To our resident transhumanists

[Tom Sawyer]

Who says they need to be synchronized in real-time? Just send regular updates.

OK, forget the speed of light. You won't get around the inverse square law, though. Sending an update of a brain requires bandwidth, and sending those kinds of information over interstellar distances requires energy. A lot of it. When they send a laser to the moon to measure it's distance, the beam is spread out over 6.5 km by the time is arrives there, and that's barely over a lightsecond away.

Now, much of that divergence is caused by the atmosphere, so you could probably cut down on the rate of divergence quite a bit by employing a sender in space. Let's say we improve our focus to 1/1,000,000 archsecond instead of the figure of ~1.0 archsecond we manage for the moon. My preliminary calculations suggests that the light would be spread out over an area 16 orders of magnite larger than our lasers on moon, and thus the signal 16 orders of magnitude weaker, by the time it reaches Alpha Cen - and that is allowing for a millionfold improvement of focus. There are physical limits on how much information you can reliably transmit with that kind of connection.

So load it on a hard drive and send a ship. If the interval between death and ressurrection is 10 million years instead of 50 years, what's the difference?

Ironically, it's probably true: If speed isn't your concern, it probably always will be more reasonable/economical to pack a voyager-type probe with micro-SD chips than to transmit the information directly through space.

Still: How often do you want to make your backups? Are you going to ship them immediately, or just once a century? How much of your previous experiences can get lost (because there hasn't been a backup recently, or because the probe carrying the most recent one was still close enough to your home planet to be destroyed in the blast that got you) for us to still talk about resurrection?

I don't think it matters. If you're backed up, live a million years and are then restored from the backup, you're still just as much you as if you were restored from a backup from five minutes ago and retained that million years worth of experiences.

 

[Jokodo]

Who says they need to be synchronized in real-time? Just send regular updates.

OK, forget the speed of light. You won't get around the inverse square law, though. Sending an update of a brain requires bandwidth, and sending those kinds of information over interstellar distances requires energy. A lot of it. When they send a laser to the moon to measure it's distance, the beam is spread out over 6.5 km by the time is arrives there, and that's barely over a lightsecond away.

Now, much of that divergence is caused by the atmosphere, so you could probably cut down on the rate of divergence quite a bit by employing a sender in space. Let's say we improve our focus to 1/1,000,000 archsecond instead of the figure of ~1.0 archsecond we manage for the moon. My preliminary calculations suggests that the light would be spread out over an area 16 orders of magnite larger than our lasers on moon, and thus the signal 16 orders of magnitude weaker, by the time it reaches Alpha Cen - and that is allowing for a millionfold improvement of focus. There are physical limits on how much information you can reliably transmit with that kind of connection.

So load it on a hard drive and send a ship. If the interval between death and ressurrection is 10 million years instead of 50 years, what's the difference?

Ironically, it's probably true: If speed isn't your concern, it probably always will be more reasonable/economical to pack a voyager-type probe with micro-SD chips than to transmit the information directly through space.

Still: How often do you want to make your backups? Are you going to ship them immediately, or just once a century? How much of your previous experiences can get lost (because there hasn't been a backup recently, or because the probe carrying the most recent one was still close enough to your home planet to be destroyed in the blast that got you) for us to still talk about resurrection?

I don't think it matters. If you're backed up, live a million years and are then restored from the backup, you're still just as much you as if you were restored from a backup from five minutes ago and retained that million years worth of experiences.

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

Dude, we're talking about the resources and efforts of billions of people put together. We don't need to stop doing one thing in order to do another thing. We can do both simultaneously.

Researching how to make our bodies last longer has many spin off effects for all the people in the world who's attitudes and lives make it a better or worse place. Building the computing and networking capacity to hold and backup our brain scans means that those computing resources are available for tons of other applications as well.

Say, for instance, that climate change and overpopulation are straining the food supply. Having genetically enhanced super-soldiers who were created as a result of your research into life-extension technologies would be a key factor in securing food from any less technologically advanced neighbours that you might have so that your group doesn't need to worry about starvation. Even if these luddite subhumans do manage to kill off some of your soldiers, you can restore them from a backup and have them back in the field the next day to avenge their own deaths.

 

[ryan]

Humans can now survive under water, in the Arctic and even in space

… and in none of those places are they immune against dying from a big enough blast. Indeed, in all of them, people have died.

There are only so many more conditions that we need to adapt to.

Where "adapt" means reach a state where we don't necessarily die under those conditions. What you need for immortality is a state where we necessarily don't die. Quite a different animal.

The important part is where I said, "don't you notice the trajectory of our abilities?" Especially note the motivation behind medicine and the thought of extending lives. What is more valuable than one's own life/health and the lives of loved ones? The motivation goes to infinity as does the value of the goal.

It's like saying that we don't have the material to support a 3 km high-rise now, so we never will.

Read some old science-fiction for examples of what people thought would be achievable within a generation that we still haven't achieved, or that we now know to be impossible. Just because some things are becoming possible that might have once been considered impossible doesn't mean everything imaginable is possible, and motivation doesn't beat physics.

I don't even know what to say. I am just so baffled by people who take your stance.

 

[ryan]

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

The number one cause of death is death. What is more important than taking the pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc out of the human condition by ridding us from an unwanted death - this must be the number one priority!

 

[ryan]

Nobody can say that aging can't be stopped when the fraction of research to stop aging is as small as it is. All of the money is dumped into diseases caused by aging.

Thank the sweet sweet sweet Lord up above for Aubrey de Grey. At least I don't feel so lonely in my endeavor.

Jokodo and transhuman skeptics, notice in the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0lvxTm2iLg that there are many renown scientists helping Aubry de Grey's foundation. Also, MIT Review put up a $20,000 dollar prize for anyone that can debunk Aubrey's method to stop aging; the offer was made in 2005 and nobody has claimed it yet.

The fact that the world is not helping this cause more is beyond understanding.

 

[Nexus]

If you're backed up, live a million years and are then restored from the backup, you're still just as much you as if you were restored from a backup from five minutes ago and retained that million years worth of experiences.

Since the "immortality" being discussed in this thread proposes some type of consciousness banking how would all of you feel if you were told your brain scans have been saved as of right now and will be reconstituted once your current body dies. Would you rejoice upon learning that you are now "immortal."

 

[Tom Sawyer]

If you're backed up, live a million years and are then restored from the backup, you're still just as much you as if you were restored from a backup from five minutes ago and retained that million years worth of experiences.

Since the "immortality" being discussed in this thread proposes some type of consciousness banking how would all of you feel if you were told your brain scans have been saved as of right now and will be reconstituted once your current body dies. Would you rejoice upon learning that you are now "immortal."

Sure. What's the difference between the consciousness I'd have from those and the consciousness I have from the brain in my current body?

 

[Jokodo]

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

The number one cause of death is death. What is more important than taking the pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc out of the human condition by ridding us from an unwanted death - this must be the number one priority!

If you're into "taking the pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc out of the human condition", a more productive path would be to stop obsessing about death. I'm positive that I'll die, more likely than not within the next 60 years, and it doesn't give me any of those.

 

[Jokodo]

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

Dude, we're talking about the resources and efforts of billions of people put together. We don't need to stop doing one thing in order to do another thing. We can do both simultaneously.

Researching how to make our bodies last longer has many spin off effects for all the people in the world who's attitudes and lives make it a better or worse place. Building the computing and networking capacity to hold and backup our brain scans means that those computing resources are available for tons of other applications as well.

Say, for instance, that climate change and overpopulation are straining the food supply. Having genetically enhanced super-soldiers who were created as a result of your research into life-extension technologies would be a key factor in securing food from any less technologically advanced neighbours that you might have so that your group doesn't need to worry about starvation. Even if these luddite subhumans do manage to kill off some of your soldiers, you can restore them from a backup and have them back in the field the next day to avenge their own deaths.

So your idea of a better future is one where people kill each other over food? Are you serious?

Also, overpopulation: It's not a thing. Birth rates sort themselves out whenever and whereever populations reach a certain level of prosperity and education (and crucially women's rights). The only way it can become a thing is if that process is offset by death rates dropping to zero -- i.e. by immortality.

 

[ryan]

If you're into "taking the pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc out of the human condition", a more productive path would be to stop obsessing about death. I'm positive that I'll die, more likely than not within the next 60 years, and it doesn't give me any of those.

That is such nonsense. Every religion is based on what happens after death; I don't think that I need to say more. And if that's not enough, do you really think that the underlying effects of death are just going to go away when we stop thinking about it? Every time you watch the news, hear of a loved one dying, see a new gray hair, etc. those emotions will surface. Death is the worst thing imaginable. It causes more pain than anything else; not to mention it's the end of one's life.

So now I have shown that reputable scientists have a method to stop aging within the next 2 to 3 decades, and I have also given good reasons why we should stop unwanted deaths.

The only question that remains for me is why people are not being more responsible for what is most important to them.

It's not like this type of work wouldn't be interesting for the scientifically inclined, so why do anything else? It is such an amazing feeling to wake up everyday with the ultimate purpose.

 

[Nexus]

Sure. What's the difference between the consciousness I'd have from those and the consciousness I have from the brain in my current body?

It would require faith on your part that the consciousness saved is actually yours. Christians also have faith their consciousness will be saved in a new heavenly body.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

Dude, we're talking about the resources and efforts of billions of people put together. We don't need to stop doing one thing in order to do another thing. We can do both simultaneously.

Researching how to make our bodies last longer has many spin off effects for all the people in the world who's attitudes and lives make it a better or worse place. Building the computing and networking capacity to hold and backup our brain scans means that those computing resources are available for tons of other applications as well.

Say, for instance, that climate change and overpopulation are straining the food supply. Having genetically enhanced super-soldiers who were created as a result of your research into life-extension technologies would be a key factor in securing food from any less technologically advanced neighbours that you might have so that your group doesn't need to worry about starvation. Even if these luddite subhumans do manage to kill off some of your soldiers, you can restore them from a backup and have them back in the field the next day to avenge their own deaths.

So your idea of a better future is one where people kill each other over food? Are you serious?

No, it's not my idea of a better future. It's my idea of an attempt at a better future where the tools developed to build that better future are co-opted by groups who'd prefer a quicker route to a better future for themselves at the expense of someone else. We're human - that's kind of our thing.

Also, overpopulation: It's not a thing. Birth rates sort themselves out whenever and whereever populations reach a certain level of prosperity and education (and crucially women's rights). The only way it can become a thing is if that process is offset by death rates dropping to zero -- i.e. by immortality.

Birth rates also sort themselves out when you kill off men and women of child-bearing age and take their stuff.

 

[Jokodo]

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

Dude, we're talking about the resources and efforts of billions of people put together. We don't need to stop doing one thing in order to do another thing. We can do both simultaneously.

Researching how to make our bodies last longer has many spin off effects for all the people in the world who's attitudes and lives make it a better or worse place. Building the computing and networking capacity to hold and backup our brain scans means that those computing resources are available for tons of other applications as well.

Say, for instance, that climate change and overpopulation are straining the food supply. Having genetically enhanced super-soldiers who were created as a result of your research into life-extension technologies would be a key factor in securing food from any less technologically advanced neighbours that you might have so that your group doesn't need to worry about starvation. Even if these luddite subhumans do manage to kill off some of your soldiers, you can restore them from a backup and have them back in the field the next day to avenge their own deaths.

So your idea of a better future is one where people kill each other over food? Are you serious?

No, it's not my idea of a better future. It's my idea of an attempt at a better future where the tools developed to build that better future are co-opted by groups who'd prefer a quicker route to a better future for themselves at the expense of someone else. We're human - that's kind of our thing.

Also, overpopulation: It's not a thing. Birth rates sort themselves out whenever and whereever populations reach a certain level of prosperity and education (and crucially women's rights). The only way it can become a thing is if that process is offset by death rates dropping to zero -- i.e. by immortality.

Birth rates also sort themselves out when you kill off men and women of child-bearing age and take their stuff.

And I'm being called the pessimist. Oh the irony...

 

[ryan]

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

Dude, we're talking about the resources and efforts of billions of people put together. We don't need to stop doing one thing in order to do another thing. We can do both simultaneously.

Researching how to make our bodies last longer has many spin off effects for all the people in the world who's attitudes and lives make it a better or worse place. Building the computing and networking capacity to hold and backup our brain scans means that those computing resources are available for tons of other applications as well.

Say, for instance, that climate change and overpopulation are straining the food supply. Having genetically enhanced super-soldiers who were created as a result of your research into life-extension technologies would be a key factor in securing food from any less technologically advanced neighbours that you might have so that your group doesn't need to worry about starvation. Even if these luddite subhumans do manage to kill off some of your soldiers, you can restore them from a backup and have them back in the field the next day to avenge their own deaths.

Tom Sawyer does not represent my views on transhumanism and hopefully nobody else's - lol!

 

[Tom Sawyer]

And I'm being called the pessimist. Oh the irony...

It's not pessimism, it's realism. If you're developing advanced technology, it's not going to get distributed evenly and whomever gets it first will use it. Just ask the people in Hiroshima. Oh wait, you can't.

- - - Updated - - -

Tom Sawyer does not represent my views on transhumanism and hopefully nobody else's - lol!

Dude, you know I'm right.

When theory comes into conflict with reality, reality wins every time. Generally, it wins through a large pile of bodies.

 

[Unbeatable]

The number one cause of death is death. What is more important than taking the pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc out of the human condition by ridding us from an unwanted death

Ridding us of unwanted suffering, IMO. The number one cause of pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc. is the wiring of our nervous systems. Death is just one of various stimuli which trigger these sorts of negative feelings. Life provides so many more triggers. I don't want to live forever with those other triggers.

 

[Jokodo]

It's not pessimism, it's realism. If you're developing advanced technology, it's not going to get distributed evenly and whomever gets it first will use it. Just ask the people in Hiroshima. Oh wait, you can't.

We can do without wars over food today. More food is being produced every year than is needed to feed the world's population. If we do have wars over food and similar resources, it's because of lack of political will and foresight, not because of technological limits.

We don't know whether any of the things you're proposing are going to be technologically feasible.

The choice is: A) will we manage to get off our collective asses to do something we already know we can if only we want; or B) will we be able to implement something we only have a nebulous idea about how it might be possible.

Realism is sticking with A.

 

[dystopian]

Read some old science-fiction for examples of what people thought would be achievable within a generation that we still haven't achieved, or that we now know to be impossible. Just because some things are becoming possible that might have once been considered impossible doesn't mean everything imaginable is possible, and motivation doesn't beat physics.

This is a silly argument; first of all, a lot of those predicted things in fact were/are perfectly possible to do, and the reason they didn't come to pass has nothing to do with science and everything with economy and the like. Second of all, look at all the science-fiction examples of things that people thought would take us hundreds of years to accomplish at least, but were in fact accomplished within decades or even less; or look at all the real-world predictions of technological progress that turned out to be hilarious conservative. If we were to add up all the different technology predictions of the past, both positive and negative, I have no doubt that the takeaway will be that tech progress faster and beyond what the predictions estimate.

Just because some sci-fi writer of the past hasn't seen his 'predictions' (I don't really understand how you can mistake a sci-fi story for a serious prediction, but whatever) come true, doesn't mean much. I'd also like to actually know what 'examples' you're talking about about things so-predicted that we now 'know to be impossible'. I honestly can't think of a single such example that we flat-out 'know' to be impossible.

Nothing of what we've been talking about is in fact prohibited by our understanding of physics at all. Nobody's predicting the development of anything that turns the laws of physics on their hand.

OK, forget the speed of light. You won't get around the inverse square law, though. Sending an update of a brain requires bandwidth, and sending those kinds of information over interstellar distances requires energy. A lot of it. When they send a laser to the moon to measure it's distance, the beam is spread out over 6.5 km by the time is arrives there, and that's barely over a lightsecond away.

You're forgetting one of the other options I presented; the development/control of micro-wormholes. These do not violate our understanding of physics; it IS plausible that a sufficiently advanced society could utilize them. A micro-wormhole could be used for communication, which would get around the problem you're describing. And that's a solution we, with a scientific knowledge that's going to be laughably simplistic compared to that of a society much more advanced than us, can think of today; it is not inconceivable that there are many solutions to the problem.

Fine. Then let whoever is so inclined have a scan of their brains, store those scans in a safe place, and let them consider themselves immortal by virtue of the possibility that someone could resurrect them in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years. With that out of the way, we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all of us instead of hunting some fantasy.

This is ridiculous. First of all, developing the tech so that people can have their mindstates scanned and stores for later resurrection is something that DOES make the world better for everyone: it is better for some version of you to exist than none at all, after all. Secondly, you may dismiss it as fantasy, but lots of things are fantasy before they are realized; so that's not really an argument of any weight. Thirdly, why are you acting like it's one or the other? There's 7 billion of us... we can do more than one thing at a time, as a species.

Since the "immortality" being discussed in this thread proposes some type of consciousness banking how would all of you feel if you were told your brain scans have been saved as of right now and will be reconstituted once your current body dies. Would you rejoice upon learning that you are now "immortal."

I would consider it better than nothing. Far better, in fact. Naturally, I would prefer that this body doesn't die at all, but I'll take what I can get.

If you're into "taking the pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc out of the human condition", a more productive path would be to stop obsessing about death. I'm positive that I'll die, more likely than not within the next 60 years, and it doesn't give me any of those.

Uhm what? How the hell is that a "more productive path"? The only way you can make that claim is if you believe that life can't be extended at all; which is just demonstrably false. On the other hand, my life is going to be a hell of a lot more productive if I live to be 200 years old than if I live to be 80 years old; to say nothing of even longer lifespans. If being 'productive' is all you care about (Speaking of, it seems odd to me that you'd on one hand complain about people wanting to take all those human emotions out of the equation, but on the other hand seem to consider being 'productive' as being all-important; it's not), then surely accepting an 80 year lifespan when you don't have to is absurd.

So your idea of a better future is one where people kill each other over food? Are you serious?

Also, overpopulation: It's not a thing. Birth rates sort themselves out whenever and whereever populations reach a certain level of prosperity and education (and crucially women's rights). The only way it can become a thing is if that process is offset by death rates dropping to zero -- i.e. by immortality.

This has been brought up on the old forum; and it wasn't particularly convincing there either. First off; contrary to what many people believe, the Earth could conceivably sustain hundreds of times our current population with the development of certain technologies and social models. There is a long list of technologies coming down the pipe (to say nothing of things a little further off) that could accomplish this. Food is not going to be much of a problem. Secondly, you're assuming no natural equilibrium will develop in an immortal society... this of course is absurd. The population will stabilize if there is not enough food being produced... it will do this REGARDLESS of whether or not the population is 'immortal'. What exactly are you imagining? A world in which people will continue to pop out babies ad infinitum even though the food supply is such that everyone now has only one grain of rice per year to eat? How exactly does that work?

And of course, all this assumes that we're staying here on earth. Which is silly. Put a few greenhouse colonies in orbit and you solve any food problems that might arise.

It would require faith on your part that the consciousness saved is actually yours.

No, it wouldn't. There is no functional difference between two people if everything about them, right down to their past experiences, is exactly identical. That's not faith, that's simple logic. Sure, you could argue that once the copy that is 'you' dies, 'you' no longer exist. But since the new you is exactly like the old you, it doesn't fucking matter to anyone except the old you.

Ridding us of unwanted suffering, IMO. The number one cause of pain, fear, panic, sadness, vengeance, anger, etc. is the wiring of our nervous systems. Death is just one of various stimuli which trigger these sorts of negative feelings. Life provides so many more triggers. I don't want to live forever with those other triggers.

I've never understood this argument. You've experienced all of these triggers... so why aren't you dead yet? Why haven't you just committed suicide? Because you've moved on, obviously. So now you know that as painful as these things can be, you eventually get past it and look; there's all kinds of cool and awesome things to experience again. Why should this be any different for an immortal person? Why should you just give up on all that awesome stuff in your nigh-infinite future just because there's also crappy stuff in there?

The choice is: A) will we manage to get off our collective asses to do something we already know we can if only we want; or B) will we be able to implement something we only have a nebulous idea about how it might be possible.

Realism is sticking with A.

Actually, realism will have to go with B here. Hi, you've met the human race, haven't you? You're seriously expecting it to get off its collective ass to fix these problems? Humanity doesn't solve its problems through global collective effort; it solves its problems through the efforts of individuals and smaller collectives pursuing their own goals.

 

[Nexus]

No, it wouldn't. There is no functional difference between two people if everything about them, right down to their past experiences, is exactly identical. That's not faith, that's simple logic.

So if Dr. Jim Jones told you he has successfully copied your consciousness would you drink his kool aid afterwards? Granted a mind copy is a far more plausible promise of an afterlife than ones based on incoherent bronze-age myths. But it still takes faith to believe your getting what's being promised.