Josh brought something up the other day that hurt my head.

Let's say you want to live forever, or for a very long time (just say it). Someone invents a thing that can copy your brain and put it into a robot/computer that can perfectly simulate a human brain to allow you to live on. Cool?

Or not?

The issue is.. when you are copied and put somewhere else and then turned on, is it YOU being turned on, or something else that thinks it's you. Can YOU (the person siting there) ever TRULY live on as you wish you would, by being copied, or can only a separate entity who is exactly like you move on and live?

I guess this gets into the concept of a soul, which neither Josh nor I believe in, so for the sake or argument, lets say there is no soul. You are a big fat chemical reaction.

At first I thought, does it really matter? If you have no soul then you *are* just a computer with a brain, so putting your mind into another computer would be like moving a CD from one computer to another. But then I changed my mind and thought it was more like copying a file from a CD onto the computer. The CD will stay as it is, and the copy will go do it's own thing, even though it is exactly like the one on the CD, it is still a different thing.

So no, you can not live on by copying your brain into a computer that can run it. The only way you can live on is to preserve the physical brain.

..Then I got mad because I'd really like to live forever and that was one of the few ways I might have been able to do it, but no more. Thanks Josh.