Throwing it out there—when I'm dead, you are totally allowed to resuscitate my brain. Better than being dead.
Please make sure I am supplied with some good books to read, if at all possible.
Please make sure I am supplied with some good books to read, if at all possible.
The "what if they wake me up to torture me" scenarios seem like wild catastrophizing to me - if someone has the political power and resources to develop special brain-torture gear, rez me, and keep me alive so they can torture me, they have the political power and resources to kidnap me and torture me with knives and fire as long as they want. It'd probably even be easier for them to do it to my physical body, right here and right now.
It sounds like the real worry is "what if I wake up in a dystopian future". And, of course, once you look at that, the expected value calculation is trivial. Consider the set of futures which have sufficiently-developed research and economy to systematize the operation of and systematically execute on rezzing random frozen brains. Consider the set of futures which have that property but are also dystopian enough to rez brains for the sole purpose of torturing them. Recall that these things are in tension; the kinds of irrationalities that lead a civilization to do that kind of thing will impair them in other ways, sometimes significantly - enmity from less-extreme polities, toxic culture leading to structural inefficiency, etc. You have to reach really far to find that region of the configuration space of possible future worlds.
So look at the expected values. Yes, being tortured for a while would suck. But being alive again, and possibly even biologically immortal, has the expected value of an entire new life. And the probabilities say that being rezzed is far more likely in a good future than a bad future. Literally every stage of the expected-value calculation says that being rezzed can be expected to be a win.
Even if the optimistic scenario is true for your first 100 "rezzes", the 101st civilization that takes over after the 100th collapses might not be so nice.
EDITED TO ADD: Moreover "the kinds of irrationalities that lead a civilization to do that kind of thing" is confusing a value judgment with rationality. An extremely predatory civilization might maintain its edge through cruelty, the same way that cats seem to play with mice before killing them. That would be evil, but rational.
I hope the optimistic scenarios are true.
It would be strange to return to your life after dying 10 years ago, but I'd probably take the deal.
I will be curious if they can not only resuscitate but also influence what is left? plus would it matter if your a victim of a seizure? would there be anything left that we see as a human personality to bring back? I ask that from experience of losing a middle aged uncle to a seizure, it raises your body temperature sufficiently to kill/wipe the brain. You can coma them to stop the activity but bringing them back up from that is no guarantee anyone is home
Are you comfortable with the possibility that those who are reviving you might not be doing it for your benefit?
(If they're explicitly trying to cause me pain, that would be a no.)
That is my point.
I imagine that, if this was a possibility, quite a lot of people would be ok (or even demand it) to make available "150 years after natural death" sentences, so that they can apply it to their newly deposed dictator. Then, once the new rulers become entrenched in power and begin to like it, they can start using it on their political opponents. Prisoner exchanges between warring countries could become quite interesting. Quite likely, some people might feel inclined to hang on to their loved ones forever. Remember Terri Schiavo [1]?
Feel free to imagine more interesting scenarios. If you don't start to shudder, you're just not thinking big enough. You can watch this Black Mirror episode [2] to get you started.
This gives a whole new meaning to the expression "killer application".
And the technology is here, it's only a matter of time before this kind of abuse starts happening.
I'm not saying we should not continue researching this, as the possibilities are endless, but let's not put the pitfalls under the rug
(This is a relevant YouTube video to the discussion, not spam.)
So it can easily be made to feel pain -- just pass in the same signals the nerves would have.
Also, people who become blind later in life often describe it as "black", so I think it's reasonable to assume that's how the brain would interpret lack of sense.
Seeing as we don't have full eye transplants yet, it seems possible (at lest with near future tech) that they could resuscitate your brain but not your other I/O peripherals, including your eyes. To misquote Harlan Ellison, you may have no mouth with which to scream.
It seems to me that your average case would involve either total darkness or the worst case of phantom limb ever. Or even worse: they might give you eyes, but no one to turn the pages for you.
I'd imagine that if we do establish "IO" that "text" would be the first/easiest type of data. It might be encoded in a strange way, but, well, I'll have plenty of time to adapt...
The comments in this thread to the tune of "anything is better than being dead" actually kind of took me by surprise.
I can conceive of a point where technology and society has developed to a place where bodies are replaced after death with something that's worth "living" in again, but that's a long way from wanting to be a brain in a vat purely because it means I'm not technically dead.
Without these signals, we have no clue whether you’ll be in immense confusion, anxiety, sadness or bliss. It could very well be much worse than death,
Are you ok with that gamble?
Yes.
The best course of action is to rely on what was previously requested.