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Speaking of memory as a part of self, cyberization would of course be beneficial to the preservation of memory since a human’s biological memory is so unreliable. Just look at this list of memory biases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memory_biases

Given a perfect cyberized version of the brain, these memory defects would still persist, and we would retain that element of our self. But what if these biases were eradicated, and our memories can be stored as read-only electronic information? We are simultaneously losing memory defects which is a part of our human nature, and preserving our selves since our memories would no longer be forgotten or wrong (until space runs out, which is only a practical problem). This poses a question: What is more important as part of our self, human nature or memories?

If we look at it from different point of views, it is impossible to completely retain your “self” through cyberization. Something of your person is bound to be lost. Heck, even your biological body is constantly losing parts of itself. It’s probably up to each person to decide what he/she values in herself. Some people see death as a necessary and defining part of human experience; many others think it’s human to make mistakes and that a person who makes no mistakes would be a machine. Some may think memories constitute the majority of a person, and would welcome near-flawless memory storage. One’s self may be too personal a subject to generalize and discuss.

There are many problems associated with this standpoint, however. People who chose to cyberize themselves for greater performance will probably oppress those who do not. It doesn’t need to be intentional either, someone with more processing power is bound to navigate life’s problems better than one who is natural. In the long run, everyone may be forced into cyberization. The “improvements” may go on until there isn’t much of the old human self left.

But then again, civilizations work just like that. People were slowly forced to give up their hunter-gatherer lifestyles, and adopt to life in society in which strength and endurance play less role than intelligence and personality. Do we complain that humans have lost their old selves, which consisted mainly of trying to gather food and produce offspring? Should we?

Sorry for the late reply, been kinda busy lately.

It's certain that many animals possess certain degrees of consciousness; I've heard of the mirror test you've described as well. Speaking scientifically, I don't think consciousness possesses any quality which doesn't arise from biology. The question is really how it exists. Can it be considered its own entity, or should you see it as illusions caused by billions of electrical impulses i.e. information? If you were to visualize consciousness, how would it look like? A giant hub connected to lots of smaller hubs by a giant web of nerves?

Speaking of copying and pasting, I'd say that's where the main problem lies. I doubt anyone would want to, in essence, make a superior clone of themselves, and then agree to die. Even the the clone, or in this case the cyberbrain, carries on the will and memories of its owner, the owner (who probably wants to extend his/her life) still needs to be killed. I don't think your reason of "a state of particles" would suffice to convince them. The state of particles still create a sense of self and uniqueness which is completely detached from any of its copies, so the other copies are really irrelevant to the original. Any cyberization must proceed without breaking the holistic self, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, if there was a machine with a cyberbrain with a structure and connection which at a given moment is identical, down to the quantum state, to a human, can you then say the machine has consciousness? Would you want to be such a machine, even though pragmatically speaking you lose no significant functions and gain much more?

Of course, there are a range of technical problems which make this technology distant if not impossible. Another issue is the human instincts, such as libido, which many psychologists believe to be pivotal in our subconscious which in turn affects our consciousness. Other things such as hormones also affect our consciousness in ways we can't feel. If one was to exist as a solely electronic entity, the software or hardware needs to take into account all of these so that the person remains how he/she actually is.

About information, that sounds kind of bad in that if a person was cyberized and, he would then have to constantly copy and delete his consciousness for travelling through servers and all that. At any given moment, the consciousness if aware of the past and the present, but will at the next moment be disintegrated and pass on its knowledge to the next state. Would that be considered a single entity of consciousness? The only way to not break the holistic self, if such a thing even exists, is through teleportation as you mentioned. I doubt teleportation will ever be possible to physical beings, but should be more doable if a person existed as information.

I do agree that the writer of SAO wants to demonstrate the potential benefits of VR. But I think that SAOII’s message isn’t limited to the therapy part. The therapy is simply an example, and I think it’s used to show how the real world is connected with the virtual.

Looks like you're a techno-optimist like me, though you should know much more about technology than I do. I do hope that we will pass the singularity and witness the replacement of the restraining physical world with VR. I'm even hopeful that I'll live long through it considering the improvements in medical technology. It would then be necessary to slowly replace pieces of our physical bodies, which can get fuzzy because we can't be sure of what's really us. What do you think of this?

The more traditional belief (disregarding conservatists) is that the brain -parts that account for thought rather than automatic functions like the brain stem - makes up the "person", and that you can keep being yourself as long as modifications aren't intrusive to your brain. However, if the parts that account for your personality is slowly replaced, part by part, by electronic versions which store identical information and neural pathways, then it is arguable that you can be yourself even after your entire physical body is gone. An even more extreme method to do this is through nano-technology, which could do it molecule by molecule if the technology allows for it. Of course, that's not to mention that every particle of your body would be replaced by 10 years, so yourself now would not share any atoms with yourself in 10 years time, so this replacement of self happens naturally. Do you think we are still ourselves at that point?

If we were to take it one step further, we could then upload our consciousness (once it's already fully electronic, not before that) into servers so that we can cease to have a body altogether. But is electronic information ever simply transferred? Is it possible at all to move information from one storage to another while at no time copying or deleting old information? One way this might be possible is to, just like when supplanting the biological brain, to do it in extremely small bits at a time while always maintaining the connection between the old parts and new parts so that they are always a single entity. Maybe you'd know more about this since you study IT.

Of course, all of this takes a lot of assumptions. It's assuming that we do not become extinct, can safely pass the singularity, that no restrictions are imposed on technology, that it can be safe to store such information electronically, that everything mentioned above is actually possible, that the brain can be perfectly replicated down to the quantum level. Though talking purely hypothetically, it begs the question: at what point is your "self" lost in this chain of cyberization? Though some cyberpunk or sci-fi works delve into this topic, they mostly deal with practical issues such as the possible dangers of it. I haven’t seen or read anyone which answers this philosophically; maybe you have?

Many philosophers see consciousness, without delving too deeply into each school of thought, simply as a metaphysical concept which transcends our physical bodies. With that stance, as long as all the functions and thoughts of the brain are perfectly kept, then the "self" isn't really lost at any point just because it's physical form is changed.

Then there are people that think consciousness is a purely biological function. From that standpoint, complete cyberization may well eradicate the “self” at some point. Interestingly, the metaphysical point of view is the more traditional stance which has been there for thousands of years, but it is still more compatible with cyberization than the modern biological stance.

Anyway, what is your stance on this? Or do you think it’s too irrelevant and impossible to even be considered?

Oversimplified barely starts to describe it; I'm glad you agree. But that aside, how did you even find my review? I'm sure it's buried at page 5 or something by now.

About SAO, you should first understand that 1 is too too low of score from me, since more than 1/4 of the shows I rate receive a 1. I briefly explained my stance on SAO to Xiaraith, the other day, so I'll paste it here.

"SAO1.1's is fun and all, but didn't save it from the drop. The shitty story is it's weakest part (and fuck Yui and her episode). The extremely fun ministories (first guild, Silica, Lisbeth, master detective assassin's guild, fishing) are what made the show fun while it lasted, but they account for less than 1/3 of the show.

Sao1.2's (Alfheim Online) story however, is just unbearable . Couldn't watch past one or two episodes of it, and I just read the novel and watched the last episode instead.

Scales are always relative anyway. 27% of my ratings are 1, so it just means that SAO1 belongs in the bottom quartile of the shows I've watched. As far as enjoyment goes, I'd say SAO is more entertaining that 27% of the shows I've scored, even including the horrendous second arc, but enjoyment is only 1 part of the rating."

SAO II is, so far, a big step-up from the previous arcs. Having it on my favorites is a joke. Basically, Shinon saves the show.

Sinon's philosophical conflicts are interesting; she says that the game world and the physical world are completed disconnected (ep 5, contrary to Kirito's belief), but deep inside she wants to believe that the virtual and the physical are connected in some important ways, because that's why she opted for that therapy in the first place.

Also worth noting is how differently she acts in the real world and the physical. She's often pretty weak-minded in the physical world, but in GGO she's vicious, fearless, and can almost be seen as a bully herself considering the condescending attitude she has to other contestants in episode 5. Perhaps it is because of her innate need of fairness(which a game and a tournament provides, but not real life)? She has the strength that she desires all along, but can't really show it in the real world. It's surprising how SAO managed to have a multifaceted character.

Also, she so fucking cute. Her tsun tsun in ep 5 is, like, the best thing ever.

Perhaps you’re not too familiar with the dystopian genre, because Psycho-Pass is textbook dystopia — and a rather interesting one at that. It just fails to make proper use of its setting… Just because Psycho Pass doesn't feature totalitarianism like others doesn't make it post cyberpunk, because thats a whole different genre. Totalitarianism is only one characteristic of a dystopian society, and PP is clearly totalitarian in its nature as well, it doesn't take it to the extreme as much as 1984, but both worlds have a system which rely on surveillance.

It more alludes to it in its gags from time to time and the charcater names usually are based off historical figures and its meant to be that the "amanto" are westerners. Also SAO simply shows whats its talking about and states its Morales. It doesn't really develop or symbolize anything that much. Its fun at times, but "deep" no. For a modern literary example its similar to "the hunger games" not that good not that deep states its social commentary, but does little to actually back it up as the series goes on. Then we move over to say " The life of pie", It alludes to the deeper meaning early, then developed it with allusion symbolism and the meaning behind every action. Back to anime I could tell you the meaning behind nearly every action in madoka, all of it has a purpose, pane over to SAO, what is the reason for the random darting game episode? They started a very unrealistic romance that simply is too simple they "try" to be deep by presenting these, but its not only stating them I wish them to be shown in a way to make one think.

It could have explored them in a better way, fro both psycho and SAO psycho just stated its Morales and Sao was not very mature and left all its good direction in the first episodes for mediocre cliche fantasy in a mmo.

Thats the problem with SA tis nothing deeper than what they show or say. 2nd part was a joke. 1st was ok starts off interesting, but the characters simply repeat themselves Asuna turns common tsundere and kirito is in a online dating game for a good part wiht a girl of the week and too badass, + plot holes.... It has its moments of good but really mostly in the 1st 3 episodes.

What your stating is you prefer a human story, there are plenty better at than SAO I can assure you. There is Gintama (long as all hell but worth first 30 episodes meh), Mushishi which you are watching. monster, cowboy Beebop, the list goes on. But stated as conceptual Madoka is superior to SAO, not intended to be human. but without its MMO aspects it simply is meh, (whats with all the tech story love? Lian, SAO, Log?)

Ik im not saying your taste, just stating my own. I seriously do not see how SAO pertains to classic methods.

and no not all drama requires Human characters, something such as the crucible which uses drama as a way to use 1 to 2 dimensional characters to tell a social commentary. And madoka can be interpenetrated in so many ways... I srsly don't think you payed attention... all the art the facial expressions and music is geared to fill in the pieces of the motivations of each character, its more beautiful than anything else.

Wait...... what? Madoka is the one with the abstract version of story telling. Its the one that uses 1 to 2 dimensional characters who represent concepts to tell a deconstruction.... SAO is just a simple story told with no symbolism or foreshadowing to back up such a story. Please read my short analysis of madoka above my comments if you need any clarification do not hesitate to ask. (srlsy your comparing the Hunger Games(meh, mediocre) to the Life of Pi here son(symbolic and meaning full)....
But for an example Homura is the concepts of determination and hopelessness in the end shes facing a witch of total despair, it rotates itself and objects around it on and on. Its in the guise of a harlequin at the head of a phantasmal circus it taunts her very efforts as she goes on and on.... OR In a labyrinth come to save a friend, a the Little Mermiad knight sits in its hall listening to songs of sorrows and hears no one but her own despair.

By literary, I meant my general tops have a flair for the literary, IE: all in top 5 but Gintama. The stuff after is my general philosophy for rating media of all types. But SAO tries to be drama and is reflected in the source material at which the anime is generally considered is an inferior presentation. I do not consider SAO to be drama, but it does try to be dramatic and also romantic, for the latter, it even tries to by as such even by the site tag, at which SAO was completely a failure as a romance IMHO.

True i feel the opposite too many shows still state too much. I'm more of a literary person and my tastes reflect that. I try to look for what a show is trying to do and then judge it on that. I enjoy picking apart shows for a deeper meanning ,but i do also want it to be entertaining. Yet, my greatest pet peeve is when a show does something such as try to be sad and fails in all categories just to "try it" such as SAO the early episodes feints some drama but then just goes to MMORPG death game shenanigans. I truly try to enjoy the best of every genre and thus generally enjoy as such, though my favorites lean to literary in the tops i do enjoy randomness and fun with it. On the subject with characters i never get attached i personally believe that characters are simply for use to tell the plot by the author , if its a human plot use human style character, but for deconstructions and commentaries use conceptual characters.