Suspended animation and mind transfer as suicide alternatives

I last wrote about suicide in https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/the-future-of-euthanasia-and-suicide/ but this time, I want to take a different line of thought. Instead of looking at suicide per se, what about alternatives?

There are many motives for suicide but the most common is wanting to escape from a situation such as suffering intolerable pain or misery, which can arise from a huge range of causes. The victim looks at the potential futures available to them and in their analysis, the merits of remaining alive are less attractive than being dead.

The ‘being dead’ bit is not necessarily about a full ceasing of existence, but more about abdicating consciousness, with its implied sensory inputs, pain, anxiety, inner turmoil, or responsibility.

Last summer, a development in neuroscience offered the future potential to switch the brain off:

Switching people off

The researchers were aware that it may become an alternative to anesthetic, or even a means of avoiding boredom or fear. There are many situations where we want to temporarily suspend consciousness. Alcohol and drug abuse often arises from people using chemical means of doing so.

It seems to me that suicide offers a permanent version of the same, to be switched off forever, but with a key difference. In the anesthetic situation, normal life will resume with its associated problems. In suicide, it won’t. The problems are gone.

Suppose that people could get switched off for a very long time whilst being biologically maintained and housed somehow. Suppose it is long enough that any personal relationship issues will have vanished, that any debts, crimes or other legal issues are nullified, and that any pain or other health problems can be fixed, including fixing mental health issues and erasing of intolerable memories if necessary. In many cases, that would be a suitable alternative to suicide. It offers the advantages of escaping the problems, but with the advantage that a better life might follow some time far in the future.

These have widely varying timescales for potential delivery, and there are numerous big issues, but I don’t see fundamental technology barriers here. Suspending the mind for as long as necessary might offer a reasonable alternative to suicide, at least in principle. There is no need to look at all the numerous surrounding issues though. Consider taking that general principle and adapting it a bit. Mid-century onwards, we’ll have direct brain links sufficiently developed to allow porting of the mind to a new body, and android one for example. Having a new identity and a new body and a properly working and sanitized ‘brain’ would satisfy many of these same goals and avoid many of the legal, environmental, financial and ethical issues surrounding indefinite suspension. The person could simply cease their unpleasant existence and start afresh with a better one. I think it would be fine to kill the old body after the successful transfer. Any legal associations with the previous existence could be nullified. It is just a damaged container that would have been destroyed anyway. Have it destroyed, along with all its problems, and move on.

Mid-century is a lot earlier than would be needed for any social issues to go away otherwise. If a suicide is considered because of relationship or family problems, those problems might otherwise linger for generations. Creating a true new identity essentially solves them, albeit at a high cost of losing any relationships that matter. Long prison sentences are substituted by the biological death, debts similarly. A new person appears, inheriting a mind, but one refreshed, potentially with the bad bits filtered out.

Such a future seems to be feasible technically, and I think it is also ethically feasible. Suicide is one sided. Those remaining have to suffer the loss and pick up the pieces anyway, and they would be no worse off in this scenario, and if they feel aggrieved that the person has somehow escaped the consequences of their actions, then they would have escaped anyway. But a life is saved and someone gets a second chance.