165 réponses à ce sujet

[ModerateOsprey]

Jonathan Shepard wrote...

. . . well. Not sure if you could place a real soul into an empty brain. . . I mean, maybe if you believe in that sort of thing happening. Just seems... wrong. Sacrilegious perhaps? But even without adding in religion, it just seems weird to be happening out of scifi.

I think the idea of the Lazurus project is not to put a soul into an empty brain, but rather duplicate what Shepard originally had. Earlier in the discussion I argued this was not possible. The Shepard that was raised would have to be, by all physical laws, a different person. Of course, this then raises the question - does this new entity have a soul as it has come into being without conception. This question could then be extended to clones etc.

[Dethateer]

slimgrin wrote...

ReconTeam wrote...

Eh, IIRC you can't really bring a brain back into working order once it's truly "dead." You could create a new brain or repair it I suppose, but I think it would pretty much be blank, giving you something of a zombie.

Brain content will be store on hard drives (very big ones) before you die. This will be available only to select geniuses and the rich. Bodies will be stored in cryo then thawed and replaced with lab-grown brains that have downloaded previous data.

People will "live" for centuries...just watch. It will happen. 

*headdesk*
Read Osprey's post on the Heisenberg Uncertainity Principle. You cannot copy a mind.

[Dethateer]

ModerateOsprey wrote...

Jonathan Shepard wrote...

. . . well. Not sure if you could place a real soul into an empty brain. . . I mean, maybe if you believe in that sort of thing happening. Just seems... wrong. Sacrilegious perhaps? But even without adding in religion, it just seems weird to be happening out of scifi.

I think the idea of the Lazurus project is not to put a soul into an empty brain, but rather duplicate what Shepard originally had. Earlier in the discussion I argued this was not possible. The Shepard that was raised would have to be, by all physical laws, a different person. Of course, this then raises the question - does this new entity have a soul as it has come into being without conception. This question could then be extended to clones etc.

Well, that question basically revolves on the definition of the term "soul". By mine, the Geth also have "souls", because they are sapient beings.

[ModerateOsprey]

slimgrin wrote...

ReconTeam wrote...

Eh, IIRC you can't really bring a brain back into working order once it's truly "dead." You could create a new brain or repair it I suppose, but I think it would pretty much be blank, giving you something of a zombie.

Brain content will be store on hard drives (very big ones) before you die. This will be available only to select geniuses and the rich. Bodies will be stored in cryo then thawed and replaced with lab-grown brains that have downloaded previous data.

People will "live" for centuries...just watch. It will happen. 

I argued earlier that this approach to immortality is not possible under our current understanding of the law of physics.
However, what may be possible is to extend the life of mitrochondrial DNA that could provide very long life spans indeed. Check out this dude:

http://en.wikipedia..../Aubrey_de_Grey

This guy reckons that the first human to live to a 1000 years old is alive today.

[Dethateer]

Didn't our aging process have something to do with our tissues scarring instead of simply regenerating like freshwater Hydras and a species of jellyfish (whose name I can't remember, though I doubt it counts, since the jellyfish in question was a colony of smaller organisms)?

Modifié par Dethateer, 18 mars 2010 - 09:22 .

[ModerateOsprey]

Dethateer wrote...

ModerateOsprey wrote...

Jonathan Shepard wrote...

. . . well. Not sure if you could place a real soul into an empty brain. . . I mean, maybe if you believe in that sort of thing happening. Just seems... wrong. Sacrilegious perhaps? But even without adding in religion, it just seems weird to be happening out of scifi.

I think the idea of the Lazurus project is not to put a soul into an empty brain, but rather duplicate what Shepard originally had. Earlier in the discussion I argued this was not possible. The Shepard that was raised would have to be, by all physical laws, a different person. Of course, this then raises the question - does this new entity have a soul as it has come into being without conception. This question could then be extended to clones etc.

Well, that question basically revolves on the definition of the term "soul". By mine, the Geth also have "souls", because they are sapient beings.

And you may very well be right. What we do know is that looking at the properties of Emergence shows that completely unpredictable behavour can occur when a complex system is phased changed to new structure. Some argue this could happen to the internet - SkyNet anyone?

[ModerateOsprey]

Dethateer wrote...

Didn't our aging process have something to do with our tissues scarring instead of simply regenerating like freshwater Hydras and a species of jellyfish (whose name I can't remember, though I doubt it counts, since the jellyfish in question was a colony of smaller organisms)?

I don't know about the actual connection, but it is believed that our brain structure evolved from the mechanisms of the sea squirt! Ultimately, the unit of biology is the cell and cells can perform many fucntions and can change and alter to perform new functions. De-Grey's research includes these kinds of relationships.

[Dethateer]

Thing is, you're assuming our species learns from other people's mistakes. In this case, the previous "you" would have made those mistakes, but they would have still been a different person.

[ModerateOsprey]

slimgrin wrote...

ModerateOsprey wrote...

slimgrin wrote...

ReconTeam wrote...

Eh, IIRC you can't really bring a brain back into working order once it's truly "dead." You could create a new brain or repair it I suppose, but I think it would pretty much be blank, giving you something of a zombie.

Brain content will be store on hard drives (very big ones) before you die. This will be available only to select geniuses and the rich. Bodies will be stored in cryo then thawed and replaced with lab-grown brains that have downloaded previous data.

People will "live" for centuries...just watch. It will happen. 

I argued earlier that this approach to immortality is not possible under our current understanding of the law of physics.
However, what may be possible is to extend the life of mitrochondrial DNA that could provide very long life spans indeed. Check out this dude:

http://en.wikipedia..../Aubrey_de_Grey

This guy reckons that the first human to live to a 1000 years old is alive today.

I'll take a thousand years. Sounds good to me.

I'm no science buff (obviously) but this is a subject that has long interested me, one that has been tackled time and again in literature. I'll check the link out, but its no stretch in my mind to see genetically manufactured beings living for that long, when the science is there to make it happen.

But the whole frankenstein theme is persistant for a reason. The idea of groing cells, organs, an entire person.
Maybe you can't preserve the memories etc. of a previous lifetime, but a regenerated clone could learn what they were like as they grew up, and no doubt they would savor their second life...if you can call it that.

Sorry, I'm rambling now.

I did read some research (I can't lay my hands on it now) where the early results did suggest that experience is not only stored in the brain, but throughout the entire nervous system and even in muscle fibre. This raises some very interesting questions! Would my clone have any echo of me? He may have the same voice, mannerisms etc. wouldn't be me, but...no doubt the universe is very strange place indeed.

[Dethateer]

Are you referring to genetic memory, by any chance?

[ModerateOsprey]

Dethateer wrote...

Are you referring to genetic memory, by any chance?

No, but that subject, again, is downright fascinating. It seems that my current state of health was dependent on how my great, great grandparents lived - whew

[Rne3]

Quite interesting. Science is continously evolving so maybe at some time we will be able to bring people back from the dead.



Of course like most things this will be restricted to the rich and powerful.



Yay.

[ModerateOsprey]

slimgrin wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

Thing is, you're assuming our species learns from other people's mistakes. In this case, the previous "you" would have made those mistakes, but they would have still been a different person.

Not sure I follow. I can say one thing: our biology is designed to learn from mistakes. Might not seem that way in one lifetime, but a short glance at human history will show otherwise.

And as to the argument about no being the same the second time around. If you have the same brain material, predisposed to the same synaptic connections, won't you turn out to be a certain type of person anyway? Just as we all resemble our parents?

You would have the EXACT same genetic makeup. Look the same, talk the same and be vulnerable to the same environmental factors, but would you act the same? Well this boils down to that age old nature vs nurture debate I guess.

[Dethateer]

slimgrin wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

Thing is, you're assuming our species learns from other people's mistakes. In this case, the previous "you" would have made those mistakes, but they would have still been a different person.

Not sure I follow. I can say one thing: our biology is designed to learn from mistakes. Might not seem that way in one lifetime, but a short glance at human history will show otherwise.

And as to the argument about no being the same the second time around. If you have the same brain material, predisposed to the same synaptic connections, won't you turn out to be a certain type of person anyway? Just as we all resemble our parents?

I meant that in relation to what you said about reading about who you were before. I for one assume you'd be an identical copy of the original, nature vs nurture argument. Everything we are is prewritten in our DNA, what we like, what we don't. How you are brought up also most likely has some bearing on who you are, though.
But, to answer this second post, you still wouldn't be the same person, for the same reason a teleported person wouldn't be the same person who stepped in. Your consciousness would have to be stopped for the transport (death, in this case). That constitutes death.

[Dethateer]

Rne3 wrote...

Quite interesting. Science is continously evolving so maybe at some time we will be able to bring people back from the dead.

Of course like most things this will be restricted to the rich and powerful.

Yay.

Actually, assuming nanoassemblers become a valid technology sometime in the future, there will be no more rich and poor people, because money, actually resources themselves, would be useless to us.

[ModerateOsprey]

Rne3 wrote...

Quite interesting. Science is continously evolving so maybe at some time we will be able to bring people back from the dead.

Of course like most things this will be restricted to the rich and powerful.

Yay.

I don't disagree with that and don't forget celebs of course. If this was to happen can you imagine how they would live their lives? They would be terribly risk averse.

[Rne3]

ModerateOsprey wrote...

Rne3 wrote...

Quite interesting. Science is continously evolving so maybe at some time we will be able to bring people back from the dead.

Of course like most things this will be restricted to the rich and powerful.

Yay.

I don't disagree with that and don't forget celebs of course. If this was to happen can you imagine how they would live their lives? They would be terribly risk averse.

They would just drug themselves even more than they are already, the rich would continously take the poor's money to feed their vanity and. Ugh. No. Dead people should stay dead. Causes too many damn problems otherwise.

[SnakeHelah]

This is like cloning only on a smaller scale

[Dethateer]

SnakeHelah wrote...

This is like cloning only on a smaller scale

The OP's video? Yeah, pretty much. Great for organ transplants, since the rejection risk is 0. Still, rather primitive atm.

[ModerateOsprey]

SnakeHelah wrote...

This is like cloning only on a smaller scale

Crack that tech and it would only be ethical panels standing in the way of huge cloning farms - there would be nothing small scale about it.

[Dethateer]

Ehh, science. No way to get to it unless you're willing to take a walk through the spike-filled canyon of religion/spirituality and ethics.
[e]Not really. Keep in mind that biological immortality, or extremely elongated lives would cause a population explosion.

Modifié par Dethateer, 18 mars 2010 - 09:55 .