9 replies to this topic

[FieldMarshal]

Do you think animals qualify as being conscious, sentient beings? We often talk about how death is a void of nothing, but what about spending the rest of your life as an animal? It would be unthinkable to live without things like language or normal cognition, and to me in a way tantamount to death. I think this shows human consciousness is only self-affirming and through technology, humans, the most complex and consciously developed creatures as of the present due to evolution, will use technology to develop machines that will help them simulate reality through a computer to live their life virtually however they want to, in a sense becoming God. Consciousness has developed greatly, from lifeless matter to single-celled organisms, to animals to humans, reaching a higher and higher level each time until humans learn to manipulate their enviorment to such an extent to redefine reality.

Also, do you think it is our moral obligation to resurrect the dead who were to unfortunate by accident of birth to reach our tech utopia? This could be done by copying their brain states and putting them into a human body to achieve an infinite afterlife.

We at the Immortality Institute should make an oath to each other to ressurect each other so that in case we die we won't miss out on the opportunity to live forever in our utopia. Our children will carry on the cause, and if not them our children's children, so that this utopia is inevitable because it is the only cause that ultimately defines their lives and ours. If so, eternal life is our destiny

[vyntager]

Also, do you think it is our moral obligation to resurrect the dead who were to unfortunate by accident of birth to reach our tech utopia? This could be done by copying their brain states and putting them into a human body to achieve an infinite afterlife.

It is too early to answer that question. I'd tend to say yes, but then what about not just resurrecting those who existed and died, but also enabling existence for all those who could have existed, but never did in the real history ? Those potential people are just as human as those who died, they could just as much benefit from existing.

Besides, it is not clear exactly how much computational power you'd need to "resurrect" those who died. If they were cryonically frozen, that might be easier than if they were not.

Even barring that, if they left information about them (writings, people who knew them, etc.) behind them, then it may just be possible to pull them back from the space of all possible human beings, having clues enabling us to narrow our search in that space (though that may not be enough to bring back anything but the set of all people who could have generated that information; whether any person pertaining to that set is by definition "you", or similar enough to you to be yourself, is an interesting question).

Finally, and other than that, how do you recover someone who's suffered information-theoretic death, other than by resimulating all possible human beings ? That would be huge, and maybe impossible to perform, except in under some very peculiar and dubiously possible circumstances (for instance, Tipler's omega point).

We at the Immortality Institute should make an oath to each other to ressurect each other so that in case we die we won't miss out on the opportunity to live forever in our utopia.

But how ? I may well be benevolent and willing to resurrect you, if you don't leave enough information behind you, either in the form of a well preserved body (or at least brain), or any other sufficient mass of information, you're dead for good. I'm pretty sure that if there's something such as the singularity, there'll be at least a few benevolent posthuman souls who'll be more than willing to bring back the dead, regardless of whether they made an oath or not for that matter. But they can't pull you back out of thin air
Think about it, really, if you are willing to secure your future.

[forever freedom]

I'm sorry and not nearly as altruistic and idealistic as you are FieldMarshal


As beautiful as it all sounds like bringing deceased people back to life it's all too complicated it would probably involve time travel and other stuff like that... Whoever is fortunate enough to achieve biological immortality, good for them; the others that came before are probably lost, which is why WE have to work as hard as we can to make biological immorality it come true as soon as possible instead of leaving it to next generations believing that they will be benevolent to the ones that came before them.

[Brafarality]

Animals are definitely conscious.
It is wholly obvious, imho, of course.

The religious and scientific opposition appears to be mostly accumulated rationale for exploitation and separation more than anything else, though such a sweeping dismissal is poor debate form, I know.
We have a cat, Fee Fee, and, when my beloved is at work, I hang with the kitty kat in such an informal, chill out, primordial way that I, like most other pet owners, swear that my pet is not a soulless automaton, but a sentient being.

Just my very subjective 2 cents.

[Luna]

My cat recognizes her voice and learnt that when I tell her come, it means I want her to come.
She might come and purr, no need for food or any treat for that.
She might be distracted and keep playing.

She responds to my feeling, she responds to the enviroment.
She adapts, she learns, she changes.

Yes, she is a conscious, sentient being.

[Brafarality]

My cat recognizes her voice and learnt that when I tell her come, it means I want her to come.
She might come and purr, no need for food or any treat for that.
She might be distracted and keep playing.

She responds to my feeling, she responds to the enviroment.
She adapts, she learns, she changes.

Yes, she is a conscious, sentient being.

You're setting yourself up for The Turing Test or something similar applied to animals!
Stand firm.

[anderl]

are animals conscious or sentient? Well we are getting into an argument on syntax of those words. I feel that a state of consciousness or sentients is the ability to be self aware. That the individual self is apart from the objects and patterns around it. That 'I' am not the earth, or the tree or the predator stalking me or the prey that I seek. That the arm that I possess is an extension of myself. This awareness of these objects is just the ability to create mental models. Its raw processing power. The reason we have that extra layers of cerebral cortex that other animals don't have.

That extra layer simply allows us to create more complex models. Artists and philosophers like to use broad brush strokes and try to paint some kind of metaphysical concepts around it, call it the mind, a soul, or sentience, but for what it is worth its a collection of neurons that fire off in an optimized pattern that has served us well in the past and with each successive repetition reinforces that pattern on our consciousness.

So if we model the entire infrastructure that is the individual brain then effectively that brain should mimic the same thought patterns that the original individual has. It is effectively the twin. It is not you but it will think its you with all the same knowledge and skills, and will react in all probability the same way you would react. But as the brain is plastic the two will deviate as their environment, and their reactions to it will differ. Even something as having a different viewpoint of the same room will stimulate their senses differently.

So I believe that consciousness can easily be created with every copy they make. But it will be a copy unless they reroute or replace each of your neurons with an equally powerful artificial one and retain the same connection priorities between them. Your consciousness will still be relatively intact, but your personality and memories might be a little ummmm.... off.

[Cyberbrain]

Answer:

[Heliotrope]

to fieldmarshal, we at imminst could make some sort of oath to each other, a SACRED OATH OF MUTUAL SURVIVAL to all members so if the elderly imminst members should die before biological immortality, then we can do our best to save them or resurrect them. most of them probably gonna choose cryonics anyway. if there are financial concerns or things like that, we can help each other out, and prevent governments like the AZ congress's attempt to regulate Alcor as graveyard or "thaw patients', then when technology is available, make sure our friends are revived if the imminst members don't have families or their children don't want to. Can't always depend on descendents to revive us if it comes to that , after enough generations, who wants to revive Great Great Great great great grandpa only to have Him take a piece of the pie and then their inheritance money?

as for resurrecting the general population, remember 99% of them are kinda against imminst's views and if we resurrect them, it may not only be a waste of resources to resurrect people who did not want to live forever, but how are we gonna do it? they'd be buried in graves , eaten by worms etc. If they get resurrected against their wills, they may even consider suicide again, but unlikely since they'd have realized there was no heavenly kingdom like they imagined.

Edited by HYP86, 01 July 2008 - 12:25 AM.

[peterh78]

I would also agree that animals are consient beings on their own - they also have their own language and feelings.
Bringing the deceased back is of course something that should be tried at some point in the future. At the moment of course this is still utopia. However, I think that through that many problems will arise. Who is worth being resurrected? Who is not? Who decides on these matters?
It is a very morally challanging topic!