"This makes you stop aging, it's the most valuable thing we can possibly imagine." - he says to a man that LITERALLY died and came back to life due to the perfect consciousness-backup and transfer technology that humanity already has.

Don't get me wrong, hunting down and killing sentient creatures for kickass skincare cream is something humanity would 10000% do (both in our real world and the Avatar movies). But, like, come on. Weightless world-building.

if you don't understand why people would prefer to halt the aging process in their native body as opposed to having their consciousness copied and pasted into a clone half alien body where *you* can't actually enjoy it, then idk what to tell you

It doesn't need to be an alien body. Put it in a younger cloned version of yourself. Being able to back up and transfer your consciousness is not only immortality, it's also eternal youth instead of just stopping your aging at wherever you are (what if you're 72 when you take the whale oil), but most crucially it's also indestructibility because you can always load a backup version of yourself and your consciousness continues uninterrupted. It's wildly better than the whale juice in every way. Doesn't require interstellar conquest, isn't physically scarce, and we already have it.

Again, it's NOT your consciousness. That is the thing you seem to not be understanding. Why would I pay millions for a copy of myself running around with my memories? Those bodies are also shown to age. How is that more optimal than just stopping aging/getting to keep my body?

sure, the clone body is a better option for someone in their 70s but for anyone in a younger demographic the juice is an infinitely better option. All of this is to say that both options existing is not a problem within the narrative - both have advantages.

Play the game SOMA. A consciousness backup, regardless of how perfect it is, isn't you. It's just a perfect copy that believes itself to be you...or, rather, feels as if it is you and has all your memories.

I adore the game SOMA, I think we might disagree about its themes though. Part of the horror of SOMA is that a copy of you is 100% you in all the ways that matter. Spoilers Simon himself is a copy of a man who died decades earlier and doesn’t even realize it. For the copy, consciousness is seamless. My real point is that we know- A. not aging doesn’t protect you from a bus crash B. It’s implied that in addition to copying and backing up consciousness we can transfer it over (which is how the Avatars work). So you don’t even need to die, just put your mind in a younger cloned body and never worry about being shot because you have a backup of yourself on a hard drive. None of which necessitates space whaling and interstellar shipping of a scarce resource.

We somewhat disagree, but somewhat don't. What's important is the instance. The copy is an entirely new instance. Since we both know the game's story: Think of when Simon thought he was transferring his consciousness into a new body to go deeper only to discover it wasn't a transference, it was a copying process. His past iteration was still alive and entirely ignorant to the fact that a new instance of him existed. For him, he didn't even think the process worked...because they don't share qualia, they're two separate iterations. That's where the horror comes in. The Simon up until that point doesn't carry on throughout the game. It's an entirely new Simon who just has all of his memories...just as the first iteration of the game was a copied Simon created from the original who first uploaded his consciousness. You mentioned that biological immortality doesn't stop you from getting hit by a bus, and you're right...you can still die from accidental death, disease, etc. It just means that you, the instance that is you experiencing life, won't die from old age. ...but that eventual death is no different to the death of an instance that's been copied. The individual who died is not the one experiencing the existence of the copy, otherwise (Jumping back to SOMA) the Simon in the chair would have went, "What the hell?! I have two bodies? This is weird, I'm looking through two different sets of eyes?!" That wasn't the case...that prior instance was ignorant to the new Simon's very existence, just like the original Simon that resulted in them is long since dead. They don't share existence, just memories. YOU aren't the copy. That's what makes SOMA so interesting, because they tackled the existential dread of this from so many angles... If I remember correctly, some of the crew believed that you had to kill the original instance for persistence, so they were committing suicide during the uploading process in the hopes that it transferred their consciousness, instead of just copied it. Other members of the crew knew that was highly unlikely and tried to keep people from doing it. Just such a great game for this topic. Regardless, my point is that if you had a backup of your consciousness made for your death, when you die...it's not YOU who continues on. What continues on just inherits what made you, you. Your, personal, existence and experiences within ends with your death. That's why biological and true immortality are perceived as superior...because people want persistence, not a copy going on in their place.

@TopherStoll Whoever you are in that case is a pure matter of perspective. They are both you. The you that gets copied (like Simon shows us time and time again) is internally as much a continuation of what was before as the other guy. There was no "oh I've just been born" moment for any of it

If you, the person typing that message, were to copy your consciousness...that data clone wouldn't be you. It would think it's you. It would have your same exact memories of writing this out, of your entire life and every thought, but it would not be the individual who commented to me. Those experiences are just copied, not lived. It has no lived experiences prior to its creation, just copies of lived experiences that were uploaded into its brain. Now, you would be right to say that from the perspective of the clone...they wouldn't perceive a difference, but that difference is an objective truth. Only you were born of your mother's womb...your clone would not be. They would just have all those experiences of your life copied over. That's why Simon had a mental breakdown at the end of the game. THAT Simon didn't get to reap the rewards of his success. Even the Simon before him, you either kill him or leave him there alone...wondering why Catherine abandoned him and the transfer didn't work. The perception is meaningless to the objective reality. For anyone alive today, a data-clone isn't persistence of self...it's handing your identity over to a blank slate to exist as a copy that builds on that through its own experiences. That lived experience would never be ours, it would be the clone's...who just thinks it's us and deals with that, if they know, however they can.

@TopherStoll If it thinks it is me – it is me.

If it thinks it's you, it thinks it's you. That doesn't change the objective fact that it did not live the past experiences it has. You did. If you die, you don't live on. It does. If you do live on, you will gradually diverge as people through your future individual lived experiences...but maintain similarities based upon the same copied foundation it now possesses. Being products of nature and nurture...you'll gradually become more and more different as people, based upon your trials and tribulations throughout your continued life.

It’s because they’re racist. They don’t want to be Na’vi. That’s as good as death to them

But why can’t we make human clones and put our brains in those. If anything that should be way easier.

I mean as other people said we also saw that the cloning process as least to quaritch was a death

That’s kinda disingenuous when the backup isn’t actually continuing your existence, you still die- just a copy of you can continue. Similar but very different.

It's a particularly vexing philosophical question. I am strongly of the opinion that you are a running pattern and not a specific chunk of matter. Every atom in your body is replaced over time, and even within your brain, the specific molecules involved in memory and signaling turn over. Yet you don’t think you die and get replaced every few years. So "being you” isn’t about being the same atoms or the same body, it’s the organization: the information, your memory, values, habits of thought, and all of that is (imho) perfectly preserved in a consciousness copy. Plus, this technology would prevent you from "dying" in an accident or an illness (just boot up a copy) which is WAY better than just not aging.

I mean, you can believe what you like, but my point is that taking the aging serum to continue living vs the clone is incredibly different- unless they just create a clone and implant your consciousness into it, which seems something they would be capable of doing? I don’t think—

—they’ve touched on making non-Navi meat suits, but I imagine they’d be capable of doing so.

@TopherStoll humanity from earth is capable of making human meat suits, the problem is transferring your original consciousness to the clone forever, only the Avatar seem to be able to do that

@TopherStoll Which is odd, you’d think it’d be FAR easier to do that? Dunno. It could simply be a cost thing though, the whales are usually non aggressive so it’s by far cheaper to just kill one for the no age juice.

Same DNA does not = same guy. Twins are not the same people are they?

Sure, but they aren't twins. It's not even about the DNA being the same (since his avatar body obviously doesn't have the same DNA as his human one) He has ALL his memories. His consciousness is preserved.

@brownsamwell What the heck is your "actual consciousness" if not all of your memories, personality, and experiences?

@Tikirey1 If I kill you right now, even if you’ve backed up your consciousness, you stay dead. A copy of your consciousness gets uploaded into another body to live another life that you will never know of. Because you are dead

Sounds exactly like going to sleep. My consciousness shuts down, and then "I" wake up, my memories and sense of self intact. The me that wakes up never knows the difference, the me that doesn't is incapable of caring. So long as the death isn't painful, I'd take that deal a million times.

@Tikirey1 You don’t seem to get it. Someone else wakes up who maybe thinks they’re you if they’re an idiot. You’re still dead.

While you're here debating the very nature of consciousness itself, consider checking out my new book on dragon biology. 220+ pages full-illustrated speculative anatomical guidebook to dozens of species of dragons, griffins, and basilisks from around the world.

Besides the clone not being truly you. There's also a point of vanity about this, about conquering natural death but what i'm most interested is the ramifications of stop aging has on the human body and mind.

We can debate all we want about of the consciousness clone is “really” you. I think it is. But the real point is that arresting aging just isn’t that great, when you can still die in plane crashes or getting stabbed. Plus let’s say some 80 year old billionaire uses it. “Wow. I get to be old forever. Awesome. 🙄 If only I had managed to find this magic space whale oil while I could still control my bladder. This is waaaaay better than putting my mind in a kickass genetically engineered clone of my 20 year old self with a 10 foot vertical leap and a prehensile dick”

Quaritch tells Spider "Colonel Miles Quaritch, deceased, killed in action, I'm not that man, but i do have his memories". So, the movie even points out that isn't really him.

You pick an specific scenario that reveals a bias. Because we don't have the full scope and ramifications, we don't know the pros and cons of both methods. We don't know which one is ultimately better, all we know is the whale stuff is highly valuable, there's must be a reason.

They also have interstellar travel

Yeah but the blue guy is basically a clone. Clones are cool but they're not you.

They aren't the same people. It isn't a continuation of his consciousness; it's a clone. It is a save-point, but the man is truly dead. I also do think that the "transfer" of consciousness is still not fully possible since Jake Sully still technically "piloted" his body.

Miles Quaritch left himself a message. “Hey, I’m dead.”

Mankind does not have the technology to have perfect consciousness transfer in that universe. Humanity had him remote control an alien body but he was still in his original body. If that body died, then he died. It was The alien planet that performed the perfect consciousness transfer

- Golden yellow - Stops human aging - Likely to be the main maguffin dirving the plot Welcome back Australium

This is not the same fucking person, that's like a central point of the character. You call that weightless but you don't understand it even tho it's basic as hell😭

Also, why hunt Whales to extinction when you could clone them? You do not even need the whole whale, just clone the brain a couple of times and BOOM! You have yourself a bona fide Immortality Vineyard.

That's not conscious transfer. It's a backup copy. The copy is not the original.

I may be interpreting the lore wrong, but I believe the reason they’re able to transfer consciousness perfectly to Navi bodies is because of the unique adaptation that Navi have for sharing consciousness with Eywa via the appendage they have

That's actually really interesting and something that I hadn't considered. They don't say anything like that in the movie, but it's a cool idea and would explain the questions I have about the consciousness tech.

"Yeah, I know our consciousness transfer tech is better, but there's this rich guy, Bryan Johnson, who would really pay anything for this stuff!"

This is the best explanation I've seen yet.

Except Avatar repeatedly emphasizes (correctly) that that’s not actually Quaritch and is instead a man who just happens to possess his memories. Quaritch died on Pandora years ago

Consciousness transfer is not the same as immortality. It is a copy, not the original. For the copy it does not matter, but for the original it does

That's just how consciousness works. You're constantly being overwritten. You're a copy of a copy of a copy of your former self. You don't mourn the person you were when you were 10 because you grew out of them like a snake shedding its skin. They're dead now. They no longer exist. But the continuity of your consciousness is preserved. This is no different, it's just a little more.... abrupt.

This would still be very, very valuable in spite of "consciousness transfer technology", because some of us who watched/understood The Prestige really don't want to be the man in the box.

He found adrenochrome. Also why does he have a big ass cart

Because they are sending it back to earth for people who don’t want be giant blueberries lol this can’t be a hard concept to understand lol

They don't need to be Naavi bodies. Why can't they just make human clones to put people's consciousnesses in? If anything it should be way easier. We can make human clones NOW.

We can’t make human clones now And they can’t make human clones in the avatar universe

@TopherStoll Mammal clones are actually super easy to make, they've been cloning sheep and cows for decades at this point without any health issues. Legal issues are the only reason we're not making human clones right now.

@TopherStoll It's worth noting though that any hypothetical human clones would still take just as long as regular humans to mature into adults so they would definitely not be useful for "memory transfer" or any other scifi bullshit

@FilmaticFury @TopherStoll That's why you order them like 18yrs in advance. Then you'll have a younger body to take over for few decades.

@rclicksaveas @TopherStoll Uber Eats

When I saw the movie I thought "This argument is shit". Was like "How do I prove without doubt that humans are soulless pieces of shit ...of course!, make them kill whales, but not for a need like in the XIX century, lets make it for pride. 100% forced

So I would literally have no need to transfer my 70 year old consciousness into a younger cloned version of myself if I can just stop myself from aging once I turn 25

But if you are already 70-years old what good is "stopping aging" ? yay, now you get to be old forever. The whale juice is only useful if you are already young.

Ok so we live in a society where multiple solutions can exist for the “same” problem. Weight loss pill vs weight loss surgery type of situation.

They literally explained that Quaritch (the Avatar) has the original's memory, personality, etc but is not Quartich himself. Original Quartich is dead. The whale brain juice is for people in their own original bodies and keeps them from aging. No Avatar needed.

Also, 80 million, only this? For a think that kinda literally makes you immortal? While Mona Lisa’s painting is useless but is estimated to be worth 1 or 2 billion?? Wth? 😂

Assuming inflation keeps up, this far in the future 80 million wouldn't be able to buy you a used car.

There is a fundamental distinction, which is rooted in human selfishness. The mind/backup replaces *you* with a functionally identical copy, including memories and personality. But it’s not you. The super wealthy want to live forever for themselves, not others.

1 makes YOU stay young and live forever, and the other just lets your clone continue living for you without you ever knowing or experiencing it because you died. I'd say the world building is more than fine, and it truly is "the most valuable thing" they can possibly imagine.

Don't forget that their alien cloning tech is advanced enough that they can likely just produce this compound in a lab, and in FAR greater quantities. All they have to do is pick up a single whale corpse from the ocean - they don't even need to kill it themselves.

Cameron realized he made humanity’s motivation too sympathetic in the first movie so he made them comically evil by killing mother whales who are actually smarter and more cultural than humans just for their brain juice that only the super elite can afford

ctrl c + v isnt the same as anti aging man