T-Rex’s birthday is tomorrow which happens to be MY birthday as well! Unlike T-Rex, however, I am not all emo about aging AND also unlike T-Rex, I have discovered a way to live forever: I will give you a hint, it involves liquid nitrogen and the boundless expanse of interstellar space and also entropy reversing somehow
I don’t feel like starting/finding a conversation elsewhere about the comic, but for the record, I’m still unconvinced by the arguments I’ve heard against quantum (or modal-realist, or eternal-recurrence) immortality. (I haven’t read the paper linked here, though.) I realize few of the “me”s that would result from that kind of transition would have much in common with me-today, but I think I can live with that. It’s harder to live with the fact that a lot of me will be as badly off as factory-farmed animals or worse, but there’s not much I can do about that beyond trying to reduce the measure of conditions like that in general, which I have limited ability and will to do.
I also hold out hope for some kind of repeated quantum suicide for “free” energy after we run out, or (slightly more dubiously) a Permutation City scenario.
I’m not particularly optimistic about unknown physics, or (edit 10⁄22) convincing the simulators to let us out, and (edit 11⁄25) the Omega Point is of course bunk.
From the Dinosaur Comics news post for 2010 October 19.
-- Ryan North, Twitter
Comic #1897 calls mortalism out.
#1922 discusses TDT and the problem of punishment versus forgiveness.
#1932 brings up human reconstruction.
Counterpoint in #1935: “The future! It’s what happens after we’re around anymore...”
The scenario in #1947 resembles one described in an article recently linked from OB. (Not Singularity-related.)
#1991 has T-Rex failing comprehension of both recursion and free will.
#2030: More Downsides to Immortality.
#2047: not sure if satirizing mortalism or taking it seriously.
I don’t feel like starting/finding a conversation elsewhere about the comic, but for the record, I’m still unconvinced by the arguments I’ve heard against quantum (or modal-realist, or eternal-recurrence) immortality. (I haven’t read the paper linked here, though.) I realize few of the “me”s that would result from that kind of transition would have much in common with me-today, but I think I can live with that. It’s harder to live with the fact that a lot of me will be as badly off as factory-farmed animals or worse, but there’s not much I can do about that beyond trying to reduce the measure of conditions like that in general, which I have limited ability and will to do.
I also hold out hope for some kind of repeated quantum suicide for “free” energy after we run out, or (slightly more dubiously) a Permutation City scenario.
I’m not particularly optimistic about unknown physics, or (edit 10⁄22) convincing the simulators to let us out, and (edit 11⁄25) the Omega Point is of course bunk.