Altered Carbon

[Snee]

Has anyone read it?

It's this sci-fi novel set in a distant future where people have these sort of hard-drives called cortical stacks in their necks.

Basically, it defines what is human.

When you go to prison, your mind, uploaded from the cortical stack, gets put on storage.

And unless you can afford to pay for the storage of your body, a prisoner released from the same prison may get downloaded in your body, referred to as a "sleeve".



The question is, and I have been thinking a lot about this, whether you would still be you.

I mean, don't we consider ourselves to be our brains, in a manner of speaking?

This was my first thought, which means one would get killed every time one would swap bodies, as the mind in that body gets replaced with that of the new occupant.

But it's more than that, in the book the protagonist also looks at other bodies, and it seems to me he's thinking about them as one would a car, "is it modified", "tuned up" and so forth.

So it seems to me that he identifies himself by the information in his hard-drive rather than that in his mind.



Now, could you do this?

If you had a hard-drive in your head, and could get the information on it transfered to another body?

If not, could you do it if you had had the hard-drive in your head as long as you could remember?

Or could you do it, if you were dying, and this was the only way to survive?

[DanB]

I think its time you passed me that joint

[Snee]

Aww, come on now, it is a good question.

[DanB]

It was good reading I will give you that.

I havent got a clue what you want me to answer but it sounds like a good book

[Snee]

If you could copy the information in your brain to a harddrive, and swap bodies...

and so forth, would there be a point to it, or would "you" just be dead?


and would it be different if you had had that hard-drive in you head as long as you could remember, so the copy had always been there as much as the information in your head?

And would you want to copy yourself if you were about to die?



does that make better sense?


And yeah, it was a damn good read.

[brenda]

Generally I would say that in the western world we hold a cartesian view of the self, i.e that the mind and body are seperate and that the mind is where the seat of the self is, the body being a physical extension to the mind.

In brief this kind of arose from the scientific thinking of the so Enlightement. Descartes suggested that 'I think, therefore I am' and the debate that arose from this amongst academics eventually became public discourse.

Of cousre it is quite rediculous to disregard the body as a part of the self because it is how we experience the world around us, how we interact with the society that we are a part of and how we express the self that we believe to be quaranteened inside the brain.

I haven't read it SnnY though it sounds like an interesting read, who is the author?

As for freezing bodies and downloading brains, well its already happing, check this out out.........

curing death

and in particular this place.........

cryonics community

I also attended a lecture last year in which the latest developments in memory download were discussed. Apparently scientists in Japan are somehow, able to download memories of people before they die to be implanted into another living body, god knows what sort of ethical dilemma that sort of shit will lead too. Unfortunately I can't find any references for it.

note: please excuse spelling errors.

[DanB]

That does make sense know but its a bit deep


I dont think just memories make a person though but I would do it if I was about to die

[Proper Bo]

Originally posted by Brenda
Apparently scientists in Japan are somehow, able to download memories of people before they die to be implanted into another living body

I'm sure that's the plot to a Ch5 TV porno I've seen

[DanB]

Originally posted by Proper Bo, I tell thee+9 August 2004 - 20:18--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Proper Bo, I tell thee @ 9 August 2004 - 20:18)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin- Brenda
Apparently scientists in Japan are somehow, able to download memories of people before they die to be implanted into another living body

I&#39;m sure that&#39;s the plot to a Ch5 TV porno I&#39;ve seen [/b][/quote]


Starring the dude out of Airwolf by any chance?

[Snee]

Originally posted by brenda@9 August 2004 - 21:14
I haven&#39;t read it SnnY though it sounds like an interesting read, who is the author?

Richard Morgan

review

It&#39;s his debute novel I think, I bought the sequel too, it was my kind of thing. Mind you, while the topic I brought up is central to the story, there&#39;s more to it.



You brought up some interesting points I thought.

How would you consider the hypothetical situation of having had the hard-drive in your head before you became self aware?

Would you consider the information in there as much "you", as that in your brain?

EDit:And yes, I realise you said the body may be part of our conciousness too, but would you consider the information in the harddrive worth using if say, you could keep your body, but your brain got erased.