E.g. would you approach it from the 'immortal jellyfish' perspective, from cell regeneration, 'transporting' into an earlier version, transfer of the mind, etc.?
Instead of spending all our time in the shadow of mortality why not we just step out in the light and enjoy life in its brief moment and make the most of it?
Don't get me wrong, I would like to live forever, but it might have greater risks for mankind then the benefits it holds.
It is about looking at mortality as some kind of disease and not a common thing that happens to all living beings.
As a human, I am afraid of death as the most of us. I like to toy with the idea living forever, or at least hundreds of years...
But looking at our society now. As the average lifespan getting higher, more people stay in jobs longer as usual. The young wont have any jobs, because their parent will stay in the positions. In the end the old would have to sustain the young and soon after that, no one would want to have a child, because who needs another hungry mouth.
Of course as the 1st world country citizens will afford living a longer life, 2nd and 3rd ones wont. This will create a massive gap between nations. Like we didn't have that already.
And we don't know how the human mind could handle this anyway. Maybe you would go actually mad after 200 years of living.
And as I said. The extra years always add up to the end. Maybe you live 200 years, but 2/3 of that is spent being old and useless.
As highly appreciated and acknowledged people warn us about the ramifications of A.I., so we should be extremely cautious about banning death.
To be honest I would be less afraid of A.I. as the consequences of immortality.
Choose your poison, however, living long enough to fight for a chance to change, defeat or restructure that poison, in whatever form it comes, is what I choose. Choice B) does not give you that option unless it's your understanding that:
C) There is another option
D) Choice A) will someday positively impact the reanimation of those who've selected Choice B).
Choose wisely.
But, we all know who will be the ones actually benefiting from this.
The ones who don't give a rats ass about anything, only selfishly living longer just to make more money, have more power. Hoarders who are rather a disease for humanity then being useful.
In an ideal world it would be a fantastic thing. But we aren't living in one. We can try, but unless 90% of humanity stops acting like a maniac, it will divide humanity on another level.
We can't cope with the fact properly, if our neighbour has a bigger car then ours. Imagine how people would cope with the fact, that some of us can live for hundreds of years.
Immortality is a nice thing, but not until the minds are cleared, poverty, hunger, closed mindedness, are banished and humanity as a whole can act and decide without having constant internal struggles.
Just look at the idiots who are against vaccinations, religious nut-jobs, greedy, selfish, maniac, egocentric, etc...
All the beautiful traits of humanity. Do you want to give those power to live long, or maybe forever?
Would you prevent new generation to blossom and create something new, by selfishly clinging to life and not letting go to give way for the change? It is a common thing that the older you are, the less you can change, or keep up with trends. And this is not only about are ageing bodies. We might have the risk to stop evolving. To stop innovating, exploring, etc...
I advise to you to read "2br02b" from Kurt Vonnegut. A short story about our society perfecting immortality. It is very interesting.
And to answer your question. I would probably choose 'A', even if I fear that it will have a very negative impact on humanity.
I also think for society to evolve older generations need to die off. Peoples worldview becomes partially fixed in their youth, and for some it is entirely fixed in their youth. I wouldn't want to live with a bunch of geriatrics from the 1800's.
b) why would there even be a discussion on 'who deserves' to be immortal? is there currently a discussion on who deserves to live based on what they contribute to society? crime would still be crime, and dealt with as it's always been dealt with
c) let's distinguish between mortality based on aging and mortality based on other unforeseeable causes ( violence, accidents, etc. )
d) mortality currently binds us to our solar system, and humanities' possible ultimate demise
e) we are at a stage where human evolution has stopped. the way to push it forward is now through our own means
my question was rather related to the technical issue - as it is a technical issue. not if it's desireable or not; that's besides the point and has to be dealt with separately
b)Mortality gives way to other minds to step forward like Stephen Hawking and others. Would have been such a good thing to have an immortal Isaac Newton for a millennia? Would have he realised the the laws of physics outside of earth's standards. Could have an immortal Einstein refine his theories and change his mistakes and adapt to newer findings? Could have had a Stephen Hawking any chance to share his knowledge beside immortal Einsteins and Newtons?
c)It is a discussion about who deserves it. As for expensive treatments which aren't affordable by anyone in our society right now. We all now this. These treatments or solutions won't be free of charge. Only the rich will afford it. You know, money talks...
d)It's not only mortality that binds us to earth. It's our whole biological build up. Which fits only the life on earth. What about the warp drive, worm holes, etc... These aren't good enough for humanity to reach for the stars?
e)Also we don't have any clue about what effects it will have on the human body to live on another planet.
f)It is silly to say that evolution has stopped for the human race. We are biological creatures which can adapt to its surrounding as any other. But having immortality and not producing offsprings will actually lead to an evolutionary dead end. Having no genetic mutation will prevent the species to create natural immunity against diseases etc...
g)I only wanted to point out that maybe it is not the best thing to cheat death. It is natural. It's not a disease. Stop treating it like one.
As I said. As we are concerned about A.I., so should we concerned about this as well. Logic dictates to examine a possible solution from every angle as possible. Not to put ourselves and the whole humanity into a dead end.
b) that's just an ignorant way of thinking. similar to the poster below who wouldn't want to live with an older generation of people because of their ignorance - which just shows his ignorance; it's not up to you or us to decide how long people should live or playing out 'what if' scenarios and wondering if humanity is better off because somebody died. it's pointless
c) any technology that is available to rich people becomes with the progress of time more affordable and available to the masses
d) if you die before you reach the next solar system, what's the point of starting the flight? see the fermi paradox and the great filter. mortality could be one of the great filters for interstellar expansion
e) that's... completely besides the point of this discussion
f) we are currently at the state quite complacent and well-adjusted to our environment. no big hardships, no predators - we're the dinosaurs now. what different strain of the homo sapiens would have to evolve now randomly to surpass the current strain? dinosaurs didn't evolve into highly intelligent beings, although they've been around millions of years
g) that's a complacent and dangerous "it's always been this way". cells stopping to reproduce themselves are a malfunction, and it can be technically solved; the same way as we can repair robots, machines or other electronics
mostly fears, complacency and wrong assumptions. taken into account, but not useful as they act as distractions and take attention from the topic - which was the technological hurdles of fixing the human robot
b) I just proven my point. Humans are ignorant bastards. You can't deny the fact that this will create massive problems in society.
c) Yeah, but during that time, wars will erupt and kill millions who already could have been saved. Lose money, lose the greed out of humanity and everything bad. Then we can talk about free immortality for everyone.
d) We are soooo far away from proper interstellar travel with technology, that putting a handful of people in a tube and sending them far away while the rest of us dies here whilst they're travelling. I still think we will find answers regarding how fast can we travel. What about huge colonisation ships, on which people can live for generations? The great filters are mostly speculations. Some stuff we look back on and go, 'Hey that was a filter. Thank god we survived it!'. And there are always more answers for one problem. Oh and you forget there might be another issue. Living in space during the venture. That is hard for the human body, even if you live forever. So unless you change into robot, which is not as good, because solar winds, radiation, etc... What if we let humans evolve into space life?
e) Maybe, maybe not...
f) That is silly again. Over the years much has changed in our body. Just go and have a look at old castles, houses in Europe. A few hundreds of years ago the people were much shorter. Our body structure changes and adapts, but so does everything else in us. We are still evolving as we speak. Maybe the environment for the dinos was a bit harsh. Humans couldn't have evolved in that. Not to mention live. That's why being a dino was they way to go. A lot of people agree that it is a freak accident, that we have such a calm few thousand years without any huge issues in climate and vegetation. Now it is better, because we can shape our surrounding. Of course this spirals down into us killing everything that moves and has meat, fur, tusks, whatever... Mother nature is not stupid, there was a reason why the dinos couldn't evolve but still they were the dominant species. And it would be foolish to say they didn't. Not every dino lived in the same prehistoric age at once. They evolved from each other. Only an alternative history would know what would have happened, if dinos remain here.
g) Ok, than why do we have organisms which live basically forever and we're not one of them? And why aren't these immortal creatures not the true rulers of Earth by now? I'm not a biologist, but I do see a relation here between the necessity of death and evolution. As we mix our DNA we create better and better offspring. Immortality kills the need for offspring.
This is not off-topic. It would have been off-topic for me to comment: ' Hey what about vanilla flavoured ice-cream? How the hell they do it!?'
Anyway I enjoy this argument. It wont hurt you get a bit out of your comfort zone. Sorry if I annoyed you in any way.
Oh and I would love to have a cyber-brain as they have it in the Ghost In The Shell world. If my body dies I could still transfer my brain into something else. Like a big robot or something, or just a jar. Maybe creating this kind of hybrid solution would be the answer. If we can continue with our current body to evolve, but have our brain picked out if we want to... Maybe that would help. And the human robot doesn't need fixing, it is good as it is and what it will evolve into. Stepping outside of it might be a better solution then fixing.
Sure, "immortality" in humans would present a variety of potential problems, but new technologies often do. Should we not have created cars, planes, nuclear power, etc. because of the risks we foresaw? Let's deal with the issues as they arise, rather than use them as an excuse not to try in the first place.
How would I approach the problem? "All of the above." Follow all plausible and ethical courses of action to see where they lead. It's too early to tell which method(s) will be effective, but if something is physically possible in this arena I expect we'll try it sooner or later.
RE: Baculovirus, have you seen any attempts at this?
Start making it acceptable for people to talk about death - how they'd like to die; what they want to happen to their organs or body after their death; what kind of funeral they want.
It's really important to let your family know how you feel about being hooked up to machines or how you'd feel about living with dementia or similar.
Forget immortality through the extension of the biological life of the body; yonder lies folly.
However yes, that would be a much faster approach to space colonisation - it would remove the need for spaceships.
What I'm wondering about the different approaches is if they could receive bigger breakthroughs by sharing / crowdsourcing their issues and getting a wider attraction / reach. E.g. sometimes the answers to a problem lie in another industry
Like e.g. the fold.it game helped decyphering the crystal structure of an AIDS causing virus in 10 days, while scientists were battling it for 15 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V48M5j-6zdE
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbYgza4NNk8
To name some of the top roadblocks:
- Cellular garbage collection
- Inner-workings of Mitochondria and cell death/apoptosis at the wrong time.
- DNA repair genes
- Telomerase production/use
Analyzing genomic pathways associated to these is key. Understanding why the expression of genes varies or decreases/increases at the wrong time is also key.
Being able to use Cogntive computing/biomicry/AI/Machine Learning etc to analyze the hidden connections and relationships between phytochemicals, genes, proteins, pathways and environment is the next frontier.
We're working on it and could certainly use additional crowdsourcing approaches.
With statistical inference and probability, a system can provide a number of answers to questions. A crowdsourcing component can be used to rate the answers the system provides thereby allowing the system to learn via feedback loops.
Apply this to Life Sciences, molecular biology, genomics/proteomics and we may have a system intelligent enough to produce new hypothesis in the area of life extension research or a system intelligent enough to combine two pieces of knowledge to come up with something new, a discovery or series of discoveries.
I have some other ideas too, look me up at biomimic@gmail.com if you want to collaborate on these.
We can then truly solve for space travel and populating other planets and we'll have lifespans that enable us to travel for extended periods of time - a Universal requirement for the human species.
Re: The Nematode lifespan; What happened to the C60 buckyballs diet? Apparently rats that underwent a specific diet of C-60 fluids had nearly double the lifespan ( 22-26months vs 42 months ) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961212...
Yes, we are almost there and I don't think people realize how close we are. Make the world a better place? How about making the Universe/Multiverse a better place!