The Extra-Solar Union of Systems Archive

Kreshh wrote:Breaking News:

Resurrection Stonesâ„¢ are now available in the form of jewelry that can be worn externally by most meat-based organisms!

Cheat death with a fashionable piercing, necklace, or ring. That's right, bind your life force to a single, (nearly) indestructible ring.

What could possibly go wrong? Order today!

Your false immortality is now the target of petty theft and pickpockets.

Kanuckistan wrote:

Kreshh wrote:Breaking News:

Resurrection Stonesâ„¢ are now available in the form of jewelry that can be worn externally by most meat-based organisms!

Cheat death with a fashionable piercing, necklace, or ring. That's right, bind your life force to a single, (nearly) indestructible ring.

What could possibly go wrong? Order today!

Your false immortality is now the target of petty theft and pickpockets.

Just keep it away from any pint-sized troublemakers.






... you know, Ewoks.

They dont rob you, they just drop rocks on you from the sky and decimate legions of your armies with logs.

Trailers wrote:They dont rob you, they just drop rocks on you from the sky and decimate legions of your armies with logs.

This is why you never send Stormtroopers into forests.

I laugh at Kanuckistan's claims that this style of immortality is "false" because it lacks continuity.

Mindsetti bodies are machines grown for the sentients - actual Mindsetti citizens are purely digital, stored within the Uploaded artifical reality.

I laugh at all you meaty creatures with your frail, troglodyte biology! *laughs menacingly*

... umm... 'ahem' I mean...

Good news everyone! Resurrection Stonesâ„¢ are now available for the mere price of a single species' genomic map, and a rough description of their attributes. Only this, and nothing more, for a life without fear of death.

*limit: we must not already have said species on file. Multicellular organisms only please (exceptions may be made for particularly interesting non-multicellular life, contact head office for details)

The Mindset wrote:I laugh at Kanuckistan's claims that this style of immortality is "false" because it lacks continuity.

Mindsetti bodies are machines grown for the sentients - actual Mindsetti citizens are purely digital, stored within the Uploaded artifical reality.

Ah, but what happens if some dastardly Mindsetti copies himself twice? Do the two seperate entities count as one citizen, or are they two citizens? After all, if they're purely digital, such duplication should be no more difficult than copy-pasting a big file is on your computer.

That's why Kanuck (and I) is so big on continuity. Continuity ensures that you aren't just copying someone and destroying the original.

They diverge as soon as the experience difference sense input. They become two people the moment they're duplicated.

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.

The Mindset wrote:They diverge as soon as the experience difference sense input. They become two people the moment they're duplicated.

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.

Your mind is a mix of hardware and software, however.

Besides, look at it this way - your digital Mindsetti individual moves from one system to another, but as he's just data, it's a copy/erase procedure. As you said, both copies are people, so you've, in effect, killed the original copy.

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.