Why not create an afterlife?

[The magical volleyball]

I want you to imagine the world in a not so distant future where people have the technology to record their every emotion, thought and memory throughout their life. Upon death this collection of data will be uploaded to an afterlife matrix. The digital world created would be a never-ending paradise. After decades and centuries of use whole families have reunited after death.

In this idea the amount of time people would get in the afterlife matrix would be dependent on the survival of the human species and it's ability to continuously innovate.

But if humans are presented with the possibility of this future then should we accept it or reject it?
If you are religious do you think people would experience just the real heaven or just the digital one? Or both??
What do you think would be the potential benefits and potential dangers that could arise from having a Afterlife set up in this manner?

The idea of an artificial afterlife that everyone can believe in, have access to and it can be made to suit our desires of what we would want heaven to be is something I find fascinating.

So please when replying don't be afraid to explore this topic fully and don't limit yourselves to the few questions I could think of.

 

[VioletVortex]

That is very strange to think about. If we are so skeptical of the existence of an afterlife, why haven't we put forth any effort into technically creating one? Either humanity as a whole is mostly stupid (true), someone is hiding something (possibly true as well), or we secretly look forward to our deaths...

It doesn't sound feasible. The brain's computing abilities rely on a mechanic that isn't really present in technology. All our thoughts and memories exist as fluid energetic waveforms. In a computer, everything is stored inefficiently in a hard drive. It would be impossible to sustain a soul through a computer of any size and capability, it just would not work. You'd have to have something functioning similar to a mind...

 

[The magical volleyball]

That is very strange to think about. If we are so skeptical of the existence of an afterlife, why haven't we put forth any effort into technically creating one? Either humanity as a whole is mostly stupid (true), someone is hiding something (possibly true as well), or we secretly look forward to our deaths...

It doesn't sound feasible. The brain's computing abilities rely on a mechanic that isn't really present in technology. All our thoughts and memories exist as fluid energetic waveforms. In a computer, everything is stored inefficiently in a hard drive. It would be impossible to sustain a soul through a computer of any size and capability, it just would not work. You'd have to have something functioning similar to a mind...

I agree the feasibility of the idea while not impossible is highly improbable, and would most likely require a much more complex process than what I can currently imagine or understand. My main curiosity around the idea is how would individual people and society as a whole react and change if it did become feasible?

 

[godnotgod]

I want you to imagine the world in a not so distant future where people have the technology to record their every emotion, thought and memory throughout their life. Upon death this collection of data will be uploaded to an afterlife matrix. The digital world created would be a never-ending paradise. After decades and centuries of use whole families have reunited after death.

In this idea the amount of time people would get in the afterlife matrix would be dependent on the survival of the human species and it's ability to continuously innovate.

But if humans are presented with the possibility of this future then should we accept it or reject it?
If you are religious do you think people would experience just the real heaven or just the digital one? Or both??
What do you think would be the potential benefits and potential dangers that could arise from having a Afterlife set up in this manner?

The idea of an artificial afterlife that everyone can believe in, have access to and it can be made to suit our desires of what we would want heaven to be is something I find fascinating.

So please when replying don't be afraid to explore this topic fully and don't limit yourselves to the few questions I could think of.

What if you found out you were just a character in a play, whose player has become so lost in that character, that he has clean forgotten his true nature? And what if that player is playing everyone and everything all at once: the stars, galaxies, trees, fish, rocks, etc, etc. So if that were the case, the character you are now is in a paradigm, where everything about the character is only meaningful in the time and place that character is living within, and that everything about the character transported to a future time and place would make the character out of place, an oddball. He best fits his current situation, really, hand in glove, were he to be fully aware of the his entire existence. Imagine that you, the character, are, in reality, The Player, but who does not know he is The Player. IOW, you are dreaming, or rather, being dreamt, acting out a script in a drama written by others. Even your post here is part of your dream. The Player has decided to play your particular character in this world in it's dream. So the key to living your life fully and joyfully, is to awaken to who you really are in the here and now, which is The Player, and to realize that if you really are The Player, you would awaken to where you are precisely at this very moment. This is called Self-Transcendence, in which you awaken from the level of conscious awareness called identification (ie the fictional character) to the level of self-remembering (ie The Player), and can now simply watch yourself acting out your drama on the level below the awakened state. There is no need to create some weird digital computer generated future where everyone is manipulated by some cyber-borg mind thingie. The best possible scenario is to awaken to what is in the here and now and live every moment fully and joyfully. We don't need an artificial afterlife; we have at our disposal the best possible life we could live right under our very noses, but we instead look somewhere else to some uncertain future that never quite gels.

 

[bobhikes]

I'll be honest with you. I would never want such a thing but in this world there are plenty of people that will pay for your service. Patent it and get a loan to start the work go public and you'll be a millionaire. They are freezing people right now(Very expensive) to bring them back in the future. To some people existing outside the body forever is a dream.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

I'll be honest with you. I would never want such a thing but in this world there are plenty of people that will pay for your service. Patent it and get a loan to start the work go public and you'll be a millionaire. They are freezing people right now(Very expensive) to bring them back in the future. To some people existing outside the body forever is a dream.

He'd be a billionaire before leaving the patent office. By the end of the first week he'd surpass Bill Gates.

That said, there are some issues.....The tech involved is not in any form of the near future, but currently a distant dream.

Next....if such a feat was possible, then why not visit your deceased relatives by hooking your living brain up to 'the matrix' and having a nice tea with grandma?

Also, why bother with 'the matrix', if such tech existed, it is very reasonable to suppose that android robotics would also exist. Therefore a recent copy of our personality/memories/intellect could be placed into a mobile platform/android, and we could travel off to the stars, improve science, or just hang out with our friends and family for however many more centuries that we might want.

Getting back to the issue of hooking up a living person to the matrix issue......what happens to the actual biological body. Can I cut and paste my persona to a million clones? Would laws have to be enacted, which would demand that my biological self be instantly fried to toast as soon as the brain transfer was complete? Could I then just transfer my 49 (or 99) year old brain into a vat-grown 20 year old copy of myself?

This is the source material for lots of sci-fi short stories that I have read.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

That is a brilliant idea!

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

There is no "you" that can be transferred to a machine that is anything like the "you" that exists now for yourself. Granted, others could interact with an AI program and (if it sufficiently processed based on your thoughts and memories somehow) they might feel like they were communicating with "you", but it would never be "you", nor your consciousness and I can actually prove it, definitively.

Here's all the proof you should need: if the tech existed to transfer all of the data comprising your thoughts and memories into a machine/computer, and there was a sufficiently adaptable AI algorithm or program that could utilize that data to "reproduce" some version of "you", then this technological version of you could be uploaded/created at any time - EVEN WHILE YOU WERE STILL ALIVE. That last bit is the key to the proof. Which of the two simultaneous entities are YOU (as in, the consciousness that you are right now) experiencing? I'll tell you which... the physical one you always have been experiencing. SOMETHING ELSE is therefore steering the helm of the AI/program version of you... it isn't the "you" you know and love. Not even close.

 

[LuisDantas]

Uh. I am not seeing the point. Sorry.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Sounds like a trap. No, thanks. I want out of this world after death, not to be further emeshed in it in a digital playground.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I want you to imagine the world in a not so distant future where people have the technology to record their every emotion, thought and memory throughout their life. Upon death this collection of data will be uploaded to an afterlife matrix. The digital world created would be a never-ending paradise. After decades and centuries of use whole families have reunited after death.

In this idea the amount of time people would get in the afterlife matrix would be dependent on the survival of the human species and it's ability to continuously innovate.

But if humans are presented with the possibility of this future then should we accept it or reject it?
If you are religious do you think people would experience just the real heaven or just the digital one? Or both??
What do you think would be the potential benefits and potential dangers that could arise from having a Afterlife set up in this manner?

The idea of an artificial afterlife that everyone can believe in, have access to and it can be made to suit our desires of what we would want heaven to be is something I find fascinating.

So please when replying don't be afraid to explore this topic fully and don't limit yourselves to the few questions I could think of.

Eh, everything has a warranty.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

There is no "you" that can be transferred to a machine that is anything like the "you" that exists now for yourself. Granted, others could interact with an AI program and (if it sufficiently processed based on your thoughts and memories somehow) they might feel like they were communicating with "you", but it would never be "you", nor your consciousness and I can actually prove it, definitively.

Here's all the proof you should need: if the tech existed to transfer all of the data comprising your thoughts and memories into a machine/computer, and there was a sufficiently adaptable AI algorithm or program that could utilize that data to "reproduce" some version of "you", then this technological version of you could be uploaded/created at any time - EVEN WHILE YOU WERE STILL ALIVE. That last bit is the key to the proof. Which of the two simultaneous entities are YOU (as in, the consciousness that you are right now) experiencing? I'll tell you which... the physical one you always have been experiencing. SOMETHING ELSE is therefore steering the helm of the AI/program version of you... it isn't the "you" you know and love. Not even close.

Are you sure about that? How do you know that we are not actually capable to have multiple experiences at the same time, but were simply limited to one by biology or our Creator? How do you know that during the moment of the transfer of the consciousness into the AI you wouldn't die or the consciousness wouldn't disappear from your body and the body would remain in vegetative state? There are multiple hypotheses of what could happen in such a situation?

 

[George-ananda]

I guess I don't understand this scenario at all. Who is the experiencer of this? Matrixes, holograms, data have no capacity for subjective experiences. Without a subjective experiencer, it's all pointless.

Am I not understanding something?

 

[Brickjectivity]

I want you to imagine the world in a not so distant future where people have the technology to record their every emotion, thought and memory throughout their life. Upon death this collection of data will be uploaded to an afterlife matrix. The digital world created would be a never-ending paradise. After decades and centuries of use whole families have reunited after death.

In this idea the amount of time people would get in the afterlife matrix would be dependent on the survival of the human species and it's ability to continuously innovate.

But if humans are presented with the possibility of this future then should we accept it or reject it?
If you are religious do you think people would experience just the real heaven or just the digital one? Or both??
What do you think would be the potential benefits and potential dangers that could arise from having a Afterlife set up in this manner?

The idea of an artificial afterlife that everyone can believe in, have access to and it can be made to suit our desires of what we would want heaven to be is something I find fascinating.

So please when replying don't be afraid to explore this topic fully and don't limit yourselves to the few questions I could think of.

First, to avoid questions about eternal monotony consider just an extended life. You die and then it is possible to extend life virtually for 100 years before the mind begins to go, so first you live physically and then get 100 years of bliss. What's not to like?

Well...there is the problem of worrying. Won't you worry about somebody messing with your environment? I mean, somebody really could screw with you.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Are you sure about that? How do you know that we are not actually capable to have multiple experiences at the same time, but were simply limited to one by biology or our Creator? How do you know that during the moment of the transfer of the consciousness into the AI you wouldn't die or the consciousness wouldn't disappear from your body and the body would remain in vegetative state? There are multiple hypotheses of what could happen in such a situation?

An even better question than any of yours... how would you even know if it worked? The moment at which you are transferred, "something" may have an awakening in the machine... how can you be certain that thing is you? At the point we were that far advanced in technology, the creator's of the tech could likely introduce all sorts of images into your mind to make you believe that you're simultaneously man and machine, and that the transfer is completely viable... but in the end, when the lights go out for the body it doesn't even matter to anyone but YOU that it is really "you," and your original self may not be there to audit/validate the success of the process. Whatever's in the machine, now answering for you, would likely report that YES! Everything is A-OK! But what does that mean? It means "something" transferred, perhaps, something that thinks it's "you", sure, okay - but even if it is, even if it isn't, the real "you" can't really know the difference.

 

[SinSaber]

It wont be us it will be an approximate copy that won't even know what to do.

 

[Brickjectivity]

It wont be us it will be an approximate copy that won't even know what to do.

Not if I'm in charge. I'll do it right, and it'll definitely be you.

 

[SinSaber]

Not if I'm in charge. I'll do it right, and it'll definitely be you.

The only way for it to truly be is to take the actual brain and hook it up, but then you would have to find a way to cease brain tissue decay

 

[Ingledsva]

I want you to imagine the world in a not so distant future where people have the technology to record their every emotion, thought and memory throughout their life. Upon death this collection of data will be uploaded to an afterlife matrix. The digital world created would be a never-ending paradise. After decades and centuries of use whole families have reunited after death.

In this idea the amount of time people would get in the afterlife matrix would be dependent on the survival of the human species and it's ability to continuously innovate.

But if humans are presented with the possibility of this future then should we accept it or reject it?
If you are religious do you think people would experience just the real heaven or just the digital one? Or both??
What do you think would be the potential benefits and potential dangers that could arise from having a Afterlife set up in this manner?

The idea of an artificial afterlife that everyone can believe in, have access to and it can be made to suit our desires of what we would want heaven to be is something I find fascinating.

So please when replying don't be afraid to explore this topic fully and don't limit yourselves to the few questions I could think of.

I think a group, - either religious, - or otherwise, - would decide it was wrong, for their own reasons, and thus destroy this digital afterlife.

*

 

[Nakosis]

I want you to imagine the world in a not so distant future where people have the technology to record their every emotion, thought and memory throughout their life. Upon death this collection of data will be uploaded to an afterlife matrix. The digital world created would be a never-ending paradise. After decades and centuries of use whole families have reunited after death.

In this idea the amount of time people would get in the afterlife matrix would be dependent on the survival of the human species and it's ability to continuously innovate.

But if humans are presented with the possibility of this future then should we accept it or reject it?
If you are religious do you think people would experience just the real heaven or just the digital one? Or both??
What do you think would be the potential benefits and potential dangers that could arise from having a Afterlife set up in this manner?

The idea of an artificial afterlife that everyone can believe in, have access to and it can be made to suit our desires of what we would want heaven to be is something I find fascinating.

So please when replying don't be afraid to explore this topic fully and don't limit yourselves to the few questions I could think of.

The real question is would this provide any actual continuation of a person's existence after death.

There'd be a virtual entity who thought it was you. In fact no one would know differently. You, your conscious existence would no longer exist but no one would know or even realize this. Just a virtual entity who assumed it was you, with all your memories of being you in the flesh.

Without our memories, who are we? And if those memories could be completely replace, would we then be someone else?

Like Agent Smith in the matrix, who could replicate himself by I assume replacing an entity's memories.