Re: Could we live forever?

[John Clark]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015  spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

​> ​
> Probably better to ask if immortal uploads would spend their times living
> in underground computer network facilities for ages, or would they roam the
> galaxy, searching for biology?


​Will humans ​
spend their time living in
​boxes made of bone perched precariously on their shoulders
 or would they roam the galaxy, searching for
​other bone boxes​
?

​  John K Clark​

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Re: Could we live forever?

[John Clark]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015  Brent Meeker  wrote:


> ​
>> ​>>​
>> If you knew you were immortal why on earth would you ​be risk averse?
>
>

​> ​
> Not having a built in biological life span is very different from being
> immortal.  Immortal means you can't die.
>

Immortality isn't a deep concept, it just means making sure the atoms in
your biological brain, or its functional equivalent, always remained in
their correct orientation.
Immortality is simply a ​matter of
​maintaining ​
organization,
​ and with nanotechnology that would be easy.​


> ​> ​
> you will eventually die from some
> ​accident.  ​
>

​That's why ​
you'd need lots of backup copies stashed in lots of different places, and
with ​
nanotechnology that would be easy.​


> ​> ​
> or illness.
>

​You will never die of illness if you have the ability to ensure that the
atoms in your body always remain in their correct orientation, ​
and with ​
nanotechnology that would be easy.​

​> ​
> Uploading" isn't some well defined process


​Uploading is very well defined, it's just not achievable yet for
technological not scientific or philosophical reasons:  ​Uploading

​is the functional equivalent of a biological brain in electronic form. ​

​> ​
> You could be "uploaded" today by having a team of people research your
> appearance, personality, thinking, preferences, speech, etc. and
> incorporating them into a computer program with sensory inputs and some
> Watson like AI.  It would produce a Max Headroom like John Clark who would
> continue to berate Bruno for his use of pronouns and other signs of
> intelligence.


​Intelligent behavior is a much deeper property than consciousness, so if
it's got John Clark's intelligence (or better) that's good enough for me.  ​


> ​> ​
> Would it be conscious?...who knows.


​That is nothing new, that is the same sort of uncertainty every human
being who has ever lived must face. Was the original John Clark conscious?
Only the original John Clark knows for sure.

​> ​
> Would it be recognizably John Clark...sure.


​That is good enough for me.

  John ​K Clark

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Re: Could we live forever?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Sep 2015, at 00:16, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/16/2015 10:39 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 , spudboy100 via Everything List  wrote:


  ​ > ​ It seems, at this point, that the time for uploading is  
far, far, away. It could emerge out of neuroscience research, and  
all that, but it doesn't feel like there is anything reliable at  
this point.


​Yes but exponential ​processes can do funny things, a week  
before uploading becomes possible it will still seem to be a very  
long way away, and the era where it's possible but very difficult  
and expensive will only last for about 15 minutes.  And if Cryonics  
works (a big if I admit) then it doesn't matter if it happens a  
week after your death or a thousand years after, all the time you  
spent bathing in liquid nitrogen will seem instantaneous to you.


"Uploading" isn't some well defined process (except in SciFi).  You  
could be "uploaded" today by having a team of people research your  
appearance, personality, thinking, preferences, speech, etc. and  
incorporating them into a computer program with sensory inputs and  
some Watson like AI.  It would produce a Max Headroom like John  
Clark who would continue to berate Bruno for his use of pronouns and  
other signs of intelligence.  Would it be conscious?...who knows.
Would it be recognizably John Clark...sure.


Good point.

With computationalism there is no zombies, but infinitely many local  
zombies. In fact if consciousness, which is a first person notion,  
depends entirely on the FPI, and thus on the infinity of computations,  
as it seems to be the case, then the UD generates *only* zombies,  
despite from our personal perspective there is no zombie for the  
entity which is counterfactually correct with respect to "me".
Now I am not sure if consciousness per se relies that much on the FPI,  
as our brain seems classical. That depends also if the filter (Galois  
connection) is correct.
Being conscious more than two instants does rely on the FPI, though,  
making physics into a computation measure calculus.


Note that (comp   +   ~ MW =>  solipsisme), so MW is quite welcome  
with comp, it illustrates the first person plurality. The physical  
bottom is linear, as I hope this will be extracted in the "material"  
machine's pov, but there is a lot of work to do to get at that stage.


Bruno




Brent

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Could we live forever?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Sep 2015, at 02:35, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

Probably better to ask if immortal uploads would spend their times  
living in underground computer network facilities for ages, or would  
they roam the galaxy, searching for biology?



The irony is that if you have the cognitive ability to conceive that  
you can survive qua "yes doctor", then you have the cognitive ability  
to understand that you are immortal no matter what. The illusion is  
"mortality" and "identity":  you need a complex machine to support  
that illusion.


That should be already clear in QM without collapse (+ reasonable  
"hamiltonian"), but it is unavoidable, if you believe in  
computationalism, and this that prime numbers are infinite, with or  
without your presence here (in that case you have to admit the  
existence of all computations and our indetermination on them).


Technological immortality is only the pursue of evolution, and might  
be just a way to prolongate the Samsara, which is normal if your  
motivation is in seeing the next soccer cup, or the grow of your grand- 
grand...grand children.


Yet, by doing that you avoid the "natural", arithmetical immortality  
which might be a not so easy path given the way numbers can surprise  
themselves, especially in the limit.


People should be able to do what they want to do, as long as it  
doesn't prevent others to do what they want. To die is the most  
religious or spiritual act you can ever do, and the others have not  
much business to interfere, unless you ask for. I am glad that  
California voted recently a law making it possible to die with dignity  
through some medical assistance.


Bruno







Sent from AOL Mobile Mail


-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Wed, Sep 16, 2015 01:27 PM
Subject: Re: Could we live forever?


On Tue, Sep 15, 2015  Brent Meeker  wrote:

​> ​ Without  a built-in biological life span, people may become  
extremely timid and risk averse.


​If you knew you were immortal why on earth would you ​be risk  
averse?   ​And if the death of death causes social problems then  
we'll just have to deal with those problems, I mean it wouldn't be  
the first time we experienced social problems. ​


​> ​ "The older you get, the less you have to lose."

​And yet in practice people behave as if it's just the opposite.  
Young healthy people feel immortal and so they take lots of risks,  
but old people are full of aches and pains that constantly remind  
them that they are not immortal and so they become very timid and  
risk adverse.   ​


​  John K Clark​









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Re: Could we live forever?

[John Clark]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015  Bruno Marchal  wrote:

​>​
> The irony is that if you have the cognitive ability to conceive that you
> can survive qua "yes doctor", then you have the cognitive ability to
> understand that you are immortal no matter what.
>

​So if you can conceive of something (although not in any detail) non
physical making a calculation then it doesn't matter that nothing non
physical can make a calculation; and thus there is no reason you can't
start a successful computer hardware company with zero manufacturing costs.
Sort of reminds me of those silly ontological "proofs" about the existence
of God, if you can conceive of God (although not in any detail) then God
must exist.

 John K Clark

​

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Re: Cryonics in the NYT

[John Mikes]

Samiya,* "forever"* is NOT a timespan, it is the *infinite* (maybe without
an
end, or without a beginning?) so your 'to live forever' may mean:
IT IS OVER WITHIN THE INSTANT IT STARTED.
(Or: it may indeed mean a duration without an end, as you suggest).

THE 'HARD WIRED WITHIN' is natural in an environment of many many
generations educated into a belief system from all around. The content
may come from Mummy's eary fairy tales for the baby - and completed
by studies later on from 'smart' books and 'smart' teachers galore.
None has a reasonable evidencing base.
JM


On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 1:05 AM, Samiya Illias 
wrote:

> Is the 'belief in an afterlife' natural? Perhaps it's something hard wired
> within, such that even atheists hope to live forever!
>
> Samiya
>
> On 13-Sep-2015, at 11:26 pm, Evgenii Rudnyi  wrote:
>
> Neuroscience as a new messiah. People's belief in an afterlife will never
> go away. Especially in our enlightenment age.
>
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