What's the consensus on transhumanism/brain uploading?

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    Quote from DaveT

    The sooner we accept that death means nothing to us, the more satisfying everyone's life will be, as limited at it is.

    I think that there is a difference between saying that "death i s nothing to us [me]"...vs..."death means nothing to us [me]".

    Maybe I am splitting hairs here...but...

    The first one is a simply way of saying that you can't think about or experience death once it has occurred, and therefore for this reason we should not spend time worrying about it. The second one is seeming to say that the concept of death is empty of meaning, but this isn't true because we need to be able to think about the concept of death so that we don't procrastinate in living our lives to the fullest.

    Quote from DaveT

    Respectfully, aside from the use of vast computing power that virtually no one will be able to use even if it became possible, the hubris of those who create such a capability is laughable

    This popped into my mind...having recently re-watched the movie "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and there is a scene in which they return to the supercomputer that is working on "the question" and having been left to her own devices she is busy watching television.

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    There is a hubris here in thinking that everything that humans imagine can eventually be technologically created...the hubris is in the idea of going beyond Nature, and the nature of things ("atoms/void").

    Regarding the word hubris:

    Quote

    English picked up both the concept of hubris and the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods. In classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero. Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations and assume a godlike status; in response, the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of human mortality. Take, for example, the story of Phaethon, a mortal son of the sun god Helios. In his hubris, Phaethon drives his father's sun chariot into the heavens but loses control of its horses. The chariot begins to scorch the earth, and Zeus strikes Phaethon down with a thunderbolt.

    Source

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