That's a philosophical position, one I don't really agree with, especially given that all the molecules of our brain are naturally replaced with new ones every few months. Is my sense of continuity of consciousness/identity with my brain a year ago (made from completely different matter) just an illusion? An upload…

Well, Drexler does say there "Cells are mostly water. At low enough temperatures, water molecules join to form a weak but solid framework of cross-links. Since this preserves neural structures and thus the patterns of mind and memory, Robert Ettinger has apparently identified a workable approach to biostasis."

It depends how "clean" the fractures are—if they're clean enough that one could reconstruct the information about the brain's structure along the fractures by lining them up, this might not be a major obstacle to something like mind uploading, an idea which already assumes slicing the brain up into a series of…

Right, even with the best precautions taken in vitrifying with current technology, major portions of a person's memory and personality will be altered or lost—neural connections are very fragile and complex things. It's hard to imagine how all that damage to complex structures can be reversed.

I think molecular nanotechnology would be necessary for literally reanimating all the cells in your frozen body, but another possibility is that you would have your frozen brain sliced into microscopically thin sections, mapped, and then you (depending on your definition of "you" I suppose) could be revived as a mind…

But like I posted in an earlier comment to sammy baby, Ridley Scott has confirmed that Prometheus and Alien are supposed to take place in the same universe. He's also said that Prometheus will explore the story behind the space jockey briefly seen in Alien (also seen briefly rising from the floor in the Prometheus…

To me that explanation seems too simplistic. Isn't morality based in large part based on empathy and the desire to help others avoid suffering and experience happiness/growth? If a more complex consciousness means both suffering and happiness can have greater "depth" that's a reason to care more about those with more…

But to me, privileging humans over yeast is in fact a matter of "varying degrees of intelligence, brain complexity, emotion"...I see intelligence/brain complexity/emotion as a continuum rather than a matter of a clean line between "sentient" and "non-sentient", and I privilege those on the higher end of that spectrum…

Actually, all Europeans and Asians seem to be at least a few percent Neanderthal (see here for a discussion of how it varies by region). So although people with purely African ancestry and perhaps some other groups (Australian Aborigines?) are not, most of us are.

I doubt they're planning to keep it a secret from the audience that Fassbender is an android or they wouldn't have been so freely talking about it to the press, it will probably be announced up front like with Bishop in Aliens. Apologies in advance if I'm wrong, but if this is explained to the audience up front I…

I don't know if we'll see them, Ridley Scott says in this interview that "I think, therefore, I have to design — or redesign — earlier versions of what these elements are that led to the thing you finally see in "Alien," which is the thing that catapults out of the egg, the face-hugger ... I don't want to repeat it.…

It depends on your definition of "prequel" I guess. If it's mainly about a different alien race, one of whom had been killed by the type of alien from the first movie and whose body was seen in one scene, is that enough to call it a prequel?

He just means it isn't a prequel to the story of Alien (it doesn't tell you about the backstory of the characters or the alien), but he does say it takes place in the same universe (see here).

How do you know it isn't supposed to be an alternate history with faster technological progress than our own?

Nah, the movie takes place in the more distant future, this must be a much younger version of Pearce's character—in this interview with writer Damon Lindelof, he says "I just felt like it would be really cool to have one of the characters from the movie give a TEDTalk. Obviously, since the movie is set in the distant…

I was looking back at Alien set in 2122 where Nostromo was traveling at undisclosed subluminal speeds with a crew in hypersleep for the majority of the duration.

"There is definitely no implication of FTL."

What Bishop character? You mean Fassbender's android?

That article features a quote from Ridley Scott about Pearce's role that no one has actually been able to confirm, see here where they give it as a translation of a Hungarian article that says the quote was made to "IC Press", but no link or reference to the original source is given. The part about Pearce being in the…

Even if the 2023 TED talk is supposed to be from a timeline that's a little more advanced technologically than ours (as suggested by the comments about fusion and M theory being cracked in the first decade of the 21st century), it's hard to believe they'd already have an FTL starship ready to go just a few short years…