Axel the Chimeric wrote:

What would you do with your original body?

Well, I need something to serve on my carne vale party... ;-)

Oh yes; I would resleeve with continuity into a synthmorph without question, assuming I couldn't just be an infomorph on a really nice privately owned server. As for my original body? I would either donate it to scientific interests or recycle it for feedstock (whichever was more valuable to society).

Resleeving doesn't bother me, but unpersonalized morphs do. With a biomorph, whatever the model, I would absolutely need to go straight into some very particular bodysculpting in order to better identify with it. Otherwise, I'd rather a case. Going infomorphic would solve the problem nicely, and there are actually many reasons I'd prefer that existence—in a world with out TITANs and a quite probably very dangerous, very malevolent ETI.

How exactly does a cortical stack preserve continuity, but resleeving does not? If you use an ego bridge, continuity is preserved far more clearly than via cortical stack. A cortical stack is like taking a snapshot copy of the hard-drive of a broken computer and downloading it onto a new hard-drive, while an ego bridge resleeve is like linking two computers, one running, one blank, to the same monitor and slowly shifting files and processes from one to the other. The overall effect is one that the original computer is slowly shut down, but the processes are all now running on the new one. Continuity is far more greatly preserved via ego bridge use than by cortical stack.

An ego-bridge works while the subject is conscious; there's no break in continuity. Cell by cell, synapse by synapse, the processes are transferred from one substrate to another, but while maintaining transmission between those on the old substrate and the new substrate. The continuity is maintained, because the mind never "stops". A cortical stack, meanwhile, is recording what occurs in the brain, but it's not the brain; it's a save-state. If you don't consider keeping a mental back-up at a bank to maintain your continuity, there should be little difference between the consideration of delays; one second or one month, it's still just a recording, not actually maintaining continuity.

I would resleeve eventually. First I would get a c-stack, and fork myself into something else (anything really). Then after an hour or so I'd merge. See, I actually *do* believe that resleeving means the death of the original, at least from the perspective of the original. From the perspective of an observer it is not at all any kind of death and no "original" can be found. Many other versions of this argument have been posted in this thread, but my personal favorite is this: say we change the aesthetics of the process. Step 1 is creating the copy. To do that you press a button: poof the copy comes out. Step 2 is putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger. Now the obvious question is whether or not you'd do it, but I'm fairly sure that most people who believe that resleeving is not death would. My question is, if you suddenly appeared out of nowhere into a room, and saw a version of yourself holding a gun in their mouth would you let them pull the trigger? (in this case *you* are the copy) If your existence (as the copy) is perfectly fine with or without the destruction of the original then why destroy the original at all? So why would I first fork and merge before resleeving? Because it's an elegant way to trick yourself into believing your consciousness will be transferred. When you fork you gain memories that lead you to believe that a transfer is taking place when in fact it is not. The fork now has those memories and should be able to use them to sublimate any fears it has of death. Once the merge is complete you now have that same capability. This would be a great (though possibly unethical depending on your standpoint) way of helping people get past their fears of resleeving/death. Ultimately I would eventually resleeve because it is the next best thing to immortality, and because I have people who care about me. The most important thing is that while I believe resleeving is death, it's not as bad as the death we have today, at least for everyone else except the person who experiences it. And really, if resleeving helps us accept death by disguising it as immortality, we'll all be happier in the long run. What would I do with my body? Cryopreserve it and look for a way to revive it in a more durable state. Once I (the copy) manage to do this, I will not be merging with myself, but I (probably) will provide my previous incarnation with XP to get caught up. (depending on just how much naughtiness I got up to in the intervening years) tl:dr resleeving is death, but that's ok.