For many years philosophers have been debating the reality of whether or not we could achieve a means of technological immortality. That debate is heavily focused on our beliefs on where our consciousness stems from and how we can cultivate it. There exists two realms that I believe we have to establish before we can dive into consciousness. The first is the physical component of our brains. The firing of axons and composition of different lobes in relation to feelings and expressions that connect us to our physical world. The second is the cognitive space, in which or character and feelings are held. These two components essentially make up the elusive ideal that we call our consciousness. Consciousness is something we are all aware of but is difficult to define. We all think, feel, and analyze our surroundings. Whether its out of evolutionary means to assess our surroundings as a means of determining threats or to fit our self determined philosophy on how we choose to interpret the world. Our consciousness is what determines us as highly intellectual beings capable of making our own fate. But to a degree, is our consciousness responsible for misrepresenting our world. A means of cognitive dissonances, to follow trends that fit the model of interpretation that we feel safe believing in our modeled world. The threat that we dwell on the memories of past experiences that have harmed our being and self perpetuate our depressive thoughts. To this degree it is safe to say that our consciousness is not a perfect projection of what we view. How could this imperfect projection of life be replicated in a digital state.
This brings me to the physical components of digital devices. While I have limited knowledge of the physical make up of digital devices. There is one philosophical example that I will reference to better project a computers capability. In John Searle's example of the Chinese Room, he sets up a scene to depict consciousness and it's disparities between digital processing. Essentially the example displays the idea of a man being locked in a room and given phrases to translate, with the help of a "set of rules" to decode them. The man struggles at first to translate the phrases correctly and the translation takes a long amount of time. Soon the man learns the pattern involved in translating the phrases and the time lessens. The translation becomes second nature to the man and he is able to translate every phase without thought. The question that Searle possess, is whether or not the man truly understands Chinese. This idea is to be compared to the process of computation that a computer posses. A computer is built to recognize patterns and display the answer that it is hardwired to know. This does not mean that it cognitively understands the means of the idea to the degree that a human would. It is simply following a process that it is designed to do. This capability does not align with the idea of human consciousness. While, we are trained in a way to believe ideas through nature and nurture. Our consciousness is undeniably tainted to error. Our beliefs are not hardwired to think in a certain way and there are many things we believe to be true that are false. It would be practically impossible to translate this way of thinking to a process and pattern oriented digital device.
Lets look at the idea that technological immortality is achievable and what effects it would have on our understanding of being human. One of the biggest components to what makes us human is the understanding that we will all die. While death is a scary idea to many but it also inspires us to make something of ourselves. Now imagine that death was no longer a fact but an option. What would happen to our society? My belief is grim. We would lose motivation to make anything of our selves. Our physical being would becomes worthless. Why would anyone exercise, eat healthy, develop our brain with studies and philosophy? Those who cling to religion would begin to dissipate in their thoughts, till religion disappeared entirely. What is religion if the thought of an afterlife is revoked? There is no need for a security blanket on our existence and what impact it has on our state after we die. We would live with what desire? Wealth? Sex? Family? With technological immortality we could no longer feel, explore, inspire. What would be the point of developing relationships? People wouldn't be determined to find a soulmate or love. Even though there already are people who don't value that. We would be a cognitively (to a degree) aware, talking android. This would be the highest degree of dehumanization that our society could experience. Dehumanization is a fate that many literary works focus on. It is the highest of all evil and delusional states. Take Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for an example. Kurtz's fell into a state of insanity and delusion stemming from the colonization inspired by ivory trade in Africa. Many accounts of his likeness appear savage in the attempts to portray him in a dehumanizing manner. To many of those who ponder the essence of humanity, dehumanization is the furthest from the moral code that our society clings to. What would we be in this type of reality? All I could determine is we wouldn't be human. Not in thought, essence, or capability. Achieving Technological/Digital immortality would not be a gift, rather a curse. We would continue to live to a degree, but what makes us prefect imperfect beings with irrational and tainted thinking would cease to mean anything to our society. We came from nature and we should return to nature, as we are physically determined to.
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