Thorham

It's doesn't serve any purpose. If free will doesn't exist, nothing has a purpose and everything may just as well not exist. That said, it's obviously not known whether or not free will exists.

Wrong. On the net people use the word 'fap'.

This whole issue is exceedingly simple: 1. Women do all the work, women get to decide. 2. Men have no say, so men don't have to pay. Easy, no?

It's just a scientific classification based on the biological characteristics of an organism, not the mental capabilities of an organism. Basically, it shouldn't mean anything outside of biology.

The ticks don't change, it's local time itself that slows down... if I understand it correctly.

Say that again when you're a sex slave, have been for years, and you have no way out.

Since this isn't going anywhere, I have just one final thing to say. Yeah, don't worry about it. I don't see how organisms and machines can't properly coexist in principle.

No, it's not my meaning, it's simply how things are. Because humans range from good to evil, saying to be human is to help people is meaningless, because it also means to exploit them. That's just plain untrue. A thousand years ago we had no evidence for protons, neutrons and electrons, yet they still existed back then. A thousand years ago there was no evidence for planets in other solar systems, yet there they are. Things that exist, exist whether we know that they exist or not. While we can do that because of technology, biologically seen we're unfit for living in cold places. We'd just freeze to death. There exist no perfect organisms in this world, period. Evolution is all there has ever been in this world, so we don't know any better. Yeah, that's exactly what evolution does, and we need to escape it through technology. Tinkering with DNA isn't going to get us very far anyway, so for me, machines are the future. What is natural supposed to mean? That it's good? Have you seen some of the horrible things nature produces? We can do better than that, even if we're not doing better now. What I want is to exceed biological nature through technology, and one day we will... hopefully without causing mindless destruction, of course.

Nah, I just make it sound easy, and know that it isn't. What I want is a full tech body that's superior in every way to the body I have now. Nothing, exceept the bio part. Yeah, it's a problem alright. By keeping them away from me.

No, I don't understand that sentiment, and I don't think you understand what the worst of life actually entails. People can deal with loss, but living the rest of your life in the most horrible of conditions is simply continuous suffering. Sometimes, but I've dealt with it. Life goes on, and lingering in perpetual sorrow just wastes ones life. Quite valuable, but it wasn't to be. And as sad as it is, at least it wasn't the other way around. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children. It's just not right. Lucky for me I don't know emptyness. The point is that to be human doesn't mean much if it ranges from the very best to the very worst and everything in between. Lack of evidence means it's unknown, not that it doesn't exist. Probably nothing is perfectly adapted to the environment, simply because nothing has to be. Adaquacy is enough, and that's why you'll find no perfect organisms in this world. The process is exceedingly slow, and not guaranteed to yield real improvements. Why wait a million years for small improvements if we can ultimately do it so much faster and bettter? It's basically intelligence vs random mutations. I'm betting on the intelligence. Of course it's artificial, but what's life? A bunch of chemicals evolved from a primordial soup. How is that better?

I'm sure you do. Are life long relationships necessary? Not as an immortal, but as someone who exists today I say that there are far worse things, like millions of people dying in atrocious wars such as WW2. We live in a world where people are being raped, murdered, used as slaves, tortured, etc, and I'm supposed to think that loosing someone is the worst thing imaginable? That's absolutely terrible, and deeply selfish, because you place your own emotional well being above everything else. No, you don't understand correctly. When my father died 21 years ago, did that somehow make my own life less valuable? Of course not. Well, Hitler, Stalin and other such characters were human (not monsters, but human), so that means absolutely nothing. No, it's unknown. That's not the way I see it, and I'll never, ever agree with this kind of viewpoint. You've just never seen anything else, and therefore you don't know any better. You're just trying to give some kind of meaning to it. Eh, most of the species that exist today have done the same thing. There are species far, far older than us, and they're thriving. It has absolutely nothing to do with perfection what so ever. You're just glorifying the human species, which I find quite mad, really. Countless species have proven themselves, why we still have to be careful not to wipe ourselves of the face of the earth. Not to mention natural disasters. We could go the way of the dinosaurs, while the rest of the world just keeps going. We need mental development and we need to leave these bio bodies behind. That's adaption. Not waiting for evolution to produce slightly more advanced human species over the course of millions of years. Not in the slightest. The human species will hopefully have gone extinct because we've made ourselves into something new. It would be oh so wrong if in a million years we're still stuck with these primitive flesh bodies. The horror. To be freed from the burdens of organic flesh bodies would be a blessing indeed.

No, and I'm eternally grateful for that. Who says that having no children leads to a life of isolation? You completely misunderstand. I said that I'd rather endure loss than lead a horrible life, not that I'd rather see my loved ones die. These are two completely different things. I don't want immortality for those who don't want it. It's their life, and therefore their choice. Wanting others to be immortal just to avoid pain is selfish. Because I don't value my existence based on the people I know. No, it wouldn't, unless one is exceedingly unenlightened. Who says you'd be insensitive to pain? I don't want to exist without that. As for being humane, LOLOL. Humane? Yeah, I can see how humane we are on this world right now. Being human and humane is certainly something that needs to be left behind for something better. No, it's exceedingly primitive and disgusting, and something that needs to be left behind. Staying like this is what's stagnation. Natural selection doesn't produce perfection. It's based on organisms being able to adequately survive and reproduce. There's no need for perfection, so it likely won't evolve. And, really, wait millions of years? For what? By that time we could be some kind of masters of the universe or something like that. In a million years humans will be extinct.

I didn't say it matters little, I said that there are far worse things. A good example is slavery. And no, it doesn't matter if they don't want immortality. It would be their choice, and what's selfish is wanting them to be immortal just to spare you the pain of loss. Of course not, which is why we are where we are now. Doesn't mean it won't change. I somehow doubt it matters at all. Anyway, it's no way to live, of course, and I think that there's probably a better way than this primitive and ridiculous life-death cycle. If you want to be stuck in a primitive flesh body, then perhaps. We need to transcend the primitive life of this world. Change in a way that's just plain impossible for earth's biological organisms through evolution. Natural selection driven evolution may cause change, but it's slow, and not guided by any thought. It's surely something we can do without.

I see little point in replacing one body of flesh with a another. Are these mutually exclusive? Who says you can't feel that with a tech body? I'm not religious, and while I hope there is more than this physical world, I certainly don't hope there's a god + eternal heaven + eternal hell system of any kind. That would just be plain wrong. Those nerves weren't replaced with anything. By the time what I'm envisioning becomes possible, I don't think physical sensations are problem. Nerves and nerve endings, or something else, It makes no difference if it's done well.

We go from evolved bodies to designed ones. Evolution through natural selection is a painfully slow process, and waiting for something interesting to happen is not a good idea. It took a few million years to get from the first humans to where we are now. This is clearly something we can do better in the future. We already don't have survival of the fittest anymore. We 'simply' keep replacing our bodies with more advanced ones over time. We're a certain part of the information in our brains. The brain is simply an information processor, and we're part of the information that gets processed. We're not pieces of meat, just like software on a hard disk isn't a hard disk. The software could be stored in static ram, on an optical disc, a big metal plate with holes drilled into it that represent bits, or even just a dot pattern on a piece of paper. Same for the information in the brain, and therefore the same for us. Of course I'm kinda hoping that it won't work that way, because I hope that there's more than just the physical world, but that's another story.

Somehow those things don't seem to be an issue at all. We only have a billion years to find a solution to the sun problem (lol), and with the bodies we'll have within a thousand years we can eat gamma rays and super novas for breakfast. And meteors? Really? Eternity can't be guaranteed. At all. Bigger than the lifetime of the observable universe. We don't really know what's out there, we don't know how many 'levels' of mechanics there are, and we don't know how much control we can ultimately have over those mechanics. So I say: Who knows? Not if one's body is advanced enough. Only if we remain petty, simple and stupid like we are now.

That doesn't mean we can't develop away from the negative desires. Says who? I want people to do whatever they want as long as they don't harm others. The heartbreak argument is just a cop-out. Sometimes life hurts. Deal with it, especially so because there are things much more awful than loosing loved ones. It's also not as if that happens every day anyway. Only if we're fools. We have to stop being idiots anyway, so that may not be a problem. Except for the fact that humans being taken out of the cycle won't matter one bit. It already doesn't matter that our bodies aren't left to rot in the wild environment. Not a big deal at all. I'm certain it doesn't. There's also more to existence than just new things. In a thousand years we'll probably have replaced these meat sacks called bodies with something completely superior, and within a million years we'll probably be some kind of masters of the universe or something. I wouldn't miss it for the world if I had a choice.

I don't see how that's relevant. We seem to be doing a good job of not managing things already, so this seems more like a human mentality problem than anything else. That's certainly a nice and optimistic perspective As if times don't change and noting new ever happens. As if there's not something called mental development. Really, if I felt that way, I'd kill myself yesterday.

Eternal conscious existence. That obviously excludes things such as having a body that can't age, for example. Based on current science, of course. Doesn't mean much. Speak for yourself

I'd rather ask: What's the value of death?

Which, of course, will one day be achieved. Do you really want to die?

None of that is immortality at all.

Do you seriously believe we have no cranes capable of lifting 1200 tons? Right We have mobile cranes that can lift 1200 metric tons, we have a crane vessel that can lift 14200 metric tons, and a gantry crane that does 20000 metric tons. Really, did you even google this? Apparently not... http://fieldlens.com/blog/building-better/biggest-cranes/

This thread needs more empathy. And why would we try to avoid guilt and shame? Could it possibly be because we know we've done something wrong? If what you're saying is true, then you can just screw your ego and do whatever the hell you want without feeling guilt and shame at all. What a way to look at people. Yeah, humans do lots of things wrong, but it's just a matter of mental development.

Or the vegans eat people like you instead. Veganism isn't a diet, after all. I suppose we've also evolved to live in cities, drive cars, use computers, etc... In this day and age many people have a choice. That people choose their taste buds is one thing, using evolution as an excuse is another. Back when I still ate meat I certainly didn't try to justify it, I simply didn't give a damn. Is that so hard to admit?