LED-holic
Flashlight Enthusiast
I'd like to live much much longer. I'd actually like to evolve into a higher being / consciousness. It would be cool to be very evolved and understanding the world on a higher plain.
Science close to stopping the aging process
- Thread starter jtr1962
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PhantomPhoton
Flashlight Enthusiast
While it doesn't surprise me that we will likely be able to fight off physical aging over the next few decades, I wonder what the possible mental effects will be?
Mental aging and how the brain works is something that I think will take much longer to conquer. Even if the body tissues and organs could survive for 1000 years, I highly doubt that most people are born and raised in a way that will provide long term mental stability.
Furthermore this doesn't address the bones, tendons, and other such not so soft tissue. Our bodies wear out in other ways too. Now it wouldn't surprise me if we're cloning new tendons and growing new bones in the foreseeable future. As a matter of fact this will become a huge industry if soft tissues are in fact able to keep living for longer periods of time,
All in all I think there is a lot more complexity here than meets the eye.
Mental aging and how the brain works is something that I think will take much longer to conquer. Even if the body tissues and organs could survive for 1000 years, I highly doubt that most people are born and raised in a way that will provide long term mental stability.
Furthermore this doesn't address the bones, tendons, and other such not so soft tissue. Our bodies wear out in other ways too. Now it wouldn't surprise me if we're cloning new tendons and growing new bones in the foreseeable future. As a matter of fact this will become a huge industry if soft tissues are in fact able to keep living for longer periods of time,
All in all I think there is a lot more complexity here than meets the eye.
Sub_Umbra
Flashlight Enthusiast
IMO the biggest problems associated with immortality (or a radically lengthened life span) are all cultural. Virtually everything that we know about ourselves is couched by our short life span. We only think about life in terms of the life span we've always had. We are incapable of thinking about it any other way! It is who we are. It is what we are. We are, and always have been, immersed in the context of our very limited mortality and everything about us reflects this feature set. Some wag said that we don't know who discovered water -- but we're pretty sure it wasn't a fish. We swim in our mortality in the same way that fish swim in water -- that is to say that we are blissfully unaware that there is any other way to live -- and everything about our culture is about living fast. We may only see tiny, out of context glimpses of what it all may have in store for us.
The advantages a longer life span may bring to us are not visible from here. Any apparent advantages we may see from here will fall away the moment we leave the constraints our present culture imposes upon us. With any unseen advantages there will undoubtedly be totally unexpected problems that will be bound tightly to any change of this magnatude. In many ways mankind would have to throw everything out and begin again with religion, culture, etc...
My guess would be that almost the minute you found that you were going to live for 500 years or more, two things would change. The first would be that everything we now feel is of primary importance will seem trivial and....silly. The wife's ticking biological clock won't be a factor any more, you'll have lots of time. You'll probably have time to realize that children will have less importance to us, if any. You will have other alternatives. Don't be surprised when you find that your religion suddenly holds very little for you. Everything that we know is based on our mortality -- whether we consiously think about it or not. Drain the water away and things will happen that will surprise the fish.
The second thing that will happen is the conscious realization that our culture is totally based on a feature set that doesn't exist anymore and we'll have to start from scratch and painstakingly build a whole new set of wants, needs and beliefs based on the new context of our existence.
If all goes well, after generations and generations of struggle in this endeavor we will come to a place where the new outlook will fit us so well that we will not be able to see outside of it. Sort of like where we are now -- like the fish who has no idea that it swims in water.
The advantages a longer life span may bring to us are not visible from here. Any apparent advantages we may see from here will fall away the moment we leave the constraints our present culture imposes upon us. With any unseen advantages there will undoubtedly be totally unexpected problems that will be bound tightly to any change of this magnatude. In many ways mankind would have to throw everything out and begin again with religion, culture, etc...
My guess would be that almost the minute you found that you were going to live for 500 years or more, two things would change. The first would be that everything we now feel is of primary importance will seem trivial and....silly. The wife's ticking biological clock won't be a factor any more, you'll have lots of time. You'll probably have time to realize that children will have less importance to us, if any. You will have other alternatives. Don't be surprised when you find that your religion suddenly holds very little for you. Everything that we know is based on our mortality -- whether we consiously think about it or not. Drain the water away and things will happen that will surprise the fish.
The second thing that will happen is the conscious realization that our culture is totally based on a feature set that doesn't exist anymore and we'll have to start from scratch and painstakingly build a whole new set of wants, needs and beliefs based on the new context of our existence.
If all goes well, after generations and generations of struggle in this endeavor we will come to a place where the new outlook will fit us so well that we will not be able to see outside of it. Sort of like where we are now -- like the fish who has no idea that it swims in water.
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They may find some wonder drug or genetic manipulation to slow aging but nature will develop something to maintain the balance. With good care and being health conscious many are already able to live active lifestyles. The fun is in how you choose to live not how long. I'm not in fear of passing from this existence, even now.
We have plenty of life span now to make significant contributions to oneself and those around you. In your golden years you can reflect over your accomplishments and be proud you lived a life worthwhile in finite terms. Then turn it over to another...
We have plenty of life span now to make significant contributions to oneself and those around you. In your golden years you can reflect over your accomplishments and be proud you lived a life worthwhile in finite terms. Then turn it over to another...
Nitro
Flashlight Enthusiast
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They may find some wonder drug or genetic manipulation to slow aging but nature will develop something to maintain the balance. With good care and being health conscious many are already able to live active lifestyles. The fun is in how you choose to live not how long. I'm not in fear of passing from this existence, even now.
We have plenty of life span now to make significant contributions to oneself and those around you. In your golden years you can reflect over your accomplishments and be proud you lived a life worthwhile in finite terms. Then turn it over to another...
Well said! :thumbsup:
Fallingwater
Flashlight Enthusiast
On a broader level, anti-aging pills would probably make the whole of humanity highly paranoid. We occasionally take potentially life-ending risks because we know that sooner or later our lives will end anyway, so if we do die right then we're only accelerating the inevitable. But if the inevitability factor is removed, I think many will be unwilling to take the smallest risk, lest they throw away their potentially unlimited life.
My prediction - and whether I'll be around to see it happen, I don't know - is that we'll eventually find a way to store our consciousnesses, possibly merging them with machines or computers. It's not unthinkable that once our bodies fail we might attain immortality in the virtual world, so that we don't occupy space that's normally reserved to the new generations. A completely homegrown afterlife, so to speak; one in which we might live another life - and ourselves decide when to end it, when we eventually become bored.
I think we're looking at immortality at the wrong angle. It will never happen as long as our mind is irreversibly tied to our body, but as soon as we find a way to transfer our consciousness elsewhere, then a whole new can of worms opens, and immortality becomes possible - as long as humankind is around, at least.
We should shape our future in the best possible way, regardless of what the perceived ideas of the world's deities might be.
My prediction - and whether I'll be around to see it happen, I don't know - is that we'll eventually find a way to store our consciousnesses, possibly merging them with machines or computers. It's not unthinkable that once our bodies fail we might attain immortality in the virtual world, so that we don't occupy space that's normally reserved to the new generations. A completely homegrown afterlife, so to speak; one in which we might live another life - and ourselves decide when to end it, when we eventually become bored.
Nitro
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phenwick
Newly Enlightened
Yes, down load me onto a memory stick with weekly backups. when I hit sixty, upload it to the body of a twenty year old, and keep the backup process going. Oh what about the bad times? A hex editor can take care of that.
LED-holic
Flashlight Enthusiast
Well, Jeanne Calment lived to be 122 years old. Guess we don't really know what's up.
jch79
**Do Not Feed The Vegan**,
I was thinking that same thing, LED-holic.
LED-holic
Flashlight Enthusiast
This could be a very philosophical discussion. I'm curious, how many people living to 122 would it take to prove science right or wrong?Thanks for making my point. One person that we know of that maybe was 122 doesn't make my point wrong BTW. But if people think science will grant eternal life that is their choice. I'm not buying it.
And imho, science does not have to mean religion is wrong, or the othe way around. Religion can co-exist with science. However, when people blindly believe either religion or science solely at the expense of other, is when they can go awry.
Personally I think I am very reasonable, open to logic as well as the belief of a higher power. However I'm not very keen on believing every single word of the bible or some other testimant. After all, humans created the bible and other testiments, which mean those things could be wrong.
jtr1962
Flashaholic
Agreed. I started this topic to discuss the implications of science increasing life span. Mentioning how this might influence religion as Sub_Umbra did is certainly in keeping with this discussion. However, I don't think discussions of how it'll never be done because it contradicts the scripture of one particular religion are particularly relevant.
Getting back to the main topic, I do tend to agree with Sub_Umbra that greatly increased lifespans will result in our basically throwing out everything we've done in the past 10,000 years of civilization because many things will no longer be particularly relevant or useful. Who knows what this hypothetical future would look like, but I'm certain it would be virtually unrecognizable from what we're used to. Then again, changes like this never happen overnight. If people from 150 years ago saw us communicating in real time, via bits sent over wires, they would probably be scratching their head in disbelief. Granted, telegraph existed then, but it wasn't available to the masses, and you needed to know a fairly specialized skill (i.e. Morse Code) to be fluent in it. And the idea of sending pictures or video in real time would have been taken as pure magical fantasy. Doubtless indefinite lifespans will result in our being able to do things similarly fantastic to those in an early 21st century mindset. For example, I submit that the same technology which enables cells to keep from degenerating will also enable repair of quite serious injuries. Death via accident might well be practically unknown. But these changes will undoubtedly occur over decades as science generally progresses via evolution, not revolution. People would have time to get used to things, and society would adapt.
I'm of mixed feelings about downloading your consciousness into a machine or another body. Would it still be you? Another strange possibility is cloning your body, and downloading copies of your consciousness to each. It would give new meaning to the phrase me, myself, and I.
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Quality, not quantity. If science progresses to the point that you can be 95 years old with the body and mental facility of a 30-year-old, I'll take it! But living for 200, 300, 500+ years? Not for me, thank you very much.
jtr1962
Flashaholic
In a way quantity gets you quality. I couldn't imagine accumulating enough wealth to enjoy myself in one normal human lifetime. Last I checked I'll be in my 90s before I can afford to retire, and that's with a not so great standard of living. However, with hundreds of years to accumulate wealth you can take it easy. Just put a few thousand in stocks when you're 20. By the time you're 200 you'll be worth millions. After that you pretty much do what you want. Of course this assumes we'll still have a culture based on wealth. Maybe technology will change that also.
I personally think long life is going to require a major change in how we educate people. Right now the focus is on rote learning to train you for a career in which much of your life is regimented. Little time is spent developing creativity. If you devoted education mainly to creative endeavors, people would more easily occupy their time. I can imagine spending decades perfecting each of various creative fields. This and seeing the world/solar system/galaxy could fill many thousands of years in a quite fulfilling fashion. People get bored simply due to lack of creativity and initiative.
I personally think long life is going to require a major change in how we educate people. Right now the focus is on rote learning to train you for a career in which much of your life is regimented. Little time is spent developing creativity. If you devoted education mainly to creative endeavors, people would more easily occupy their time. I can imagine spending decades perfecting each of various creative fields. This and seeing the world/solar system/galaxy could fill many thousands of years in a quite fulfilling fashion. People get bored simply due to lack of creativity and initiative.
Flashlight Aficionado
Enlightened
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I had a thought similar to this when thinking about the consequences of near immortality for the masses.
Now imagine nearly everyone (you can't stay stupid for centuries) retiring and living off of investments? What are investments, but money in businesses. But who is still REALLY working. And I don't mean hobby working. I mean 8-16 hours a day. The hard drudgery labor.
I don't know what will happen. Maybe that is how sentient robots take over. We are too lazy to do real work.
If I could be a perfectly healthy 20 year old for a great span of time, I'd take it in a heartbeat. At the very least to watch the future brings.
Fallingwater
Flashlight Enthusiast
I don't understand if you're just joking or actively mocking the idea.
If it's the second case, then I'll remind you that not that many years ago the very notion of a flying machine was met with ridicule. Before that, people who said the Earth was not at the center of the universe were actively persecuted. Why, not twenty years ago the notion that one could make a living, communicate with people all over the world and have fun, all by sitting at home typing away on a keyboard, was pure fantasy.
Science changed all of that, and the beautiful thing about science is that the more we discover, the faster we learn - and this is going exponentially. Take computers - they boosted our capacity for scientific research beyond anything anyone thought possible.
I don't know how - or when - this trend will reach its apex, but we're a long way away from that, and I think it's possible that in fifty years' time hyper-advanced computers of whatever kind we'll have by then will allow us to map the complete network of electric impulses that make up our mind in a brain, and replicate it on silicon.
At the very least, we'll have a direct mind-machine interface; the main problem with computing so far is that keyboards, mice and screens are incredibly inefficient methods of accessing information - it would be a hell of a lot better if it could be beamed straight from brain to microchips and back.
I'm not saying mapping of the human mind is certain to happen in the next fifty years - actually that's probably way too optimistic - but I do believe it's almost inevitable that we'll reach that point, eventually, even if centuries have to pass. Well, if we manage not to remove ourselves from the universe beforehand, that is.
I'm also not saying there wouldn't be serious problems involved beyond the pure practical issue - for example, when we eventually get to direct mind-machine interaction, the distinction between computer virus and physical virus will become dangerously thin - but they'll be overcome, one way or another.
As far as the whole "download me into a memory stick" joke, I suggest reading "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan - and if you like it get the other two books of the Takeshi Kovacs series. It's action/science fiction, and deals exactly with, among other things, the problems that might arise from the ability to digitise human consciousness.
Also, the whole Ghost in the Shell series is about direct interfacing with computers, and quite explicitly deals with the computer-virus-in-your-mind problem.
PhantomPhoton
Flashlight Enthusiast
Another place to find an interesting take on downloading one's consciousness is Japanese Anime. One of my favorite shows of all time is Ghost in the Shell particularly the Standalone Complex TV series.
It paints a very odd picture of the possibilities of the future. I definitely think "cyborg" technology will increase, a particularly high chance for a Military somewhere someday. As I said in another post somewhere around here, we're already doing surgical enhancements for sports like baseball. How long till we start voluntarily start re-enforcing bones with Titanium, growing genetically enhanced tendons and muscle fiber to transplant, start certain organs with higher efficiency artificial creations. Scary stuff in some ways.
Personally I think this enchancement of the existing body will happen over direct cloning and consciousness transplanting/ downloading. As we get better at taking apart, replacing, and putting back together the humn body, we may clone ourselves to replace something but likely not to completely leave one shell behind and move to another. I also beleive we're many orders of magnitude away from being able to "store" all that which makes up a consciousness. Even with our most powerful computers today, and looking at moore's law, thinking 25 years in the future... the human brain is too complex to accurately copy.
It paints a very odd picture of the possibilities of the future. I definitely think "cyborg" technology will increase, a particularly high chance for a Military somewhere someday. As I said in another post somewhere around here, we're already doing surgical enhancements for sports like baseball. How long till we start voluntarily start re-enforcing bones with Titanium, growing genetically enhanced tendons and muscle fiber to transplant, start certain organs with higher efficiency artificial creations. Scary stuff in some ways.
Personally I think this enchancement of the existing body will happen over direct cloning and consciousness transplanting/ downloading. As we get better at taking apart, replacing, and putting back together the humn body, we may clone ourselves to replace something but likely not to completely leave one shell behind and move to another. I also beleive we're many orders of magnitude away from being able to "store" all that which makes up a consciousness. Even with our most powerful computers today, and looking at moore's law, thinking 25 years in the future... the human brain is too complex to accurately copy.
