda applies here too. Cause we can and it'll be hard to do it.

Anyhoo, if you can accurately recreate a mechanical system that emulates all the human glands, organs and ect. that is required to sustain a brain then I don't see why not. Buuut, it then begs the question is that conciousness really human anymore? And can s/he be classed as a human organism?

[bjlong]

We could actually learn a lot about the sun. A lot of what we "know" is educated guesswork.

Same thing with Mars. What's there? We don't know. We think we've got an idea, but really? Not as much of a clue as we'd like.

[Soadreqm]

We went to the moon because if we hadn't, the communists would have won.

Well, you went to the moon. They went to the moon. You get the point.

As to whether a brain in a vat would be human is moot in my opinion. It would still be me. I don't see why I couldn't be happy as a brain in a jar, provided I had versatile enough robotic body. I really don't care whether or not I am technically classified a human, as long as my transformation doesn't stop me from doing stuff.

[bjlong]

Well, that too. Scientifically, the moon was interesting because we didn't know nothin' 'bout no asteroids. Or the origins of the moon.

[Duke 2.0]

We went to the moon because if we hadn't, the communists would have won.

And dammit, we couldn't let that communal vat get the satisfaction of reaching the digital moon first. Our vat would boil in rage over such a thought.

[ChairmanPoo]

Personally I am not overly fond of current space projects, because ATM cost/benefit is abyssmal. I do think they are interesting, mind you, but given the choice of funding scientific projects that just increase knowledge for knowledge's sake, OR funding scientific projects that both increase knowledge and provide useful technologies, then I think the latter should get prioritized.

[Duke 2.0]

 The Apollo program did make a good deal of useful technologies for humankind. All we need to do is have a goal just outside of our reach, a impending threat and a country behind the cause. If there was some driving force to reach Mars I'm sure the various space programs would output some rather nifty stuff.

[bjlong]

Personally I am not overly fond of current space projects, because ATM cost/benefit is abyssmal. I do think they are interesting, mind you, but given the choice of funding scientific projects that just increase knowledge for knowledge's sake, OR funding scientific projects that both increase knowledge and provide useful technologies, then I think the latter should get prioritized.

I agree.

[3]

As to whether a brain in a vat would be human is moot in my opinion. It would still be me.

Yeah. I was thinking about this sort of thing and its relation to immortality recently - it's the funny thing, really, as even if one cloned oneself, that would still be a seperate "individual" (the English language starts to fall apart around about now), and would still be a seperate conciousness, which will likely be affected in different ways to the "original", and so on, until it's not really (philosophically or otherwise) a clone at all. Then you've got the more transhuman methods of supposed immortality, which (on the face of it) detract from the level of "humanity" involved and focus on the... "individuality"? Preservation? I don't know. But then when you start to consider that cloning is effectively biologically perfect and the more outlandish transhumanist ideas are most likely biologically imperfect, how much of the "self" is contained in each? Can the imperfection in one method be compared against the imperfection of the other? Does the loss in transit matter one way more than the other when it comes to defining humanity/self-existance? etc, etc

/ramble

[ChairmanPoo]

The Apollo program did make a good deal of useful technologies for humankind. All we need to do is have a goal just outside of our reach, a impending threat and a country behind the cause. If there was some driving force to reach Mars I'm sure the various space programs would output some rather nifty stuff.

Yeah, I'm not saying that nothing good whatsoever came out of the space race, but in general, given the choice, I'd fund more definite scientific endeavours (which provide side-technologies just as well), over broad, abstract challenges. Because I feel you'd get more bang for your buck.

[Soadreqm]

Ah, but if you are willing to accept another organism carrying on your legacy, why would you even need cloning? Humans already have the technology to store information virtually forever, and can produce replacements for the dying ones fast enough to keep the race as a whole expanding at an exponential rate as long as there's resources. Sexual reproduction is superior to cloning, anyway. You get more variation, making the stock as a whole more resistant to diseases, and random mutations matter less than they would if every new unit was a perfect copy of a previous one.

[3]

Well, my line of thinking really was that having a total biological match is better than having a partial one - might not make much sense in terms of success, but it would be worthwhile if the primary objective is actually attempting to replicate oneself, not a partial replica of oneself. I understand that's the point of kids and all, but it might not be enough for some people.

Really, if the person you loved most in the world was yourself and you couldn't see past that, nor could you see any means (bar gene engineering or somesuch) of making a deliberate effort of improving upon yourself, then what would you choose? I suppose that all goes into the reasoning of why someone might want to clone themselves in the first place.

[Soadreqm]

I suppose cloning would be motivated by the egoistic sentiment that "I am so great I want to always exist", whereas the brain-in-jar-approach would be motivated by the egoistic sentiment that "I am afraid of dying and want to live forever".

The problem with (biological) cloning is that the clone WON'T be the original in any meaningful way. Identical twins are already clones, and they share maybe a couple biologically determined personality traits, if that. And usually upbringing, making isolating biological causes marginally trickier. Humans aren't really defined by their genes.

Magical instant-copy-just-add-water clones with memory transfers and stuff are more ambiguous. With them, you can die and keep affecting the world, if not personally living in it, and to everyone else but you it would be more or less indistinguishable from proper immortality. And it would make perfect sense if you really did think that the world is a significantly better place with you in it, and don't care if you have to die so other can benefit from your immortal wisdom. Then again, if you're happy with that, you can already achieve immortality of sorts by writing a book. I'd prefer if it was ME who got to live.

[3]

Yeah, precisely my point really. The way I feel is that when it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is my existance, as a mind. To rehash the old solipsist argument, all that I really know is my existance and that I am, so naturally without that I'm inclined to think that I'll be nothing. And nobody can offer an authoritative voice on not existing, so...