An Artificial Afterlife

If one day man kind created an artificial afterlife in which your consciousness was uploaded to just before you died.... Would you support such a thing? Also, who would determine who gets to be in this afterlife and who would decide the ones to keep out...

 

Well, the problem with that is the fact that eventually there's gonna be too many people on the planet because suddenly nobody's dying.
Personally I wouldn't mind living a few extra years.. but 700 years ala Zeratul? neh, way too much time.

 

No no.. the afterlife would be like a computer that you upload your consciousness into it. Meaning once its done you live inside a virtual afterlife, and you can never get out.

 

Why? It's not real. And why would you never want to quit or get out?

 

How is it not real? You just live without your real body which you can immitate in the virtual reality. You can communicate with other people who are still alive and such. Imagine Einstein or Planck could continue their theoretical research forever unlimited by their age.

It is hard to tell though. I would have to if it became economicaly feasable to upload everone on the planet. But all people have the right to end their life if they so choose.

 

Jshep said that you can never get out in his idea.

That's the choice you have to make.

 

sounds like a good afterlife to me. Eventually the sun will blow or the universe will die heat-death, so it isnt forever.

 

Or it will fail during a patch or something.

 

You could always have them delete your files.

 

What about viruses and someones is concious is "dirty"?

 

You could always seperate those ppl. Put them in a prison, where they would have to work it off or something.

 

Seeing how the consciousness is a collective of electrical impulses within the mind, this is impossible without the ability to create a mechanical brain. At that point, it would simply be easier to go on living with an artificial body. The consciousness is too dependent on the body to last for long without it.

If by "consciousness" you are referring to the "eternal soul" described by some religions, then by all means find a way to prove it's existence, measure it, and translate it in to a substance that can be read by a computer. In that case, it would be too easy to hack: A dead, rich man wants _____ in the artificial afterlife. A living hacker wants money. Dead rich man pays living hacker to get _____.

 

Impossible is a very over used term... I mean considering the things we can now accomplish with science that were once perceived as impossible proves that nothing is. It's simply a matter of time before we could find a way to do it. However that is a discussion for another topic entirely.

This is just for imaginary purposes.
In any case the choice would be made on your death bed.. Do you want to simply die and see what if anything lies beyond death, or take a more certain route have your consciousness uploaded to this artificial afterlife. Think if a corporation got a hold of this? What would people have to pay in order to have the luxury of an eternal afterlife?

 

I think it would be interesting if several corporations began their own artificial afterlife products. The competition would increase quality and diversity, but decrease cost. Personalized afterlife, anyone?

 

All this is becoming a bit to Matrix-ish for my taste.
Can't we do the Asgard thing and live in cloned bodies?

 

I think it was an alternative to before we figure out cloning.

Though I believe we'll have cloning down way before something like that.

 

"We" actually have cloned plenty of stuff already. It just dies quickly. Wouldn't even be surprised if some shady company already cloned a human. I mean, like anybody will stop a scientist from doing that in some third world country.

The problem is that nobody has a clue to how exactly the brain works. You can't hope to transfer it somehow, without even knowing what you're doing. :/

 

Saw a thing on the Discovery Channel where people can essentially clone body organs from HUMANS and use them for transplants safely. They were doing things like Kidneys, Hearts, Livers, and Spleens I believe. It was REALLY neat to see.

 

An artificial afterlife?

You just pretty much explained the movie "Vanilla Sky." Crappy movie...
If this afterlife is digitally made, it's susceptible to errors and viruses screwing up your whole afterlife for an eternity. So I'd say no.

As for this cloning stuff, some guy is working on actually growing limbs naturally. Saw it on the science channel, pretty cool stuff. Along with the contact lens computer ^^

 

Well there is a few options for an artificial afterlife.

1. Your head in a jar - Futurama style
2. Have your corpse and dead organs transplanted into a metal exoskeleton - liek Alex Murpy - robocop
3. Get turned into a T-800 like in Terminator salvation

Well you get the picture. Not what the original poster was talking about but that is one way.
I dunno about the way the original poster was talking about. Aftyer you got over the initial shock of it I think you'd be ok. Until you got sick of your metal body and wanted to be human again. Kind of like the movie Bicentinneal man.

But living for 1000 years ala protoss would suck. People do things fast, research, work, everything cause if you wait too long you die before you get to do things. For us you got 100 years. But for this you'd have 1000 years maybe more. So there'd be no rush and nothing would happen and you'd have so many boring sunday afternoons to sit and think about it. And eternity to do nothing and just sit down and think about it all. That sounds like someone doing time. Not the best experience if you ask me.