X-Message-Number: 32894 Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2010 11:14:42 -0400 Subject: One of the greatest TED talks ever, includes cryonics. Your'e... From: Rudi Hoffman <> --000e0cdffe7a6cb34c04918fa79c Hello, cryonetters, etc., Wow. I have long been a fan of "TED talks"...which have short, incredibly high impact presentations by world class folks on multiple topics with a basic theme of "making the world work for all sentient creatures." Everyone on this list should be aware of...and, I humbly suggest, would find intellectually enlivening this great series. This incredible education is available free thru simply subscribing to this free weekly email link feed. I just listened and viewed one of the BEST TED talks ever. And, remarkably, it deals with precisely the question(s) which have been speculated on at length (but not ad nauseum) on this site and other cryonics bulletin boards. Regarding consciousness creation, the precise mechanisms of what makes us who we are, and whether this is even theoretically definable by extreme computation. IS UPLOADING POSSIBLE? I have followed with great interest the many deep and surprisingly profound writings on this topic for the last several months. While electing to not share my thoughts and speculations on the topic of "uploading", I have privately wondered if our future understanding will make current speculations obsolete and irrelevant. Similar to the observations Brook Norton proposed about the illusion of continuity and consciousness being an artifact. Ettinger and nearly all of you have made great comments...but are we limited to just thought experiments regarding the nature of the self? Maybe not! The cool thing is that this discussion is no longer confined to JUST thought experiments. Perhaps we are no longer merely the modern equivalent of superstitious theologians having never ending handwaving discussions over "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Or we would like to think that we are not. Most of us would consider ourselves "skeptical empiricists" who take pride in an epistemology informed by actual facts. All this is to hopefully INTRIGUE you enough to view one of the best 18 minute videos I have ever seen on the topic of our nature and also providing an even handed endorsement (?) of cryonics. The graphics will amaze you. As well as inform us as to how challenging modeling even the brain of our friend C. Elegans with a total of 300 brain cells...and how this scales to "us." Here is the link. Hope you find this as cool as I have...and sign up to get TED Talks! http://on.ted.com/8bca Rudi Hoffman Port Orange, FL -- Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC World's Leading Cryonics Insuror rudihoffman.com Former Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.com Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org, Member Cryonics Institute cryonics.org Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/ Securities offered through Broker Dealer Financial Services Corp. Member FINRA and SIPC. --000e0cdffe7a6cb34c04918fa79c Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32894