Upload Your Mind to a Robot and 'Live' Forever

Suppose you could duplicate a person's entire body making a perfect copy, as in a Star Trek transporter. The copy would have all the same memories up to the moment of duplication as the original.

If the first person dies, the copy can take his place, and to other people on the outside, this person is still alive. (Sort of like celebrities on TV that are no longer alive still seem alive on TV).

But if I were the first person, I would not consider this immortality.

How about a clone with a neural upload....

I think nature (call it God, if you prefer) has done a pretty good job of developing processes whereby organisms very slowly improve (become more successful at whatever it is that the organism attempts to accomplish, including preservation of the species) over long periods of time, and part of that process is discarding earlier versions of the organism.

Although mankind is arguably the pinnacle of that process (some more than others), at least here on Earth, I hardly believe any man or woman is perfect (the ones I see as closest to perfection are probably NOT the same ones that you see similarly, and the ones I saw as close as possible to perfection 20 or 50 years ago are commonly no longer in that category). Thus there is still room for improvement, which includes discarding the earlier versions, including this one (me).

I've lived through absolutely incredible technological development, and contributed at least a little to it, over the last 3/4 of a century, and hope to continue a while longer, but to wish for immortality seems to me the pinnacle of arrogance.

On the other hand, it is a real tragedy that the knowledge and experience of a lifetime is suddenly and totally lost when a clever person dies. I do hope (and am beginning to believe) that some day it will be possible to "download" the contents of such a person's brain to some kind of a searchable database. On the other hand, I'm virtually certain that all of us have some things we'd rather NOT have others know, so there needs to be some kind of a filter used in that downloading process.

Yes this at first blush seems to be sound reasoning....I would add that as we age each day becomes a smaller percentage of the time contained in our memories, to us it seems that time starts to pass faster, but this is an illusion, as such it would seem to me that after a couple of hundred years that the ability to relate meaningfully to someone of say 30 or 40 years of age would be like a teenager and a 60 something trying to relate now, times about 3....Then you have the problem of constant change and trying to keep up, at some point most of your wisdom becomes dated and more difficult to relate, your entire way of life is in danger of becoming obsolete and superfluous, your explanations become longer and more stories of how it use to be, rather than knowledgeable relevant dissertations....I believe what you propose is already available through google and Wikipedia and the world wide web of endless and constantly updating information....better to live well and die appropriately...to live forever is another of those romantic notions that seem like it would be great, but the reality I'm afraid would be quite different than imagined....

Totally agree, and if you are interested in exploring more of how that life would look there's a good movie called The Man From Earth. I know I watched it on Netflix a few years ago. Hopefully it's still there.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/517822

Not to hijack, but two questions for those who read this thread:

There is a SF story about an alien artifact on the Moon, but anyone who enters dies. So they use something like a transporter to make copies of people to go in. Trouble starts when one of the copies lives. Anyone remember the name of this story?

Another SF story included putting the personality of a loved one in a small cube, and a space traveler could experience and converse with this ersatz person. What was that story?

First - the way things are going with accidents, injuries, law suits , and such, I doubt there will be a "little league" by the time of you grandkids' grandkids. Sports will be too dangerous for youth and too much of a liability for any community to support.

Now to the point of this post. What about the dark suppressed desires most harbor, but control? What will become of them if the individual is transferred and suddenly feels some what invincible in a mechanical device? Will such a person then act on such repressed desires with potential dire consequences? Or what if the desire is for another being, and now the mechanical device one is transferred to can not act on such, ever. Will said being then be distraught forever? Would this be a good extension of life? There are many unknown psychological problems to consider on such a plan. (I see some good sci fi plots here - the kind Rod Sirling enjoyed)

Oh, I recommend the movie Ex Machina for an ominous take on AI.

Even if it were possible to "map" the your mind somehow into another medium than "your brain", (somehow porting the software to new hardware), why would you assume that "you" would just go to sleep and wake up living in the new machine? What if two copies were made or a hundred? Would your "consciousness" wake up in multiple places? I would think it would be more likely there would be multiple copies of "you", identical twins.

It seems that whatever is happening inside the brain, it not only involves the strength of the connections between brain cells but also a dynamic condition of circulating neural circuits. It has to stay powered up to continue working, somewhat like a computer with no static memory. As far as I know, nobody presently has a clue how a brain can be conscious or what consciousness is.

I think it's a crazy idea, but it's his money.