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Why Futurists Should Embrace the Absurd
Futurist projects are often criticized for leading to absurd outcomes. For example, if we scan and upload our minds to the cloud, we could make multiple copies of ourselves. Which one would be the real you? Or, if we scan your brain at age 50 and then you die at age 60, would a resurrected copy of your 50-year-old brain really be you? Are you the same person if you lost 10 years of memories? Or, let’s say we develop teleportation where every atom in your body is scanned, destroyed, and recreated instantaneously at another location. Are you really the same person if your original form was destroyed? And what if your original form didn’t want to be destroyed? Would that be murder?
There are endless iterations of these conundrums. Essentially, there is no way to upload, teleport, or reanimate human consciousness without encountering issues with identity. Skeptics, such as Michael Shermer, present these issues gleefully, as if futurist and transhumanist projects are doomed to fail because of them. But I don’t find these issues to be all that concerning. Biological life as we know it is already amazingly absurd. In order to fully enjoy the benefits of post-biological life, we should lean into the absurdity, not shy away from it.
Imagine if our situation was reversed, so that we were already digital life forms, and our technology was leading us to recreate…
