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On Immortality

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Sand
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23 Nov 2010, 11:23 pm

skafather84 wrote:
techstepgenr8tion wrote:
skafather84 wrote:
There's also the issue of everything else expiring around you; including friends, family, etc (possibly a library of all knowledge a la the Library of Alexandria or maybe just within society itself like in the dark ages).

Ah wait, you meant 'living' forever. Being capped in this body and its limits for eternity would suck, that I'd agree with. Hopefully all that could be augmented, widdled away, and replaced with the right technology, know-how, and proper personal artistic/expressive flare.


Being uploaded isn't something I think I'd mind. So long as there was a means to go forward, it'd be fine. Just stuck in this body forever would be pretty craptastic.


Being uploaded faces the same problem as beaming up or some form of copying. It boils down to who is you. To destroy the original to make a copy somewhere else is still a death sentence.



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24 Nov 2010, 10:41 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
skafather84 wrote:
Being uploaded isn't something I think I'd mind. So long as there was a means to go forward, it'd be fine. Just stuck in this body forever would be pretty craptastic.

Hyper-dimensionality would be pretty hot as well.



Yeah but uploading is more likely at this point.


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ruveyn
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24 Nov 2010, 5:06 pm

There is no such thing as a "mind" detached or detachable from a physical entity. In the case of humans that entity is the brain. No brain, no mind.

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stgiordanobruno
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27 Nov 2010, 4:01 am

Perhaps in the distant future medical science and genetic engineers may find a way to reverse of halt the aging process and not only find cures for neurodegenerative such as Alzheimer’s and all cancers etc, but even find a cure for death itself. People would then live on the appearance of very healthy looking 25 year olds forever, but for the moment I just have to relegate that the realms of science fiction or wishful thinking.



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27 Nov 2010, 7:33 am

stgiordanobruno wrote:
Perhaps in the distant future medical science and genetic engineers may find a way to reverse of halt the aging process and not only find cures for neurodegenerative such as Alzheimer’s and all cancers etc, but even find a cure for death itself. People would then live on the appearance of very healthy looking 25 year olds forever, but for the moment I just have to relegate that the realms of science fiction or wishful thinking.


That is a guarantee that the human race will stagnate intellectually (above all) as was as morally and artistically. Death has its uses. It sweeps away some of the old, and makes room for the new.

I most devoutly pray that we never conquer death. Having a 200 0r 500 lifetime might not be all that bad, but Forever?

ruveyn



Sand
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27 Nov 2010, 7:36 am

ruveyn wrote:
stgiordanobruno wrote:
Perhaps in the distant future medical science and genetic engineers may find a way to reverse of halt the aging process and not only find cures for neurodegenerative such as Alzheimer’s and all cancers etc, but even find a cure for death itself. People would then live on the appearance of very healthy looking 25 year olds forever, but for the moment I just have to relegate that the realms of science fiction or wishful thinking.


That is a guarantee that the human race will stagnate intellectually (above all) as was as morally and artistically. Death has its uses. It sweeps away some of the old, and makes room for the new.

I most devoutly pray that we never conquer death. Having a 200 0r 500 lifetime might not be all that bad, but Forever?

ruveyn


To be discouraged after a lousy 70 years or so is pretty sad. The long view of ten thousand years seems like nice introduction to a long life.



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27 Nov 2010, 7:47 am

Sand wrote:

To be discouraged after a lousy 70 years or so is pretty sad. The long view of ten thousand years seems like nice introduction to a long life.


It would be an interesting scientific problem to establish how long a human can live before becoming bored to the extreme. That should be a rational upper bound for a human lifetime.

Remember that we have finite (but large) brain capacity and if we lived long enough everything would become Same Old, Same Old.

Also there is the practical problem: if we lived a very long time we would have to limit the age range in which we would be able to reproduce. The alternative is for the earth to be covered one thousand deep in human flesh. That does not sound all that hot to me.

ruveyn



Sand
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27 Nov 2010, 7:57 am

ruveyn wrote:
Sand wrote:

To be discouraged after a lousy 70 years or so is pretty sad. The long view of ten thousand years seems like nice introduction to a long life.


It would be an interesting scientific problem to establish how long a human can live before becoming bored to the extreme. That should be a rational upper bound for a human lifetime.

Remember that we have finite (but large) brain capacity and if we lived long enough everything would become Same Old, Same Old.

Also there is the practical problem: if we lived a very long time we would have to limit the age range in which we would be able to reproduce. The alternative is for the earth to be covered one thousand deep in human flesh. That does not sound all that hot to me.

ruveyn


Until you've reached the age of a couple of thousand or so you haven't reached the ability to judge when boredom sets in. To be bored before you've reached a hundred indicates a severely limited mental capacity. Even now expansion of brain capacity seems vaguely solvable.

The next millennium or so should settle the population problem somehow.

Reproduction may be slightly amusing but it has its limitations.



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27 Nov 2010, 7:12 pm

ruveyn wrote:
stgiordanobruno wrote:
Perhaps in the distant future medical science and genetic engineers may find a way to reverse of halt the aging process and not only find cures for neurodegenerative such as Alzheimer’s and all cancers etc, but even find a cure for death itself. People would then live on the appearance of very healthy looking 25 year olds forever, but for the moment I just have to relegate that the realms of science fiction or wishful thinking.


That is a guarantee that the human race will stagnate intellectually (above all) as was as morally and artistically. Death has its uses. It sweeps away some of the old, and makes room for the new.

I most devoutly pray that we never conquer death. Having a 200 0r 500 lifetime might not be all that bad, but Forever?

ruveyn


Reversing the aging process would be nice, especially after I turn 80 then my life would be kind of like Benjamin Button's



techstepgenr8tion
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27 Nov 2010, 8:55 pm

stgiordanobruno wrote:
Reversing the aging process would be nice, especially after I turn 80 then my life would be kind of like Benjamin Button's

Intuitively I would figure that medical immortality, for the time being, would simply stop the mechanisms by which the body winds down, reversing maturity would likely be nigh impossible compared to just holding maturity at good health. In essence it could wind someone back from looking elderly to just looking like they're perhaps 30.

Ray Kurzweil though is supposedly pretty wild on the idea though and he at least firmly believes that its coming within this generation's lifetime. What I'd love to know, if this did get developed and cheaply enough to spread to all - how it would change the paradigm of humanity. We do have, gratis, very limited craniums and we'd have to figure out what we'd do about our own limits. Lots of other factors too but, like anything else I'm sure it would have its own ripple effects for a while. What would be most interesting, how it would change the human condition and how we would fundamentally relate to one another.



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27 Nov 2010, 9:08 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:

Ray Kurzweil though is supposedly pretty wild on the idea though and he at least firmly believes that its coming within this generation's lifetime. What I'd love to know, if this did get developed and cheaply enough to spread to all - how it would change the paradigm of humanity. We do have, gratis, very limited craniums and we'd have to figure out what we'd do about our own limits. Lots of other factors too but, like anything else I'm sure it would have its own ripple effects for a while. What would be most interesting, how it would change the human condition and how we would fundamentally relate to one another.


Kurzweil is a bit of a crackpot on this issue.

ruveyn



techstepgenr8tion
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27 Nov 2010, 10:14 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Kurzweil is a bit of a crackpot on this issue.

ruveyn

So I've noticed. It looks like one meal a day for him is in tablet form.



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28 Nov 2010, 12:11 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Kurzweil is a bit of a crackpot on this issue.

ruveyn

So I've noticed. It looks like one meal a day for him is in tablet form.


Although the early science fiction seemed somewhat enthusiastic about pills for meals that concept seems a bit archaic these days. Pills for sex and entertainment and general health seems more marketable and tabletarians are out of fashion. Our digestive systems seem to require bulk, even if the bulk is basically non nutritious and assuredly there seems to be a market for tasty Styrofoam, a place in sales now occupied by most breakfast foods.
At the moment life extension seems to be limited by the gradual wasting away of telomeres which prevent chromosomes from frazzling and no doubt there will eventually be devised a method of preventing this since it's a mechanical problem and amenable to manipulation of some sort. It may take a while, and, like all things in our society the rich will get it first and probably so enrage the general population as to promote wealthicide in a way even major to the growing fury that is now gathering to strangle all the greedy bastards who are gleefully screwing everybody else. Success in any social motivation eventually reaches its limits and retribution, like the sea, has its tides.



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28 Nov 2010, 3:45 am

Nah, I don't have apocalyptic visions of that sort. I think society will likely spend decades talking about it, wondering what to do about it, who to administer it to when it does come on line, 6 billion properly scared people wondering if a handful of people will have in their heads to off them to have some power to themselves, I think plans to rule out most of our worries would be made right away, might be the first ever medical/chemical recipe to be blown right off the hook and broadcast worldwide on the internet; if the maker doesn't agree to it I'm pretty sure someone would make it happen regardless.

If not, well....human extinctionists get what they want plus a handful of miserable lonely saps.



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28 Nov 2010, 9:01 am

Sand wrote:
nd amenable to manipulation of some sort. It may take a while, and, like all things in our society the rich will get it first and probably so enrage the general population as to promote wealthicide in a way even major to the growing fury that is now gathering to strangle all the greedy bastards who are gleefully screwing everybody else. Success in any social motivation eventually reaches its limits and retribution, like the sea, has its tides.


Yup. I think you have it there. There will be Blood.

ruveyn



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29 Nov 2010, 8:00 am

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/ ... ice-humans

Perhaps we're nearer immortality than we think.