Immortality

[yung.carl.jung]

No one 'holds out'. They do the best they can and then upgrade when they can afford it.

not everyone upgrades, though. just almost everyone, the loud majority.

 

[El_Machinae]

not everyone upgrades, though. just almost everyone, the loud majority.

It's true. Even now, there's a measles epidemic

 

[Perfection]

If we want to avoid the fate of Valka's forgetful Dr. Who reference we gotta beef up the brain, and to do that you gotta start understanding the human mind in a very nuts and bolts manner. And we start messing around up there, we're gonna quickly figure out that anything you can do to a program, will be something you can do the mind. Copy minds, merge them, store them untouched on the shelf for 30 years, run them on faster or slower computers, interface them with lord knows what.

Consequently everything we know about morality will have to be fundamentally rethought.

 

[Kyriakos]

If we want to avoid the fate of Valka's forgetful Dr. Who reference we gotta beef up the brain, and to do that you gotta start understanding the human mind in a very nuts and bolts manner. And we start messing around up there, we're gonna quickly figure out that anything you can do to a program, will be something you can do the mind. Copy minds, merge them, store them untouched on the shelf for 30 years, run them on faster or slower computers, interface them with lord knows what.

Consequently everything we know about morality will have to be fundamentally rethought.

Recall the fate of old computer games. Cause that is what will happen in such a case.

I am pretty sure these things won't take place within our lifetime. Maybe the deluge will come at some point, though. Not everyone in the pampa will survive it.

There is moreover a fundamental difference between the human mind and a program: the program isn't there to help the local disc storing space with everything, while in our case the program not only does that but also to a large degree self-updates to keep compatibility with the web server. Programs are expendable and usually serve categorized functions (you don't have Half-life clean your registry files from viruses). If humans get to that, it's game over man.

 

[Narz]

If we want to avoid the fate of Valka's forgetful Dr. Who reference we gotta beef up the brain, and to do that you gotta start understanding the human mind in a very nuts and bolts manner. And we start messing around up there, we're gonna quickly figure out that anything you can do to a program, will be something you can do the mind. Copy minds, merge them, store them untouched on the shelf for 30 years, run them on faster or slower computers, interface them with lord knows what.

Consequently everything we know about morality will have to be fundamentally rethought.

Sounds pretty fanciful. Minds are not something we understand pretty much at all and fundamentally different from computer programs which are static in structure.

A "mind" in isolation from an organism might not be possible.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Consequently everything we know about morality will have to be fundamentally rethought.

Probably a step worth taking if we ever actually appear close to such capabilities.

A "mind" in isolation from an organism might not be possible.

We have no reason to guess that. It would need some kind of supporting structure, but it's not clear why an "organism" would be the only potentially functional configuration.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The second law of thermodynamics dictates heat death will catch up to us. But this doesn't prevent us from resisting our own entropy for an extremely long time by foisting it elsewhere, until there is no elsewhere.

Usually people would just call this immortality rather than "almost immortality until billions/trillions of years from now" because it's simpler (and almost nobody would last that long without some fluke accident given the non-magic immortality variant), but it's true that not even 10 trillion years is "forever".

double upvote

Well, we've not ruled out that it's infinite in size. Obviously, that's the best we can do.

But it's not infinite in time, from any practical standpoint. Or, at least, that's the current suggestion. I will admit that it's a potential roadblock for true immortality. But, there also seems to be closer problems that deserve attention.

I'm in the strong camp of 'we should push back the damages of aging' when it comes to wanting medical progress. I'm technically an immortalist, but only in a way that doesn't mean much. I think that involuntary death is a problem worth tackling.

Colloquially, there are at least two main types of immortality in story telling: god-like immortality where you magically never die never ever and regular immortality where you can still die of non-natural causes.

The line of argument against immortality because of a thermodynamics/finite universe is pedantic. We don't know how the universe will end so it's not even really that good of a pedantic argument.

Hmm you're right, though in practice unless we break FTL somehow what any theoretically immortal human being could access is finite regardless of the fact that in principle you could travel in a straight line and get further away from where you started forever.

I *think* we don't yet know what shape of the universe is with a lot of certainty. I believe this means there is a possibility you could travel in a straight line and come back to where you started. I'm struggling to remember and I believe that the evidence leans in the direction that the universe is flat in that you'll never come back where you started but scientists don't have definitive proof yet.

I think.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, there's no doubt that the heat death of the universe represents a problem for anybody trying to live forever. But it's also not a well-understood problem. As well, there are more proximate threats to our well being.

 

[Kyriakos]

My issue with lack of money isn't that i can't buy a whole city.

I do think, though, that there is no way living for hundreds of years will maintain anything looking even remotely like the current society.

It is human nature to look after oneself first and foremost. I think that all maturing is inherently about realizing some things cannot be won, and you have to be gentler and more co-operative. Give people the ability to live forever without issues and pretty soon those who don't make it to god-level will make it to worm-level.

 

[El_Machinae]

How similar to today do you expect 2889 CE to be anyway?

 

[Kyriakos]

How similar to today do you expect 2889 CE to be anyway?

Not that similar. Yet add functional immortality and there won't be any similarity at all, imo.

There isn't much of a built-in safeguard against humans treating other humans as animals; already happens in cases which are extreme. It can very easily become the norm, and it also may just end what predated it, including human history since early historic times.
Like i said, i have no expectation such things will be seen by anyone living now, or in the next few generations, but they can easily come later.

 

[H4run]

actually human immortality is pretty much pointless if they destroy and not equally obsessed on immortalizing their living platform (planet Earth).

 

[Kyriakos]

actually human immortality is pretty much pointless if they destroy and not equally obsessed on immortalizing their living platform (planet Earth).

Would be true if we were talking about billions of immortals. Of course such won't ever happen
Eg tens of million immortals can just live in one future city. The planet is a pretty vast place, and one city-size has little baring to the rest; it possibly will be less polluted then than it is now, just will be hell on earth for the non-immortals.

 

[H4run]

Would be true if we were talking about billions of immortals. Of course such won't ever happen

Soooooo only the selected bourgeois going to enjoy the immortality? after that they pretty much control the reproduction under strict surveillance, and creates human into classes and strictly defined role, and whoever goes out of the line will be terminated. (sound like a film I watch long time ago)

It's seems like we regress collectively as a social being while advance technologically.

 

[Kyriakos]

Soooooo only a selected bourgeois who going to enjoy the immortality? after that they pretty much control the reproduction of human under right surveillance, and creates human into classes and strictly defined role, and whoever goes out of the line will be terminated. (sound like a film I watch long time ago)

It's seems like we regress collectively as a social being while advance technologically.

I think the above is the "best" case scenario, if immortality happens. Imo it isn't unlikely that the immortal 'humans' aren't human at all by that point. I certainly don't think there will be any discussion of ethics in such a world. Going by religions, the ethic of a god is pretty much what that god decides, and it will be the same here.

I am not saying this is due to only negative traits, mind you. I think we all live in an island of oblivion, knowing only some stuff about ourselves and the world, and trying to co-exist to the best of our ability. But that doesn't mean humans are social by nature. Up to now humans just don't live long enough to outlive ideas.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't see any of these problems as anything but a variant of a problem that already exists. We already need those solutions.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't see any of these problems as anything but a variant of a problem that already exists. We already need those solutions.

There an easy way for you to see them as a different type of problem: imagine immortality being here, but you thrown to the worm-tier instead of the god-tier.
I don't imagine what little social mobility is left will still exist in that future. But you can always feel warm about those who are now immortal, if that was the point.

 

[El_Machinae]

There's already a god-tier ruining everything for the worm-tier

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Up to now humans just don't live long enough to outlive ideas.

I love this thought. Along a similar vein, when I'd take a new friend to my favorite hiking spot in southern Illinois, I loved pointing out fossils embedded in the cliffs of the bluffs we hiked that were older than even the concept of god.

It is heartening to learn though, that people are proving capable of moving past long-held beliefs so rapidly.

 

[old_andy]

Just to add to the discussion, have we all seen Altered Carbon yet?

It kinda hinges on what we're discussing me thinks.

It's also just a damn good series.