Reply #31: Very interesting novel called "Pandora's Planet" [View All]

-- presuming you can stomach Sci-fi (as I can).

Among its premises is that people have wangled what they consider immortality by recording all their memories, at the most detailed level imaginable, which are transferred to a new body when their previous one wears out. The clone wakes up thinking it's the same person. The clone has all the rights (property included) of the previous person, and so there's a continuity of family, friends, and business associates that is (for the characters in the book) indistinguishable from immortality.

I couldn't help thinking -- no, no, that's just a copy! It was particularly disturbing that characters would arrange "transfer" to a new body for cosmetic reasons, when their current body got to its 40s and 50s -- necessitating that the current body be discarded as part of the transfer.

What do you think? Immortality or suicide?