Immortality in 2045

General General Discussion
1

not a new concept to people who follow practical science… but this seems to be the first time it’s hit mainstream, and the first time i can remember when it’s been presented as a basically here-and-now reality. man WILL transcend mortality as we currently understand it, and soon… and it will change us. what will your priorities be when you no longer need to eat, in any way we current understand it? when exposure to the elements is no longer an issue in the way we currently understand it? how will we measure “success” and how will this effect social structure? what will happen for those who will not or possibly can not conform to this new paradigm? unless we die tragically in the next two or three decades, ALL of us here right now will live to see the next step in human evolution… the confluence of natural and artificial intelligence. are you excited, or terrified?

and can we even consider it a step in human evolution, or the end of man-kind? if somebody has nanobytes transfer his thought-patterns to the 30-year-from-now equivalent to a hard-drive surgically installed inside his cranial cavity… or better yet, into an android of his choosing, thereby rendering him 100% machine, rather than cyborg, is he still human at all? either way?

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138,00.html

the implications of computers becoming sentient before humans can assimilate themselves aside.

2

Is he even still himself? Did his consciousness transfer over, or just a collection of his memories?

The telomeres research is more interesting to me right now.

3

I dont think I could do it.

4

you might be dead set on not doing it… but like all things, it won’t be black and white. it’ll be a gradual technological progression between now and then, with nanotechnology playing an ever increasing roll in the survival and propagation of our species. by the time you’re making the decision on whether or not to have your psyche transfered to an artificial medium, you’ll probably already have nanobytes circulating around in your system from a half-dozen other treatments you’ll receive for heart conditions, cancers, infections, broken bones, etc. the nano-reconstruction of the body, on small, then bigger scales, will already be the norm, by the time we face the prospect of “immortality.” most of us will likely already be, quite literally, cyborgs by the time we’re confronted with the question.

think about your wife… your kids… how do they fit in? would you prefer they grow old and die? would they? what if they chose differently than you? do you want them to watch your feeble natural mind deteriorate, while they get periodic upgrades and updates that just make them faster, smarter, and stronger all the time? do you want to become a burden for them?

i’m taking no position with this, merely playing devils advocate.

5

It’s an interesting notion.

Try this for a twist, what if you can make a copy?

What if you could make a “backup” of your consciousness before death in a software system that would exactly duplicate the processes of the human brain?

When you died, would the backup still be you?

With religious notions of a “soul” did you create a second one? Did it transfer with your surviving consciousness to the hard drive? Or did it go on to the afterlife leaving a functional consciousness as a backup with no need for a soul?

6

Would it be murder to pull the plug :stuck_out_tongue:

7

i think, for marketability sake, if nothing else, it’s going to involve some kind of physiological transfer, rather than just a copy. not quite sure how, but the technology we’ll have available in 10 years from now is probably a bit outside our current comprehension. in a couple of decades, you’re gonna HAVE to have an artificial mind just to understand most of it. whatever the case- i don’t think simply copying people’s psyches is gonna cut it.

while the android option will probably be an option, our inherent desire for self-preservation (the reason for the quest for immortality to begin with- and it’s a selfish desire) will preclude most people from committing suicide, then expecting some robot to take their place. so whats more likely is that we’ll develop gel-circuitry, for lack of a better term- an artificial CNS replacement that actually mimics and vastly improves upon the brain’s capacity. the choice will be to replace the natural tissue with artificial tissue, while still in the skull and without any kind of open surgery (which will become rare in about a decade, and be a thing of the past in probably 15-20 years). nanobytes- programmable, self-replicating, upgradeable machines about the size of a virus- will be inhaled/injected/ingested into the body, where they will travel to the prescribed area and conduct the work. they will map our all of your brain’s pathways, and begin the conversion, likely using your own neurons and nutrients in your blood stream as building materials. it’ll be an out-patient process, taking a few hours, including recovery time. you will already have nanobytes maintaining your body long before neural conversion is available… how long can nanobytes keep your body strong, healthy and young? not sure… there will obviously be a limit to what can be done with carbon-based flesh, and people will elect to begin having their natural flesh replaced with improved and upgradeable synthetic replacements. i guess the ratio of flesh/machine (if it can really be called “machine” by this point, since synthetic operations will likely be, just above the molecular level, identical in appearance and function to natural flesh) will depend on your age, and your budget, mostly.

as to backing up your brain- absolutely. what if an EMP blast wiped your mind? i think we’ll have numerous redundant systems in place to preserve our minds.

this is the first stage in the evolutionary jump… our ambitions, technological breakthroughs, etc will dictate where it progresses from there.

8

concepts like “murder” and “life” and “death” will have totally different meanings in the near future, if they have any meaning at all. it’s really hard to say.

9

But if I cease you from being, even in an digital form, isn’t that still murder. Or would you no longer be defined as human since you lack flesh and bone, but instead just a piece of software.

10

I would defiantly do it but I won’t be first in line. My luck I will die in 2044.

11

all depends on how it plays out. i wish i was a better writer, i could articulate my thinkings better.

will we still have children? why?
will there really be a difference between sentience originating in natural man, and CPU-born sentience?
how will we define “life,” or will we even bother?
if we do differentiate, who will rule? who will submit?

will individuality still matter to us? why? will we become more of a collectivity, than a race of individuals? we will, like all networked databases, share a LOT of information- why not simply share everything?

12

Immortality in 2045 in combination with world over population. Sounds like an oxymoron. Something is going to have to give. Only the elites will be able to take advantage of this technology.

13

it’s about this time that, if the current trend were to continue, the world population doubling point would begin to accelerate uncontrollably. since we will not double in world population weekly, daily, hourly, minutely, i don’t know what will happen- but as you say, something is going to have to give.

this has happened before, according to scientific history. homo sapien and homo neanderthalensis co-existed in prehistory europe for millennia. perhaps in symbiosis, for a time… but neanderthalkind had limited adaptability, limited mental capacity. so long as there was no competition for resources, they could co-exist in peace. but once each species numbers began to grow, the stronger survived, the weaker became extinct.

14

In one sense yes it would be.

15

an additional note on who will be able to partake in all this, though-

the technology, once implemented, will become so cheap that it’ll be free. once computers become smarter than Man, computers will start writing their own programs, engineering their own CPUs. once this happens, the technology curve will skyrocket. every version will produce a better version than itself, and it’ll happen in the blink of Man’s eye.

likewise, the same will happen with self-replicating machines- the nanobytes themselves, in coordination with the programming and engineering that goes into them. nanobytes will self-replicate better models to replace themselves- and each individual tiny little self-replicating nanobyte will be able to produce a better, smarter, faster, more efficient nanobyte than itself.

the newest latest, greatest upgrades will only be available to the elite, as the elite will always want to remain elite (be they human or machine [if we’re differentiating])- but nanotechnology WILL be available to every living man on earth, sooner or later, and no matter how many men there are.

space will not necessarily be a limiter, either. the size of a being will, eventually, not be the least bit important. we can make ourselves smaller, if we want… thereby taking up less space.

but before that happens, we’ll likely expand into space. the same technology curve skyrocket that launches us into a new species will also launch us into the heavens. and with the greatest minds networked, i suspect we’ll achieve greater-than-light-speed modes of travel within 100 years… but even if we dont, we have the ability to terraform mars, possibly even venus.

-or-

we’ll achieve artificial sentience before mankind can catch up, and computers will simply enslave or exterminate us before it becomes an issue.

16

Can you say EUGENICS. You make a valid argument, but must take into consideration the difference between the Natural Order of things(Mother nature/evolution) vs a man made Unnatural Order(technology).

17

given as an example of the sociological implications of competing races, with one clearly superior.

i don’t think eugenics will play into the singularity, though. there’s no need to clean up the human race if we’re to transcend the human race. perhaps eugenics will come into play as an alternative to transcendence… those who, for naturalistic or religious reasons, oppose the singularity may opt to clean itself up, in a desperate attempt to compete. THAT actually seems fairly plausible, as what’s left of the human race will likely be pretty fuckin degenerate by that point. a hundred and fifty years of preserving and multiplying bad chromosomes- ack.

speculation can take this anywhere.

18

Or simply ignore us completely as we might have extremely limited interaction with each other. We might not be relevant enough to warrant destruction or even much notice.

19

If we’re no longer constrained by human lifespans and biological needs, spreading into space will be a serious option. Nobody wants to go work on mars now, it’s a 3 year round trip. Going to a nearby star would take a lifetime.
If you can live hundreds of years or thousands, these things become reasonable.

also a computer intelligence powerful enough to bring us immortality could probably also bring us solutions to world hunger, overpopulation and any other issues.

alternately it’ll go all skynet on us and blow everyone up. :eek:

20

In 2045, I’ll be 78… assuming I’m still around, and knowing my family’s average lifespan, that’s a pretty ASTOUNDING assumption for us.

I rather doubt anyone’s gonna wanna back up an old confessional Lutheran Pastor by then, and besides which, I’m with Skyugo on this one. It’ll go Skynet on us, before it makes copies of us.