From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Aug 21 2001 - 23:00:21 MDT
>From: Damien Sullivan <phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu>
>On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 06:02:50PM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> > > Yes, why would one on principle strive to become "pure information",
>as if
>
> > about too, in a way. The difference is that the cybergnostic is not
>striving
> > for the practical benefits but rather the ethical/aesthetic "purity" of
>not
> > being embodied.
>
>The material world seems destined to die. The cybergnostic may be striving
>for a practical benefit of real immortality, believing "pure information"
>can
>be eternal.
Pure information, it seems to me, can't be any more ethereal than energy and
given the equivolency of energy and matter I don't see that information can
exist absent at least a little bit of material. In short, I don't see how
information can be any more eternal than matter.
That said however, given the choice I'd go for the cybergnosticism simply
because, given enough computing power, data and sensors a meat-based body
would be of no benefit. There would be no experience in the material world
which could not be compelling duplicated (even significantly enhanced) in
the VR world.
-Zero
"I'm a seeker too. But my dreams aren't like yours. I can't help thinking
that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man.
Has to be." -- George Taylor _Planet of the Apes_ (1968)
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