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[scriver]

My mind is software running on a piece of hardware that is my body.

I don't think that is true. There's no software, we are only hardware. In that sense, I think that changing the hardware will inevitably change the information. The hardware that makes up your information is inseparable from what makes you you.

I'm sure a person would change if their mind was put into a different body, only because I'm sure that there are differences in how bodies experience the world.  Plenty of things about me would change, I'm sure, just by having a proper sense of smell.

But I don't think that's really the stuff that makes you you.  If I ever had the opportunity to repair/enhance my sense of smell, I wouldn't pass it up due to fears that it would change who I am.

There is an Christian tradition that when the second coming happens you will live forever in the new earth-paradise, but in your old body. This was one of the religious reasons people were against for example, scientific and forensic autopsies and similar things - they would destroy the body and prevent the person from entering heaven.

If I understand things correctly, the Muslim tradition of the body having to be whole when interred (or whatever the rule is, I'm far from an expert) is based on the same abrahamaic root idea. And iirc Jewish faiths still have something similar too?

But this logic, it would also be good to die young?

Presumably, but I've never delved into it so I don't know how they reasoned regarding it.

[Dunamisdeos]

I keep telling my wife that when I die she should take me to a taxidermist and place me in the window looking into the neighbor's kitchen.

For some reason she's not on board.

[Grim Portent]

I keep telling my wife that when I die she should take me to a taxidermist and place me in the window looking into the neighbor's kitchen.

For some reason she's not on board.

Heh, I'd actually be down with being turned into some kind of furniture or ornament after I die. Probably not taxidermy mind you, I expect my body will look none too pleasant in 50 years, but some of my bones might make good materials for something. Maybe a lampstand or something made from my leg bones.

[Dunamisdeos]

I keep telling my wife that when I die she should take me to a taxidermist and place me in the window looking into the neighbor's kitchen.

For some reason she's not on board.

Heh, I'd actually be down with being turned into some kind of furniture or ornament after I die. Probably not taxidermy mind you, I expect my body will look none too pleasant in 50 years, but some of my bones might make good materials for something. Maybe a lampstand or something made from my leg bones.

I've even suggested some animatronics to make it look like I'm making normal human motions like blinking or sometimes moving my head. It sounds like great fun to me.

[Grim Portent]

Would be great at halloween.

'Alright kids, we're going trick or treating at grandma's house.'

'Do you think she'll have taken grandpa out of the garage and put him on the porch again this year?'

'Sadly yes.'

Meanwhile animatronic grandpa is slowly wobbling around saying 'brains'.

[TD1]

Just make sure you get a voice recording pre death of you saying "brains," mind. You don't want the Google Translate version.

[Yoink]

I read a book once in which a major plot point was a company that offered a procedure called 'plastination' (I think) for deceased loved ones, in which their body was preserved in a fairly lifelike manner in order to lessen feelings of loneliness in the bereaved.

Unfortunately, upon googling plastination (I was rather excited by the idea) it seemed that in real life its products looked rather less believable than how they were described in the book.

[TamerVirus]

I've seen plastinated bodies on display in museums and exhibits. Body Worlds or something it was called.

I remember it was more geared towards a 'check out the body's anatomy' than a 'let's remember uncle Jimmy'

[Grim Portent]

Yep, seen one of those displays too. Included preserved foetuses inside preserved women who died while pregnant as well as some preserved children of other ages. (They were in a separate room with a warning sign from the main exhibit which was all adults.)

The main purpose is to be anatomical displays and they basically look like dead tissue that's had most of the blood drained out, which is basically what they are. They're mummies but with synthetic fats and preservatives for blood. Real muscle, organs, nerves and bones though.

The elephant looks really neat but I haven't had a chance to go see it in person.

[Yoink]

Well yeah, that's what I meant. Perhaps "less believable" wasn't the best choice of words, I don't know. It would be cool if more... 'cosmetic' (?) plastination became a thing.

[Eric Blank]

This discussion reminds me of how i found the bones of that old lady that went missing a few years ago, last year.

The police never found the skull. All i noticed at first was the pelvis and leg bones in the stream bed and discarded shoes and shorts wrapped around the leg bones. Good thing they were made of plastic fabrics, or they would have been rotted too and i might have doubted that what i found was actually human.

Still not really comfortable walking around up in that area now. It feels wrong that we didnt find her earlier.

[scriver]

I want to be buried under a tree so my flesh lives on in it. I also want to have my death mask pressed up against the tree so that it'll grow around in and children will tell each other spooky tales about the ghost face oak and the weirdo who is buried under it.

[bloop_bleep]

This discussion reminds me of how i found the bones of that old lady that went missing a few years ago, last year.

The police never found the skull. All i noticed at first was the pelvis and leg bones in the stream bed and discarded shoes and shorts wrapped around the leg bones. Good thing they were made of plastic fabrics, or they would have been rotted too and i might have doubted that what i found was actually human.

Still not really comfortable walking around up in that area now. It feels wrong that we didnt find her earlier.

That's scary shit, man. Were the police able to determine the cause of death?

[IronTomato]

When I die just throw me in the trash.

[Eric Blank]

That's scary shit, man. Were the police able to determine the cause of death?

I dont know, but i think the official report was something like exposure to the elements. This woman was very old and had severe paranoid dementia as we were told during the initial search for her that lasted a few weeks, leading to her running away from home in the first place.