Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Oh' date=' I'd agree - it was just to make the point that "continuity of consciousness" probably isn't the phrase we want. And the actual dividing line between life and death gets fuzzy once you start to think about it in detail: someone who goes into total cardiac arrest and has their brain shut down[/quote']

I doubt it. Just because your heart stops, does not means every other organ stops working too. Especially the brain has some reserves of oxigen. Afaik after around 6 minutes you start to get irreversible brain damage because your brain start dying then, step by step...

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Well' date=' even if one accepts reincarnation, that does not necessarily mean one can direct the outcome--that copy of "me" may well still be a copy, with the present consciousness of the original "me" manifesting itself elsewhere. [/quote']

This is a possibility. We won't know untill we are able to run the experiment.

 

And one's friends and loved ones would still likely react to the copy as though it were someone new' date=' if they had knowledge that the original "me" had passed beyond the veil, so to speak. There's a reason why we consider friends and family irreplaceable and precious--because we understand intuitively what uniqueness means. You can copy my dead brother's consciousness synapse for synapse and memory for memory--but if it's not his original continuing consciousness in there, it isn't him, not to me, or to any of my family.[/quote']

"You're not my real dad!" Just me, or is this coming across as step parent issues?

 

It's nice that you know your entire family well enough to speak for them as a block. But the the existence of such things as cover bands, celebrity impersonators, and psychic mediums indicates to me that many people are more accepting than your family of a reasonable simulation, or even a half-assed simulation.

 

I think if we do get true duplicates, many people would accept them as the originals.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

This is a possibility. We won't know untill we are able to run the experiment.

 

 

"You're not my real dad!" Just me, or is this coming across as step parent issues?

 

It's nice that you know your entire family well enough to speak for them as a block. But the the existence of such things as cover bands, celebrity impersonators, and psychic mediums indicates to me that many people are more accepting than your family of a reasonable simulation, or even a half-assed simulation.

 

I think if we do get true duplicates, many people would accept them as the originals.

 

Not if you know the original is dead. It's not that complicated, really. It'd be like discovering someone has a twin brother, after they just died. Even if the two look and sound identical, had identical tastes and upbringing, similar personalities and so forth, you still know the original person you knew is dead. If I know "that's not the real me", then people who know/knew the real me will know that too. The only way that would be otherwise is if people were actually ignorant of the "switch". A perfect copy of the original is still just a copy. The benefit of such a form of "immortality" seems quite limited to me. Is it really any better than the old fashioned form of immortality--living through one's descendants? A copy would pretty much fall into that category, imo.

I want MY consciousness to continue, not a copy of my consciousness--why would that have value to me, since I'd either be dead or in another state of being? Why not just use a technology that extends the duration of the original consciousness, rather than going for "immortality via Xerox"?

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I want MY consciousness to continue' date=' not a copy of my consciousness--why would that have value to me, since I'd either be dead or in another state of being? Why not just use a technology that extends the duration of the original consciousness, rather than going for "immortality via Xerox"?[/quote']

False dilema, why not both?

 

Not if you know the original is dead. It's not that complicated' date=' really. It'd be like discovering someone has a twin brother, after they just died. Even if the two look and sound identical, had identical tastes and upbringing, similar personalities and so forth, you still know the original person you knew is dead. If I know "that's not the real me", then people who know/knew the real me will know that too. The only way that would be otherwise is if people were actually ignorant of the "switch". A perfect copy of the original is still just a copy. The benefit of such a form of "immortality" seems quite limited to me. Is it really any better than the old fashioned form of immortality--living through one's descendants? A copy would pretty much fall into that category, imo. [/quote']

A cat is not a person, but I can orly refer you back to what I said about Bushi. I saw that cat die. I cremated that cat twice. If i hadn't I would swear in a court of law that was a domestic shorthair who was pushing 30 years old.

 

Maybe i am delusional. Maybe my son is secretly or unintentionally training calicos to answer to Bushi's name. Doesn't change that I DO accept it as the same cat.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

False dilema, why not both?

 

 

A cat is not a person, but I can orly refer you back to what I said about Bushi. I saw that cat die. I cremated that cat twice. If i hadn't I would swear in a court of law that was a domestic shorthair who was pushing 30 years old.

 

Maybe i am delusional. Maybe my son is secretly or unintentionally training calicos to answer to Bushi's name. Doesn't change that I DO accept it as the same cat.

 

Well, hopefully, in practice, it would be a false dilemma. I think, however, if you offered someone a choice between two technologies, one of which gave them a 50 year extension on their natural lifespan but no guarantee of further extension, and the other which destroyed their original consciousness(i.e., killed them deader than disco) but placed a copy in a new form capable of lasting indefinitely...I think most people would choose the first option and say, "talk to me in another 50 years about Plan B."

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Well' date=' hopefully, in practice, it would be a false dilemma. I think, however, if you offered someone a choice between two technologies, one of which gave them a 50 year extension on their natural lifespan but no guarantee of further extension, and the other which destroyed their original consciousness(i.e., killed them deader than disco) but placed a copy in a new form capable of lasting indefinitely...I think most people would choose the first option and say, "talk to me in another 50 years about Plan B."[/quote']

Where did the "destroy the original" come from? Thought we had been discussing non-destructive uploading. Would you prefer the gradual migration scenario I suggested upthread?

 

Which is why you don't do it all at once. Start with off-site redundancy for new memories' date=' copy the older ones as they are accessed, add a math coprocessor, real time facial recognition, copy and annotate the farley file, run parallel processors to multitask. Start by using the organic brain for 95% of what you are doing, the percentage its handling drops as time goes by, so when it finally does crash it's an inconvenience. [/quote']

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I still have to agree with the alienation factor. There are quite a few on-the-verge or near future technologies that we will struggle with.

 

For instance: "The Uncanny Valley". Now, I, personally, have a very high threshold (or possibly am just not bothered) for what is "supposed" to bother me. Other people get freaked out by mannequins. Go figure.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

For instance: "The Uncanny Valley". Now' date=' I, personally have a very high threshold (or possibly am just not bothered) for what is "supposed" to bother me. Other people get freaked out by mannequins. Go figure.[/quote']

Huh?

 

What I found on The Uncanny Valley referred to it as a hypothesis. Developed in 1978. Has the research been done? This actually looks like something a marketing department could confirm or disprove in under a month.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Huh?

 

What I found on The Uncanny Valley referred to it as a hypothesis. Developed in 1978. Has the research been done? This actually looks like something a marketing department could confirm or disprove in under a month.

 

I haven't done any in-depth research on the idea, but I have semi-regularly heard the term over the years and seen corresponding examples. There's something to it, even if it's not scientifically recognized on a wide scale.

 

By the way, to avoid confusion, i'll state right now that i'm not trying to attach biological clones to The Uncanny Valley, but bringing it up as a topic related to growing technologies. It is mentioned often in regards to androids.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Where did the "destroy the original" come from? Thought we had been discussing non-destructive uploading. Would you prefer the gradual migration scenario I suggested upthread?

 

Well, I'd prefer anything that preserves continuity of the original consciousness. me 1.0, me 1.1, me 1.2, etc. would be fine, compared to me 1.0/me (dead)/copy me 1.0. I had the impression someone was talking about destructive copying, where they just copy your consciousness but the original doesn't transfer itself. I think you can understand why I'd have deep reservations about that scenario. If you're talking about transferring my consciousness into an immortal, eternally youthful olympian body, well, it'd be a hard adjustment, but I guess I could get used to it...

[Gnaskar]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Imagine the following scenario:

You're at the hospital, in the late stages of lethal effect X (Cancer, car accident, shooting, decease; pick your preference). At one point you black out to the dreaded sound of a flat lining heart monitor. When you next wake up you've been moved to a different room of the hospital. All your aches and pains are gone, vision is back and 20-20, and you think your hearing has improved. You are, however, paralyzed. A doctor is standing over you, checking something on a handheld device. "Good, you're awake. Don't worry, the paralysis will wear off shortly. *pause* I'm sorry, but we weren't able to save your body. Your new one is only temporary, and your insurance covers a custom fitted one, that will arrive sometime next week. In the mean time, you may find your limbs are not quite the length you are used to."

 

From a technical perspective, you just died. You were dead for maybe 3 minutes before the decision to move to more drastic measures than CPR was made. Your body is lying in the hospital morgue. But from your perspective, you blacked out and woke up again. Is this a copy, or is it "you" in any meta-physical sense? By what arguement can you say your soul didn't digitalize with the rest of your mind? Would it be any different if the body was biological (and your brainwaves and brain structure was "copied" on to a pile of stem cells inside the new body's skull)? Or if it was an actual brain transplant?

 

That was a so-called destructive uploading.

 

I assume here that it has become regular practice, but under that assumption I don't think my family and friends would have any more trouble adjusting to the new me than if I have been paralyzed or had a stroke. This might be a side effect of growing up in a rationalist family and hanging out with computer engineers, but it would probably become accepted by the general public fairly quickly as the number of uplifts increased (after all, they don't die, so their numbers accumulate quickly). The key factor is the lack of a grieving period. Your family aren't told that you're dead, they're told that extreme measures were taken to keep you from passing on. Grieving is replaced with adjustment, a far simpler process.

 

A whole other can of worms is the fanatics that claim that your soul passed on with your body, making you a defacto undead, or the ones that claim that by "cheating death" you are violating the agreements between humans and god, and thus must be killed to allow the rest of humanity access to the afterlife (which both have far more direct potential in a role-playing game than the philosophical questions behind them).

 

I'll leave arguing for non-destructive uploading to McCoy, as I still need to sort out my feelings on the matter.

[Markdoc]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I doubt it. Just because your heart stops' date=' does not means every other organ stops working too. Especially the brain has some reserves of oxigen. Afaik after around 6 minutes you start to get irreversible brain damage because your brain start dying then, step by step...[/quote']

 

Actually, it does. This I can attest to from both personal and clinical experience. That's why cardiac arrest is called "clinical death". When your heart stops, you die. If you are lucky, you can be bought back, but technically, you've been dead. The only difference between "clinically dead" and just plain dead is a few minutes. There's no biological point at which you can say "This is the cut-off". It's a working definition: if the person can be resuscitated they were only clinically dead. If they can't, then they're just dead.

 

Every organ in your body is dependant not just on blood (technically, oxygen), but on blood pressure: think of it as the pump that keeps you running. If your heart stops, your brain will shut down - suddenly and without warning - very shortly afterwards (usually in about 15 seconds). Same for your kidneys, lungs ... even your pancreas. Brain damage starts, not after 6 minutes, but more or less immediately (this is called, technically, Ischemic damage. All organs are affected by it, the brain is simply very sensitive to it). Of course, after 6 minutes, it's advanced enough that it's likely to be extreme, but it's not like there's some special cut-off. It starts almost as soon as blood pressure falls.

 

And that's my point: people are throwing these terms around like they're absolutes. But they are not: in biology hardly anything is that clear-cut.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Imagine the following scenario:

You're at the hospital, in the late stages of lethal effect X (Cancer, car accident, shooting, decease; pick your preference). At one point you black out to the dreaded sound of a flat lining heart monitor. When you next wake up you've been moved to a different room of the hospital. All your aches and pains are gone, vision is back and 20-20, and you think your hearing has improved. You are, however, paralyzed. A doctor is standing over you, checking something on a handheld device. "Good, you're awake. Don't worry, the paralysis will wear off shortly. *pause* I'm sorry, but we weren't able to save your body. Your new one is only temporary, and your insurance covers a custom fitted one, that will arrive sometime next week. In the mean time, you may find your limbs are not quite the length you are used to."

 

From a technical perspective, you just died. You were dead for maybe 3 minutes before the decision to move to more drastic measures than CPR was made. Your body is lying in the hospital morgue. But from your perspective, you blacked out and woke up again. Is this a copy, or is it "you" in any meta-physical sense? By what arguement can you say your soul didn't digitalize with the rest of your mind? Would it be any different if the body was biological (and your brainwaves and brain structure was "copied" on to a pile of stem cells inside the new body's skull)? Or if it was an actual brain transplant?

 

That was a so-called destructive uploading.

 

A perfect example of what I was trying to say!

Essentially a "destructive transfer" is not very different - in terms of consciousness - from what happens to people every day in hospitals across the planet. It's very different from a physical/legal/philosophical viewpoint of course, but I can pretty much guarantee that it it were available, it would become the standard as rapidly as the equipment could be manufactured and put in place.

 

cheers, Mark

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Uh, why do the people of the first example have to be "fanatics"?

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Imagine the following scenario:

You're at the hospital, in the late stages of lethal effect X (Cancer, car accident, shooting, decease; pick your preference). At one point you black out to the dreaded sound of a flat lining heart monitor. When you next wake up you've been moved to a different room of the hospital. All your aches and pains are gone, vision is back and 20-20, and you think your hearing has improved. You are, however, paralyzed. A doctor is standing over you, checking something on a handheld device. "Good, you're awake. Don't worry, the paralysis will wear off shortly. *pause* I'm sorry, but we weren't able to save your body. Your new one is only temporary, and your insurance covers a custom fitted one, that will arrive sometime next week. In the mean time, you may find your limbs are not quite the length you are used to."

 

From a technical perspective, you just died. You were dead for maybe 3 minutes before the decision to move to more drastic measures than CPR was made. Your body is lying in the hospital morgue. But from your perspective, you blacked out and woke up again. Is this a copy, or is it "you" in any meta-physical sense? By what arguement can you say your soul didn't digitalize with the rest of your mind? Would it be any different if the body was biological (and your brainwaves and brain structure was "copied" on to a pile of stem cells inside the new body's skull)? Or if it was an actual brain transplant?

 

That was a so-called destructive uploading.

 

I assume here that it has become regular practice, but under that assumption I don't think my family and friends would have any more trouble adjusting to the new me than if I have been paralyzed or had a stroke. This might be a side effect of growing up in a rationalist family and hanging out with computer engineers, but it would probably become accepted by the general public fairly quickly as the number of uplifts increased (after all, they don't die, so their numbers accumulate quickly). The key factor is the lack of a grieving period. Your family aren't told that you're dead, they're told that extreme measures were taken to keep you from passing on. Grieving is replaced with adjustment, a far simpler process.

 

A whole other can of worms is the fanatics that claim that your soul passed on with your body, making you a defacto undead, or the ones that claim that by "cheating death" you are violating the agreements between humans and god, and thus must be killed to allow the rest of humanity access to the afterlife (which both have far more direct potential in a role-playing game than the philosophical questions behind them).

 

I'll leave arguing for non-destructive uploading to McCoy, as I still need to sort out my feelings on the matter.

 

What you describe isn't a destructive uploading, from my POV. A destructive uploading would be one where your brain dies, and your existing consciousness with it. A "backup" copy of your brain/consciousness is then turned on, and this "new you" continues to live the life you once had. But "old you" doesn't know anything about it, because you're dead, period.

 

To use a metaphor to better illustrate what I mean: Let's say that a sheet of paper has consciousness, and awareness of its surroundings, etc. Let's say we make a copy of this sheet of paper, including the consciousness, but with that consciousness in "suspension". Let's say something bad happens to the original sheet of paper, and it gets shredded/burned/etc. When that happens, the inherent and unique consciousness contained in the paper "dies" and no longer exists. The consciousness of the copy is then pulled out of suspension. It believes it is the original, and that its consciousness has been continuous. But it isn't, and it hasn't. The original consciousness is dead, and therefore receives no benefit from the continuing existence of the new copy.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

There's also the "paper airplane" example.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

What you describe isn't a destructive uploading' date=' from my POV. A destructive uploading would be one where your brain dies, and your existing consciousness with it. A "backup" copy of your brain/consciousness is then turned on, and this "new you" continues to live the life you once had. But "old you" doesn't know anything about it, because you're dead, period. [/quote']

 

Using different definitions of things; the number one way to argue past one another. Here are the terms as I use them.

 

Destructive Uploading: Originally a version that involved cutting a cryogenically frozen brain in to narrow slices to assist in the scanning process (as the idea of uploading is older than MRI and CAT scanners), the term has since been expanded to include any process that involves the biological brain being rendered useless (including non-destructive uploads on a dying body).

 

Non-destructive Uploading: A process that doesn't involve the host dying. IA any uploading that isn't destructive.

 

Memory Backup: The process you described. Having a backup "you" in storage, in case of the original dying [in such a way that a normal upload is no longer possible]. (The term here comes from Peter Hamilton's "Pandora's Star")

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Using different definitions of things; the number one way to argue past one another. Here are the terms as I use them.

 

Destructive Uploading: Originally a version that involved cutting a cryogenically frozen brain in to narrow slices to assist in the scanning process (as the idea of uploading is older than MRI and CAT scanners), the term has since been expanded to include any process that involves the biological brain being rendered useless (including non-destructive uploads on a dying body).

 

Non-destructive Uploading: A process that doesn't involve the host dying. IA any uploading that isn't destructive.

 

Memory Backup: The process you described. Having a backup "you" in storage, in case of the original dying [in such a way that a normal upload is no longer possible]. (The term here comes from Peter Hamilton's "Pandora's Star")

 

In my aforementioned example--if you cut into the original piece of paper to remove the consciousness contained therein, pasted it to the copy and "restarted" it, then that would be non-destructive, imo--you have continuity of consciousness as perceived by all parties--1) the original consciousness, which now only falls asleep and wakes up still existing, 2) the new consciousness, which is indisputably continuous with the original, and 3) outside observers, who perceive no difference between the two. In destructive uploading, only 2 and 3 perceive no difference. 1 perceives nothing, because it dies/discontinues. This is not an imaginary issue, if you happen to be the original consciousness.

It's not so much about the bio-brain being rendered useless, as it is that the essential elements of that unique consciousness--located in the bio-brain--are not directly transferring over. If they directly transfer over, then the original consciousness is not destroyed but instead continues in a new form. If they do not, then the original consciousness is no more, and only the new consciousness and outside observers believe there is no difference. If my twin/clone sits in another office from mine, I am not sitting in two offices simultaneously. I am only sitting in one, and that's not the one where my clone is sitting--even if my clone firmly believes he is "me". Final distinction, which I hope will clear this up for good: in your aforementioned scenario, for a destructive upload, you never wake up, because you died when your brain did; your copy wakes up, thinking they are the same you as before, but they are not. Others may perceive no difference, but had the original you a means for doing so, it would beg to differ.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Uh' date=' why do the people of the first example have to be "fanatics"?[/quote']

I think the term "you . . . must be killed. . .." If they are wiling to discuss and try non-violent persuasion, that makes them people with a different point of view.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I think the term "you . . . must be killed. . .." If they are wiling to discuss and try non-violent persuasion' date=' that makes them people with a different point of view.[/quote']

"first example".

 

A whole other can of worms is the fanatics that claim that your soul passed on with your body' date=' making you a defacto undead[/b'], or the ones that claim that by "cheating death" you are violating the agreements between humans and god, and thus must be killed to allow the rest of humanity access to the afterlife

 

Emphasis bolded. After the "or" would be the second example. I can definitely see people from the second example being fanatics.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Consider Start Trek teleporters. Scans the body, but the energies involved in doing so quickly take the original apart on a subatomic level.

 

Consider a super-powerful CAT scan, maps the brain in such detail that a computer simulation can be built that would pass the equivalent of a Turing test. But the energies involved in doing so "cook" the brain.

 

Consider nanobots inside the brain. They select an organic neuron, build an inorganic one in parallel. When testing confirms the new neuron functions exactly like the old one, the redundant organic neuron is removed to make working room for them to replace the next one.

 

These are destructive duplication methods. Something inherent in the method prevents a side by side comparison of the original and the copy.

 

In contrast take the teleporter in the cartoon upthread, where destruction of the original turned out to be an optional step. Or a brain scanner that allowed the brain to be mapped in enough detail to create an AI duplicate without damaging the original. Original and copy could exist at the same time, could converse, compare notes on the experience. Nondestructive.

 

An emergency copy of a dying patient in this case would still be considered non-destructive because it wasn't the copying that killed them.

 

In between would be what I call gradual migration. Build a neural interface. Hook the brain to a computer that monitors its function. Augment the brain with "apps," better memory, math co-processor, real-time image enhancement software to compensate for failing eyes. Owner of the augmented brain goes about their business. But as more functions of the jellyware become unreliable, or fail, they are taken over by the computer. In time the jellyware fails entirely, but to the owner of the augmented brain this seems an inconvenience rather than a tragedy, their memories, personality, and sense of self had already moved to the new hardware.

 

Technologically, that seems the most likely to me. But I could be wrong.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I guess I'd probably distinguish things by using the terms "continuous" and "non-continuous". My current consciousness being directly transferred into a new body--continuous. My current consciousness being copied, ceasing to be, and the copy contining on--non-continuous.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

"first example".

 

 

 

Emphasis bolded. After the "or" would be the second example. I can definitely see people from the second example being fanatics.

Ah, I read it as a dependent clause.

 

A whole other can of worms is the fanatics that claim that your soul passed on with your body, making you a defacto undead (or the ones that claim that by "cheating death" you are violating the agreements between humans and god) and thus must be killed.

 

I though they were BOTH out to kill you, but you're right, that's implied rather than stated for those who believe you to be undead.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Consider Start Trek teleporters. Scans the body, but the energies involved in doing so quickly take the original apart on a subatomic level.

 

Consider a super-powerful CAT scan, maps the brain in such detail that a computer simulation can be built that would pass the equivalent of a Turing test. But the energies involved in doing so "cook" the brain.

 

Consider nanobots inside the brain. They select an organic neuron, build an inorganic one in parallel. When testing confirms the new neuron functions exactly like the old one, the redundant organic neuron is removed to make working room for them to replace the next one.

 

These are destructive duplication methods. Something inherent in the method prevents a side by side comparison of the original and the copy.

 

In contrast take the teleporter in the cartoon upthread, where destruction of the original turned out to be an optional step. Or a brain scanner that allowed the brain to be mapped in enough detail to create an AI duplicate without damaging the original. Original and copy could exist at the same time, could converse, compare notes on the experience. Nondestructive.

 

An emergency copy of a dying patient in this case would still be considered non-destructive because it wasn't the copying that killed them.

 

In between would be what I call gradual migration. Build a neural interface. Hook the brain to a computer that monitors its function. Augment the brain with "apps," better memory, math co-processor, real-time image enhancement software to compensate for failing eyes. Owner of the augmented brain goes about their business. But as more functions of the jellyware become unreliable, or fail, they are taken over by the computer. In time the jellyware fails entirely, but to the owner of the augmented brain this seems an inconvenience rather than a tragedy, their memories, personality, and sense of self had already moved to the new hardware.

 

Technologically, that seems the most likely to me. But I could be wrong.

 

Well, a transition from bio-brain to cyber-brain would remain continuous, so long as my original consciousness didn't die somewhere along the process. Though I'd vastly prefer doing the augment using bio-ware rather than cyber-ware, and vastly prefer that said bio-ware be hereditable. It's actually not demonstrably clear to me which technology will advance to that level first--biotech or cybertech.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Yeah, I never got that: "But would you use a transporter in an EMERGENCY, even though you are opposed to using them?"

 

Well, technically, i'd be dead either way.