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Self Evolution
Topic Started: Aug 31 2009, 04:58 PM (751 Views)
Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

I think we already had a topic similar to this, but what would you do to your body if science was advanced enough to do it? Now when I say this I don't mean what would you have added on, etc. I mean how would you have your body, as it is now, edited to better your personality? Again, no additions: nothing like "give myself wings" or "give myself claws." Let me show you what I mean, by giving my opinion:

If I could "improve" my body I would choose to alter my brain so that I had a perfect memory, had more capacity for left brain function (I have a good imagination as it is, and I'm pretty smart, but I could stand to be better with math and logic), as well as alter my sensory perceptions so that I could have a kind of wider spectrum of vision and hearing that could be turned on and off (as music and television are kind of designed for a specific spectrum). I would also want to alter my body so that I never had to sleep. I would also like to alter my digestive tract so that my metabolism would be much slower, so that my habit of eating only once or twice a day would actually be healthy (I would also have to make it to where it no longer stores extra nutrients as fat, so I could never swim again, but I guess I wouldn't need exercise anymore anyways).

So basically, I want you to put yourself through evolution to better adapt your body to your lifestyle (without radical changes). That fits me because I spend most of my time at the computer either playing video games, discussing things on forums like this, or looking up information about things that catch my interest. Obviously things like sleep, eating, and lack of exercise hinder that lifestyle and make it unhealthy for me. But the body is nothing more than a vessel for the mind, so what would you do to make your vessel fit the course you take?
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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lamna
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I was going to make a topic like this in Tech called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms.

I would want a faster metabolism so I could eat all I liked, and make it easier to gain muscle mass. Basically the whole Meyerdahl Beta modification from the Honor Harrington series, which the titular character has.

Something to improve my memory might be nice, but there are plenty of things I would rather forget. Improving my eye sight, or at least correcting it would be nice in theory, but I am too much of a coward about my eyes. So just glasses that don't get greasy would be fine.

And I would also like to get rid of sleep, think how much time you waste at night, and that is the time you have off from work.school etc.
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

Now that you bring that up, it would probably be better if I had a selective perfect memory, as I can't exactly just take trauma out of my bodily functions all together.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Better memory would be nice, but I'd add on to that. First, faster mental processing, so I can think faster (ideally, if you think twenty times faster then you can have twenty minutes of thought in one minute, without that lack of coherence mania creates), secondly, I would give my brain a link to the internet that can work fast enough to find any information I want and load it to my brain instantly, plus an actual computer system in my head, so I wouldn't have to actually use this infernal limiting contraption write documents and such, just think it and send it to the printer. Third, better multi-tasking, basically let me do far more mental things at once, like able to listen to two songs at the same time while writing an article while checking my email while reading a book while watching TV. Save time. Fourth, turn myself into a universal remote control so I can control televisions and stuff without the remote (can't find it? Don't worry, I'll change the channel).

Mostly stuff so I can squeeze doing more nothing into my day.
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lamna
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Being more intelligent would be nice, but being better about to apply my pre-existing intelligence would me more handy so I could do things more effectively.

Being able to smash the communists, to rip open there tanks a stamp on their dirty head would be handy. Bicycle repair would be good.
In fact, having a computer in your brain so you could upload education would be pretty cool as well. Like the Matrix, but plumbing and gardening help as well as hot wiring motorcycles and flying helicopters.
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I wouldn't have any alterations done at all. I'm happy to live with my imperfections.
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lamna
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I'm not devastated I can't be like that. I'd just like to be better.
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Personally, I like sleep. That's when I do my best thinking.

I'd want a higher mental capability, a larger humor center, more endurance, a high metabolism, better hearing, better sight, and a mental uplink with my computer.
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

I'm afraid if I had a mental uplink with my computer I'd be too tempted simply to download myself into the computer and scrap the whole "body" thing altogether.

Yea, I'm pretty big on the "body is just a vessel" mentality.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

This may be overly Christian of me, but our body is just a vessel. It houses your soul before it travels to Heaven (or Hell, depending on whether you believe or not).

But on a purely scientific note (that's what I do. When I speculate, I omit religion. When I'm not speculating, I think about nothing but religion. Curse you existentialistic mind! :D ), our body doesn't seem like a vessel. Since this vessel is so strongly tied to its interior, one cn't survive without the other. Unless you went overboard with the mental uplink.
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lamna
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I'd rather be enshrined that have my Kami sitting on clouds for Googolplexs of years. I'd have to do something important though, like take back Sakhalin or the Kurils and I don't think I can do that on my own.

That is if I am magical, but I doubt I am.

People uploading is going to be a pain. It could basically destroy mankind if it got out of control. As a upload you will be harder to tax and won't consume as much. And a land free of tax where you can live forever sounds pretty appealing. If people migrate too fast, there will be nobody left to keep the power plants working, the servers in working order and the internet tubes clear.

Ooh good idea for fiction, that happens, and the virtual world people live in slowly shrinks as hardware fails, and people have to fight each other for space. That would be a interesting war.
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

What are you talking about? The mind and body are two separate things. The mind is nothing more than the electrical impulses and synapses in our brain. Replicate the arrangement of the nerve cells on a circuit board and transfer the consciousness (because as far as we know consciousness cannot be replicated) via some kind of mental uplink (which already exists, by the way) and the body basically becomes a running car with no driver. You could even connect it to life support and keep it alive until you decided you would like to return to meatspace.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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lamna
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Trouble is, how do you transfer it?

And looking after the braindead is going to take up a lot of time.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

I suppose. I don't know why you'd want to upload yourself in the first place if you were just going to go back to your body anyways. And I have no idea how you would upload consciousness, considering nobody really knows what it is. It's amazing that we know exactly what makes a human brain tick and yet we still don't know what makes matter aware of itself and other matter. Perhaps consciousness is nothing more than an illusion, a ruse by nature; maybe we just imagine ourselves having when really it is nothing more than sensory stimuli.
Edited by Ànraich, Sep 3 2009, 09:27 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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lamna
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Huh? How would imagining we have it be different to having it?
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