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Armok_GoB comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong
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This one is the sort of thing where there are a bunch of assumption that shrouds reasonable on their own, but implasible in conjunction:
A1: you don't have to perfectly transfer your entire conectome to still be "the same person"; only things that are actually part of your current identity are needed
A2: if your identity changes gradually over time, even into something that if the change was faster it'd be considered disruptive, you're still "the same person".
A3: the human identity can be very extensively modified using behavioural techniques, hypnosis, and drugs that occur in the wild.
Then: you should be able to achieve immortality in a stone-age environment, by first modifying your own identity down to extremely small so it can be entirely transferred verbally, then modifying a victim more abruptly to a sufficiently similar state, and finally building that mind up again to be functional. Repeat for as long as you can maintain the dynasty.
EDIT: Hey! The OP specifically asked for outlandish ideas that seem like they wouldn't work! Am I just being judged relative the many ridiculously good posts here?
This isn't a clever way to accomplish something. This is a way of willfully misinterpreting definitions until you can claim success without changing reality.
—Woody Allen
Gaming the system is, at least, in the spirit of munchkinry!
Posibly, yes. It still does so far more subtle and harder to disprove than the naive attempt.
That which is made immortal by such a method is not me.
One could certainly argue that, and in such an extreme case I'd even agree that it's not worth it, but nobody should be certain it doesn't work unless the don't believe uploads work, or they know an exact specific reason why it's wrong other than intuition. It's certainly very muchkiny, whether or not it works.
Oh, it's very munchkiny, and a very valid way to become immortal is to change yourself into something which is easy to make immortal. You just lose everything about yourself that death would have taken.
Death takes more from someone who hasn't changed themselves, at least partially, into something that can survive past it.
A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification. He can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely...A legend, Mr. Wayne.
Did you think to kill me? There's no flesh and blood within this cloak to kill. There is only an idea. And ideas are bulletproof.
Well that's not entirely true. His idea does destroy a lot of yourself, but many parts like your personality or ideas or even some memories maybe, may be able to be passed on. I would consider it at least partial immortality.
I would still consider an option for immortality if my personality and whatnot survived, but I had amnesia and couldn't remember anything. Even better if I can retain all the important memories.
But this would be extremely difficult and immoral as hell. Also I'm sure, just by chance, there is someone out there who has an extremely similar personality and values to myself. That's at least mildly comforting if I thought I was going to die, about as much as this form of immortality would be.
Ideas, and memories can be made to survive the flesh in far simpler was. Personality less clearly so.
Personality can be roughly preserved by getting someone to know you well, the permanently roleplaying as you, especially if using hypnosis to make them think they really are you.
Do you gain a lot of intrinsic value from perpetuating one's personality (in that way)?
it makes more sense to me to be silly about "personal continuation" in this direction than in the non-uploading one that's far more common. Which is not saying much really.
I don't put any value to something being "the same" over time, but apparently most humans do, especially when it comes to people. If someone does care about someone's continuity in a way that follows the assumptions listed in my post, then logically they should derive value from the procedure described.
As munchkinry, it's pretty good, but I'm not taking this seriously enough to actually try it. It's just a fun idea to me.
Sounds like the Buddha and his followers to me.
You know, I read a short story in which a person did exactly that: told his life story to a hypnotized subject, then convinced the subject that he had become the hypnotist. And apparently this had been going on for several "generations" now...
Oooh, link please? This sounds exactly right.
It might take some time to track down. I know that I read it on the Erotic Mind Control Stories Archive (a site that is, in general, Not Safe For Work) but I don't remember the title or author.
Basically, you're saying it might be possible to reduce your identity to a single stable meme-complex. Certainly, there have been people (mainly religious) who've tried this...
And who's to say all of them technically failed? I mean, in practice they almost certainly hurt themselves more than they helped, but then again there was no internet or cryonics so it's not like they had anything better to do.
I am mentally connecting this with the comment about tulpas
No need to modify the host's identity, you can both share their brain.
ETA: and now I'm thinking of the movie Being John Malkovich - the host was treated in an abusive manner, but there was a level of cooperation between the other minds sharing his body.