We can rebuild him, we have the technology.

[Ink Asylum]

Ok, another question bouncing around my head right now. This one's it for me today.

One day soon the technology exists to safely and affordably replace any part of the human body with a robotic/cybernetic duplicate.

The upside is that any replacement is more efficient and powerful than normal. Legs run faster, arms lift more weight, hearts are less susceptible to failure. You can even download into a computer brain which has better recollection and computational power. An artificial body part can also be maintained indefinitely, so replacing everything, brain included, would make you effectively immortal as long as you have access to replacement parts.

The downside is that people who have made the switch say the artificial parts don't provoke the same feelings. Food doesn't taste as good, touch is much less sensitive, sound is crisp but somehow sterile. People who have downloaded into cybernetic brains say they feel like they're controlling a video game character more than they are experiencing things for themselves.

What do you replace? How far do you go?

For the last answer, even if you pass over other parts to immediately replace, you can also choose this to replace the ones you hang onto as they eventually fail.

[iHap]

GitS. I would only replace my eyes.

[carnage11]

I would replace my eyes. I already have 20/20 vision, but if it were possible to gain like.....telescopic vision, or microscopic vision, I think that would be pretty sweet. Being able to look up into the sky and focus in on a far away galaxy. Or being able to look at my arm and focus in on the actual cells. It'd be awesome.

[Wally]

I would replace my eyes, and other parts as they fail. My damn eyes cannot see the big letter without corrective lenses.

[Ink Asylum]

Even with a possible downside? For the eyes, say that while you could see at a greater spectrum it made it difficult, if not impossible, to see the world as humans do anymore. Our brains mess with our perception a lot.

Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: TNG talks about how he can see much more than normal people can but he'll never see the world the same way most people do.

[Nameless]

Nothing. As cool as cyborgs are, I don't want to be one. Also, I bet being effectively immortal isn't as cool as it sounds. Especially without proper feelings.

[Dorkandproudofit]

I'd replace my arms and legs. Then I'd use my super strength and leaping abilities to become a superhero.

Also, I want wings and a cyber-bear to ride on.

[Troggles]

I took the legs. I don't see what I'd be giving up to get them, other than the feeling of stubbing my toe. Plus, super speed would be bad ass. I could run lots of places without getting tired and save on gas.

[Adam Blue]

Parts to replace failures, or I'd pick heart/lungs.

[Codicier]

Only replace as they fail. I find, on a regular basis, that I prefer my natural limbs and organs attached and in place.

Of course if they *have* to go, then swapping for powerful cybernetics sounds like a pretty good compromise.

[Wraith]

GitS.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/wraithakamrak/cog/GITS_resized01.jpg

[Hellbug]

To me, it makes sense to only replace the internal organs that are most vital, such as the lungs, heart, and whatnot.

[Vigil80]

I would absolutely become a cyborg. Start off with the internal organs, since I can't imagine much of a downside (breathing just isn't as, uh, breathy?). Other parts would be replaced as became necessary.

I'd ride out natural body parts until it was time for upgrades, then readjust to life as an immortal machine and enjoy.

[ShivaX]

My eyes suck so I'd gladly replace them with ones that didn't.

A lot of the other stuff would mean giving up sensations and the like. As cool as super arms and legs would be I don't think I'd like the loss of human senses in those limbs. Though if I could be guaranteed badassery I'd probably be willing to go the whole way and become a mech with a brain in it.

[shunoshi]

I'd only replace failing parts and then only a few. I couldn't imagine replacing my entire body or replacing my brain with a computer. The soul/human spirit has to get lost somewhere along the way there.

[LongStepMantis]

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f127/Rydias/Krang_by_DimiMacheras.jpg

I'm writing it in. As long as my brain gains its own eyes, mouth, tentacle-hands, and snarky attitude.

Edit: Also, this shirt rules and I want one.

http://www.3delavnica.com/@upload/Sigmund/krang.jpg

[JayK47]

Eye(s) and maybe heart. I need glasses right now and am hoping one day I will be able to get new eyes either bionic or grown in a lab. With zoom and record features of course;)

[Ink Asylum]

To elaborate on my own answer: I'd start with internal organs. The only downside I could imagine would be a change in diet. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to eat so often anyway.

Next would be arms and legs. It would suck to lose the sensation of touch from my hands, but if it got me superhuman strength and agility I think it would be worth it, as long as I maintained the sensation of touch through the skin on other parts of my body (insert joke here).

I don't think I'd want to replace any of my senses. The influx of additional information could be overwhelming, and make it difficult to appreciate the beauty that we experience every day. Especially if the brain couldn't consciously filter the new sensations. How would your favorite painting look if you now saw a larger spectrum of light? Although I imagine people who have replaced their senses would eventually develop their own forms of art based on their new range of perception.

So replace those as they fail. Then, when, I'm just a brain in a cybernetic body, I'd keep that going until my brain began to fail before making the final leap. The way I see it, there's nothing to lose at that point. If the soul doesn't make the jump then it'll be as if I died anyway and what's left would be a robot fulfilling my place in the world, continuing my work, etc. If my soul makes the jump then all the better, and I'll hang out in the robot body until I feel it's time to make that final leap and see what's on the other side.

[MrBibbz]

Now are we talking Ghost in the Shell style kind of replacement? Because to be wounded in anyway or form and having the ability to use cybernetic prosthetic limbs would have interesting uses in both civilian and military lifestyles.

Because if so I'd go for the replacement option if and when I lose limbs and/or organs.

[Scaryfaced]

While I'd love to pontificate about the evils of losing our humanity in return for our selfish quest for immortality, the implications of a population that no longer fears death(whats religion, and for that matter Law, do then?) and the loss of our last ties to mother nature(aka decomposition, dust to dust, etc), I'd be full of shit.

I'm human, there for somewhat afraid of death and would go to greath lengths to stave off its cold embrace. This would probably include all of the above, though the decision would be full of guilt and self hate.

So here's the short answer: I'd replace my terrible eyes (last time i bothered to listen to my eye doc years ago, I had 20/100 vision) and get robot arms ala Jax from Mortal Kombat 2. The rest would come as parts started to fall off.

[Lint of Death]

Well, diablopath, what do you say we go about founding the CORE?

[NoName]

So far, 32 voters and only 1 vote for "nothing". Awesome.

[Ink Asylum]

Here's an additional hypothetical. You can get all the robotic enhancements you want, as often as you need, up to and including a cybernetic brain when yours eventually starts to fail, but only if you agree to go help found a new colony on another planet or moon once you pass one hundred years of age.

This avoids the problem of immortal humans on Earth leading to a huge population spike. A person who is just a brain in a cybernetic body would also be much more capable of surviving and thriving on the hostile planets while colonies are being built.

[Disgustipated]

My eyes, as my corneal disease is one of the worst aspects of my life.

In fact, super vision is already here... and will become much more mainstream in the next 5-10 years.

http://www.dailytech.com/New+Artificial+Lenses+Give+Recipients+SuperVision/article17028.htm

[zarathstra]

I'd replace shit as it failed. That way, I wouldn't notice my humanity ebbing away until I rose up and overthrew my pathetic human neighbors.

[carnage11]

Even with a possible downside? For the eyes, say that while you could see at a greater spectrum it made it difficult, if not impossible, to see the world as humans do anymore. Our brains mess with our perception a lot.

Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: TNG talks about how he can see much more than normal people can but he'll never see the world the same way most people do.

Fuck it, I've spent 28 years seeing normally, I could spend the rest of my life with super vision, even if it meant I couldn't see normally anymore.

Though, if I'm losing regular vision, then I want super duper far sight, super duper near sight, thermal, night vision, infrared, and x-ray as well. :D

[Vigil80]

Here's an additional hypothetical. You can get all the robotic enhancements you want, as often as you need, up to and including a cybernetic brain when yours eventually starts to fail, but only if you agree to go help found a new colony on another planet or moon once you pass one hundred years of age.
Are you kidding? Bonus. Spend a hundred years traveling the world, seeing what there is to see, then go do it all over again on another world. Death is for patsies.

This is like a bedtime story. Best hypothetical ever.

Edit:
I do want to point out that some overpopulation issues would be addressed simply by virtue of the fact that an increasing portion of the population would be augmented. Hunger, for example. Although I suppose you would have an energy issue on your hands...

Come to think of it, I can't recall a scenario - such as GitS - that really addresses how a cyborg is powered. Granted, I haven't seen all such content.

[Generation ABXY]

To elaborate on my own answer: I'd start with internal organs. The only downside I could imagine would be a change in diet. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to eat so often anyway.

Next would be arms and legs.

"And, then your ears. I understand! Let's get on with it!"

...

Honestly, I'm not sure what I'd do. I'm always fascinated at the thought of living forever (or at least a good 300 years), so I suppose I would go with the internal organs, as needed, and go from there. If I ever really had the option in front of me, though, I suppose it's possible I'd go for nothing at all...

[wsuhoey]

I chose "Sensory organs (eyes, ears, tongue, skin)" because I would like to make it so that my eyes do not require glasses.

[Saladin]

Brain is always a tricky one.. The way I see it, once you "download" your thoughts into the computer and the meat brain is destroyed, you're actually dead. The fact that there is this cybernetic brain that thinks it's you is irrelevant to you as you're gone.

Always felt the same about transporters in sci-fi as well. they kill you by ripping you apart into component pieces then get reassembled at the other end into something that thinks it's you.

[Blue]

I'd like to think I could do well enough without a foot or a hand but a heart? That I believe I could use a back-up of.

[Wraith]

Brain is always a tricky one.. The way I see it, once you "download" your thoughts into the computer and the meat brain is destroyed, you're actually dead. The fact that there is this cybernetic brain that thinks it's you is irrelevant to you as you're gone.I was thinking along these lines... It seems plausible that most limbs, organs could be replaced with prostheses / cybernetic replacements, but the brain seems like something altogether different.I'd like to think I could do well enough without a foot or a hand but a heart? That I believe I could use a back-up of.Make it a hybrid system. Smaller artificial heart kicks in when one's biological heart needs assistance, or fails unexpectedly.

[Ink Asylum]

Brain is always a tricky one.. The way I see it, once you "download" your thoughts into the computer and the meat brain is destroyed, you're actually dead. The fact that there is this cybernetic brain that thinks it's you is irrelevant to you as you're gone.

That'd be my worry, too. I figure if I were going to die or my mind were going anyway (as in severe alzheimer's or something similar), why not try making the jump?

Perhaps there would be a process that replaces the brain neuron by neuron, cell by cell, so that whatever acts as our "soul" stays with the brain as it's transformed into artificial material.

Whenever I think about this topic I'm reminded of an issue of Transmetropolitan where one of Spider's assistant's goes to watch an ex-boyfriend of hers get turned into a "foglet," a conscious cloud of nanites. The cloud is jumpstarted by breaking down the meat body. If there was a way to make the transition from meat to machine that sounds like a possibility, with the electrical impulses that form thoughts transferring from biological cells to mechanical ones.

[Xerxes]

Ever since I saw Bicentennial Man I always wondered would next gen prosthetics be around the corner.

http://www.veszi.com/CONCEPTUAL/essay-picture-hearthttp://www.veszi.com/CONCEPTUAL/essay-picture-lungs

I would only be "repaired" when push came to shove. And if I was an accident that needed major work... I'd like to be made into a Cyborg Werewolf. If you rebuild me, make it badass. :p

[Xerxes]

Make it a hybrid system. Smaller artificial heart kicks in when one's biological heart needs assistance, or fails unexpectedly.

He'd be like the fucking Doctor. :D

[Generation ABXY]

I love Bicentennial Man; I used to watch that movie all the time, just because it had some neat concepts.

[Primus]

I would get the works, battle those who did the same, and crush those who have had less.

[Xerxes]

I would get the works, battle those who did the same, and crush those who have had less.

But then the super police would turn you off. Permanently. Dismantled and placed in boxes.

[Whunpo]

I've got ass-mar and a bad ticker, so I'm gonna have to pick the internal organs bit. I would love to have some kind of cyber implants...
I'd be interested in any kind of cyber implants that went on the market.

[Xerxes]

I'd be interested in any kind of cyber implants that went on the market.

I said nothing unless I needed it, but this. I still probably wouldn't get it unless I needed it but I'd still be checking out the latest specs and what not.

Also I'd have to be suckered into downloading my brain only to be killed in my normal body. Transporting though, I mean is the same thing, but I wouldn't even notice.

[Lint of Death]

OK, that's five six aspiring generals for the Core army. The rest of you will have to comply eventually.

[Mike Kelehan]

In fact, super vision is already here... and will become much more mainstream in the next 5-10 years.

http://www.dailytech.com/New+Artificial+Lenses+Give+Recipients+SuperVision/article17028.htm

Awesome. As I'm approaching 30, I'm realizing that my vision isn't getting better. It's nice to know that it might be better at 40 than 20.

[OrangePulp]

Brain is always a tricky one.. The way I see it, once you "download" your thoughts into the computer and the meat brain is destroyed, you're actually dead. The fact that there is this cybernetic brain that thinks it's you is irrelevant to you as you're gone.

Always felt the same about transporters in sci-fi as well. they kill you by ripping you apart into component pieces then get reassembled at the other end into something that thinks it's you.

This has always been my thoughts as well. I don't care about downloading a copy of me into a computer, since in the end it's just a copy. No need to have a doppleganger out there waiting to take my place.

I do remember reading, either in a book or just some random bit online, about the idea of slowly replacing parts of your brain with new parts, relearning what you've lost, until eventually you have a completely new brain. Maybe piece by piece, you'd still keep yourself?

I'd probably go with bionic everything but brain, although more along the lines of replacing weakening/aging parts, rather than going in, having my perfectly functional arms and legs chopped off, and robotic ones put in place. I just don't think I'd have the balls for that sort of thing.

[OUX]

I want synthetic lungs and heart that would allow me to smoke forever with no adverse health issues. I like smoking but it is just so damn bad for you.

I think Phillip Morris is secretly already working on this.

[Mike Kelehan]

I do remember reading, either in a book or just some random bit online, about the idea of slowly replacing parts of your brain with new parts, relearning what you've lost, until eventually you have a completely new brain. Maybe piece by piece, you'd still keep yourself?

Maybe. The thing is, what's there wouldn't know the difference. Even if it wasn't you, it'd think it was. So... there's really no way to know.

[Hotcod]

Internal organs given that keeping them going is a huge deal... other than that i don't know, as things fail i guess. Not sure that I could do anything with my brain given the way I look at things. If you look at your brain in 4d, including time then there's this shape that runs through time, with bits constantly flowing off and adding on but from the day you're brain takes shape to the day you die that shape forms an unbroken line and it's, to me at lest, that line that makes me me. When you 'download' in to a cyber brain you break that line, hell even transporters in startrek freak me out. It's not that the you on the other end would not be exactly like you in every way but it's not the same you as would exist before... to me that link through time is the soul of a thing, it's why dispite having mostly digtail music there's still a special place in my heart for CD's that there about during special times and such.

This of course leaves you very much open to the 'piece by piece' approach orangepulp brings up but to me even then you are fundamentally alting the flow of the line of the brain... but i don't know...

Now augmenting is something I would do in a heartbeat, nanobots in the brain or some kind of neural net that connects you to powerful computing power... since in those cases you are not dealing with the shifting of conciseness from one medium to another

[Mike Kelehan]

Internal organs given that keeping them going is a huge deal... other than that i don't know, as things fail i guess. Not sure that I could do anything with my brain given the way I look at things. If you look at your brain in 4d, including time then there's this shape that runs through time, with bits constantly flowing off and adding on but from the day you're brain takes shape to the day you die that shape forms an unbroken line and it's, to me at lest, that line that makes me me. When you 'download' in to a cyber brain you break that line, hell even transporters in startrek freak me out. It's not that the you on the other end would not be exactly like you in every way but it's not the same you as would exist before... to me that link through time is the soul of a thing, it's why dispite having mostly digtail music there's still a special place in my heart for CD's that there about during special times and such.

This of course leaves you very much open to the 'piece by piece' approach orangepulp brings up but to me even then you are fundamentally alting the flow of the line of the brain... but i don't know...

Now augmenting is something I would do in a heartbeat, nanobots in the brain or some kind of neural net that connects you to powerful computing power... since in those cases you are not dealing with the shifting of conciseness from one medium to another

I think you're born with pretty much every brain cell you die with, though. That's why brain damage is such a big deal. Not a doctor, could be wrong.

[Hotcod]

I think you're born with pretty much every brain cell you die with, though. That's why brain damage is such a big deal. Not a doctor, could be wrong.

I'm not sure how much the brain grows or cells get replaced and things with the brain so the idea of the shape running through 4d space always being connected is what is important to me in this case

[Ink Asylum]

Does that shape 4D shape have to be made out of meat, though? In the Transmetropolitan comic I mentioned Spider talks about repairing an old watch. If you replace a small part at a time at what point does it spot being your old watch and become a completely new one? When the last original part is replaced? Never?

Make that your brain. If you replace one single brain cell with an artificial one, is your brain no longer human? What if it's a hundred cells? What if you've gradually replaced your entire cerebellum?

If there's something besides meat that makes us special, why can't that extra part get used to living in an artificial brain as long as it has the time to adjust?

[Hotcod]

Like i said it's left open to doing that but i'm still left a little unconvinced. It's noting to do with the medium it's self, if we started out with cyber brain the same thing would apply for me. It's more that I don't think the "you" you are now can cross mediums and still be the same "you" on the other side... it's a tiny distinction but when all we have is the us we are now and the potential of nothing but every lasting darkness I don't see the point in taking the risk that there will be a disconnect by moving brain medium. If you download your brain in to a cyber brain your brain can carry on being you while this new brain can also be you... but do the you you are now experience life in the new brain?

To me, in this line of thinking, you can easily augment your brain in much less drastic ways to pretty much the same results with out the risk the loss of the current self.... save the risk of destroying this current self for the point that it becomes a necessity to have any self carry on at all.

So to be clear i'm not arguing that the meat is what makes us special just that if you replace that meat with metal you are risking creating a disconnection in the 4d shape that is your existence, which means the you that was in the meat is dead and anew you in the metal is now alive and while they both are 'you' and will to the rest of the universe act exactly like you would the you that you are now would be gone. And when dealing with this stuff it's only really that context that matters.

In the end we will be able to explain exactly how a brain works but we will never be able to know what it's like to be any given brain. You can never know what it is like to be me now. And it's in that that i find to much uncertainty to be worth the risk until there is nothing else for it.

[Narradisall]

Balls of steel are an optional extra, right?

[Seika]

Nothing.

Cyberbrain - While a copy of me is me, You can never replace a personal experience with something that is programmed into a piece of memory. The moment I realized I was nothing but a copy, I would be very sad. I'd rather die happy, than live forever in sadness of what was.

Sensory - Same, I would just miss the taste of food too much.

Also, has GitS taught you guys nothing?
What about hackers?
The moment people start connecting their bodies to pieces of electronics, specially the brain, the brain/body hacker will be born.

Body parts could be manipulated against your will, or used without your consent, like eyes that record what you do and send it back to a storage facility.

With cyber-brains, it would be so easy to dispose of the real you, plant a more "controlled" copy into your body, and no one around you would be able to tell the difference.

That's scary. :S

[Ink Asylum]

So to be clear i'm not arguing that the meat is what makes us special just that if you replace that meat with metal you are risking creating a disconnection in the 4d shape that is your existence, which means the you that was in the meat is dead and anew you in the metal is now alive and while they both are 'you' and will to the rest of the universe act exactly like you would the you that you are now would be gone. And when dealing with this stuff it's only really that context that matters.

But if it's gradual how is the 4d shape interrupted? Despite the common misconception, your brain cells are replaced naturally over the course of your life. Just like the rest of the body it's part of the seven year cycle; in seven years every cell in your body has been replaced, including your brain. So what if over the next seven years your brain cells are replaced with artificial ones that transmit and store information the same way?

If your sense of self can make the transition from your meat brain now to a completely new meat brain over seven years, why can't it do the same to an artificial one? If you replace one brain cell with an artificial one are 'you' instantly gone? Of course not. So if the process is cell by cell, with time for your consciousness to get used to the new cells, at what point would you fear that 'you' would die? After half your brain has been replaced? After cell eight million, one thousand and twenty four? After the very last meat cell?

[Xerxes]

Can we skip past this into something like synthetic cells that repair, rebuild, or replace are current parts. :p

[Hotcod]

But if it's gradual how is the 4d shape interrupted? Despite the common misconception, your brain cells are replaced naturally over the course of your life. Just like the rest of the body it's part of the seven year cycle; in seven years every cell in your body has been replaced, including your brain. So what if over the next seven years your brain cells are replaced with artificial ones that transmit and store information the same way?

If your sense of self can make the transition from your meat brain now to a completely new meat brain over seven years, why can't it do the same to an artificial one? If you replace one brain cell with an artificial one are 'you' instantly gone? Of course not. So if the process is cell by cell, with time for your consciousness to get used to the new cells, at what point would you fear that 'you' would die? After half your brain has been replaced? After cell eight million, one thousand and twenty four? After the very last meat cell?

Like i've said from my first post this is the only open option as a way to do it that could preserve the self. So what your arguing in your post is stuff i'm not disagreeing with as such. What i'm talking about now is that there's a danger in the changing of mediums for a loss of self. For example your own last paragraph in fact holds one of the major problems that we can't adress and make doing the whole thing when we don't have to silly.

When does 1 become 2? Or in other words one of Zeno's paradoxes involving an arrow and a tortoise and how mathematically the arrow can never hit the tortoise. The problem is that 1 tends towards 2 at infinity but never in fact crosses it.

What does that have to do with anything? well given out beliefs that the self is a sum that is grater than it's parts there can be no point we can look at the self and go "this is when it exits" and at another point and say "this is when it does not"... if you slowly replace the brain (even meat for meat) the self at the start is different to the self at the end but there is no single point where we can say that the change happened. Just like there is no point where 1 become 2 but it does happen.

So the self is always changing and evolving with experience and the brain is constantly updating and renewing but it is doing so with in one medium. The experiences of being me is one of being a meat brain that is one point in the 4d shape that is me. There is simply no way of knowing if having a artificial brain gives the same experience to the self that emerges from it as would the brain left alone over the same time. There is at no single point a place where the self as you where dies but there is no way of knowing if the self you are at the end of the change is the same.

Bah i can't find the right words for it as such but for me the slow replacing of cells with artificial ones is the most likely way to preserve a self... I just think that changing the medium could change the experience in such a fundamental way that at some point the line of the self as it was loses continuity and emerges something new.

Even if i'm utterly wrong what i'm trying to get across is that we NO idea what the self really is and I have no idea why any one would want to risk the loss of there self by doing something like this when you can simply (if you can do this thing at all) augment what is there in ways that give the same end result but with out risking such fundamental changes in experiences.

I mean plugging your self in to a computer world would change the person you are going to become and fundamental change the experiences you have of life but that is the impact the out side on the shaping of the self not a change of what IS the self.

[Xydarc]

I'd replace as they fail. For those who want a total conversion: how are you going to pay for maintenance?

[nnanji]

Given the limitation that senses are dulled (which I don't buy for a second. Sensations already exist in a virtual life simulator ie: your brain. Replacing the input devices wouldn't replace the nervous signals themselves, which is all you are actually, currently experiencing.), then it is an easy choice to replace all of my limbs and internal organs immediately, and to replace my sensory organs as they fail. Perhaps the only organ I wouldn't replace is my brain, and that is mainly becuase I believe my consciousness is a byproduct of complex hormonal interactions that couldn't easily be modeled by software. Of course, anyone who is familiar with my chosen avatar could probably guess that I have a very liberal attitude towards body modification/replacement.

Also, if the nervous system is understood well enough to attach artificial limbs and sensory organs, why not just replace the eyes, ears, tongue etc. with cloned organic replacements that wouldn't suffer from inorganic sensory degradation?

[Panthera]

When does 1 become 2? Or in other words one of Zeno's paradoxes involving an arrow and a tortoise and how mathematically the arrow can never hit the tortoise. The problem is that 1 tends towards 2 at infinity but never in fact crosses it.

Are you aware that 0.999... is mathematically equal to 1?

[Hotcod]

Are you aware that 0.999... is mathematically equal to 1?

Well yes but what does that change? It just means that 0.9999... is just another way of writing 1... so either way you are moving from 0 to 1 (or 0.999... if you like) by halfs there is no point at which you will mathematical reach it. That that tendency towards infinity is mathematically the same as the dead on number is just an expression of how complex the idea of a number becoming another is. Or at lest that's how i was taught to understand it... might be wrong.

[carnage11]

Can we please not get into this discussion again.:p

[Panthera]

It means that Zeno's Paradox is a semantic conundrum that's fun to puzzle out but has no useful bearing on anything.

[Hotcod]

Can we please not get into this discussion again.:p

lol well either way i think the point i was trying to make will still get illustrated. If there can be such huge arguments over such a 'simple' concept of numbers then how the hell can we start to real understand or talk about points at which the self exits or not :D

[Ink Asylum]

I'd replace as they fail. For those who want a total conversion: how are you going to pay for maintenance?

Robot Fighting League championship prizes.

[Hotcod]

It means that Zeno's Paradox is a semantic conundrum that's fun to puzzle out but has no useful bearing on anything.

Yes you can resolve the paradox using 0.999... = 1 but we always knew that the arrow hits the tortoise... the fact that it's resolved using infinity, an idea that the human mind can't in fact comprehend and can only just about deal with in abstracted mathematics that present us with the counter-intuitive idea that a tenancy towards something at infinity is the same thing as it's tending towards get's across the same point i was trying to make only in a much more round about complex way :)

[carnage11]

lol well either way i think the point i was trying to make will still get illustrated. If there can be such huge arguments over such a 'simple' concept of numbers then how the hell can we start to real understand or talk about points at which the self exits or not :D

I believe it ultimately comes down to the age old debate on whether there's a God and if we have souls. Take for example, The 6th Day. They were creating clones and basically downloading their minds and memories into the new clone. Then they would go on existing in the new body with new brains and everything. Could you then create a clone of yourself even if your original self didn't die and then would there be two of you? Would they both think exactly a like, would they be aware of each other, would they both be....you? Or would it just be two different people with the same memories? These are questions that can not be answered.

[Ink Asylum]

So the self is always changing and evolving with experience and the brain is constantly updating and renewing but it is doing so with in one medium. The experiences of being me is one of being a meat brain that is one point in the 4d shape that is me. There is simply no way of knowing if having a artificial brain gives the same experience to the self that emerges from it as would the brain left alone over the same time. There is at no single point a place where the self as you where dies but there is no way of knowing if the self you are at the end of the change is the same.

Of course it won't be the 'same' experience as your current meat brain. Nor will the experience of a 25 year old brain be the same as it was at 18. The bonds, chemicals, memories, etc that make up our brain are constantly changing. I'm not arguing that you could gradually replace a meat brain with a machine one over time and feel exactly the same as if you hadn't. Whether or not you want to have the experience of a machine brain is the similar to deciding you're going to eat healthier and exercise more, as that will change how your mind feels and operates in seven years.

It seems we're in agreement, though, that such a gradual change wouldn't result in the death of whatever we call our 'self,' unless you believe that 'self' is intrinsically tied to meat and can't exist without meat.

[Ink Asylum]

I believe it ultimately comes down to the age old debate on whether there's a God and if we have souls. Take for example, The 6th Day. They were creating clones and basically downloading their minds and memories into the new clone. Then they would go on existing in the new body with new brains and everything. Could you then create a clone of yourself even if your original self didn't die and then would there be two of you? Would they both think exactly a like, would they be aware of each other, would they both be....you? Or would it just be two different people with the same memories? These are questions that can not be answered.

Somewhat off topic, but you don't need a God to have souls. You can believe that there is something to us beyond meat without believing in an almighty creator.

[Hotcod]

Again i'm not tying us being special to being meat, my argument would remain the same if we where morn "artificial" and where talking about a move towards meat (for what ever reason) in that, given all the complexity, we have no idea if the self will exist as an true continuation.

But i do agree that for me it's the preservation of the 4d line of self that is paramount and that gradual replacement is in line with that given that it's pretty much what happens anyway... I'm just one to urge on the side of playing it safe in this regard and would much more likely augment my meat brain with extra stuff rather than dump it totally unless i had to. I'm also never stepping in to a transporter!

As for the clone argument, well, it's a simple one to deal with. If you copied me exactly down to the last sub atomic particle than created that copy right next to me then from that moment they are no longer like me. They have observed the world differently to me and from that point we are fundamental different. We we likely act exactly the same but he would no longer be me. On top of that his 4d line of existence is vastly different to my own...

So ya, for me it's that 4d shape that is the "soul" if you want to use the word. That shape, by some theory's of time, already exists and yet is determined by it's experiences of it's self and it's part of this huge stupidly complex shape that is the universe... and so on and so forth but i think i've gotten metaphyiscal enough for one night.

I would so love a mechanical arm that turned in to a gun!

[Mike Kelehan]

Are you aware that 0.999... is mathematically equal to 1?

That's why I'm an atheist. We can't know... but 0.000001 is mathematically equal to zero.

[Ancalagon]

I voted for internal organs and sensory organs, but only if the internal organs function the same as their biological equivalents, are maintenance free (or thereabouts) and are replaced when they need to be replaced. I mean, I want to still be able to eat.

Sensory organs, same thing. My eyes are better than 20/20 now, I dont know what they are, but should they fail I would want replacements.

[pronounconnoun]

I wouldn't mind having my internal organs swapped out. I mean, they're going to fail anyway, I might as well.

But my true passion lies in having a cybernetic arm/hand. Like Luke.