More seriously, we could scan backups. Or we could live in the Matrix, not as meatbags plugged through the neck, but as programs –which could be backed up as well. (Don't ask me who gets to be root.)
It's funny, because Eli was making a moral argument, but I was not, yet that seems to be the default argument against immortality. I think you last question is actually close to what I was striking at - who is it that's immortal? What does it mean to be a consciousness freed from its humanity? I honestly am not sure that many people would end up being happy in such an arrangement, or necessarily actually survive in any sense as "themselves" for very long, despite the persistence of a body or simulant or whatever.
More seriously, we could scan backups. Or we could live in the Matrix, not as meatbags plugged through the neck, but as programs –which could be backed up as well. (Don't ask me who gets to be root.)