Immortality. Fact or Fiction?

[Cymric]

Immortality with full access to all ones memories is simple: just make a 'state dump' from the minds quantum state. Only snag: this exceeds our affordabble storage capacity by factor of 10^12. Not to mention the fact that we have no technology at our disposal to go from a description of the quantum state to the actual one. Therefore, immortality is fiction for a very long time to come.

Apart from the scientific problems, you have to ask yourself whether it would be a good idea socially. A fundamental aspect of life is death: it allows a new generation to take its chances, and weeds out the unfavourable genes. You would have to implement very rigorous birth control. Even more pressing is the question what you would do with the time at your disposal. I think the only answer is to go out and explore the universe: life on Earth would become very boring after a few centuries. And even then you would need some means to cope with the incredible boredom which lasts thousands of years as you slowly crawl towards the next star.

Let's keep it science fiction.

[Cymric]

Cyberus wrote:
And how about the idea of 'the soul'?

What about it? Oh, you mean in the ethereal sense of the word. The religious one.

Here's were all the militant atheists start jumping up and down...

Of course ;-). There's no such thing as a soul, other than the impression we have of it. (It's nice food for thought whether that means it exists, by the way.) But we'll all find out for sure in under a century, right?

[Cymric]

God, what a load of ASCII with difficult words and vague definitions just to provide a feel-good alternative to the cold and harsh reality built up by neuroscientists. I stopped the moment the premise of 'the Good News of the Gospel' entered the essay, then just scanned to see if I could understand a few paragraphs. I could not. I doubt the author himself understands what he wrote. It reminds me of the utter inaccesibility of Heidegger:

"... Die Angst gibt die Seinsmöglichkeit des Daseins in eins mit dem in ihr erschlossenen Dasein selbst den phänomenalen Boden für die explizite Fassung der ursprünglichen Seinsganzheit des Daseins ..."

I know German, I speak it fairly well, but what is said above might just as well be written in Chinese as far as I am concerned. Same goes with that essay.