048: Sarah Perry on “Should We Have Control Over Our Consciousness?”

Is life a sacred gift or a burden? In this episode, we welcome Sarah Perry, author of Every Cradle is a Grave, to discuss the right to control one's consciousness. Paramount among consciousness rights is the right to die; we discuss the state of suicidal legality and the cultural and technological impediments to suicide. We also discuss the connection between radical life extension and suicide. Then we move into the control of states of consciousness, from drug use to mood enhancement, and discuss whether the right to commit suicide exists in a world where suffering has been abolished. Finally we discuss the ethics of simulated consciousness, and wonder where the authority might lie to, for example, delete an emulated mind.

Om Podcasten

Enter a simulated universe where software beings engage in classic human struggles for belonging, status, and attention, and old certainties like death and gravity are just settings to be negotiated. You can be the god of your own private world, but if find yourself feeling lonely, you might be tempted to give away some of your precious control. This podcast will take you behind the scenes with comic book authors and veteran podcasters Jon Perry (@perryjon) and Ted Kupper (@tedkupper) as they write and develop a science fiction graphic novel called Constellation, set in a metaverse unlike any you’ve seen before: neither a utopia nor a dystopia, neither real nor virtual, it is a simulation where everyone knows they are being simulated and no one much cares, where there’s no hope of leaving and no reason to, just an endless supply of human-designed worlds to create and explore.