Would you become a cyborg?

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DarthKermit

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#1396822 29-Sep-2015 20:35

Yeah but then you'd get into a pissing contest of Android cyborgs vs. Apple cyborgs!

Linuxluver

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#1396935 29-Sep-2015 21:55

JWR:
Linuxluver:
mdf: I'm a sci-fi fan - probably not the only one on these forums. I've just been reading a series which I won't name (spoilers) where one of the main themes is the antagonists have "given up their humanity" by embracing technology and turning themselves into cyborgs - neural shunts, robotic prostheses, deformed biological bodies etc. The story's protagonists spend some time thinking how horrible it all is. It's not a unique theme (Dune certainly springs to mind).

Personally though I had far more sympathy for the antagonists. I'd be one of the first in the line to sign up for cyborgification which sounded like a totally practical (and awesome) solution to the issues facing the antagonists.

Am I weird in thinking this way? Would you install robotics in yourself? Where do you draw the line of acceptable "enhancement"?

I'd rather digitise my consciousness and make a thousand (10,000?) copies - connecting them all (even if only by email or Twitter) and then fire them off toward a thousand different star systems. Might take 1,000 years to get there. Don't care. I'm sleeping. Once you're freed from the biological need, you can walk freely on an airless planet at 200C.....and never need to sleep...or eat.

Sign me up.

Why stop at 10,00?

With 100-200 million years you could cross the galaxy

If you replicated every now and then, you would only 40 or so generations to create enough copies to visit every star in the galaxy.

Another 100,000 years to get all the info. back and write your book.

Exactly. :-)

Maybe one day our biological reproductive phase will be the human "larval" phase....and we graduate to full adulthood at about 65 or 70 when we become digitally immortal. Of course we could always load ours back into a biological body to have all the experiences that can afford.....but I'd want a body about 25yo - male or female....on't really care. Would be fun to be both at one time or another.

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I've been on Geekzone over 16 years..... Time flies....

Rikkitic

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#1396953 29-Sep-2015 22:21

Would you become a human? Long ago Isaac Asimov wrote about a robot that gave up immortality and all the perks of being a machine to transform itself into an inefficient, biological metabolising, vulnerable organic lifeform in order to experience the emotions and sensations that go with that. I think all of you are vastly undervaluing the gifts of two million years of evolution.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Linuxluver

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#1396964 29-Sep-2015 22:35

Rikkitic: ... Of course we have Google, which as we all know never makes software errors. I wonder when the first driverless car will take its passengers over a cliff?

Or the CIA / other-bad-guys use the back door Google was compelled to secretly provide the US government to order the car to drive its 'problematic' occupant into the front of an oncoming truck.....

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JWR

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#1397002 30-Sep-2015 01:43

Rikkitic: Would you become a human? Long ago Isaac Asimov wrote about a robot that gave up immortality and all the perks of being a machine to transform itself into an inefficient, biological metabolising, vulnerable organic lifeform in order to experience the emotions and sensations that go with that. I think all of you are vastly undervaluing the gifts of two million years of evolution.

There aren't any gifts from Evolution. There is no care. There is no plan. It is just a process.

I can understand why people think there might be some gifts in mortality.

It is a delusion that makes aging and death more acceptable.

Some day in the future, we will end. For most us it won't be very pleasant. It is a terrible thing to look forward to.

I think they will extend the human biological lifetime and health far beyond what is now. Perhaps hundreds of years. If a whale or tortoise can live for a couple of hundred years, then maybe science can crack that code.

Eventually, I think there will be a complete and consistent model of the brain and uploading consciousness will be possible.

Then thousands, millions, perhaps billions of years of life would be possible.

MikeAqua

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#1397147 30-Sep-2015 10:40

Apple will require a cloud connection to iLocomotion for your iLegs to work, but iLocomotion won't support you unless you upgrade to the latest OS, which will make you walk really slow.

You will then have to jailbreak yourself to make it anywhere on time.

BlueShift:
MikeAqua: Hell No!

It would all be downhill after the third firmware upgrade.

And the manufacturer would eventually stop supporting my model.

Buy from Apple - they have a longer support cycle. But your iEyes will cost more and not be upgradeable...

Mike

Rikkitic

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#1397240 30-Sep-2015 11:37

JWR:
Rikkitic: Would you become a human? Long ago Isaac Asimov wrote about a robot that gave up immortality and all the perks of being a machine to transform itself into an inefficient, biological metabolising, vulnerable organic lifeform in order to experience the emotions and sensations that go with that. I think all of you are vastly undervaluing the gifts of two million years of evolution.

There aren't any gifts from Evolution. There is no care. There is no plan. It is just a process.

I was using the word figuratively but it still fits. The point I have been trying to make, which no-one here seems to get, is that I believe the mind/body dichotomy does not actually exist. It may well be possible at some point to have a living brain without a body, or vice-versa, but I think when that happens it will do something to the 'humanness' of the individual. Healthy people with intact bodies have a very intimate connection with their physical selves. There is a joy in the physical, a sense of feeling whole and attractive and sexy. If you take all that away, what happens to the personality that is left? I don't doubt someone like Stephen Hawking would welcome a fully-functional mechanical replacement, and it would be infinitely better than what he has now, but I don't think it would 'feel' as good as the real thing and I question if many people who have the real thing really would be so eager to make the swap. Fantasising about being a super-hero is one thing, but if you are given a body that feels radically different or provides feedback in completely new ways, what effect would this have on your mental state? Could you cope with it or would it overwhelm you? Would emotion still matter to you? Would you be able to feel love? And if your cognitive capacity dramatically increased, would that just make you smarter and quicker, or would it drive you insane? These are real questions and I am not certain of the answers. It is easy to be dazzled by the thought of walking in your super-body on alien planets, but what happens to your soul if you can no longer feel the wind in your hair? I think people here are being too seduced by the notion of superior senses and powers, without really thinking through the consequences. The amputee who was given a new hand, but came to regard it as an alien thing and finally had it amputated again, provides a cautionary example to those who want to rush out and have their parts replaced. Of course this is not quite the same thing, but it still makes an important point. There are reasons why our biology is the way it is.

Not that any of it matters. All this will happen one day and then we will know.

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gzt

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#1397911 1-Oct-2015 12:35

I think i already agreed to this in the Windows 10 evaluation EULA.

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