[pmoriarty]

"Humans will eventually abandon their own bodies and live in a VR world."

Those who "abandon their own bodies" are effectively killing themselves. Any "copies" which might exist in VR are separate beings, not the ones who chose to die in the real world.

I feel nothing but sadness towards the possible future as you paint it. It would mean the end of the human race.

[7thaccount]

Nothing would be sadder to me to see us stagnate forever. As a non corporeal being, I think you could live nearly forever and learn far more. I think creating "children" could be possible too if we had the technology to digitize people in the first place. I don't think we would give up on exploration either. Just build a ship, send it somewhere, and transport your consiousness over the distance. If you wanted to go back in the physical world, I think you could, or at least a copy of you.

Of course it goes without saying that this is all basically magical sci-fi gibberish.

[pmoriarty]

"I think you could live nearly forever and learn far more."

But it wouldn't be you living forever. It would be some copy of you (at best).

[edgyquant]

What’s the difference?

[TheRealNGenius]

that one can't discern the difference, yet would undergo this procedure themselves, is telling in and of itself

[7thaccount]

Can you elaborate? I think sharding yourself (breaking yourself into clones, not pooping on yourself) would be pretty interesting. A lot of problems could be worked on simultaneously. There are of course philosophical implications. I think it is fine as long as it isn't forced.

[ncmncm]

Would your shards have rights to spend your money?