would you rather a comforting lie or uncomfortable truth.

[Ken_J]

the year is 2044, the political situation in the world is a mess, the environment and badly damaged, economies are still not recovered from the depression. The world looks more like Bladerunner 2049. With a lot of Ready player on in the mix, as a lot of people work and play in virtual reality. It might be possible to extend life, but it'd require stability that just isn't common in the world right now.

Not that it matters now anyway, you are 7 years into a neurodegenerative disease, that is whittling away you. You don't know what's going on anymore. But you know that you have an appointment soon for a procedure. You're not sure what or when it is, but your AI nanny will tell you what you need to know.

The day comes and you ride public transport to a facility, you don't know what's going on but you present your tablet for everything and everyone, the AI negotiates everything for you and tells you what to do, guiding you through your journey to where you need to go.

You lay down where you are told and they numb a spot on your arm before setting in an IV unnoticed by you as they give you a video and audion distraction...

You wake more clearly aware then you've felt in years. And after a period of time learning to function again in the world, guided by you AI, you begin to have a life again. Things in the world seem to be working out to a future with at least some hope again of being positive. Advancements in regenerative medicine and augmentation are restoring some of your youthspan to you. there are still things that don't always make sense, and some of your memories feel off or incorrect but you suspect that's due to the damage from your illness before the treatment.

you go on to live a life in which you get to experience fullfillment to a degree. You'll never be world famous but neither will you be a nobody that never achieves anything. For your 247th birthday you book the ride up the the elevator to the port and then over to the L5 amusement park and casino... as the surgeons carve away the excess body from your brain, the neural tissues have sensory feeds and memory hardware filling in for the damaged tissues from your neurodegenerative disease. they will maintain your identity core and eliminate any more damaged brain tissue to be replaced with hardware that performs the same function for as long as they can. Maybe even solve and cure the disease in the days an months to come... for your 735th birthday you get to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony of Gliese 667 C O'Neill cylinder 5 museum of human history, and you have to laugh at how people imagine life was like back when you were a child, despite there being enough of you to explain it, some things these children just can't wrap their head around.

the environment, economy and governments collapse, human populations crumble and the AI begin to take the position of the inheritors of the earth. Our silicon children.

which would you rather? Get signed up to be slotted into a FIVR fictional universe where you can live centuries in a day for as long as your core self can be kept going or you self terminate... or struggle through the end of humanity maybe never getting to know if anything remains of us before you die?

[BaobabScion]

If they have the capacity to stabilize a BCI link so deep that they can alter your subjective experience of time, then they also have the ability to complete a full upload and/or do a full neuron replacement with synthetic nodes. In fact, since it isn't possible for the brain's biology to be calibrated in that way, you would have to assume that you're either an upload or that you've been Theseus'd. In which case, I'd obviously choose the "comforting lie" because the comforting lie is actually a quite comfortable truth.

[Ken_J]

If they have the capacity to stabilize a BCI link so deep that they can alter your subjective experience of time, then they also have the ability to complete a full upload and/or do a full neuron replacement with synthetic nodes. In fact, since it isn't possible for the brain's biology to be calibrated in that way, you would have to assume that you're either an upload or that you've been Theseus'd. In which case, I'd obviously choose the "comforting lie" because the comforting lie is actually a quite comfortable truth.

they are not nessecarily altering you experience of time. Just that you believe today is today, based on the memory you have of yesterday. Somebody who has been in a coma for 20 years, since the age of 17, has no memory of their 20s, wake's up nearing the age of 40, but believing themselves to be 17 still.
Doing the reverse is plausible. just having memory/dreams that you lived a decade that you didn't. Because memories are often thin flimbsy concepts. You might remember playing at your grand parents house as a kid, but how many rooms did the house have, were they carpeted, what color was the door frame painted, which cupboard were the treats kept in, was the fridge a side by side and what color was it? what year was it, how old were you, what were you wearing? what did granmas voice sound like?

Your memories of the past are often like a person not wearing their glasses watching a set of low rez gifs and remembering the story of what is happening. Pretty sure we are a year or less away from an AI video generator that can generate detailed gifs that can use a series of reproducible models as a cast, and a chat gpt style aI that can build projected narratives for the outcome of certain choices of life course. Specifically I can see an AI that could create the bulk of a mundane year as simplified memories of your year and prompt a set of generic gifs and images from other AI to flesh out the a memory. and then leave you with plot hooks for a dozen or so interactive experiences to fill in specific events, and then flesh out the more generic components that happen around those.

Since you experience only right now, every moment of right now can be the big exciting moments of a long life. without the mundane inbetween. You could literally have the highlights of a 50 years of life take place in an afternoon, with commercial breaks between events where 1-5 years of memory mundane are placed in the narrative at each 'intermission' between events. Like a filler ingredient it expands the size of a life by many times, without having to actually supply a lot of substance, while allowing for you to feel like there is too much happening all too close together.

we are also seeing the early experiments of devices that can insert images into peoples minds non-invasively. and remember the memory doesn't have to be detailed, the mind will fill in the gaps to make sense of it.

[BaobabScion]

I have no qualms with the idea that memory insertion could eventually be feasible. If that's what you meant in your original post then, sure, but even then, there's limits to the malleability of the brain in that context as well and these would have to be very subtle 'memories', the vaguest remnants of what you did(n't) before. More substantial insertions would again lead to the same contradictions that I mentioned before: mental maps sufficently advanced for the necessary volume of memories to be able to ward off suspicions of fabrication would imply the technology necessary for a full scan/upload.

[Tadasuke]

I've found that too much information and knowledge are major reasons of unhappiness. Unfortunately, we need them for now (to an extent), in order to advance, but ultimately, I would love to erase most memories and just live a happy life that I prior choose in virtual reality. I don't care about truth. This whole universe is extremely horrible and totally disgusting, I've never liked any of it. Only the thought of a future paradise in virtual reality keeps me alive.

[caltrek]

I think we can all benefit from occasional escapes from reality. However, I think it is highly dangerous, both to our-selves psychologically and to society for such escapes to be permanent and full time. So, I vote "uncomfortable truth."

[weatheriscool]

I think we can all benefit from occasional escapes from reality. However, I think it is highly dangerous, both to our-selves psychologically and to society for such escapes to be permanent and full time. So, I vote "uncomfortable truth."

As long as it is fictional and in vr or Ar I am in agreement. Just that in reality that there is a fine line.