More on Depressing SF

Sorry I haven't been responding to comments on this issue. I don't have site access to do so, but I can post to LJ via my blog, and I get your comments in my email.

There has been some questioning why I found this particular story depressing. Reasons I found the latest SH story depressing, despite the promise of "life" after death via technology: (behind the cut for spoilers)

1. The woman was forced to endure a painful death, with no further backups. If it's really a continuation of life, why? Why does she have to endure all that? The ghosts are accepted as the people, it seemed, so I don't see why, with the inevitability of her death, they didn't just put her to "sleep" before having to go through all that.

2. There's a clear implication that these are copies, not a continuation. It's not good for the dying or the dead, it's only good for the living. That's not an afterlife. That's the fundamental problem I've always had with uploading. For it to really matter to me, I'd have to believe in some kind of transferable soul, as the story addresses. So in general, I find the idea somewhat depressing, but the way they are portrayed here--living forever, changing little, acting slightly off--yeah, I find that a depressing concept.

3. I lost my dad recently to cancer, so the realistic depiction of someone dying from cancer in general is material that is a downer for me. I don't expect that to be a problem for everyone though.

4. The ending, the character seems to be almost falsely warmed and comforted by the idea that he too will have a copy made of his brain to allow him to go and live with the copy of his wife's brain. He seems to suddenly buy into the idea that the copy is, well, him, and not a copy? I found that the most depressing thing of all, because as far as I am concerned, everyone is still dead in the end, and some imperfect copies are left behind. We simulate them for the rest of existence?

I want to live forever--no really, I'd like to live as long as possible, and then a little longer, but I am attached to the meat brain and don't really buy the consciousness uploading line. I believe that the ego of me lives in the cells of the brain. I want the brain to live on. Organically. Because I don't believe in the idea of a soul and the mumbo-jumbo about "quantum" that I see in these stories is just that-- there's no proof that we are the sum total of some kind of quantum state in our head. It's a nice bit of technobabble handwaving to get around my concern and look at other ones in a story, but overall--I'm not buying uploading. Leaving a copy behind after death is no better than just dying from my standpoint.