Elon Musk: "AI is akin to Summoning the Demon"

Unwritten Pages said:

Kurweil says we will be immortal because the singularity (digital mind) is near .

No need for heavens you can upload your mind and store it digitally as soon as 2100.

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Unless some one forgets to pay the electric bill...

...and even then, supposing the unlimited energy required to power such a digital mind storing machine for eternity to escape the need for a theoretical heaven...wouldn't that uploaded mind just be a copy...mightn't one still be rotting in the theoretical hell or whatever no matter the state of the copy?

benbradley said:

Google wanting to store the DNA of everyone is a thing:
http://rt.com/news/203463-google-store-human-genome/

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Google can have my DNA over my cold, dead body...oh, wait...

Unwritten Pages said:

All I need now is a powerful enough quantum computer, with a powerful enough three dimensional printer, which can download my Mind and my DNA off the Internet and print me out into a hard copy.

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It will still just be a copy of you...the original you will still await whatever fate awaits us all...be it oblivion, eternal paradise, damnation, reincarnation, or what have you.

Downloading minds is a false hope...the illusion of immortality.

benbradley said:

So what happens to the copy if it gets killed? Does it go to some "fake human limbo?"

This is the "what is a soul and where is it" question that is so effectively asked in "The Mind's I." The subtitle/tagline is "Is the soul greater than the hum of its parts?"

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I would argue that no matter the fate of the copy, soul or no, it is irrelevant to the fate of the original. Any arguments would be tangential to my larger point. That said, since you are my friend, my dear Bradley (er, um Ben, sorry, still getting the hang of the new avatar) I would point out that that the copy's soul...assuming for a moment...the existence of souls (which we are in no position to fully accept)...would go wherever its own actions, upon its existence would lead it. It would seem cruel of some hyper-dimensional Saint Peter to convict such a being on the sins based on behavior it had no volition in. Further, to combat the ever-present specter of such a being having been shaped so much through nurture and circumstance belonging to the original, another interesting course of speculation begins. A solution to this problem can be seen in two possibilities: 1) The being knows of its status as a copy and this knowledge changes its behavior in fundamental ways, or 2) Much like the suckers who utilize the transporters in Star Trek, who for some reason don't ever realize that their originals are destroyed in the beginning of their first trip, and from then on they are mere copies created out of such handy elements at their destination, and that, in fact, the Enterprise and all Star Fleet ships are full of copies of copies of long dead people...an existential tragedy if ever there was one, they may never realize their copy status and continue on as ever before....thereby reaping the same fate, more or less as their original (providing once again the reality of the soul, not only for the original, but for the copy as well).

I've never read The Mind's I, but it is on my list. I'll move it up a bit. But, taking the oppositional point for sake of argument: research, and it is indeed as preliminary as such research can be, by Dr. Rick Strassman, with whom I've had the pleasure of sharing a few email conversations...hints (and that is the strongest word we can use in any sense here) that the answer the question of "where is the soul?" is a rather simple one: The soul itself is a hyper-dimensional construct that resides in the body of all living creatures through chemical interfaces...in most vertebrates the primary interface is most likely the pineal gland, which is the source of endogenous DMT, or as Strassman has dubbed it in his book on the same subject, the Spirit Molecule.

Elementary, my dear Ben Bradley...

Zoombie said:

...and?

Forgive a bit of ego, but I believe my mind and personality make the universe a better place. I've worked quite hard at it! Even IF I bought that humans have a soul (and I don't, at least, not with the current evidence that has been presented to me), how does that change the fact that a copy of me would still, in a way, be like me.

Yes, that me might not be me me, but it is still related to me. And if infinity - whether it is infinite nothingness or infinite afterlife - is waiting for me me, then the knowledge that me beta being around would be comforting before I turn out the lights.

EDIT: Also, don't you know, we only live for 8 hours anyway.

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Whatever floats your boat. My goal in this life is to make contributions and differences to the world that will outlive me, I'm not so awesome that I need more time to get that done. Heck, with infinite time, comes infinite procrastination...or at least, for me, it would. I'd be like, ah crap...I think I'll sleep in and let my copy write my next book...

And as I said, in the end...you'll still face oblivion...you won't even get the satisfaction of knowing your copy is out there making the world a better (or worse) place...and then what's to stop hackers from fundamentally altering your copy?