# Who among you would want immortality via conscisousness/memory recording? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 28, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992 "2015-10-28T18:08:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/21 "2015-10-28T20:05:58Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Uh oh, what if I said I was female? You don’t hurt girls right? _(ah the joys of the internet, its impossible to tell)_ 1. We have already had this discussion. 2. If I were planing to murder you, I would not warn you first. > [@](#): > > I don’t think I said ‘real virtual me’ at any point though? Just ‘real me’ and ‘virtual me’. > endence’, I think I could go for the slow-scan upload idea rather than memory backups. You only wrote “real physicall me.” Which is my point. You’re ceding that the flesh you is authentic in a way that the Virtual You is not. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/22 "2015-10-28T20:19:22Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > Sure, why not? The worst that could happen is it doesn’t work, right? As pointed out a few posts up by **Disposable Hero** (so aptly named for the subject of this thread), > [@](#): > > Also I’ve read ‘Surface Detail’ by Iain M. Banks and ‘Altered Carbon’ by Richard Morgan, at least a real physical me can only be killed once, the horrors that could be inflicted on a sentient virtual entity defy imagining. What could possibly go wrong? > [@Evil!Skald](#): > > I am presenting you with a choice. I’m either going to erase Virtual!Chronos in a fashion that will be painless to him it, or send in a throttlebot to beat the heck out of you, causing you a great deal of pain but not killing or even crippling you. You may choose which happens. > > What’s your choice, my Noldorin friend? Ah yes, Evil!Skald The Evil (did we mention how Evil he is?), always moving the goalposts and fighting his own hypotheticals! No response can be right, _evah,_ when he does that! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/23 "2015-10-28T20:19:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Skald the Rhymer** : > > You force me to put on my evil hat. > > :: dons Cobra-Commander helmet, shoots random Hungarian in leg to establish credibility :: > > So, in my malevolent incarnation, I have stolen Shawna’s technology and used it on you. Now, obviously the no-hitting-chicks rule prevents me from murdering Shawna out out hand to assure RhE’s monopoly on the tech … but you’re a dude. Evil!Skald’s a dick, as you well now, so just to be a jerk, I am presenting you with a choice. I’m either going to erase Virtual!Chronos in a fashion that will be painless to him it, or send in a throttlebot to beat the heck out of you, causing you a great deal of pain but not killing or even crippling you. You may choose which happens. > > What’s your choice, my Noldorin friend? Even if the digitized Chronos were not at the least extremely akin to me, the moral choice would be for meat-me to accept a great deal of pain in order to spare the existence of another entity. Of course, I can’t guarantee that I would make the moral choice (I have thankfully never endured torture, and so cannot know how strong my resistance is to it), but I certainly hope that I would. Except, of course, that my real choice, as you no doubt know from many previous threads, would probably be to fight the hypothetical, and attempt (with an unknown degree of success) to prevent both the torture and the erasure. After all, I have no way of knowing that you’re not just going to torture meat-me and then afterwards erase digitized-me anyway: It’s not like I can exactly take your word on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/24 "2015-10-28T20:24:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Even if the digitized Chronos were not at the least extremely akin to me, the moral choice would be for meat-me to accept a great deal of pain in order to spare the existence of another entity. Of course, I can’t guarantee that I would make the moral choice (I have thankfully never endured torture, and so cannot know how strong my resistance is to it), but I certainly hope that I would. > > Except, of course, that my real choice, as you no doubt know from many previous threads, would probably be to fight the hypothetical, and attempt (with an unknown degree of success) to prevent both the torture and the erasure. After all, I have no way of knowing that you’re not just going to torture meat-me and then afterwards erase digitized-me anyway: It’s not like I can exactly take your word on the subject. Oh, that’s not fighting the hypothetical. Fighting the hypo is introducing elements into the situation specifically disallowed by the premise. Saying “I will try to overpower the throttlebot, I mean, hell, it probably looks like that chick from SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, the little one I mean,” is not fighting the hypo. Saying “I will trust to Evil!Skald suddenly turning good and Scottish is female” is.k ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/25 "2015-10-28T20:28:22Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > As pointed out a few posts up by **Disposable Hero** (so aptly named for the subject of this thread), > What could possibly go wrong? > > Ah yes, Evil!Skald The Evil (did we mention how Evil he is?), always moving the goalposts and fighting his own hypotheticals! No response can be right, _evah,_ when he does that! I wasn’t moving the goalposts. I was trying to clarify what Chronos’s position was regarding Virtual!Him being bascially him. Or even basically a person ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/26 "2015-10-28T20:30:01Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Since I will not be around to enjoy the immortality, I’m not interested. What do I care if a copy of me gets to live forever? That’s pretty much my attitude. I voted ‘probably not’ because something could always happen to change my mind, but really, I can’t imagine what. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/27 "2015-10-28T20:51:08Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > And, that’s why religion is bad for kids, mkay. You simultaneously believe in an entity powerful enough to prevent your physical death yet is too stupid to know the difference between what you consider to be a “computer copy” of you and the “real you”. If you’re that confident in your religious beliefs, why not die now? If your beliefs prevent direct suicide, go try to save people from ISIS or some other lethally risky endeavor. After all, the future you might commit a bunch of sins that you in turn are morally responsible for. What if you live to old age, go senile, and the old man version of your commits a rape? I guess your god will hold you to account for that, right? Is this in reference to my post? I’m only guessing so since I mentioned that I am a theist and you start out bashing religion. I feel like either I did a poor job communicating my point, or you didn’t understand my point. I only mentioned that fact because many theists DO believe in an afterlife, and I don’t. The idea of morality responsibility holds regardless. A parent who raises his child with a poor sense of morality bears some moral responsibility for the actions that child takes. In the same way, whether I am alive or dead, I would bear moral responsibility for the actions taken by a digital copy of me. The point I was attempting to get at is that a digital copy, even if starting exactly with all the knowledge I have now is NOT fundamentally the same because of artifacts of simulation. That is, in any simulation, as the errors in the simulations accumulate, even though it starts out as a reasonable approximation of me and with my morality, those artifacts compound and at some point it simply isn’t me. This really isn’t all that different from the idea of a runaway artificial consciousness, except we can’t even be reasonably sure that this simulation of my consciousness is artificially conscious. As I’m sure you’re aware, there are a great many concerns about the potential dangers of a runaway artificial consciousness, but as this particular artificial consciousness would have my consciousness as it’s seed and I created it of my own volition, I bear moral responsibility for everything it does, but due to the artifacts of simulation, after a certain point I can’t even be sure that it’s actually still operating under my own moral code. IOW, it’s one thing if I can be sure that, as I believe murder is wrong, and I know that it still believes murder is wrong, then it is bound by my moral constructs. But without an external aspect managing the simulation, akin to, but not identical to, Asimov’s laws of robotics, then there’s nothing to ensure that those moral codes don’t deviate in an unpredictable way. And yes, it’s possible I could have a psychotic break and do something tomorrow that the current me would find morally repugnant, but I think it’s fundamentally different. First, there is absolute continuity of consciousness, and this example definitively does not have continuity of consciousness. Second, if I did have a psychotic break, it would be because of a breakdown of the hardware of my body in some manner, like a stroke or whatever. But in the case of the simulation, it can be working in perfect order, but simply due to the compounding errors it will eventually have unpredictable results. It’s the difference between getting a wrong calculation because the system malfunctioned (eg, a chip fried) or because of a fundamental flaw in the way in which the calculation is handled (eg, floating point rounding errors, etc.). No, IF I could be reasonably guaranteed that the underlying code is a perfect replication, able to match or exceed the rate and accuracy of the human brain in running the “code” that is my digitized personality, and not just an extremely complex and extremely accurate simulation, then I would withdraw this objection. That all said, still aware my first objection still remains. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/28 "2015-10-28T20:53:56Z")
I think Shawna ripped off this idea from The Venture Bros but hasn’t yet married it with cloning tech. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/29 "2015-10-28T21:03:05Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > 1. We have already had this discussion. We have?!? It must have been with my virtual copy because I don’t remember it. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > 1. If I were planing to murder you, I would not warn you first. Being killed I can deal with, we all have to die sometime, a virtual copy of me being killed then resurrected and killed again as many times as Evil!Skald feels like…that’s something else entirely. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You only wrote “real physicall me.” Which is my point. You’re ceding that the flesh you is authentic in a way that the Virtual You is not. That’s the problem with this scenario, its hard to talk about with the current limits of language, the physical me would have no real connection to its virtual copy, they would be different people, but I have no doubt that given sufficiently advanced technology a ‘real’ person could run on software and experience something indistinguishable from outer physical reality _(I don’t really follow computer games but from what I can tell they’re becoming eerily realistic in some respects, it wouldn’t take many more generational leaps in technology until simulated graphics and physics wise they will be indistinguishable from the real thing)_. I’ve also read Permutation City by Greg Egan which also put me off the thought of ever ‘uploading’ myself. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/30 "2015-10-28T21:06:34Z")
Id sign up, as long as my copy doesnt have to work in some shit job inside the virtual world. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/31 "2015-10-28T21:35:03Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > There have been several threads on this idea _(though not with the entertaining set-up)_ which usually descend into both sides staring blankly at each other going, _huh?!?_ . . . Ain’t THAT the truth! Anyway, I voted yes…but with some reservations. I’d like a way to opt out if life becomes unbearable, and I’d kind of like an exclusivity contract, so no one is out there making lots of extra copies of me and possible experimenting on them horribly. Now, let’s face it, this would be a DAMN fine way to learn TONS about mental illness. Take a downloaded mind, and tweak it until it’s depressed, or psychotic, then work out what it takes to fix it again. Just like historical anatomists learned by dissection and vivisection. Extremely good way to acquire knowledge. But kinda nasty for the subject of the experiment! ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/32 "2015-10-28T22:04:09Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > Is this in reference to my post? I’m only guessing so since I mentioned that I am a theist and you start out bashing religion. I feel like either I did a poor job communicating my point, or you didn’t understand my point. I only mentioned that fact because many theists DO believe in an afterlife, and I don’t. > > The idea of morality responsibility holds regardless. A parent who raises his child with a poor sense of morality bears some moral responsibility for the actions that child takes. In the same way, whether I am alive or dead, I would bear moral responsibility for the actions taken by a digital copy of me. The point I was attempting to get at is that a digital copy, even if starting exactly with all the knowledge I have now is NOT fundamentally the same because of artifacts of simulation. > > That is, in any simulation, as the errors in the simulations accumulate, even though it starts out as a reasonable approximation of me and with my morality, those artifacts compound and at some point it simply isn’t me. This really isn’t all that different from the idea of a runaway artificial consciousness, except we can’t even be reasonably sure that this simulation of my consciousness is artificially conscious. As I’m sure you’re aware, there are a great many concerns about the potential dangers of a runaway artificial consciousness, but as this particular artificial consciousness would have my consciousness as it’s seed and I created it of my own volition, I bear moral responsibility for everything it does, but due to the artifacts of simulation, after a certain point I can’t even be sure that it’s actually still operating under my own moral code. > > IOW, it’s one thing if I can be sure that, as I believe murder is wrong, and I know that it still believes murder is wrong, then it is bound by my moral constructs. But without an external aspect managing the simulation, akin to, but not identical to, Asimov’s laws of robotics, then there’s nothing to ensure that those moral codes don’t deviate in an unpredictable way. > > And yes, it’s possible I could have a psychotic break and do something tomorrow that the current me would find morally repugnant, but I think it’s fundamentally different. First, there is absolute continuity of consciousness, and this example definitively does not have continuity of consciousness. Second, if I did have a psychotic break, it would be because of a breakdown of the hardware of my body in some manner, like a stroke or whatever. But in the case of the simulation, it can be working in perfect order, but simply due to the compounding errors it will eventually have unpredictable results. It’s the difference between getting a wrong calculation because the system malfunctioned (eg, a chip fried) or because of a fundamental flaw in the way in which the calculation is handled (eg, floating point rounding errors, etc.). > > No, IF I could be reasonably guaranteed that the underlying code is a perfect replication, able to match or exceed the rate and accuracy of the human brain in running the “code” that is my digitized personality, and not just an extremely complex and extremely accurate simulation, then I would withdraw this objection. > > That all said, still aware my first objection still remains. And my objection remains - what’s the difference between an error prone “simulation” and an organic defect in your brain causing you to make cognitive errors and commit sins or crimes? They are the same thing, except you can fix a simulation or roll it back. It’s probably possible to transition your brain to the “simulation” version with no loss of continuity, it’s just a lot harder to do. Either way, a theist being - some type of powerful entity that most theist religions believe in - almost by definition has to be smart enough to tell when you “meant” to do something or an error in your brain forced it or it’s too stupid to bother worshiping. Over the years many many practices have been instituted to “trick” god, but they are similarly pointless. If god is so weak and blind that he gets fooled by strings declaring an area all holy so you can break the Sabbath, or college students having sex with no friction, he’s not capable of doing any of the things that religious people expect of him either. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/33 "2015-10-28T22:10:58Z")
I’d go for it if there was an option to delete all of **Skald** ’s hypotheticals from my mind. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/34 "2015-10-28T22:17:16Z")
The very idea of an android as fucked up as me, with all my dark memories and crazy ideas is beyond disturbing. Worse, without my body-thetans harassing it constantly, it would be perpetually perplexed as to how I could function like this at all. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/35 "2015-10-28T23:21:54Z")
Since it’s free, the fact that he won’t be me is not a consideration\*. The question is whether or not he will be happy. A lot of the end of life stuff seems to be really bad, and my brain is kinda messed up already. I’d need a guarantee that they’d find out what would make him happy and give it to him before I could say yes. If they do any experiments on him, they need to be harmless. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/36 "2015-10-28T23:27:33Z")
Definitely. The chance to live basically forever? Oh yeah…where do I sign up?? The only caveat I see is if only I can be uploaded that would be kind of a bummer. I think since I’ve saved her life so many times she ought to be willing to upload my dog, wife, kids and a few friends. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/37 "2015-10-28T23:42:38Z")
I’d do it. I’d be happy as a virtual me if the real me is gone. I can always turn myself off if I don’t want to be around. And if I really want the android I can go to sleep for five year intervals waiting for it. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/38 "2015-11-01T07:00:18Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/39 "2015-11-01T08:10:18Z")
I’d probably do it. I don’t have a \ in mind that would stop me from doing it but I guess I’d reserve my final decision for when I knew exactly what it entailed. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2015, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992/40 "2015-11-01T08:35:59Z")
I already am the virtual me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-among-you-would-want-immortality-via-conscisousness-memory-recording/735992.md?page=3)