This is a question about real life and death, isn’t it? Not about the death inside a virtual reality. I’m a bit confused with the question. If that is the question, then there is no infinite time and resources. So one day everyone will die (according to our current knowledge of physics). I also don’t think that we can out live our death by copying something to digital representation. Because we are not “transported”, but die and make a copy, a new object. It is not the same atoms and composition, it is just a similar looking object interpreted and run by a different algorithm.
So when I die and a "perfect’ copy of my brain is uploaded to a server, then I’m dead. The copy of myself is just a program using my brain structure and memories to act like I would, but I’m dead, and this program is just a representation and interpretation of my intelligence – but it’s not me. Therefore it is not possible to live forever.
The question is “would” not “will”. It’s a conditional and a longer form of the question would’ve been something along the lines of “if it were realistically possible, would you like to live forever in an afterlife such as this?”
For me the answer is yes. I’d like to have the option to kill myself in case I ever get bored or whatever, but I’d still take it even if I had to risk an eternity of insanity.
If you understood my answer, then it is “Its not possible”. This is not about “realistically or theoretically”, it is impossible. So any copy of the information that builds you inside of a computer, is not you. Therefore the question doesn’t make sense. No one can live inside a computer. Edit: A comparison to that logic is Emulators and Roms. The games you play are (let’s say) a perfect recreation bitwise. But its no longer the original hardware. YOU are the hardware, the computer program with an algorithm is the ROM (a copy) of your information, but its not you.
I’d like to have the option to kill myself in case
You are already dead. What you want is, that the machine code representing you (which is not you) should have an option to be killed.
That’s not what is being asked. OP put right in the post “afterlife” as in. Nobody is copying you into a PC. The post assumes that an eternal afterlifr exists, and in that scenario (which is possible, we simply do not know) would you choose a game to lice in. Like if heaven/hell were minecraft, would that be something you would want?
That’s it. It’s not about uploading our minds in our current alive world.
That’s not what is being asked. OP put right in the post “afterlife” as in.
That is being asked. I am talking that there is no afterlife if you copy yourself. The “afterlife” is meant to be “overcome the death” by cheating through copies. It’s not expressed with those words, but the logical application is a copy if we talk about this subject.
Nobody is copying you into a PC.
But that is the topic. It is about making an exact copy of yourself in a videogame (infinite game). I quote the article:
A game consists of players, an interface, an environment, and gameplay. All of these elements are readily accessible in a computer simulation such that an entity capable of simulating configurations of time/space/matter/energy would also be capable of instantiating a simulation which conscious energy may exist within.
Rather than limit possibilities to a single perspective, I dream of infinite games created and refined by their players in innumerable variants. The possibilities for play include all of the most hoped-for afterlives and offer other novel experiences to explore.
The word “copy” isn’t used in the article nor the op. You continue to engage in bad faith with a simple question instead of just answering it, for some reason. Imagine you could transfer your consciousness into a simulation like in Tron or whatever. That’s what they mean. Not a copy. But your actual self. Or if that’s too hard to accept, just think of a scenario where you’re the copy. You spawn into a world like that. What do you do? Do you play or do you just nope out?
Please read again. It is not possible to transfer consciousness into a simulation, without copying data. What does “transfer” mean if not copy? Also a simulation is an algorithm that describes how to simulate. In which case your copies genetic code, atoms and brain wouldn’t work without changing. Your body isn’t bits and bytes, it has to be converted into. And that happens while you are still there. So if anything of your mind and body is “transferred” to the simulation, it has to be copied and changed in order to integrate it.
To explain what that means with an analogy: Emulators and game ROMs are copies of the exact hardware. Roms would represent your bodies atoms genetic code. Then there is the environment side, the Emulators. Think of the entire simulation as the emulator, which has custom code to play back the games (you and the environment).
Also are you aware of Quantum Physics? It is impossible to measure everything with 100% accuracy and certainty. This is not a skill issue of us, this is how the universe works. So it is in fact physically impossible to create a 100% digital code of you. And even if it was, it wouldn’t be you.
You misunderstand. I understand everything you say. And you are correct, in the world in which we currently live as we currently understand it. However, the article and the question in op deals with imagination and fantasy.
To give you an example. If someone were to ask you “what would you do if you had a billion dollars?”. You would probably answer by saying something along the lines of “it is impossible for me to earn a billion dollars because x and y”. But that’s not the answer anyone wants when they ask that question. That’s what you’re doing right now. Not sure if you’re doing it to troll people or because you’re having issues with taking things too literally or some other reason. Either way, I’m done with this “conversation”. Have a nice day.
because you’re having issues with taking things too literally or some other reason
I brought up enough reasons why the question doesn’t make logical sense, not just if its possible or not. In fact, it seems like I’m the one who does not take it literally and answers the question in a different way as it was asked. Which is wrong? I explained why I can’t answer the question in any other way, because this is the only answer I can give, given the reasons. It does not have anything to do with imagining things or not, the question makes logically no sense.
It’s not like that I’m not allowed to discuss here and take the question as I want. No one have to respond to me if you do not want to discuss.
But what if you started as a simulated entity? (If it’s possible to simulate reality as we know it then it’s more likely we exist within a simulation of some sort rather than the “prime” reality.)
It does not matter, any copy is still not you. The exact, let’s say down to the atom (and lets ignore if consciousness is emergent from atoms), copy of yourself can be created. It would be still a copy. It’s like taking the Mona Lisa painting and recreating it to 100% identical atom structure. It’s still a copy. So when you die, you die. You do not exist in the simulation, a new entity living with your identity in a different place.
Also if you had a copy of yourself, how is it aging? Because the atoms and your genetic is programmed to age. Do you change that in the program? If you do so, the copy of yourself is no longer a copy, so it cannot age.
If you want ignore these aspects, then there is another problem. When would the copy of yourself would be made? Just before you die? Then that state is what lives forever? Do you make multiple copies of yourself? Which one is you? Can all exist at the same time?
By that logic, “you” are not the person you were a nanosecond ago - you’ve physically changed over the course of time and all that exists on any possible timeline is merely a copy of the original - no?
Some argue that is true, but I don’t think so. Because aging and changing is part of myself. I am not a copy, it has changed, its part of the DNA to do it. A copy is not the same as the source has changed. To stick with the Mona Lisa painting, it also ages and changes, that is part of physics.
My argument is not about changing, but about copies. The copy is artificially created and in fact nothing prevents the copies and original to exist at the same time. The fact that both can coexist shows that the original is not the same as the copy, both have different experiences (from that point of creation). Both are independent entities living in different time and space. And that is with a 100% exact atomic structure copy, we are not even talking about consciousness or the brain (as we don’t know if this can be recreated by atoms), or even a digital representation created by an algorithm and fake atoms.
In the series Star Trek, when they get “beamed” up or down, what happens there? Digital representation of their data is sent via a wireless signal and recreated at that place. The original has to die in order to function this logically, but the fact is that the original have to die and disassembled. It’s no longer the original.
This is a question about real life and death, isn’t it? Not about the death inside a virtual reality. I’m a bit confused with the question. If that is the question, then there is no infinite time and resources. So one day everyone will die (according to our current knowledge of physics). I also don’t think that we can out live our death by copying something to digital representation. Because we are not “transported”, but die and make a copy, a new object. It is not the same atoms and composition, it is just a similar looking object interpreted and run by a different algorithm.
So when I die and a "perfect’ copy of my brain is uploaded to a server, then I’m dead. The copy of myself is just a program using my brain structure and memories to act like I would, but I’m dead, and this program is just a representation and interpretation of my intelligence – but it’s not me. Therefore it is not possible to live forever.
The question is “would” not “will”. It’s a conditional and a longer form of the question would’ve been something along the lines of “if it were realistically possible, would you like to live forever in an afterlife such as this?”
For me the answer is yes. I’d like to have the option to kill myself in case I ever get bored or whatever, but I’d still take it even if I had to risk an eternity of insanity.
If you understood my answer, then it is “Its not possible”. This is not about “realistically or theoretically”, it is impossible. So any copy of the information that builds you inside of a computer, is not you. Therefore the question doesn’t make sense. No one can live inside a computer. Edit: A comparison to that logic is Emulators and Roms. The games you play are (let’s say) a perfect recreation bitwise. But its no longer the original hardware. YOU are the hardware, the computer program with an algorithm is the ROM (a copy) of your information, but its not you.
You are already dead. What you want is, that the machine code representing you (which is not you) should have an option to be killed.
That’s not what is being asked. OP put right in the post “afterlife” as in. Nobody is copying you into a PC. The post assumes that an eternal afterlifr exists, and in that scenario (which is possible, we simply do not know) would you choose a game to lice in. Like if heaven/hell were minecraft, would that be something you would want?
That’s it. It’s not about uploading our minds in our current alive world.
That is being asked. I am talking that there is no afterlife if you copy yourself. The “afterlife” is meant to be “overcome the death” by cheating through copies. It’s not expressed with those words, but the logical application is a copy if we talk about this subject.
But that is the topic. It is about making an exact copy of yourself in a videogame (infinite game). I quote the article:
The word “copy” isn’t used in the article nor the op. You continue to engage in bad faith with a simple question instead of just answering it, for some reason. Imagine you could transfer your consciousness into a simulation like in Tron or whatever. That’s what they mean. Not a copy. But your actual self. Or if that’s too hard to accept, just think of a scenario where you’re the copy. You spawn into a world like that. What do you do? Do you play or do you just nope out?
Please read again. It is not possible to transfer consciousness into a simulation, without copying data. What does “transfer” mean if not copy? Also a simulation is an algorithm that describes how to simulate. In which case your copies genetic code, atoms and brain wouldn’t work without changing. Your body isn’t bits and bytes, it has to be converted into. And that happens while you are still there. So if anything of your mind and body is “transferred” to the simulation, it has to be copied and changed in order to integrate it.
To explain what that means with an analogy: Emulators and game ROMs are copies of the exact hardware. Roms would represent your bodies atoms genetic code. Then there is the environment side, the Emulators. Think of the entire simulation as the emulator, which has custom code to play back the games (you and the environment).
Also are you aware of Quantum Physics? It is impossible to measure everything with 100% accuracy and certainty. This is not a skill issue of us, this is how the universe works. So it is in fact physically impossible to create a 100% digital code of you. And even if it was, it wouldn’t be you.
You misunderstand. I understand everything you say. And you are correct, in the world in which we currently live as we currently understand it. However, the article and the question in op deals with imagination and fantasy.
To give you an example. If someone were to ask you “what would you do if you had a billion dollars?”. You would probably answer by saying something along the lines of “it is impossible for me to earn a billion dollars because x and y”. But that’s not the answer anyone wants when they ask that question. That’s what you’re doing right now. Not sure if you’re doing it to troll people or because you’re having issues with taking things too literally or some other reason. Either way, I’m done with this “conversation”. Have a nice day.
Oh now I’m a troll?
I brought up enough reasons why the question doesn’t make logical sense, not just if its possible or not. In fact, it seems like I’m the one who does not take it literally and answers the question in a different way as it was asked. Which is wrong? I explained why I can’t answer the question in any other way, because this is the only answer I can give, given the reasons. It does not have anything to do with imagining things or not, the question makes logically no sense.
It’s not like that I’m not allowed to discuss here and take the question as I want. No one have to respond to me if you do not want to discuss.
But what if you started as a simulated entity? (If it’s possible to simulate reality as we know it then it’s more likely we exist within a simulation of some sort rather than the “prime” reality.)
It does not matter, any copy is still not you. The exact, let’s say down to the atom (and lets ignore if consciousness is emergent from atoms), copy of yourself can be created. It would be still a copy. It’s like taking the Mona Lisa painting and recreating it to 100% identical atom structure. It’s still a copy. So when you die, you die. You do not exist in the simulation, a new entity living with your identity in a different place.
Also if you had a copy of yourself, how is it aging? Because the atoms and your genetic is programmed to age. Do you change that in the program? If you do so, the copy of yourself is no longer a copy, so it cannot age.
If you want ignore these aspects, then there is another problem. When would the copy of yourself would be made? Just before you die? Then that state is what lives forever? Do you make multiple copies of yourself? Which one is you? Can all exist at the same time?
By that logic, “you” are not the person you were a nanosecond ago - you’ve physically changed over the course of time and all that exists on any possible timeline is merely a copy of the original - no?
Some argue that is true, but I don’t think so. Because aging and changing is part of myself. I am not a copy, it has changed, its part of the DNA to do it. A copy is not the same as the source has changed. To stick with the Mona Lisa painting, it also ages and changes, that is part of physics.
My argument is not about changing, but about copies. The copy is artificially created and in fact nothing prevents the copies and original to exist at the same time. The fact that both can coexist shows that the original is not the same as the copy, both have different experiences (from that point of creation). Both are independent entities living in different time and space. And that is with a 100% exact atomic structure copy, we are not even talking about consciousness or the brain (as we don’t know if this can be recreated by atoms), or even a digital representation created by an algorithm and fake atoms.
In the series Star Trek, when they get “beamed” up or down, what happens there? Digital representation of their data is sent via a wireless signal and recreated at that place. The original has to die in order to function this logically, but the fact is that the original have to die and disassembled. It’s no longer the original.