But what if you started as a simulated entity? (If it’s possible to simulate reality as we know it then it’s more likely we exist within a simulation of some sort rather than the “prime” reality.)
Comment on Would you want to live forever in an infinite game?
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
This is a question about real life and death, isn’t it? Not about the death inside a virtual reality. I’m a bit confused with the question. If that is the question, then there is no infinite time and resources. So one day everyone will die (according to our current knowledge of physics). I also don’t think that we can out live our death by copying something to digital representation. Because we are not “transported”, but die and make a copy, a new object. It is not the same atoms and composition, it is just a similar looking object interpreted and run by a different algorithm.
So when I die and a "perfect’ copy of my brain is uploaded to a server, then I’m dead. The copy of myself is just a program using my brain structure and memories to act like I would, but I’m dead, and this program is just a representation and interpretation of my intelligence – but it’s not me. Therefore it is not possible to live forever.
director@lemmy.world 1 day ago
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
It does not matter, any copy is still not you. The exact, let’s say down to the atom (and lets ignore if consciousness is emergent from atoms), copy of yourself can be created. It would be still a copy. It’s like taking the Mona Lisa painting and recreating it to 100% identical atom structure. It’s still a copy. So when you die, you die. You do not exist in the simulation, a new entity living with your identity in a different place.
Also if you had a copy of yourself, how is it aging? Because the atoms and your genetic is programmed to age. Do you change that in the program? If you do so, the copy of yourself is no longer a copy, so it cannot age.
If you want ignore these aspects, then there is another problem. When would the copy of yourself would be made? Just before you die? Then that state is what lives forever? Do you make multiple copies of yourself? Which one is you? Can all exist at the same time?
director@lemmy.world 1 day ago
By that logic, “you” are not the person you were a nanosecond ago - you’ve physically changed over the course of time and all that exists on any possible timeline is merely a copy of the original - no?
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Some argue that is true, but I don’t think so. Because aging and changing is part of myself. I am not a copy, it has changed, its part of the DNA to do it. A copy is not the same as the source has changed. To stick with the Mona Lisa painting, it also ages and changes, that is part of physics.
My argument is not about changing, but about copies. The copy is artificially created and in fact nothing prevents the copies and original to exist at the same time. The fact that both can coexist shows that the original is not the same as the copy, both have different experiences (from that point of creation). Both are independent entities living in different time and space. And that is with a 100% exact atomic structure copy, we are not even talking about consciousness or the brain (as we don’t know if this can be recreated by atoms), or even a digital representation created by an algorithm and fake atoms.
In the series Star Trek, when they get “beamed” up or down, what happens there? Digital representation of their data is sent via a wireless signal and recreated at that place. The original has to die in order to function this logically, but the fact is that the original have to die and disassembled. It’s no longer the original.
nyctre@piefed.social 1 day ago
The question is “would” not “will”. It’s a conditional and a longer form of the question would’ve been something along the lines of “if it were realistically possible, would you like to live forever in an afterlife such as this?”
For me the answer is yes. I’d like to have the option to kill myself in case I ever get bored or whatever, but I’d still take it even if I had to risk an eternity of insanity.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
If you understood my answer, then it is “Its not possible”. This is not about “realistically or theoretically”, it is impossible. So any copy of the information that builds you inside of a computer, is not you. Therefore the question doesn’t make sense. No one can live inside a computer.
You are already dead. What you want is, that the machine code representing you (which is not you) should have an option to be killed.
Nelots@piefed.zip 1 day ago
Do you… not understand the point of a hypothetical question? Nobody cares if it’s possible. We are, for the sake of the question, positing that it IS, in fact, somehow, completely possible, and asking what you would do in that situation. In THIS pretend scenario, it IS the real you, so it is irrelevant if it’s not possible IRL.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Do you not understand this is not about being possible? I also didn’t know that I had to ask you how to answer the question. The question doesn’t make sense and I explained it enough. Nobody can live forever in an infinite game, not because its not possible, because it makes no sense.
Jump365@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
That’s not what is being asked. OP put right in the post “afterlife” as in. Nobody is copying you into a PC. The post assumes that an eternal afterlifr exists, and in that scenario (which is possible, we simply do not know) would you choose a game to lice in. Like if heaven/hell were minecraft, would that be something you would want?
That’s it. It’s not about uploading our minds in our current alive world.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
That is being asked. I am talking that there is no afterlife if you copy yourself. The “afterlife” is meant to be “overcome the death” by cheating through copies. It’s not expressed with those words, but the logical application is a copy if we talk about this subject.
But that is the topic. It is about making an exact copy of yourself in a videogame (infinite game). I quote the article: