Digital “Resurrections”

[LadyForCamus]

What do you guys think?  Comforting, or totally creepy?  Do you imagine access to such technology would soothe your grief, or prolong it?  I think stuff like this would be way too close to the uncanny valley for my tastes, and probably just freak me out.  Or, the technology would be so realistic that knowing it wasn’t really my loved one even though it felt real, would actually prolong my grief.  

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/wil...ncna865806

[Silver]

Some people just love attempting to make the Twilight Zone a reality.

[ignoramus]

I can't really think of anything worse! lol

They used to photo the dead and paint the eyes on to remember them! That was normal back in the day!

Who stuffs their pets these days?

I think the world has moved on and learnt to grieve in more modern ways....

[The Valkyrie]

I can't really think of anything worse! lol

They used to photo the dead and paint the eyes on to remember them! That was normal back in the day!

Who stuffs their pets these days?

I think the world has moved on and learnt to grieve in more modern ways....

Kiwi farmers stuff their pet sheep. But I don't think in the way you mean...

[Angrboda]

I can think of better applications. You could have a private chat with that hunk you've been dreaming about all day....

[LadyForCamus]

I can think of better applications.  You could have a private chat with that hunk you've been dreaming about all day....

Now, THAT would be technology worth investing in!  😇

[vulcanlogician]

This was actually a Black Mirror episode.

[brewer]

Just another bullshit attempt at immortality. Look, if you/they didn't do enough to be remembered in life why the hell do you/they need to be remembered after death.

[Edwardo Piet]

If one of my loved ones died and I became so sad as to try and resurrect them as a robot when it wasn't really them and it was just me crying to myself... please shoot me. I need to move on.

I'll stick to keeping photos of the people I love, thanks.

I'm totally fine with anyone else who wants to do it. I personally would hope I'd be put out of my misery if I became so sad as to try and create a robot version of the people I loved. It would be a guaranteed way to never grieve properly I think, at least for me. It would feel like they were still there but not there and it would be painful and it would be in some sense 'unnatural'. But I fucking hate it when people say something is unnatural as if that's a bad thing... and I am certainly not making an argument here as that would be the naturalistic fallacy. Perhaps I should say I don't think it would be healthy because the brain has clearly evolved to love and to grieve after the death of loved ones... and it's clearly healthy to do so. And replicating that person would be a way to live in denial at worst and analogous to trauma at best. And by 'analogous to trauma' I mean... like when the brain experiences a traumatic event and to the brain it feels like it's happening all over again even though it isn't. In the same way, your brain might feel like the person is still alive if they could be replicated well enough, even though you know they were replicated so you also know they're dead. That's gotta be a painful or at least mentally unhealthy cognitive dissonance I think.

Now, if it were possible to backup a loved one's consciousness onto a computer chip so they actually were still alive, just not in a human form. That's fine. But I dunno if that could ever be possible no matter what the technology. That really gets into the philosophy of Identity which I find profoundly interesting... but my intuition is really that copying someone is nor reproducing their consciousness any more than cloning them is. Even if their consciousness could be copied exactly onto a computer chip... I don't think it would be 'them'. I have no problem with that one morally though. Or indeed with human cloning. Provided it was done ethically. I don't think it's unethical in and of itself.

---

 Or, the technology would be so realistic that knowing it wasn’t really my loved one even though it felt real, would actually prolong my grief.  

This. This all over. I think that would definitely be the effect of it. At least for me. Painfully painful and painfully unhealthy cognitive dissonance.

[brewer]

What if the person resurrected is a real asshole?