Bringing Back Dead People?, Even ones who are Cremated Options

[Futurist1000]

It seems like in a post singularity world we are going to have a tremendous amount of computing power. Humans may have god like powers. So with all that power, it seem that it would be highly possible to bring back people from the dead, even if they were cremated.

This could be done several ways. First is some sort of time travel but that is highly speculative. A more likely thing is that we could simulate the immediate past via supercomputers. We will be able to use matter from the entire galaxy to run these simulations. Now we are constrained by heisenberg's uncertainty principle as to the speed and location of individual atoms. However, we don't have to simulate every single atom necessarily. We can use people's memories, historical records, DNA samples or whatever else at our disposal to reasonably approximate what would have happened in the past. It will be easiest to do this in the last ten years, but as we fill in more and more the details will become sharper. Essentially we will may able to pluck people at the exact time they died and recreate their own unique pattern of matter again. So it will be like they never died at all.

Many people might object to this on the grounds that they aren't the "real" person. But what does "real" mean anyway? Atoms in our body are continuously being changed as we consume food and excrete waste. Protein molecules are being constantly degraded. Everyday we become nearly unconcious at night but awake during the next day. Yet through all of these things, we still consider ourselves the "same" person.

I think there are a lot of people who would like to see people who have died again. Being an atheist, I see this as the only way that I will get to see any of these people again.

Of course this means as we bring back one person, they will want to see all of their relatives too. So will be able to see our evolutionary history. Also there there may be people who we don't want to bring back. Do we really need Hitler around again? Is it ethical to bring people back? Is it ethical not to do it?

What does everybody think of doing something like this (aside from any religious objections)?

Is it actually feasible? Or is it totally impossible?

I thought I heard of this idea somewhere else, but I can't seem to find it online. If anybody knows that would be great.

******EDIT
I found the original source of this idea.

In his controversial[3] 1994 book The Physics of Immortality, Tipler claims to provide a mechanism for immortality and the resurrection of the dead consistent with the known laws of physics, provided by a computer intelligence he terms the Omega Point and which he identifies with God. The line of argument is that the evolution of intelligent species will enable scientific progress to grow exponentially, eventually enabling control over the universe even on the largest possible scale. Tipler predicts that this process will culminate with an all-powerful intelligence whose computing speed and information storage will grow exponentially at a rate exceeding the collapse of the universe, thus providing infinite "experiential time" which will be used to run computer simulations of all intelligent life that has ever lived in the history of our universe. This virtual reality emulation is what Tipler means by "the resurrection of the dead."

Frank Tipler

This post has been edited by hrc579: Sep 26 2007, 05:36 PM

[niner]

We could bring Saddam back and hang him again! And again! Does anyone remember the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon that had the cloning machine and the killing machine, with an infinite loop conveyor belt connecting them? Just make sure to vote Republican. If Hillary gets elected, she will suppress this technology.

[shifter]

Would these people have every single memory they had upon returning from the dead? And the feelings associated with them? To me it just sounds like they would be biological computers with only limited and selective information we feed into them. Could we bring back Hitler and have him as a Jewish, Jew loving, peace activist?

What makes me the kind of person I am today is everything I have learned thus far, the experiences and feelings gathered that guide me into making my decisions now and in the future. If I died and in 10 or 100 years there was a supercomputer that could construct a body that looked like me, you can 'approximate' my life experiences and knowledge and memories all you like, it wont be me. Would the same entity looking out from my eyes be the same one looking out of this computer constructed model? I dont think even cloning is a form of immortality (if you could clone to an adult model and not start over). How does it work when you can have 2 or more clones living at the same time? Does each clone see the same thing each other is seeing and experiencing at the same time as themselves? My guess is, even clones will be different people.

My existance is linear. I was born, i'm growing old, and will eventually die (even if we can unlock to a limitless lifespan, the human body is still pretty fragile and high maintainence so always prone to death). So this body will one day cease to function.


(For the record, i'm agonistic. I dont know enough about the universe and its infinite wonders to say for sure there is no higher power or plain of existance, but I do not subscribe to any religious doctrines).

[Futurist1000]

niner

Just make sure to vote Republican. If Hillary gets elected, she will suppress this technology.

Great, so every time I make a new post your going to make a dig by bringing that up. Thanks.

Yeah Hillary is going to "institute some sort of Stalinist Health Regime ", so beware [tung] .

[Cyberbrain]

Simulations could also be run using quantum computers which use a parallel universe to do the calculations, tapped into by an artificial black hole.

But a simulation will only guarantee a 99.999% accuracy not 100%. But close enough. [tung]

[bgwowk]

It's fascinating that whenever any sort of technological resurrection is discussed, people immediately think of evil dictators coming back. I've seen this again and again. It must reflect some deep seated psychological archetype.

[G Snake]

I don't subscribe to the 'going back in time' theories, mainly because of the time travel paradox that exists. Traveling 'forward' in time is possible in a non-literal sense, but I don't think it's possible, with or without the proper technology, to go back into time, let alone bring someone back from non-existence. What has happened, cannot be changed nor will it ever be changed.

You could create a new entity that's extremely similar to that of someone who has expired, but in the truest sense, they will NOT be the same person, they will be the amalgamation of the collected DNA, history, memories provided for creation of the desired entity.

Sadly, if you were to re-create a lost loved one based on even the most accurate of resources, they would still not be the same person at all, only a construct of tangibles provided. If by creating this new entity, you convince yourself it's the same person, great for you, but it will not be the same person. Consciousness and the perspective of existence is unique to the observer, so there's no telling how many untold things would have attributed to their memories, and the makeup of their personality.

Believing this reality is of course a depressing outlook on existence, since everything that has existed, and has come to pass as now non-existent, will forever be non-existent (unless of course there is another place/time/universe that non-existing things go to after their existence here in this universe is terminated).

My relatives who have passed away, I believe they are gone forever, never to be met again by anyone, it might seem like a grim outlook on everything, but it's my rational perspective. Of course I hope I'm wrong, as I have relatives I'd do anything to see again, but rationale tells me that it's not within the rules of our universe for it to be possible, which increases the implication of 'immortality' almost infinitely.

[wanderer]

Time travel paradoxes come across as perfect examples of how even the world's greatest minds are willing to expend great effort to be intellectually lazy.

Despite our ability to deduce grand theories of the universe from the smallest amounts of information, our great intellects persist in characterizing time as some sort of magical river. This is understandable due to the currently linear nature of our awareness of our own existence, but when one looks at all we have learned over the past century, how can one justify faith in this mystical, magical river of time?

It seems far more logical, and more fitting with our current knowledge of physics, to regard time as just another axis on the graph that describes our existence. It isn't that the Earth of year 1850 has passed from existence, it is merely at a different location in space-time than we are. Our loved ones still exist, they just aren't in the same room, temporally speaking, as we are anymore.

Dreaming about time-travel can encourage wishful laziness, but believing all is not lost can encourage hopefulness. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to give our all when it comes to dealing with disease, frailty, and death. We should also pursue other back-up plans like cryonics. Unfortunately, however, it is certain that billions and billions of our loved ones are going to die before these options become developed and practical enough for the majority of us.

The good news is that maybe, just maybe, people of the future might be able to intervene at the last minute before one's death.

Therefore, if you REALLY want to cover all the bases: do all you can to assist the efforts to deal with disease, frailty, and death, sign up for cryonics or a similar type of back-up plan, and finally... and this is a beautiful idea: just be a great person. Love people, treat people well, stay close to your family and friends, do your best to have a positive impact on others. If you do this, you will greatly increase the chance that someone, who was brought back by someone, who was brought back by someone, who was brought back by someone, etc. will have enough affection for you to want to bring you back as well. For example, if the capability to bring back our loved ones is ever developed, it seems reasonable to assume that someone like Mother Teresa would have a much higher chance of being brought back than say someone like Vlad the Impaler.

Provided that humanity continues to advance and progress, that we get over the ridiculous problems we are currently dealing with in the world today, who is to say what might be possible hundreds of thousands of years from now?

Don't indulge in daydreaming too much about such things, but allow that sliver of a fraction of a chance that all is not lost to give you more hope and more strength to accomplish what needs to be accomplished today.

[Luna]

Simulations could also be run using quantum computers which use a parallel universe to do the calculations, tapped into by an artificial black hole.

But a simulation will only guarantee a 99.999% accuracy not 100%. But close enough.  [tung]

/pokes kostas

Why's parallel universe comes up so lightly?

[Futurist1000]

Would these people have every single memory they had upon returning from the dead? And the feelings associated with them? To me it just sounds like they would be biological computers with only limited and selective information we feed into them. Could we bring back Hitler and have him as a Jewish, Jew loving, peace activist?

Maybe we could convince even evil people to join a transhumanist society. Assuming things like race and conflict will matter less after a singularity maybe people could be changed. Or maybe we just wouldn't want to bring some people back ever.

You could create a new entity that's extremely similar to that of someone who has expired, but in the truest sense, they will NOT be the same person, they will be the amalgamation of the collected DNA, history, memories provided for creation of the desired entity.

I tend to think "Real" is mostly a subjective term that humans ascribe to other humans. I mean the atoms in our bodies may be completely different 5 years from now. In a year, 90% of the cells in your body will have died and been replaced by new ones. Proteins are continually being created and degraded. Our brains our continually changing as we have new experiences, the synapses are constantly rewiring. But we still consider ourselves the "same" person even though nothing about us is the same.

Lets say you undergo cryonics when you die. Since your brain is no longer working, the flow of your conciousness ceases to exist. However we assume that when a person is brought back to life they will probably feel as if no time had passed between their death and resurrection. So authenticity of a person may be entirely subjective. With the computer simulations, a person will have different atoms, but that person will still subjectively be the same to us. To the person being resurrected they will also claim to be the same exact person. They will feel like they never died at all. So it's sort of like cryonics where the original living persons conciousness will have ended, however unlike cryonics all of the resurrected persons atoms would be different. But since atoms are interchangeable this is exactly what happens to ourselves over the course of time anyway.

Ship of Theseus

Despite our ability to deduce grand theories of the universe from the smallest amounts of information, our great intellects persist in characterizing time as some sort of magical river. This is understandable due to the currently linear nature of our awareness of our own existence, but when one looks at all we have learned over the past century, how can one justify faith in this mystical, magical river of time?

Well I guess whether or not time exist is up for debate. However it doesn't matter whether or not it really exists. We just have to be able to make reasonable approximations in order to simulate the supposed "past". I mean they already run computer simulations that have the element of time in them. So I don't see this as necessarily being any different. We as humans percieve the existance of time and are able to measure it, I think that's all that really matters.

Now I'm not saying it would be easy, but it seems like you could run a simulation and if a historical event wasn't right then you could keep changing the parameters of the program until the simulation was in synch with events that were known to have occurred in the past. If we have so much computer power available to us, it seems like someone is eventually going to do it. If Nick Bostrom's is correct that we are already living in a simulation, maybe this is the very reason it is being done (though I kind of doubt it).

Don't indulge in daydreaming too much about such things, but allow that sliver of a fraction of a chance that all is not lost to give you more hope and more strength to accomplish what needs to be accomplished today.

Well I don't have anybody that I really need brought back from the dead myself. This forum though is all about daydreaming: immortality, artificial intelligence, mind uploading, nanobots, singularity etc.
If you brought up any of these things with the average person they would think you were crazy. So I say what's the problem with adding one more crazy idea even if its unlikely to happen anytime soon?

[dave111]

"Lets say you undergo cryonics when you die. Since your brain is no longer working, the flow of your conciousness ceases to exist. However we assume that when a person is brought back to life they will probably feel as if no time had passed between their death and resurrection. So authenticity of a person may be entirely subjective. With the computer simulations, a person will have different atoms, but that person will still subjectively be the same to us. To the person being resurrected they will also claim to be the same exact person. They will feel like they never died at all. So it's sort of like cryonics where the original living persons conciousness will have ended, however unlike cryonics all of the resurrected persons atoms would be different. But since atoms are interchangeable this is exactly what happens to ourselves over the course of time anyway."

I recommend due care. It may be that cryonics ressurects zombies. It may be that simulations recreate zombies. Our subjective consciousness seems to persist, in punctuated form, in our current wet brains over a normal life arc, as the matter in the brain is continuously replaced. It seems to survive sleep. But there's no garuntee that it can survive cryonic suspension, "uploading", or simulation. There's no need for overconfidence, except to the degree it optimizes performance to maximize our persistence odds.

I like this comment from Wanderer in this thread: "Don't indulge in daydreaming too much about such things, but allow that sliver of a fraction of a chance that all is not lost to give you more hope and more strength to accomplish what needs to be accomplished today."

My blog:

http://www.hopeanon.typepad.com

[Futurist1000]

I recommend due care. It may be that cryonics ressurects zombies. It may be that simulations recreate zombies.

Well things are always improving. Some people believe in cryonics and techniques can always get better. If at first you don't succeed? I guess it would depend on what your definition of zombie is?

I like this comment from Wanderer in this thread: "Don't indulge in daydreaming too much about such things, but allow that sliver of a fraction of a chance that all is not lost to give you more hope and more strength to accomplish what needs to be accomplished today."

If people didn't daydream where would we be as a species? How many ideas were once considered "crazy" but now we don't even give them a second thought?

I can see this idea is fairly controversial. This is only a forum though. I'm not dedicating my life or anything to getting this done. Its just a post that took me like 5 minutes to write. Personally I don't have anyone that I really need resurrecting. Humans have a habit of doing things, though, that other people said couldn't be done.

[Futurist1000]

I found a site with more about this idea. I don't know how legit it is, but the overall idea is similar. I think its more of a science fiction article as opposed to being true.

BESS is a technological attempt to build exponential growth A.I. (artificial intelligence).  We have made thousands of incremental steps of new ideas and ways of solving problems.  If successful geometric growth A.I. will do what is now considered magic, from time-travel to resurrection of the ancient dead.  No-one has proven there is a limit to intelligence, sometimes called complexity, and it may become regarded as a fundamental force like gravity.  The Project has been going since 1999, and broken new ground.  The two biggest A.I. problems of memory storage and speed of processing were solved by BESS in 2001.  One can dispense with memory and replace that in a variety of ways. Inflation, for an example, is one trick the brain uses to save space.Our memories are not data storage, but calculation from few mean points. We construct by the psychological process called inflation, what 'must' have happened. We hold that memory is not required for intelligence. Learning too can be thrown out to achieve space. Speed problems were actually solved in the 1990's with the invention of light computing, but BESS has consistently followed her brief of a build using existing machinery.

It is an aim of BESS to resurrect the long ago dead by supercomputing exponential growth artificial intelligence technology if that is possible. We have reason to believe that it is possible, indeed, probable that we will be able to resurrect the long dead, intact, in good health, with all their memories complete and their brains modified to adapt to what has happened.

BESS

This post has been edited by hrc579: Sep 26 2007, 05:38 PM

[G Snake]

I tend to think "Real" is mostly a subjective term that humans ascribe to other humans.  I mean the atoms in our bodies may be completely different 5 years from now.  In a year, 90% of the cells in your body will have died and been replaced by new ones.  Proteins are continually being created and degraded.  Our brains our continually changing as we have new experiences, the synapses are constantly rewiring.  But we still consider ourselves the "same" person even though nothing about us is the same. 

This argument can be countered by the fact that we sleep, and allow our conscious to shut off for up to 12 hours at a time. Over the course of the time we sleep, some of our atoms may be replaced or moved, and this implies that when you wake up from sleep, you are not biologically the same person you were when you had fallen asleep. Why is it then that we assume consciousness to be a continuation even after we sleep? An argument can be made that each time we wake up, we're in fact a new person, or a new version of our conscious.

They may be the same to us, but that's not the goal, if it was the goal, we may as well just create simulations based on our experiences and live within those. The goal should be to bring back the original stream of consciousness. The reason this is such a difficult topic to resolve is because consciousness is the ever present, indescribable variable that has a different meaning to every single observer. Me, you, and 10 other people could look at a piece of abstract art, why is it that we all interpret different things from one source? I think the uniqueness of the interpretation is the key to consciousness. No two consciousnesses are the same in the broadest sense, and currently, we have no way of proving this right or wrong, but it's probably more logical to assume that there aren't any.


edit: great discussion by the way, from either side of the fence, it's good to be able to contemplate these things with civil people with opposing views.

[dave111]

They may be the same to us, but that's not the goal, if it was the goal, we may as well just create simulations based on our experiences and live within those. The goal should be to bring back the original stream of consciousness.

Well-written, G Snake. I agree that that's what our goal should be. We apparently maintain that stream through our punctuated wakeful consciousness and through sleep interruptions. There's no garuntee it can be maintained beyond that, although I think some efforts should be devoted to that (and even to post-cremation ressurection) just as strategy diversification and hedging. But I'm glad at least some of us can be mature enough to acknowledge that speculations on cryonics and simulations may be nothing more than opiates. Our best bet, in my opinion, still lies in the conservative approaches of folks like Aubrey de Gray. We may have a shot at keeping these current bodies and brains going, with incrementalized repairs that mirror current gradual biological processes and using the same materials. I question the wisdom in trying to go beyond that in a transhumanist way: it could just create capricious zombies that start of as our rulers and end up our replacements. Once we solve biological aging and smartly minimize existential risk we apparently have hundreds of millions of years before we face challenges so significant we may need to substrate jump our subjective consciousnesses.

[G Snake]

Once we solve biological aging and smartly minimize existential risk we apparently have hundreds of millions of years before we face challenges so significant we may need to substrate jump our subjective consciousnesses.

This is how I view it as well, it's looking extremely far into the future, but seems to be the most reasonable case. As I've said previously, if our consciousness survives the hundred million year time frame, we still have a hundred million years to formulate solutions to these significant challenges. As far as I've seen, there's no challenge that consciousness has not surpassed, or that consciousness is not continuously working on (curing aging for example). Our biggest and foremost problem on the individual scale is that we first must solve biological aging so that we no longer have the time limit burden resting on our conscience, once that limit is removed, we can move towards the next challenge.

[Futurist1000]

This argument can be countered by the fact that we sleep, and allow our conscious to shut off for up to 12 hours at a time. Over the course of the time we sleep, some of our atoms may be replaced or moved, and this implies that when you wake up from sleep, you are not biologically the same person you were when you had fallen asleep.

I apologize if in my sentence if I made it sound like are atoms changed when we go to sleep. I was giving several different of examples how it is difficult to define who the "real" person is. I realize those are two seperate examples that are not related. Over the course of a year you may not biologicaly or atomically be the same person. However over the course of a night your conciousness is not a continual stream.

Why is it then that we assume consciousness to be a continuation even after we sleep? An argument can be made that each time we wake up, we're in fact a new person, or a new version of our conscious.

Thats one thing I've wondered about, every time we go to sleep is it like our conciousness is dying? I mean when we wake up the next morning we assume that we are the same person, but is that conciousness really the same? Our brain isn't totally turned off during the night so its probably a hard question to answer.

We apparently maintain that stream through our punctuated wakeful consciousness and through sleep interruptions. There's no garuntee it can be maintained beyond that, although I think some efforts should be devoted to that (and even to post-cremation ressurection) just as strategy diversification and hedging.

Yes it is all speculation. However I go under the assumption that conciousness is the product of the laws of the universe which are not beyond comprehension. I don't really believe in stuff like the soul. I believe ultimately everything about conciousness can be reduced to brain structure and chemistry. So I think we should be able to understand it better in the future. Cryonics still is a little suspect. Oh we freeze a person, and somehow in the future we will have little nanobots that will get the whole brain to function in the same way it did before. Obviously this is a huge leap. But scientists are doing some amazing things. I know just recently they have used deep brain stimulation to make a person in a coma become concious.
Man awakens after six years in coma
Science is already doing things that would be considered science fictions 30 years ago, so I don't see it outside of the realm of possiblity.

This is how I view it as well, it's looking extremely far into the future, but seems to be the most reasonable case. As I've said previously, if our consciousness survives the hundred million year time frame, we still have a hundred million years to formulate solutions to these significant challenges.

Yeah I assume if we have the computing power to do a project like this, then we would already have the computing power necessary to ensure immortality for everyone already alive.

[G Snake]

Science is already doing some amazing things so I don't see it outside of the realm of possiblity.

It's only the very, very top of the tip of the iceberg, and if you consider and observe the law of accelerating returns, this is where the overzealous optimism stems from IMO.

[dannov]

We could bring Saddam back and hang him again!  And again!  Does anyone remember the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon that had the cloning machine and the killing machine, with an infinite loop conveyor belt connecting them?  Just make sure to vote Republican.  If Hillary gets elected, she will suppress this technology.

Ron Paul my friend, only uncorrupt one going for the bid.

[Luna]

I highly doubt parallel universes and time travel.
And if we're just an axis in time, the future is premade.
The time travel between universes seems nicer.

[Googlebot]

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