Wouldn't this be similar to the concept behind The Matrix? You're virtually plugged in; you feel like yourself, but the steak you're eating has been graphically programmed inside this "MMO" world to trigger the appropriate stimulation in your brain to make the entire experience "real."
One thing remains inconsistent though. I understand that we remove our legs, arms, organs, torso, head, etc. in pursuit of becoming immortal via a virtual life, but... isn't the brain itself also within the same classification as the aforementioned body parts? It's biodegradable.
Say we find a way to preserve the brain eternally, wouldn't it then become irrelevant to live through a virtual life? For if we can preserve the brain, the same method can be applied to preserve the rest of the body that we earlier considered ridding ourselves from.
The mind is a metaphysical repository. The brain is not the cause of the mind; it is only a channel that allows us to associate with--and add to--it. If we were to say that the brain is the cause of the mind, then--by necessity--upon physical death, the mind would have to vaporize, vanish, cease to exist. Now.. our identity IS our mind. We generally don't identify who we are through our bodies. Our memories, habits, traits, tendencies, affinities, aversions, and reactions all emanate from our mind. And if we subscribe to the latter notion--that our minds continue to exist even after we end our mortal lives--then that postulates that there must exist another world, an accentuated world, devoid of time and space, that allows an endless progression of fulfillment and enlightenment and an infinite array of things to do, only without an aging body to drag us around as we attempt to do them.
One thing remains inconsistent though. I understand that we remove our legs, arms, organs, torso, head, etc. in pursuit of becoming immortal via a virtual life, but... isn't the brain itself also within the same classification as the aforementioned body parts? It's biodegradable.
Say we find a way to preserve the brain eternally, wouldn't it then become irrelevant to live through a virtual life? For if we can preserve the brain, the same method can be applied to preserve the rest of the body that we earlier considered ridding ourselves from.
The mind is a metaphysical repository. The brain is not the cause of the mind; it is only a channel that allows us to associate with--and add to--it. If we were to say that the brain is the cause of the mind, then--by necessity--upon physical death, the mind would have to vaporize, vanish, cease to exist. Now.. our identity IS our mind. We generally don't identify who we are through our bodies. Our memories, habits, traits, tendencies, affinities, aversions, and reactions all emanate from our mind. And if we subscribe to the latter notion--that our minds continue to exist even after we end our mortal lives--then that postulates that there must exist another world, an accentuated world, devoid of time and space, that allows an endless progression of fulfillment and enlightenment and an infinite array of things to do, only without an aging body to drag us around as we attempt to do them.