52 replies to this topic

[FutureOfToday]

Or maybe you could set it to erase your memory temporarily, and then everything is restored when your little VR session is over. I would do this for fun every now and then, but I'd never erase memory permanently.

[Alric]

It depends on what you define as you. If you are your brain or body, then erasing your memories wouldn't kill you and as long as your body survives you would as well. However uploading your brain to the internet would kill you, since your brain wouldn't physically transfer. Upgrading your mind with new technology might also kill you.

 

I personally believe you are not your brain but the continuity of your thought patterns. That pattern is stored in your brain but massive damage to your brain can kill 'you' but leave your body and brain functioning. Though it does allow things like brain uploading and enhancement with technology, provided that continuity is always retained.

 

The person you are at this moment is likely very different from the one you were years ago, and so I believe this continuity is a critical aspect of what makes a person who they are. There is really no way to know how much of a change a person can take at once before what they are ceases to be what they were and they become something totally different.

Which is why I personally feel we should rule on the side of safety and do things gradual when possible. Suddenly erasing all your memories at once seems pretty damaging to me, so I wouldn't ever want to do it. People forget things all the time today, but it is a pretty gradual process and the memories are usually still stored some where in the brain.

[razer1994]

I just had a thought. Maybe you wouldn't even need to 'erase' your memories fully. You could sort of inhibit your memories, like a dream. Think about it. When you're in a dream, you rarely remember the real world, yet it's still you. Maybe a similar method can be used to avoid the loss of identity problem.

I would be afraid of getting lost in the simulation.

[StanleyAlexander]

Rkw, correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that when you designed this poll you didn't mean for anyone's memories to be permanently erased.  Were you thinking of kind of a tangential existence, like the isolated but nested life inside this life that someone else described in a post above?  The kind that feels like its own life in every way, but that you remember after you die and return to the 'real' world?  If so, that sounds like an incredible use of VR and I'm totally in.  But permanently?  Never.

 

Would ANYONE choose to dump all their memories permanently and start over in VR???

[bee14ish]

Rkw, correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that when you designed this poll you didn't mean for anyone's memories to be permanently erased.  Were you thinking of kind of a tangential existence, like the isolated but nested life inside this life that someone else described in a post above?  The kind that feels like its own life in every way, but that you remember after you die and return to the 'real' world?  If so, that sounds like an incredible use of VR and I'm totally in.  But permanently?  Never.

 

Would ANYONE choose to dump all their memories permanently and start over in VR???

Me. Life sucks.

[StanleyAlexander]

That sucks.  Odds are it'll get better.

[FutureOfToday]

And one of the factors that could make it better is the advancement of brain-based technology, including VR. Eventually, it will be almost impossible not to enjoy life.

[Rkw]

Rkw, correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that when you designed this poll you didn't mean for anyone's memories to be permanently erased.  Were you thinking of kind of a tangential existence, like the isolated but nested life inside this life that someone else described in a post above?  The kind that feels like its own life in every way, but that you remember after you die and return to the 'real' world?  If so, that sounds like an incredible use of VR and I'm totally in.  But permanently?  Never.

 

Would ANYONE choose to dump all their memories permanently and start over in VR???

 

Exactly.
I know they'd be the minority, but I'm sure some people would like the idea of starting over and discarding the old them.

People don't always like themselves after all. Sort of related there was a suicide near me a couple of days ago.

[StanleyAlexander]

suicide...

 

I have been depressed enough before to think about it, but never seriously.  And never since I found out how different the future is likely to be.  I'm way too curious now.

[SG-1]

A lot of people have mulled over suicide before.  Odds are most have, unfortunately.  

[kjaggard]

I've been through stints where I would sleep half the day, and wake up angry that I didn't just die in my sleep. I've been suicidal, and tried to figure out what would be the best way to do it. I didn't want my niece to know for the rest of her life that I gave up or even think that it's an option to give up herself. So I thought about it for a few weeks and I came to two conclusions.

 

Conclusion one: There is a killer out there who can take you out and do it when you least expect it so that you can't just flinch or expect it it just happens. Nobody can blame you for your end, and even insurance can't deny you the right to pay out to you loved ones. It's called life. Life will kill you at some point. It's just gonna happen. It's taken care of and you don't have to worry about it.

 

Conclusion two: If I had the choice of taking a potion that would obliterate me but leave my body alive and somebody else could move into my brain and live, would I? Yes. Okay so what will it be like for that person to wake up the first day? Well they'd likely shit themselves and squirm around in fear and confusion for days before dieing of hunger or thirst.

 

They don't know how to find water or even what it is and why it's important, they just know they don't feel well. So I would be cruel to do this. alright so a new potion to add to it. This one is to include knowledge to leave behind.

 

This started with how to care for the body and it's needs. Language would likely be a useful means of getting about in the world. Math and reading too. It wouldn't hurt to have some understanding of when and where in the world and it's history you are. Maybe some basics about how to cook some food. Okay so the basics of surviving and learning tools as well as social context. How about some simple job skills so that they could earn a living. Heck lets give them lots of mental resources and skills like I've accumulated over the years. That will enable for a better chance at making a life. But what kind of life?

 

There really aught to be some things I can leave to enjoy. Remeber things that the new person can take pleasure in. Favorite arts, good jokes, the memory of cliff diving ect. And if we are doing that what about the niece. Include her in there. A person, a connection, somebody to care for and who cares about you.

 

As I started looking at this mental list more and more I realized it wasn't so much that I wanted to be gone and obliterate everything, it was that my ability to treasure everything was hampered by a few rotten chunks. But even more important than that was that if I was willing to grant such huge swaths of myself to some new person to build a good life from... why not allow myself to be that new person. Gift that to myself.

 

I won't pretend that I didn't have a few more fights with depression on occasion but from then on it was relatively toothless.

[Zeitgeist123]

i think erasing your past memories in trade of a new life in VR is a bit extreme for me.. its like subjecting yourself in a sadomasochistic bondage session without a 'signal phrase' to utter when you have enough of it.

[Rkw]

i think erasing your past memories in trade of a new life in VR is a bit extreme for me.. its like subjecting yourself in a sadomasochistic bondage session without a 'signal phrase' to utter when you have enough of it.

Haha, yeah that's the first analogy I would have went for too...

[FutureOfToday]

The stressful capitalist world we live in is probably the main reason that so many people suffer from depression. This is why we need social anarchism and technology to rescue us.

[Futurist]

Perhaps in later life.

[Tommy_Vercettix]

I would never eraze my good memories, which makes me who I am.

But of course, the hell with my bad ones.

[TheFarFuture]

Hello guys, it's nice to meet you all.

 

Starting fresh will be nice but with only temporary erase of my memory, thanks.

[zen_mutiny]

I guess the same nanobots used to intermediate between real and virtual worlds in your nervous system could also be used to temporarily block access to certain memories.

Edited by zen_mutiny, 23 May 2013 - 06:32 PM.

[IzzyIngleby]

I could imagine a setup where a group of enthusiasts of an idea set up a simulation where memories are altered to fit the simulation, for instance, I don't really want to grow up with different parents and have a sense of loss afterwards for individuals that were just canonical to the scenario.

[zen_mutiny]

Of course, given enough advances in brain augmentation and virtual reality technology, you could live out these "lifetimes" in what is actually a space of a few minutes, or even seconds. You could be in a simulation right now, and wake up only to find that all of this stuff about reincarnation and an afterlife, was, in a sense, true, and all of the world's religions were just Easter eggs, programmed in by you and your friends as a joke.

Edited by zen_mutiny, 24 May 2013 - 12:46 PM.