the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

If there were a human with immortal genes, they wouldn't die -but they wouldn't be born either, because they wouldn't age. No one would want to stay five years old eternally (reminds me of a vampire child in Ann Rice). So, ultimately, it will become a matter of maintenance of health at whatever age. That means that medical treatments will go to the wealthiest.

for the "cell reboots", it seems like a part of you is "youthful again" (like the mice with vision restored), but the rest of you is aging. I guess in theory, various parts ... to all parts ... can be "de-aged" so you are aging chronologically overall, but reversing it biologically in places. I don't know, and Kurzweil and others don't actually know, of course, if that means someone gets immortality. But it sure sounds like if you find enough "reboot" healing for major causes of death (for super rich?), that someone gets at least "radical life extension".

This sounds terrible for democracy, and sounds horrifyingly good for authoritarian regimes and billionaire cronies (the voters keep dying, but you stay alive and manipulate a new set of voters). Or something like in Foundation, where Emperor Cleon keeps ruling via a new clone over the generations (of mortals).

Foundation is a cool example, but people want individual immortality. We already pass our living genes to our offspring.

Cloning is ok, but if you need to keep your own memories, hopefully those memories can be just as immortal. If you're Highlander and find a mortal love-of-your-life, your sadness will last forever. Anyway, the death rate will be different for immortals who sky dive?

I hope the immortal versions of Rupert Murdoch, Trump, and Putin do quite a lot of skydiving.

Thanks Steve, now I have that Queen song stuck in my head (I rewatched it a year or two back, great movie)

I would like to humbly recommend 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' by Cory Doctorow, which notes, in the course of the story, two valid points about 'immortality by antiaging' and 'immortality by cloning and memory graft'

1. You can keep the physical frame of the body alive through advanced technology but at some point the capacity of the brain will be maxed out. At this point you can extend the capacity of memory through use of digital uplink technology. (My thinking: storage of memory on computing devices is again finite. Given limits of physics as we know it, eventually you will run up against the limits of memory and you will begin to lose memories. IAM as 'the self' is made of memories once the memories begun to be lost 'the self' is no longer the same person- so basically it is a different mind in the same body. Is this immortality? I would say not. )

2. Immortality by cloning and memory graft- the characters in the book do a weekly or monthly cerebral backup which captures all the salient bits of their memories and personalities. If they happen to perish, their memories are reloaded onto a fresh clone body. My thinking: Is this immortality? I would also say not, this is cloning.

In sum Either we need to reexamine what it means to be alive, discover magic, or resign ourselves to the fact that becoming immortal is going to be impossible. In the meantime we can comfort ourselves that all the sci-fi reading we've done turned out not to be an idle waste of time but rather extremely relevant.

Maybe we should replace immortality with the desire to live well as long as possible

Science fiction is valuable, and necessary, to be able to imagine the positives and negatives -based as much on human nature as much as science.

vadaga wrote:Thanks Steve, now I have that Queen song stuck in my head (I rewatched it a year or two back, great movie)

I would like to humbly recommend 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' by Cory Doctorow, which notes, in the course of the story, two valid points about 'immortality by antiaging' and 'immortality by cloning and memory graft'

1. You can keep the physical frame of the body alive through advanced technology but at some point the capacity of the brain will be maxed out. At this point you can extend the capacity of memory through use of digital uplink technology. (My thinking: storage of memory on computing devices is again finite. Given limits of physics as we know it, eventually you will run up against the limits of memory and you will begin to lose memories. IAM as 'the self' is made of memories once the memories begun to be lost 'the self' is no longer the same person- so basically it is a different mind in the same body. Is this immortality? I would say not. )

2. Immortality by cloning and memory graft- the characters in the book do a weekly or monthly cerebral backup which captures all the salient bits of their memories and personalities. If they happen to perish, their memories are reloaded onto a fresh clone body. My thinking: Is this immortality? I would also say not, this is cloning.

In sum Either we need to reexamine what it means to be alive, discover magic, or resign ourselves to the fact that becoming immortal is going to be impossible. In the meantime we can comfort ourselves that all the sci-fi reading we've done turned out not to be an idle waste of time but rather extremely relevant.

Altered Carbon explored this. You could pull your YOU out of the body and put a new one in it. They put criminals in stasis and let rich people use their bodies, among other things.

Another interesting one was living with yourself with Paul Rudd. A company was producing optimized clones of you and disposing of the original. One survived.

The problem is that clones are people too. The body doesn't "want" to be immortal; it's the consciousness that desires, and makes us people (i,e., beings).

Yeah, being able to transfer memories to a new body would be cool -though, the mechanics of doings has to have a limit. We already forget most of what happens in our lifetime. There are a few people with hyperthymesia who can recall their pasts with extreme accuracy. However, not being able to forget things, including trauma, causes depression in some. It's also occurred because of brain damage.

Anyway, the clone won't want to live because of memory; it'll want to preserve its present. If you transfer the present it develops while alive to another body, it'll include the pain of fearing death or dying.

everything wrote:

wiesiek wrote:hmm,
I would ask you, guys,
is this the same Mr Kurzweil, which designed new synth. sound sound architecture around 80` ?

yes, he's had success in many fields
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil
makes a lot of technology field predictions. the human immortality and AI ones are probably the most controversial (but it's hard to think of why journalists or scientists or most people of any type would be more well-placed to make better predictions ... they're sort of "movie critics" and not "film makers" ... may as well start with Kurzweil's. Bill Gates supposedly said he's the best at AI predictions, and Larry Page hired him personally to work at Google. Think those two probably know a thing or two about technology). Anyway, he says a lot of interesting stuff.

I agree, he says a lot, but for example- his sound architecture doesn`t works as promised,
not only for my ear;
his keyboards are quite rare on stages and studios at the present time.
Anyway
we have immortality already, just not to many really know,
this is the reason for a river of words production

...We already forget most of what happens in our lifetime..

Yes and no, Steve.
All of what happens in our lifetime is collected in the >cloud<.
Like in the net - access is the only problem ...

wiesiek wrote:
All of what happens in our lifetime is collected in the >cloud<.
Like in the net - access is the only problem ...

This bioethics professor is already worred about neural tracking/hacking technology.



https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... technology

Certainly the field is advancing rapidly. The recent launch of ChatGPT and other AI tech innovations showed that some aspects of simulation of thought, termed machine learning, are already here. It’s been widely noted also that Elon Musk’s Neuralink and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta are working on brain interfaces that can read thoughts directly. A new field of cognitive-enhancing drugs – called Nootropics – are being developed. Technology that allows people experiencing paralysis to control an artificial limb or write text on a screen just by thinking it are in the works.

wiesiek wrote:...We already forget most of what happens in our lifetime..

Yes and no, Steve.
All of what happens in our lifetime is collected in the >cloud<.
Like in the net - access is the only problem ...

It's possible to look at memory as storage, and recall is simply a matter of retrieval. So, we might say the brain is the storage device and the mind/consciousness does the retrieving. However, the brain does not retain all information or experience equally or for the same amount of time. Some memories will become indelible. Others will be forgotten within seconds. Then there's the critical issue of how much effort is put into retaining -which will affect the efficiency of retrieval. I might forget the name of someone I meet on the elevator. Otoh, I had no problem remembering the telephone number of someone I wanted to go out with.

Anyway, I don't think the ability to retrieve memories is natural. Ime, we don't train students to improve their memories. We just demand they remember. If it were natural, they'd all get A's. As it is, they're often proud to say they don't remember a f-in thing from the class. So, the trick was to make them want to remember.

ten I have to ask you:
are we the brain?

Hmm, the brain is just a body part. A human is a human even without a brain, and would be one if there were two brains in one body. We already have two brains, anyway, right?

But, ok, does the brain contain "us" or do we contain the brain? That's a hard question because it's easy to be of many minds on the issue. After all, we are not aware of everything that happens in, on, or around us. For ex, can you feel your toenails growing right now? Something in the brain is making that happen, and replacing worn out cells constantly. That isn't conscious or anything we can do much about -with our conscious minds. Here we are talking about how to control something happening at a cellular level for billions of cells.

If those billions of little cells were conscious and didn't want to die, what would they do? Well, maybe the answer is simple: reproduce. However, when that happens in us, we call it cancer.

this crazy guy says he has slowed his rate of aging (100+ supplements per day, etc etc) to that of a 10 year old



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RiERG_4tig