Immortality. Fact or Fiction?

[FluffyMcDeath]

T_Bone wrote:

Think of the features you could add, why not have "save states" for emotions? I wonder if wives would get mad if instead of calling "God" or her name, if we yelled "Record!!!"  :lol:

He he. I'd put that in my playlist.

(Which leads to the idea of a p2p network for experiences)

[Cymric]

Cyberus wrote:
And how about the idea of 'the soul'?

What about it? Oh, you mean in the ethereal sense of the word. The religious one.

Here's were all the militant atheists start jumping up and down...

Of course ;-). There's no such thing as a soul, other than the impression we have of it. (It's nice food for thought whether that means it exists, by the way.) But we'll all find out for sure in under a century, right?

[PMC]

blobrana wrote:
Hum,
i`m quite sure some newbie will try shouting `format!`

:lol:

[gizz72]

Greetings,

Speaking of souls, here's a good reading:
http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/soul.htm

Enjoy,

Gizz

[Cymric]

God, what a load of ASCII with difficult words and vague definitions just to provide a feel-good alternative to the cold and harsh reality built up by neuroscientists. I stopped the moment the premise of 'the Good News of the Gospel' entered the essay, then just scanned to see if I could understand a few paragraphs. I could not. I doubt the author himself understands what he wrote. It reminds me of the utter inaccesibility of Heidegger:

"... Die Angst gibt die Seinsmöglichkeit des Daseins in eins mit dem in ihr erschlossenen Dasein selbst den phänomenalen Boden für die explizite Fassung der ursprünglichen Seinsganzheit des Daseins ..."

I know German, I speak it fairly well, but what is said above might just as well be written in Chinese as far as I am concerned. Same goes with that essay.

[iamaboringperson]

So, how about, you get a small computer to take over the job of a set of neurons that are about to kick the bucket. You hook up your computer to all the little synapses that the old cells were talking to and you start the simulation. Can you tell the difference?

If not, repeat. Over many iterations, your brain should be completely replaced with computers, all without you even noticing so there is a continuity of consciousness. Now you are immortal (until the power cuts out). Your bits can be replaced indefinately.

Erm, 'you' wouldn't experience it.

A different entity would take over, and you wouldn't know.

[blobrana]

Hum,
Interesting,
So it could be happening to (say) you right now?

[FluffyMcDeath]

iamaboringperson wrote:

A different entity would take over, and you wouldn't know.

You could say the same thing about baby iamaboringperson, or 10 yr old iamaboringperson. Those entities are now dead and non of the atoms that made them up remain in the new entity that calls itself iamaboringperson, an new entity that just thinks it was, once, those other entities.

[Karlos]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:

iamaboringperson wrote:

A different entity would take over, and you wouldn't know.

You could say the same thing about baby iamaboringperson, or 10 yr old iamaboringperson. Those entities are now dead and non of the atoms that made them up remain in the new entity that calls itself iamaboringperson, an new entity that just thinks it was, once, those other entities.

Just think, he might not have even been iamaboringchild :-D

[cecilia]

A different entity would take over, and you wouldn't know.

but it would be JUST as boring

[Morley]

I sincerely hope immortality will never happen. Then what will we do with those old people that retire at about 60? After some thousand years less than a percentage will be "young" productive people, aged between 20-60...

Jesus....the whole world will become Florida. :-o

[mdwh2]

I'm sure that the retirement age will go up if people are capable of working for far longer (or there'll be no retirement at all if people can live forever).

[Dan]

mdwh2 wrote:
I'm sure that the retirement age will go up if people are capable of working for far longer (or there'll be no retirement at all if people can live forever).

Society would be so different so there might not be employment and retirement as we know it.
If I had unlimited time to learn stuff why would I buy things that I could make myself?

1)As for cryogenics, the book Why call them back from heaven? by  Clifford D. Simak is something to thing about.
I would never let my body( or head) be frozen, because I don´t want to be a Soylent Green burger:-)

As for genetics thats a long way of in the future.
2)"Stopping the clock": I have read somewhere that they succeded with this in some kind of worm, who lived twice or thrice as long as normal. Humans are a bit more complicated than worms.

3)"Replacement clone": This has the same problem as "Transfer mind to computer" we need to know exactly how the brain and body works and then why not use method 2?
Also this method would have enormous ethical consequences!
Don´t you know why Supermans homeplanet was destroyed? :-)

4)"Transfer mind to computer":see 3 above
 And why the hell would you want to be a computer in the first place? Imagine getting a computervirus! :lol:

5)"Cheap taiwanse parts"(Noname Robocop:lol:): If the asian firms that makes consumer electronics, computers and cars today went into the prosthetic market, Replacement organs would be very cheap so eventually everybody could afford it. It couldn´t extend the life off your brain but maybe it would give us another 50 years to add to the 70-80 we already have.
And as a bonus it would help everybody injured in accidents or wars as well.


I don´t see how we could become immortal but with method 2 and 5 our lives could be extended. An accident which destroyed the brain would still kill us. There is also they question on how long the brain would function with method 5 it would still age and with method 2 I wonder how we would experience our extended life. Would we simply think slower or if not, how much memories could our brain handel?

[gizz72]

Greetings,

>Cheap taiwanse parts...

Thant reminded me of 'NEUROMANCER' when you can sell your body parts just to log-into 'cyberspace' for hacking. I think that's not far fetch, since we already have a pace maker. Just don't make the batteries go low, charge it! :lol:

I beleive the human brain can live more than 2 centuries. If I recall, during the old biblical times, people lived 200 years or more. The modern version would be, we are placed in a jar with electrodes stiking in(Not a pretty site though:-(). Attatch in a main frame which connectected in a humungus array of servers just keeping us all alive, while we 'think' we'er in a dreamworld.... Wait have I seen this before? :-)

Regards,

Gizz

[Dan]

gizz72 wrote:
Greetings,

>Cheap taiwanse parts...

Thant reminded me of 'NEUROMANCER' when you can sell your body parts just to log-into 'cyberspace' for hacking. I think that's not far fetch, since we already have a pace maker. Just don't make the batteries go low, charge it! :lol:

I beleive the human brain can live more than 2 centuries. If I recall, during the old biblical times, people lived 200 years or more. The modern version would be, we are placed in a jar with electrodes stiking in(Not a pretty site though:-(). Attatch in a main frame which connectected in a humungus array of servers just keeping us all alive, while we 'think' we'er in a dreamworld.... Wait have I seen this before? :-)

Regards,

Gizz

Mona Lisa Overdrive by Gibson perhaps? :-) That Virek guy?

And the pacemaker is fairly lowtech compared to that  cochleaimplant, an earimplant they use these days which sends the signals directly to the auditory nerve .

 

[Dandy]

Cymric wrote:

Cyberus wrote:
And how about the idea of 'the soul'?

...
Of course ;-). There's no such thing as a soul,
...

Where do you have this from?

What makes you so sure that there is no soul?

Is it just because no one is known who ever saw or touched it (the aged argument)?

If so, you should take into account that you can't see or touch music eigther - nevertheless it exists!