Immortality possible in our lifetime?
15 Dec 2010, 12:11 am
this actually does have potential and there is serious research being put in this by gerantologists (researchers who study aging) they know the problem and Dr. Aubrey De Grey and his team are working on fixing the problem. people have always wanted immortality thats why the weak minded created a fake "afterlife" but it doesn't rest with "alchemy" or "magic" but instead with biotechnology and genetic engineering thats where gilgamesh and all the others who searched for the "fountain of youth" failed and religion didn't help with its roughly 1600 years of scientific persecution hell if anything all religion did was inadvertantly promote "magic" with all that higher power nonsense but really its all shake and seeds you see biotechnology and genetic engineering will be what saves humanity in the end action not misguided faith and inaction by thinking that "something will come save us after all faith is just believing what you know aint true. we are all alone and its up to each and everyone doing their part for real progress to made to advance the human race this is the biggest and most noble cause ever. everything we want can only help humanity. transhumanists don't tolerate irresponsible use of technology.
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15 Dec 2010, 12:25 am
That's one of the good ones.
15 Dec 2010, 1:25 am
mind uploading is one of the Transhumanist goals i AM skeptical about because first of all even if possible i guarantee you wont still be you. but most of their goals are logically reasonable. im mainly interested in life longevity because of my non-theistic beliefs if this is indeed our only life i intend to keep it going for as long as possible because a mere 80-100(if your lucky) just isnt enough time and im actually expecting it to be a series of large life expectancy jumps which will allow us to acquire a more permanent solution
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15 Dec 2010, 1:43 am
I agree absolutely. I will be 85 next February and hell, I've hardly gotten started. I would agree to be uploaded into a horse if it had a decent chance at the Kentucky Derby but otherwise I might be a bit picky.
15 Dec 2010, 2:42 am
I agree absolutely. I will be 85 next February and hell, I've hardly gotten started. I would agree to be uploaded into a horse if it had a decent chance at the Kentucky Derby but otherwise I might be a bit picky.
Mind transfer (upload/download) is balderdash.
1. We have no coherent theory about information is stored in the brain in detail.
2. Since we cannot parse our thoughts in terms of a definitive encoding there is nothing to transfer from one brain to another.
Mind transfer is nothing like doing a computer memory dump to some storage medium and transferring the data to another computer.
ruveyhn
15 Dec 2010, 2:45 am
I agree absolutely. I will be 85 next February and hell, I've hardly gotten started. I would agree to be uploaded into a horse if it had a decent chance at the Kentucky Derby but otherwise I might be a bit picky.
Mind transfer (upload/download) is balderdash.
1. We have no coherent theory about information is stored in the brain in detail.
2. Since we cannot parse our thoughts in terms of a definitive encoding there is nothing to transfer from one brain to another.
Mind transfer is nothing like doing a computer memory dump to some storage medium and transferring the data to another computer.
ruveyhn
Evidently you have tried and failed. Better luck next time.
15 Dec 2010, 2:49 am
I worked twenty years in AI and brain wave analysis so I know something about it. We have no technology that can do the job and the current state of neurophysiology has no path to data transfer from one living brain to another (other than by speech and writing). Also no one knows what a "mind" is. Is it physical. Is it some non physical entity. Where is it located. What are its properties. We know what a brain is but we do not know how our thoughts are encoded in the functioning of brain tissue.
I would bet we get controlled nuclear fusion long before we get "mind transfer". At least there is some basic physics there and the problems are not theoretical but technological.
ruveyhn
15 Dec 2010, 3:49 am
I have a basis:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0612/0612053.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_re ... te_note-10
Whether my basis is nonsense is another story.
15 Dec 2010, 8:19 am
I have a basis:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0612/0612053.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_re ... te_note-10
Whether my basis is nonsense is another story.
Sorry Kon, I usually like to agree with you (note I do not in any way endorse the comment made by Sand). I have read the Lynds article before. For eternal return to work, every process must work the same way backwards as it does forwards. Its fatal weakness is the science of black hole evaporation. It only attempts to deal with Hawking's work on the subject but does not include a refutation to the work put forward by Elitzur and Dolev. Those two scientists showed, in 1999, that black hole evaporation entails an objective passage of time. For the Lynds concept to be accepted it must refute the conclusion of the major work on the subject in a more detailed way. As to Peter Lynds himself, to call him controversial, would be a bit of an understatement, I am unsure of his academic credibility (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/200 ... reducation).
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Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
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15 Dec 2010, 9:14 am
91,
I don't buy his arguments either. I found it more reasonable than the creator hypothesis as it is at least within the realm of possibility, in my opinion. Personally, I really like Max Tegmark's multiverse model (attempt at Theory of Everything). But his model still doesn't explain where the metauniverse came from, unless it always existed? I do know that most physicists are now of the opinion that one can ask what was "before the big bang" unlike even a few years ago. Here's a good video series (watch in sequence):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bGx3UB-Slg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVwirDNF ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7vTQ3Z9 ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH-GmZaJ ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSCMEO0Z ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzgcSxBI ... re=related
15 Dec 2010, 9:49 am
^^
I have actually already watched that. I watch most episodes of Horizon as I find them very interesting (that particular episode was really interesting so I recommend it). As another recommendation I suggest you check out some of the work on the creator hypothesis by Dr. William Lane Craig, specifically the Kalam Cosmological Argument: this can be found at reasonablefaith.org. You might find it interesting, even if it does not convince you.
_________________
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
