Has the First Person to Achieve Immortality Already Been Born?
motherboard.vice.comI'm hoping the first person to achieve immortality was born at least 29 years ago.
If you read between the lines of this guy's comment, you can infer he is implying that he will get to be the first immortal person.
I read it as him hoping that the first immortal person will be his senior (increasing the likelihood of immortality for himself), and not his junior (reducing that likelihood).
Same here. My email is in my account profile, please get in touch. Cooperation improves our odds.
I didn't realize that we've made any progress towards extending the maximum human lifespan. It's probably a lot harder than we think. I guess we're at the point where Jules Verne was in the late 19th century; we like to dream big.
A civilisation where people can live arbitrarily long lives may have some interesting consequences. For one, cultural stagnation caused by people with entrenched beliefs sticking around. A lot of social progress and scientific development happens over the dead bodies of the old holdouts.
Then in the beginning at least there is the risk of extreme social inequality and a gerontocratic ruling class. Only the wealthy will have access to life extension and it may be the wealthy power structures that deny the technology to other people.
Finally, a civilisation made up of long-lived individuals may become extremely risk-averse, with possible consequences of reduced experimentation, creativity and rebellion. They may also turn out a little like what Larry Niven makes of the Puppeteer race: powerful, cowardly creatures, highly ritualistic, paternalistic and soft-totalitarian.
As far as experimentation goes... I think I'd probably go gay for a bit after 300 years. Might as well right?
There was this movie starring justin timberlake that depicted a world like this. The plot was generic, but the setting was unique.
In time.
There's a short story of a woman who was a bit of a luddite, but late in life her children and grandchildren convinced her to adopt "upgrades" here and there, until she became almost entirely virtual. She retained much of her humanity, but was able to be in many places at once, "inhabiting" purpose-built bodies, and building up a certain reputation and popularity. Eventually humanity's probes make contact with aliens, and she's chosen to be humanity's ambassador.
I wish I could recall the name of that story, but it always painted a pleasant picture of immortality to me. Hopefully someone here recognizes it and can share it with us.
I believe that's "The Gentle Seduction", by Marc Stiegler: http://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/GentleSeduction.html
That's the one! Thank you, I'll be sure to bookmark it this time.
If you liked that one, you may also enjoy 'Accelerando' by Charlie Stross.
It's available for free at Stross' blog: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...
You won't really know until they don't die.
It's kind of like being a cancer "survivor" - XKCD explained it well: https://xkcd.com/931/
The comic has that one part a bit wrong. You're considered a cancer survivor as soon as you're diagnosed with cancer.
Unless they undergo cosmetic surgery and adopt a new identity.
The second law of thermodynamics answers this question with a definitive "no".
They aren't speaking literally. From my point of view, a human who can live, say, 10,000 years is as good as 'immortal'. Sure its literally wrong, but I heard webster now defines 'literally' as 'figuratively' so I'm ready to give up on pedantry.
10,000 years, hmm? Ever read Larry Niven's short story "Cautionary Tales"?
I read a lot of Niven's short stories as a child, but I don't remember that title. Did he illustrate some of the problems we'd have with long life spans?
Not really. It was more of an exploration into different perspectives on search for life-extending technologies by aliens with different life spans. I suggest reading it.
Immortal for certain definitions of forever.
Arbitrary longetivity?
Excluding accidents, natural disasters, murder or suicide.
Even if we had a "permanent" energy source, we have only a finite number of atoms. So one day we would actually also be guaranteed to cycle our thoughts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theore...
So for me true immortality is not only about unbounded time but also unbounded size, neither of which seems achievable.
For all purposes of regular human condition though, an approximation is good enough.
Maybe not forever, but eons.
Assuming we could keep the human body alive forever, I don't think we could handle it a person would eventually go insane. Also it would get incredibly boring at some point and I imagine the suicide rate would be somewhere near a 100% or at minimum people would allow themselves to die.
I definitely don't want to live forever.
So my answer is No, and no one will ever be immortal.
What is boring about it? Is living 40 years more boring than living 30? What about living 1000 years instead of living 100 years? At what point does it become boring?
It's hard for humans to conceptualize eternity, so don't think of it in those terms. If I could live in my current body for 1000 years, I'd still never get around to most of my backlog of things I'd like to do.
Boredom is mostly caused by lack of purpose IMO. As long as there is something to learn, something to explore, something to achieve, something new or pleasurable to experience, boredom is the last thing I'd worry about.
Boredom is a common argument against immortality that is completely derived from pure speculation because nobody has ever lived long enough to experience that feeling of suicidal boredom.
I spend great portions of my life being bored. Never has my boredom ever interfered or had any connection with my desire to live or be immortal. It's pure bullshit to even imply there is a connection.
I would find it hard to believe there's a single human in all of history that would be bored if they found themselves living in present day. Especially now that we're in the Information Age, more and more boredom is becoming a conscious choice for anyone with an internet connection, rather than an inescapable circumstance.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. I can be bored and on the internet at the same time.
Aren't you usually avoiding something, though, when you do that?
The thing I'm trying and failing to avoid is boredom. In short I try to alleviate boredom by going on the internet, however I am still quite bored.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm just trying to understand. I can't relate to this. I might 'feel bored' when I have something I feel I must do, but which I don't want to do. And then I may procrastinate, by turning to the internet, only to find this even more dissatisfying.
But if I have some free time with truly no demands, I need only commit myself to something fun and interesting - even something as simple as reading a novel.
Wait... maybe that's the key. Maybe we try to use the internet to alleviate boredom because it doesn't take any commitment, and maybe it fails to satisfy for that same reason. But what if you are willing to put a little more effort or investment into your distractions? Find a good movie, turn down the lights and really pay attention? Or approach the internet with a sense of purpose....?
I was bounding this conclusion on the possibility that someone could be alive until the end of time, that could be a million or a billion years . I think under those constraints it's entirely plausible that life would lose all meaning.
It really depends on what sort of definition you have for immortality. I would say in this case it would be the ability to live until you choose for yourself not to live any longer, not necessarily that you can never die.
I disagree that it would drive people insane, though, excepting the increasing chances for mental illness to set in as we age which I would assume would be solved as a part of the implementation of immortality as a concept. Our perception of time changes as we age, the passing of a single year takes on less and less meaning each time, becomes less of a milestone and more of just another regular occurrence. Depending on how we go about achieving immortality, time may take on dimensions we can't currently understand, and we may even have the option to choose not to perceive its passing at all.
I don't see how boredom could possibly be a problem. There are so many things I'd find interesting to do, but which are not important enough to warrant the time investment for me - like earn phds in all the sciences, learn a multitude of languages, read and re-read all of the classic literature (in the original language), learn how to paint, to sculpt, to create music. I could spend centuries trying to (re)prove all of the historically important math theoroms. I could spend centuries learning as many martial arts as I could. A few centuries playing chess, a few centuries playing go.
And those are all things I could do without the internet nor virtual reality.
Then I actually wonder how people (with lots of interesting things to do) face death...
Siri, what's my favourite memory?
Hi Matt, going on the Mars Safari is your favourite memory.
Siri, store Mars Safari memories, wipe from my soft drive and book a ticket on a Mars safari.
Never bored again.
I'd rather be bored and alive than dead. Heck a good chunk of my life is already spent being bored.
I'd do unspeakable things for immortality.
Then you should contact me at jmorrow977@gmail.com. Let's cooperate on this.
What if, eventually, you realize it is no longer possible to be immortal?
It'd be really hard to convince me that immortality is even possible. So it's unlikely I'd get into a situation where I'd be violating certain ethics.
Let me rephrase it like this... How do you face death then? It seems really hard for me now
It's hard for many people. There's plenty of theories out there that state that much of what we do and much of what we by are motivated by our fear of death and our desire to ignore it. The best way to face death, however, is head on. Look at yourself in the mirror and firmly remind yourself you will die. Find some way to remind yourself of this every day. St. Thomas Aquinas is said to have kept a skull on his desk to remind himself of his morality. At first, you will feel many emotions, fear, anxiety, depression, anger. You may rush around for a bit, trying to get things done. But the more you think about your death, the more you meditate on it, eventually, things will settle down, and you'll ask yourself the right questions: "What do I want to be remembered for? What do I want to achieve before I die?"
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Hey, I'll let you die if you want to.
I would personally like to live for as long as possible. I have a lot to live for.
I've made this comment elsewhere in this thread, but if that's the case please get in touch with me. My email is my username @ gmail.com (or see my user profile).
This must be done for real space travel that leads to truly inhabiting other "earths".
Yes of course, is an afro-american woman and her name is Henrietta Lacks