The thought of this "machine immortality" as such, the whole "uploaded conciousness" deal has always looked and appealed to me. Growing up I often looked at the stars and the Moon and craved to explore them, to see what the future holds for humanity, to see the universe, to walk upon another planets surface. When I learnt about things like this, that one day we could surpass the limits of human timescale, age, and latterly death, it seemed amazing. It seemed to be exactly what I dreamed of. But I think I just had an epitome. Reading this article, I saw the line "one of his novels lays out how humans might 'transcend biology.'" You know what that did to me? It filled me with a nameless dread. It made me sad. I'm suddenly thinking of myself. Myself as a living sack of organs. I was thinking how if tomorrow I uploaded my conciousness, what would I miss? The smell of my dog, the skin on a woman's back, sex, the tastes of food, the scent of the sea air tumbling onto shore, the awe of watching my eyes focus on a million starpoints. Holy shit. If I was an uploaded conciousness, would I be human? Sure, in time I could be mechanised. Made to feel human. To be able to sense touch. To sense smell. To sense. But would I be a man anymore? I know this may sound stupid, and I might have it all wrong. But I read that and felt some sort of immeasurable fear. Primal instinct. A need to protect my genes. I read those words and I think I felt the tug of my soul.
But what if your senses could be perfectly reproduced within the digital environment? Imagine if you couldn't tell the difference between real life and the digital simulation.
It's confusing, and I suppose the truth is you couldn't tell the difference, but there's something about abandoning a biological body, my body, that seems so odd and distant to me. The concept still amazes me, and I'd love to see it in my lifetime. Perhaps when I'm old and feeble I would do this. Have years of experience living and then moving onto another "life" as such. Another experience.
Yeah, but Kurzweil has always been a little over-gonzo for the Singularity (and I say this owning ~$18k worth of products with his name on them). Jeron Lanier argues in You Are Not A Gadget that leftist technophiles are as absolutely batshit irrational about the Singularity as right-wing fundies are about the Rapture. There's a lot in common, that's for damn sure. Shit, I'm gonna post that.
My first introduction to Kurzweil was through you mentioning that if your house burned down you would grab your Kurzweil k2500xs. I also recall that the case that the 2500XS should be in is holding old photographs. Right? Every time I hear the name Kurzweil I can't help but get that damn house burning down song in my head. Bought my wife the Singularity is Near as one of her Christmas gifts: I've never read it and plan on jumping in to it... now.
77 day later followup:
One of my debate captains was talking about a round she had where her opponent carded (took evidence from) Kurzweil. She was pushing a progressive (non-traditional) argument that since eventually humans won't be able feel a true sense of accomplishment/loss/morality, there is no right or wrong. I thought it was really interesting. You see all kinds of people pop up as evidence for debate cases.. Noam Chomsky, Stalin, and a whole plethora of nameless individuals. It really is an intellectual's sport.. If you can get past the fact that it's glorified confirmation bias. At least you're forced to use confirmation bias on both sides, so I guess that balances it out and makes it 'open-minded'. Oh, and if you can get past how scarily competitive it is. I swear, none of the integrity of socratic/forensic debate is left because it's all about the scholarships or trophies. I guess that happens with any school sport though..
What if the end goal turns out to be an entire human consciousness? Say that we as a human society lost all semblance of what we see now as individuality and gained a greater sense of being. For example we would feel the thoughts of others and would be joined for the same causes. It would be like a computer based hive-mind idea. I think this is a way for society to stop fighting and gain much. This is all science fiction of course. But what would you think if things began turning that way?
Here's my controversial opinion that I didn't feel like posting in the more relevant thread: It is detrimental to society for old human minds to be preserved. History is lost with the elderly, but most science and technology fields move forward by bringing in new talent and ideas.
The obstacles of biological minds that are the reasons why old minds are so useless wouldn't exist though. The only reason why that happens anyways is some of several causes, all of which wouldn't exist if we go beyond flesh. Space: the human brain is roughly 4tb (forgot source, I'm sure a quick google will bring one up). As machines, that'd be completely upgradable, and not a problem. Really, the only viable second detriment is diseases like Schizophrenia. The human mind is naturally imperfect. If a HUMAN were immortal, they'd go mad. Get some terrible OCD, whatever. Living eternal life wouldn't drive a conscious robot mad. At this point though, the question isn't really "would this work?" but instead it's "Is this still us then? Are we still 'humans'?"
This is unrelated to my original point, but... A quick search found this, though it'd be disingenuous to say that neuron connections represent storage space. On one hand, there is plenty of space to store information within the biological contents of each neuron (Receptor count, exoskeleton structure, etc), all of which represent state information and affect each neuron's function. On the other, scientists still don't have much clue what information is redundant and what is essential. I'd take 4 terabytes with a grain of salt. The rest of your comment is just philosophy and speculations, neither of which I'm interested in discussing at this moment...Space: the human brain is roughly 4tb (forgot source, I'm sure a quick google will bring one up).
Huh, maybe I'm wrong. Nonetheless the human brain is imperfect in the way we don't have absolute control over it. You can't willingly think "Man, this right here is perfect. I want to remember this exact scene perfectly." We've almost got our own AI, that deletes what it thinks it doesn't need (as deemed by evolution) and remembers what it thinks is key to our survival and success in reproduction (as deemed by evolution). How cool would it be to truly access the full potential and functionality of every bit of our brain the way we can manipulate the root files of a computer? Again though, are we still 'us' if we can do that?
What you think of as an "old human mind" won't be preserved. After the singularity minds will have merged with technology and many (if not most) consciousness will be on a completely technological substrate. Minds will not develop in the same way as current biological human minds. Also, it is pointless to graph these future developments on how our current economy operates (i.e., the young replacing the old and bringing new ideas/talent, etc.). The economy will have dramatically changed as a result of these developments. What is important is understanding how it will change, and how we will individually be effected by these changes.