Is it possible to transfer a human mind and survive? (Picard spoilers)

[King Green]

Doing that mind-doopleganger magic can only work if you take at least 3 spinal coulombs due to the mind having EXTREMELY limited data storage. Like 3 gigs in that lump of grey matter and psy-energy. A normal human spinal coulomb does have 2 terabytes of capacity via it neural interface from the psy-energy, combined with 12-14 coulombs of spine, your looking at a supercomputer the ITs have at the pentagon. Sure the aliens may have made some sort of method to go around that problem but overall, if the show didn't have aliens or future tech, we be looking at a pile of failed transfer corpses of Picard.

[Zargon]

Well, if this is the science question.....no human is ever ''the same" from birth to any age. Every couple years? or so, is not every cell in a human body replaced? So living 50 or 80 years, "you" are not the same person physically.

[Winter]

And this is why human beings in real life will never attain the holy grail of mechanical immortality that many predict will one day happen due to the simple fact that YOU will still be dead no matter how many copies of you are downloaded into other bodies.

... I, Uh, What? We're talking about if Picard was really him or a copy or and then you... What?! The Holy Grail and the... WHAT?!?! Where Did THAT Come From?! What Does The Holy Grail Have To Do With This?!?! That came completely out of nowhere and has NOTHING to do with the topic at, What?! I Just, WHAT?!?!

[clearspira]

And this is why human beings in real life will never attain the holy grail of mechanical immortality that many predict will one day happen due to the simple fact that YOU will still be dead no matter how many copies of you are downloaded into other bodies.

... I, Uh, What? We're talking about if Picard was really him or a copy or and then you... What?! The Holy Grail and the... WHAT?!?! Where Did THAT Come From?! What Does The Holy Grail Have To Do With This?!?! That came completely out of nowhere and has NOTHING to do with the topic at, What?! I Just, WHAT?!?!

I take it that you do not know what a "holy grail" is when NOT used in the context of Christianity?

A holy grail is the X on a treasure map, the summit of Everest, the gold at the end of the rainbow - it is the most sought after end point of a scenario. Immortality is this for transhumanism.

[Winter]

And this is why human beings in real life will never attain the holy grail of mechanical immortality that many predict will one day happen due to the simple fact that YOU will still be dead no matter how many copies of you are downloaded into other bodies.

... I, Uh, What? We're talking about if Picard was really him or a copy or and then you... What?! The Holy Grail and the... WHAT?!?! Where Did THAT Come From?! What Does The Holy Grail Have To Do With This?!?! That came completely out of nowhere and has NOTHING to do with the topic at, What?! I Just, WHAT?!?!

I take it that you do not know what a "holy grail" is when NOT used in the context of Christianity?

A holy grail is the X on a treasure map, the summit of Everest, the gold at the end of the rainbow - it is the most sought after end point of a scenario. Immortality is this for transhumanism.

I'm well aware of what a McGuffin is but what you brought up came completely out of nowhere. First half is you saying that you feel that Picard isn't Picard from the start of the series and the last bit you talk about how Human-Beings in real life will never attain the Holy Grail. It's just so random, out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

It be like me talking about Rise of Skywalker and how I dislike the ending was handled only to suddenly say how the movie proves that we will never achieve true happiness in the after life because we will see from beyond the grave and can never move on from life. It would be completely random and just a complete "What" in the conversation.

You literally said "And this is why human beings in real life will never attain the holy grail" and how "YOU will still be dead no matter how many copies of you are made" it's just so random I HAD to comment on it.

[Riedquat]

I'm well aware of what a McGuffin is but what you brought up came completely out of nowhere. First half is you saying that you feel that Picard isn't Picard from the start of the series and the last bit you talk about how Human-Beings in real life will never attain the Holy Grail. It's just so random, out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

He was talking about general questions raised by the concept, basically offering the opinion "no, he isn't, because it would always be a copy, not the real thing, and incidentally that means the big benefit some people would like to see of being able to transfer into a mechanical body that won't age or die (or at least can be copied again) is impossible."

I don't particularly agree with that (or regard it as a desirable goal), but it's a perfectly relevant aside to the subject.

[Winter]

He was talking about general questions raised by the concept, basically offering the opinion "no, he isn't, because it would always be a copy, not the real thing, and incidentally that means the big benefit some people would like to see of being able to transfer into a mechanical body that won't age or die (or at least can be copied again) is impossible."

I don't particularly agree with that (or regard it as a desirable goal), but it's a perfectly relevant aside to the subject.

He just suddenly said, Quote, "And this is why human beings in real life will never attain the holy grail" it's a complete non sequitur to the rest of the conversation. The main focus of the start of his conversation was is Picard really OG Picard or is he just a copy. And then he starts talking about the Holy Grail.

I responded to the first part at the start of the discussion but the other half of it was just so random that it took me a while to just process it. It's like me talking about the nature of Force Ghosts and then suddenly bringing up that because of this we will never become Angels. Questioning if a mind transfer can be transferred and questioning if it will result in you still being you or if your just a copy now that your memories and knowledge has been moved somewhere else is one thing but the way he brought up the Holy Grail just came completely out of nowhere.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So what, Vulcans are allowed to transfer their mind but not humans?

[Darth Wedgius]

FWiW I think connecting Picard's fate to transhuman immortality is pretty fair. If you think a mind upload or transplant or whatever is always not going to "really" be the same person, then you could say that Picard is dead and that, for the same reason, those paths to immortality will never work.

Noting that when I say "immortality" here I don't really mean living forever. After all, there's the heat death of the universe, the Big Rip, or just the unpleasant realization that you missed an important patch from MicroAppleAmazonSoft and now there's no way to get your mind onto supported hardware.

I think it's all semantics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus . What might matter more is, does the person facing death or uploading consider it immortality?

[TGLS]

After all, there's the heat death of the universe, the Big Rip, or just the unpleasant realization that you missed an important patch from MicroAppleAmazonSoft and now there's no way to get your mind onto supported hardware.

I'd only be really worried about the middle one; everything will decay away into literally nothing before that happens and the last one can be prevented with enough money. Best move to Canada before the Transhuman future to get free tech support.