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Comment by blake8086 | Hacker News Reader

There is a post on the front page right now http://www.gentweb.co.uk/wirerecorder.htm about re-constructing some old wire recordings just to listen to the past. Imagine the opportunity to bring the person themselves back, instead of just audio.

I think if technology advances sufficiently that it is "easy" and "cheap" enough, people will resurrect cryo-preserved patients just because it suits them to do so.

If I had a button I could push that would bring someone who died in 1800 back to life, I would push it.

I believe I'm not the only person who feels this way, either.

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You would only do it while it remained novel, though. When two or three people are cryopreserved, novelty is enough, but what about when thousands or millions are?

Then you do it out of a sense of duty to the past.

People spend ages carefully preserving forks and other trinkets from the 1700s. Surely an entire person would be worth equal care, and a group of people more so.

> People spend ages carefully preserving forks and other trinkets from the 1700s. Surely an entire person would be worth equal care, and a group of people more so.

Trinkets from a bygone era don't require medical care, housing, and feeding. Note, too, that historical preservation goes only so far - there's plenty of places where old buildings are torn down to make way for new ones. I have trouble seeing where frozen corpses are markedly more attractive to refurbish.

Trinkets also don't have agency. What if someone wouldn't want to be brought back to life?

Trying another way, let's say the technology is created to bring Finney back, but it would only keep him alive for 4 hours, and after that there would be no chance of him ever returning. Would it be violating his beliefs for future-folk to bring him back for those 4 hours just because they want to hear what he has to say?

Depends - is there some magical event that means this is the only shot? Like, he's on a collision course with a sun and is going to impact in 4 hours, but we can remotely activate for those hours?

Otherwise, I think the proper response is "keep working on this technology until we've gotten that 4 hour window up to something useful."

If duty were enough, we wouldn't have wars or poverty, 'out of duty to our fellow human beings'. Why are people who are already dead more deserving of such 'duty'?

Um. You also stop poverty and wars. That is also your duty.

Um, so obviously duty doesn't stop poverty or wars.

The core assumption is that minds have an intrinsic value. Future civilizations who don't share that belief are unlikely to engage in resurrection. But as far as cost is concerned, there is no reason to think it'll be in any way costly, especially if it's in the form of whole-brain emulation.

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