Immortality is but a small fee away!

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Kreshh
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Re: Immortality is but a small fee away!

Post by Kreshh »

Central Facehuggeria wrote:
The Mindset wrote: What's the big deal with continuity? You are your mind. You are nothing else. Make a perfect copy of it, and that perfect copy is you, because you are your mind. Nothing else.
Let's say you make a copy of your mind but don't destroy the original. There are now two seperate individuals who count themselves as 'you' running around. You say they count as two individuals, yes?

Now let's say we destroy the 'you' from which the copy was made. There is still an entity called The Mindset running around, but it is not the original Mindset. It's a copy with all the same memories and mental patterns, but it's still seperate from the original Mindset.

Let's say you were were the original which we just tossed into the disintigration booth. We've just destroyed 'you,' but there's still a copy of you running around, so it's all good, right?

The only exception to this line of reasoning that I can see is if you're a hivemind with your copy, but we aren't talking about that.

Basically, here's a scenario:

You're sitting at your computer. An omnipotent space gerbil appears and makes a perfect copy of you. He then waves his whiskers and consigns the you sitting at the computer to oblivion. There is still someone with your memories and thoughts running around, but the you who was sitting at the computer is gone forever.
A worthy enough arguement, but let me provide a brief, Kreshh-marketing, retort:

You humans are social creatures, yes? You do not live purely for yourselves in any case. Now while it may make little difference to you that there is a perfect copy of yourself running around, continueing your life where you left it, consider your loved ones...

How unhappy would your death make them? Do they need you? Depend on you physically, finantially, or emotionally? What would become of them if you were to disapear?

Or perhaps you are an important someone, influential perhaps... do you have a cause? What would become of your goals and asperations were you to fall?

We can insure against all of this. And while you may not be around to enjoy it, you may rest soundly in whatever afterlife calls you, knowing that all is in good order.



Further - to thwart some, entirely baseless, claims that we are creating multiple duplicates, returning one, and then performing untold malicious acts upon those remaining - we are publically anouncing the institution of additional safeguards to insure that only one copy may be produced.
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I've only ever asked God for one thing: "Lord, make my enemies ridiculous," and he granted my request.

My immediate advice is to go buy Brewsters. It is a dictionary, and a quite fine one. This you should use to bludgeon yourself comatose each and every night, in the faint hope that some of the knowledge contained in it might be transferred. If not, it would at least leave you damaged enough that you wouldn't be coming here and violate our senses with your retarded babble.
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The Mindset
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Re: Immortality is but a small fee away!

Post by The Mindset »

But it's still you.

I can see your problem with the concept, but I disagree with it. As long as the "original" is destroyed at the same time the "duplicate" is created, it's you. Only you. (In my opinion)
Central Facehuggeria
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Re: Immortality is but a small fee away!

Post by Central Facehuggeria »

The Mindset wrote:But it's still you.

I can see your problem with the concept, but I disagree with it. As long as the "original" is destroyed at the same time the "duplicate" is created, it's you. Only you. (In my opinion)
But what if the original isn't destroyed at the same time? What if the original is destroyed an hour after the copy is created? Or a day? Or <insert arbitrary time here>. Why should it start being "you" simply because no time has passed between creation? Unless there's some soul that migrates from the destroyed form to the new one. Or unless there's actual continuity.
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Kanuckistan
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Re: Immortality is but a small fee away!

Post by Kanuckistan »

Indeed, Facehugger - accepting a lack of continuity ultimately boils down to a 'eh, close enough' distinction with an arbitrary cut-off point.

Remember, this is your life here, and for those that don't believe in an afterlife, your very existence in the most absolute terms - not something you want to needlessly gamble with here.

Besides, it's still murder to kill the original copy, even if you do it at the instant you copy.


Of course, what if we kill you, retroactivly reconstruct every bit and byte of data, then create a clone copy in two weeks.

Just because the copy thinks it's you doesn't make it true. Well, ok, it's you for certain values thereof, but then, so is the stick figure I just drew.
Kreshh wrote: A worthy enough arguement, but let me provide a brief, Kreshh-marketing, retort:

<snip>
"But wouldn't that mean I'd have to share my life insurance payout with the copy?" - Random Kanuckistani


:mrgreen:
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