"So, then, if you're an atheist, where do you think you go when you die? Where do you think your mom is now?"
This sentiment, which was presumably some kind of attempted "gotcha" moment by one of my relatives, is an example of a dualist notion. That is, somewhere inside of me, hiding in my head somewhere, is the true "me" that tells my brain what to do, like my brain is the computer and my mind is a user. This idea is specious for many reasons, not the least of which are that it fails the Occam's Razor criterion, it is untestable, and is arrogant in its apparent assertion that other animals can operate with a hardware neural network, but humans can't.
Human beings are much more like waves than particles. The atoms that composed me are not the atoms that I was composed of when I was younger; yet my interpretation is that I moved continuously from there to here. Indeed, I did. But "I" am not the collection of particles. I am a moving entity in the medium of particles, a complex chemical reaction, like combustion:
except either side is unbelievably complicated. One does not ask where the fire went when it went out (well, ok, some idiotic religions do). It simply stopped. One does not ask where a beam of light went when it strikes a wall. The question is nonsense.
I bring this up because I've recently been having another (blessedly mild) stint of gastrointestinal pain, and frankly I'm looking to medicine to fix it. By fixing it, I believe the best possible option is to turn me into a robot. This could happen in several ways. One way would be a scanner would read and understand my current neural pathways into machine code, and then transfer this code into a robot. Jessica objects: But then YOU don't keep on living, some OTHER guy starts living and you stay where you are. No, I keep living AND I stay where I am. Better to put the one with living flesh out of his misery. "But what good does that do you? You just get digitize and then get killed, and cease to have consciousness."
I disagree with this notion, but ok, let's take a different tack. A more realistic option, anyway, is that nanobots could be released into our bodies for a complete cellular conversion. That is, tiny robots are injected into the body which systematically convert any recognized cell-type to a mechanical analog, one that is impervious to natural cell-death. Then everyone would agree that consciousness is continuous (as this is a gradual process), and that YOU really are being converted to a robot. Whatever. I fail to see the difference, but I'm open to either option.
So, let's get it done. I only have maybe 20-30 years left on this planet. I'd like to become a practically immortal, disease-free robot.