How technologically progressive are you?

Gave me Trans-humanist but I'm in between that and Techno-progressive. Honestly, I believe the priority for technological research should be in developing technologies to make our time on this Earth more bearable while we begin to design efficient and rapid space travel and settlement for galactic expansion (since the only way we're going to be able to increase the amount of supply relative to demand is to mine other planet's ores; they're all dead, and we're headed for a population crash here if we don't do anything).

And of course, all these technologies should either be free or excessively cheap.

I don't see an "uploaded" collection of thoughts, memories and "personality" would be anything more than a copy. For example, it could be done while I was alive and there would then be "two of me" which is absurd - the uploaded version would be nothing more than a copy, and not an "accurate one" as its "brain" would be synthetic. The biological version dropping dead would not make the synthetic copy any more "me" than it was before I died.

It would be an advanced AI in and of itself - that happens to be "programmed" to think like me. And if it thought anything like I do, it wouldn't view itself to be me, either. In fact, I wouldn't blame it for being royally fucked off that it had not been allowed to develop in its own way, that it had been forced to think and act like a particular human.

However, the replacement of everything but the brain (and perhaps a few support glands that cannot be synthesised) is OK by me. If the brain is still there, so far as I'm concerned it's "me" - even if the body that houses it does not look like me (or even a human being).

Ideally, I'd want any replacement body to look like me, preferably as I was when younger, right down to body hair, scars and blemishes - but would be satisfied with being a "brain in a jar" with basic sensory input and the ability to speak or in a more "robotic" styled body until such time as a more realistic replica could be built.

Ultimately, any synthetic body would need to accurately mimic most functions and sensory feedback of my own biological body - I would want to smell and taste food (and be able to sit and enjoy a meal with friends/family) even if my real sustenance was nothing more than regular doses of chemically-balanced nutrient solution, I would want to be able to feel sensation on my skin (wind, water, warmth, the touch of a lover...), I would want to be able to close my eyes and toss something from one hand to another as I can now because I know where my hands are in relation to one another.

I'd want to be able to go camping, ride motorbikes, fire pistols and rifles, hug my kids, have hot baths, swim, have sex with women with whom I have a romantic relationship and generally do/feel what I do now - with a few improvements.

I'd like to have function in my left ear so I can hear what music sounds like in stereo and hear which way the sound's coming from when someone calls out, "I'm over here". I'd like to be able to see clearly without glasses. I'd like to be able to run or exercise hard without having an asthma attack.

Don't really feel the need to have a built-in mobile phone or control the TV by "thought", but automatic level-damping on my ears (so I can do target shooting without wearing hearing protection) and enhanced night vision (able to be switched off if required) would be kinda cool.

Depending on when the Singularity happens, I may live long enough that such a body is readily available. I do know that theoretically they've had the ability to keep my brain alive and oxygenated outside the body for quite some time now and they are getting better at the whole neurological/artificial sensory input thing all the time. They could transfer my brain to a secure oxygenated nutrient bath tomorrow if need be.

Frankly, I'd be happy to be an experimental subject to test the whole "life extension by preserving the brain beyond body death" and transfer processes (it's the only way I'd be able to "afford it") - pave the way for the paying customers by being living proof that the technology works.

I'm realistic enough to realise that such technology would be expensive and the province of the rich and famous at first until such time as the cost comes down - like cars, mobile phones, computers and such were once "only for the rich" but became commonplace.

edited 25th Apr '11 2:30:40 PM by Wolf1066

I guess I'm more comfortable with the idea of a robotic body than most because my body is pretty much failing me. I mean, I'm not dying or anything, but if I can't even drink orange juice without giving myself negative symptoms, I might as well just plug into an electrical socket.

Sure, replacing malfunctioning parts makes perfect sense to me.

I'm rooting for the discovery of a Healing Factor or something through the research being done on adult stem cells. Live forever, stay young, grow back an arm or internal organ if you lose it, and keep all the machines outside your body.

Provided, of course, they iron out all the problems with tumours, cancer, tissue rejection and, again, discrimination from Luddite wannabes against the people with mods and from people with mods against flatscans, which is my main concern. I personally will never go cyber if such an opportunity arises in my lifetime, but I won't oppose people being allowed to do it. Hey, it's their minds and bodies, why should I stop them?

Modern-day attachment moment: your stance on body modding in general probably will have something to do with your future stance on transhumanism once it stops being mostly theoretical.

edited 26th Apr '11 4:38:32 AM by Noelemahc

Wolf1066: the whole thing about Mind Uploading that makes it work is the concept that consciousness is the product of some physically definable product, and that the things that make a consciousness distinct from another consciousness are also physically definable, meaning it should possible to duplicate those conditions in different mediums than the brain.

Oh, I didn't mean growing organs in vitro and implanting them, or surgically grafting on a tentacle to act as a third arm, I meant something like overcoming stem cell depletion by differentiating them in vivo, or overcoming the Hayflick limit. Since such a mechanism would very much resemble cancer, curing cancer would probably involve working the kinks out of this anyway.