DT: Cryonics or Cremation?
Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:38 am
Doubting Thomas,
Like time travel, the idea of personal immortality has some issues with logical consistency, namely in regards to what constitutes personal identity. Are you the same person you were when you were three years old? If your brain dies and gets brought back to life, is it really *you* that pops back out? In a teleportation experiment, as you are beamed up, are you killed, and the output a replica with a new sense of inner life or is it still you? Are you really the same person right now as you were ten minutes ago? If your brain could be scanned with such detail as to reproduce every last causal state perfectly, and then replicated either with an organic 3-d printer or in silicon, what would that mean?
I'm on the skeptical end of the spectrum of belief in a continuing person of myself, and so I don't have much belief in the possibility of a personal immortality, but I do think it's worth thinking through the implications if I'm wrong.
Imagine this, DT, it's the year 2075, a gunman walks into a public place and wreaks havoc, and as the police approach, he kills himself. But the brain can still be activated to a degree and probed for a motive. Why, even with today's technology, A.I. is powerful enough to reverse engineer language from brain scans to a simple degree and by looking at a scan, predict sentences. In the year 2175, the gunman could perhaps be brought back to life, or if not, his brain brought back -- plugged into a virtual reality. There is no need to ask direct questions, only stimulate the brain in such a fashion that it can be decrypted. And in 2275, the VR possibilities along with an anxious judicial system aren't satisfied with answers only, if the subject can be brought into a life-like VR, then it can be punished for its crimes. Imagine actually living through 12 consecutive life sentences because the brain can be maintained pretty well by machines.
If you are brought back by cryonics, whose to say you won't be awakened by the enemy, who wishes to extract what you know or torture you for the sake of your nationality? Think of the #metoo movement. thirty years ago, what was socially tolerated was different than today, but for better or for worse, social media and technology can reach farther back in time than anyone would have suspected and bring misdeeds to the light of day. Imagine the strict standards society can be held to when brain scans are available to investigate. Well, here you are, brought back hundreds of years later, and society is appalled by the thoughts running through your head that are very easy to read now, and at once you are brought to trial for off-color fantasies or shameful political leanings. The punishments can last a very, very long time.
If cryonics can preserve you, then is it possible that those who are died and buried could still be brought back as long as the brain hasn't deteriorated too much? As Sam Harris, Elon Musk, and many positivist futurists believe, A.I. is a real threat to the human species. And the bad thing is that somewhat like the race to the A-bomb, there's the race to the A.I. singularity. It's a prisoner's dilemma. Even though the outcome is probably worse for all of humanity, if we don't win the race, perhaps Russia wins. That could be hell on earth for the living. But imagine if an army of robots can comb graveyards and bring many of the dead back for VR interrogation and perhaps torture or punishment?
Whether it's by cryonics, a not-quite decomposed brain, or by a brain scan that holds enough information to restore you, at a certain technological point, a real hell for all eternity or for at least hundreds or thousands of years is really on the table. The possibility is far greater, I would say, than a future civilization that wishes to bring people back to share resources with them and give them bliss.
So unlike you, even though I believe a continuing self that spans multiple lifetimes is a pipe dream, I could be wrong, and the stakes are very high if I am, and so I am thinking about cremation, just to be sure my brain and my mind can never be recovered and submitted to a future rule of law or punishment at the hands of an enemy.
Like time travel, the idea of personal immortality has some issues with logical consistency, namely in regards to what constitutes personal identity. Are you the same person you were when you were three years old? If your brain dies and gets brought back to life, is it really *you* that pops back out? In a teleportation experiment, as you are beamed up, are you killed, and the output a replica with a new sense of inner life or is it still you? Are you really the same person right now as you were ten minutes ago? If your brain could be scanned with such detail as to reproduce every last causal state perfectly, and then replicated either with an organic 3-d printer or in silicon, what would that mean?
I'm on the skeptical end of the spectrum of belief in a continuing person of myself, and so I don't have much belief in the possibility of a personal immortality, but I do think it's worth thinking through the implications if I'm wrong.
Imagine this, DT, it's the year 2075, a gunman walks into a public place and wreaks havoc, and as the police approach, he kills himself. But the brain can still be activated to a degree and probed for a motive. Why, even with today's technology, A.I. is powerful enough to reverse engineer language from brain scans to a simple degree and by looking at a scan, predict sentences. In the year 2175, the gunman could perhaps be brought back to life, or if not, his brain brought back -- plugged into a virtual reality. There is no need to ask direct questions, only stimulate the brain in such a fashion that it can be decrypted. And in 2275, the VR possibilities along with an anxious judicial system aren't satisfied with answers only, if the subject can be brought into a life-like VR, then it can be punished for its crimes. Imagine actually living through 12 consecutive life sentences because the brain can be maintained pretty well by machines.
If you are brought back by cryonics, whose to say you won't be awakened by the enemy, who wishes to extract what you know or torture you for the sake of your nationality? Think of the #metoo movement. thirty years ago, what was socially tolerated was different than today, but for better or for worse, social media and technology can reach farther back in time than anyone would have suspected and bring misdeeds to the light of day. Imagine the strict standards society can be held to when brain scans are available to investigate. Well, here you are, brought back hundreds of years later, and society is appalled by the thoughts running through your head that are very easy to read now, and at once you are brought to trial for off-color fantasies or shameful political leanings. The punishments can last a very, very long time.
If cryonics can preserve you, then is it possible that those who are died and buried could still be brought back as long as the brain hasn't deteriorated too much? As Sam Harris, Elon Musk, and many positivist futurists believe, A.I. is a real threat to the human species. And the bad thing is that somewhat like the race to the A-bomb, there's the race to the A.I. singularity. It's a prisoner's dilemma. Even though the outcome is probably worse for all of humanity, if we don't win the race, perhaps Russia wins. That could be hell on earth for the living. But imagine if an army of robots can comb graveyards and bring many of the dead back for VR interrogation and perhaps torture or punishment?
Whether it's by cryonics, a not-quite decomposed brain, or by a brain scan that holds enough information to restore you, at a certain technological point, a real hell for all eternity or for at least hundreds or thousands of years is really on the table. The possibility is far greater, I would say, than a future civilization that wishes to bring people back to share resources with them and give them bliss.
So unlike you, even though I believe a continuing self that spans multiple lifetimes is a pipe dream, I could be wrong, and the stakes are very high if I am, and so I am thinking about cremation, just to be sure my brain and my mind can never be recovered and submitted to a future rule of law or punishment at the hands of an enemy.
