EVE General Discussion

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/8510190/invest-in-immortality-billionaire

According to the link above, a Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov a 31 year old media mogul is gathering funds for the research of cybernetic immortality and the artificial body - basically transfering human consciousness into a robot body.

As follows:
1.Hello Cyborg
2.Hello HAL
3.Hello Cortana

4.Hello Kitty Sry cant resist

Serious discussion: Do we really need to waste resources on this enterprise at a time of uncertainty and increasing severity of environmental disasters?

I can understand the desire for people like him, an oligarch, to live comfortably like kings forever. However he is detached from the reality at the ground level that the working people the majority of population are sick and tired of constantly toiling and working and even dying to earn a living, the prospect of working longer even forever would upset majority of them, even if the argument that living longer means better quality of life.

Fact is for many people close to retirement age, the prospect of retirement is the only thing keeping them going in life and continue working, which is why in any government the increase of retirement age would guarantee a large protest movement.

Also, I cant help to think that an oligarch is as close as a capsuleer would be in terms of how they would act. Anyone agree with me?

Another question, should we first clean up our own backyard before trying to expand to other extra-terrestrial body?

I believe this is the wiser course of action assuming that we can overcome the current rate of self-destruction because the challenge is humanity is not capable to be unified unless we have a greater enemy to keep us united. Where is the covenant when you need one (HALO)

Note: The guy in the article is looking with a seriously rose-tinted glass if he believe he can stick to his timetable, the higs-boson particle research took more than 50 years to simply prove that it exist, never mind researching how we can apply it into new technologies, and that research has a lot more resources at its disposal than what he is planning now.

Marketing robots to rich people... what a waste of marketing effort. Selling female robots to basement dwellers, that's where the money is at.

The interesting question has always been: if we can one day "download" an entire brain and copy it to some artificial medium (hard drive for storage, robot someday etc.) will it still be the some person? Well of course it will say it's the same person because it will share all the same memories etc., but will the original person actually exist post-download? Well there's no way to really ever know.

So sure we could someday copy brains and download them to other mediums, but until you personally try it, you'll never know if you cease to exist (i.e. die) or continue to live on as the new person.

Also, what happens if you download the brain of someone in such a way that the original person continues to live?? Suddenly there's two identical, but now divergent people. Since your consciousness likely only exists in the original person, this would lead me to believe that even if you can copy a person's mind into an immortal medium, the original person will eventually die with the old body. Of course this doesn't matter to their friends and family because the new copy will be an exact replica of the original person, but it doesn't solve anything for the person who wants to live forever.

tl:dr Transfer of consciousness doesn't solve anything in regards to immortality. The only way to achieve immortality is to somehow keep the original brain ticking indefinitely.

In the words of Freddie Mercury, "This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us."