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Interesting thought experiment: Could there be some future form of therapy available that teaches to associate "you" with not just your biological form but also

by WJW 5y ago

Interesting thought experiment: Could there be some future form of therapy available that teaches to associate "you" with not just your biological form but also the wider set of AI-enhanced parts of your existence? I think it would be a very difficult thing to teach people to associate normal machines (like a phone or tablet) with themselves, but cybernetic implants and perhaps mind/machine interfaced stuff would be able to trick the mind into thinking that they are really parts of itself.

XorNot 5y ago
I think it's quite likely you still wind up "dying" a lot, but you have a very positive answer to the question of "is there life after death?" Consider it this way: we duplicate you, and in an eyeblink you're either still in your body or still in VR. Subjectively to your body (because your still there) - there's a version of you which dies forever. But there's also a version which remembers duplication worked. Life after death is assured. So now every version which spins off from that has the surety: duplication means continuance. Much beyond that point I think it all very much becomes as you say, a psychotherapy problem: who's in the box and who's on the stage doesn't really matter provided you knock yourself out before doing the transfer and don't wake up later. Easy enough to arrange. Of course, if you were really worried you can hang out till the high-tech "neuron by neuron replacement" process happens, but I think you'd wind up with a lot of people realizing it made very little difference as they moved over to a pure VR existence without quite realizing it had happened till it was done.
- Nursie 5y ago
  > who's in the box and who's on the stage doesn't really matter provided you knock yourself out before doing the transfer and don't wake up later. It might not matter to the new entity, it might not matter to an observer, but in that situation you've just killed the human, who is very much dead. > Of course, if you were really worried you can hang out till the high-tech "neuron by neuron replacement" process happens I think that's the only way that I would consider it a real transition, rather than a copy and a death.

by WJW 5y ago

XorNot 5y ago

I think it's quite likely you still wind up "dying" a lot, but you have a very positive answer to the question of "is there life after death?" Consider it this way: we duplicate you, and in an eyeblink you're either still in your body or still in VR. Subjectively to your body (because your still there) - there's a version of you which dies forever. But there's also a version which remembers duplication worked. Life after death is assured. So now every version which spins off from that has the surety: duplication means continuance. Much beyond that point I think it all very much becomes as you say, a psychotherapy problem: who's in the box and who's on the stage doesn't really matter provided you knock yourself out before doing the transfer and don't wake up later. Easy enough to arrange. Of course, if you were really worried you can hang out till the high-tech "neuron by neuron replacement" process happens, but I think you'd wind up with a lot of people realizing it made very little difference as they moved over to a pure VR existence without quite realizing it had happened till it was done.

Nursie 5y ago
> who's in the box and who's on the stage doesn't really matter provided you knock yourself out before doing the transfer and don't wake up later. It might not matter to the new entity, it might not matter to an observer, but in that situation you've just killed the human, who is very much dead. > Of course, if you were really worried you can hang out till the high-tech "neuron by neuron replacement" process happens I think that's the only way that I would consider it a real transition, rather than a copy and a death.