8 ms·

The Collective Body: Russian experiments in life after death

94 points by lermontov 7y ago

yters 7y ago
First they need to revoke mathematics, that less probable states will transition to more probable states.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  Life would not emerge at all if this statement would be that simple.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    Nah, you just account time to explain life
  - goblin89 7y ago
    There is a hypothesis that life emerged because living things dissipate energy more efficiently[0]. As one possible implication, individual immortality given humanity as we know it might appear counter to that goal. As a more far-fetched implication, evolving humanity in a way that motivates accelerating efficiency of energy capture and dissipation even as individual longevity increases could theoretically unexpectedly inch us closer to immortality. [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...
  - yters 7y ago
    Or the source of life lies outside the physical plane. Modus tollens to the rescue!
- chithanh 7y ago
  Mathematics does allow for such things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theor...
  - yters 7y ago
    Sure, there is always a possibility of return, at least on a 2d plane (not 3d), but still mathematics will have to be revoked to favor low probability macrostates. Certainly an ambituous goal!
    - antepodius 7y ago
      That's not what that theorem says. It says that there's a guarantee of return, eventually.
    - chithanh 7y ago
      I think you might be confusing this with the 2D/3D random walk in a discrete infinite space? Poincaré recurrence is about exhausting the phase space in (discrete or continuous) bounded systems.
leggomylibro 7y ago
The idea of individual immortality seems at odds with how the universe works. But the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of matter and energy is appealing, because it opens the door to the idea that we are all facets of the same thing. What is 'we' to us (and whatever other life is out in space) could be 'me' to the universe, and some philosophers like Spinoza have explored the idea of a "God" which is more or less defined as the empirical laws of this universe. And sure, eventually this universe will also die. But that's okay, because it is also probably part of some larger entity which will also eventually end, and so on. That's how I choose to interpret the infinite, and it brings me comfort because it lets me see death as a change in perspective rather than a finality. It also helps me practice empathy, by not seeing much difference between what I feel and what others feel. The idea of collective transcendence is also interesting. One work which explored it was Alpha Centauri, a Civilization-style game where the players' colonies crash-land on a planet which eventually turns out to be sentient thanks to global networks of fungus which act as neurons. If the player is eco-friendly, they can eventually communicate with the planet and dump their citizens' consciousness into the seemingly-immortal planet. Even that would only delay the inevitable, but to quote the game's CEO Nwabudike Morgan: >I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice. Sound familiar, Thiel?
- eternalny1 7y ago
  I consider myself a pantheist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism So this is all in line with what I think. We must remember that the human mind is not separate from the universe, it is part of the universe just like anything else. So in essence, via your consciousness and mine, the universe is learning about itself. Let that one sink in! I do not believe that eternal life is something that is intended in this universe, but the Russian's are free to try.
- newsbinator 7y ago
  > the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of matter and energy is appealing Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain > In this physics thought experiment, a Boltzmann brain is a fully formed brain, complete with memories of a full human life in our universe, that arises due to extremely rare random fluctuations out of a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Theoretically over a period of time on the order of hundreds of billions of years, by sheer chance atoms in a void could spontaneously come together in such a way as to assemble a functioning human brain. Like any brain in such circumstances, it would almost immediately stop functioning and begin to deteriorate.
cryptonector 7y ago
Immortality == the end of childhood. Yes, I'm referencing the title of the novel, Childhood's End. But it's true. If we lived 1,000 years, we couldn't have two children per-woman every 40 years -- we could only have two children per-woman every 1,000 years. That would yield a minuscule number of children at any time. A life expectancy of 1,000 years would require finding a way to extend fertility from ~35 years, otherwise many opportunities to reproduce would be missed completely and fertility would drop well below replacement rate, furthering the end of childhood. No, we can have immortality, or we can have children, but not both. I can't imagine a life without children. So I choose mortality. I want to die (in time) so that my children may have children. And my children too will have to die (in time). It's just how it has to be. But we can talk about what would be a good life expectancy. 200 years would be fine, provided the first 160 of them one could have a young body and mind. And provided we can find a way to not get too bored :) Even 1,000 would be fine provided our bodies and minds stayed young for 850+ of those 1,000. In any case, I don't want to live 120 of 200 years in an old people's home.. Who would?!
- _ytji 7y ago
  If you haven't experienced 17776 yet, please do! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17776 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17776 https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football
  - catbird 7y ago
    Wow. That was beautiful. I just spent the last couple hours reading through it. Being stuck in my house looking at the world through a screen, I can empathize with that little trashcan hurtling through space. Thanks for sharing.
- rowanG077 7y ago
  Huh that doesn't seem true at all. Even if you lower the amount of children 20 times then there still would be hundreds of thousands of them in the US. This doesn't seem like a problem at all. Actually it would be a blessing since those children could receive way better education compared to now.
aww_dang 7y ago
More than a few intrusive overlays covering an article largely about politics, a paragraph about NeuroNet, followed by talk of climate change. I seem to have skimmed past the part about life after death?
steve76 7y ago
Last week I walked out of the grocery store and saw some grouch blow his nose in the air and sulk off. How much disease is preventable? A lot? Like over 90%? How much is spent on trauma? Car wrecks. Falls. Burns. How about we start there.
TomMckenny 7y ago
This will sound odd to the vast majority but there are some who view the whole idea of their personal immortality as awful and the drive to obtain it incomprehensible. Even if it were in some harp filled cloud borne paradise let alone in the real word. To some, permanent existence seems unspeakably nightmarish.
- antocv 7y ago
  One more feeling the same.
- xwdv 7y ago
  Permanent existence doesn’t have to be nightmarish. For instance, imagine simply reliving your current life forever. You don’t know you’re in a loop, but the feelings you had and the people you’ve known you will always feel again. So make it a good life, and make it good for others as well.
- antepodius 7y ago
  I don't think most people advocating for, say, curing death through aging are advocating forced immortality. It's just a few years more- it's just not dying tomorrow, or next year, or next decade. Yes, if you imagine an arbitrary boundless personal future, there are a lot more ways it could end up being on average a negative experience than a positive one. I've never heard anyone argue against having an exit plan for that eventuality (i.e., I've never seen anyone argue a 500-year old should be prevented from killing themselves). I don't think you would turn down a magic pill that would extend your lifespan-with-a-21-year-old's-vitality tomorrow, would you? I think all the 'immortalists' want is for everyone to live as long as they choose to, and not have the choice taken away from people as it is now.
pnathan 7y ago
Fascinating review. But, honestly, I really wish these ideas were treated as derivative of the religious-cultural matrix they came from. Why is transcendence given such a high priority? Speculatively - I am not an expert - it is due to the regional influence of the "East" Orthodox church and the underlying notions of theosis and transcendent mysticism that threads it in ways that were less common for the West. Ideas, particularly recurring and popular ones, do not arise _de novo_, but have an interlinking with a population susceptible to them. Personally, while I believe (religiously) in an afterlife, I don't desire immortality. Long & healthy life would be nice; but my time in this universe has an end, and _that's ok_. Let my child be an adult free of my control.
Koshkin 7y ago
"Life after death" sounds like an oxymoron to me (unless we are talking about revival, of course).

94 points by lermontov 7y ago

yters 7y ago

First they need to revoke mathematics, that less probable states will transition to more probable states.

vbezhenar 7y ago
Life would not emerge at all if this statement would be that simple.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  Nah, you just account time to explain life
- goblin89 7y ago
  There is a hypothesis that life emerged because living things dissipate energy more efficiently[0]. As one possible implication, individual immortality given humanity as we know it might appear counter to that goal. As a more far-fetched implication, evolving humanity in a way that motivates accelerating efficiency of energy capture and dissipation even as individual longevity increases could theoretically unexpectedly inch us closer to immortality. [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...
- yters 7y ago
  Or the source of life lies outside the physical plane. Modus tollens to the rescue!
chithanh 7y ago
Mathematics does allow for such things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_recurrence_theor...
- yters 7y ago
  Sure, there is always a possibility of return, at least on a 2d plane (not 3d), but still mathematics will have to be revoked to favor low probability macrostates. Certainly an ambituous goal!
  - antepodius 7y ago
    That's not what that theorem says. It says that there's a guarantee of return, eventually.
  - chithanh 7y ago
    I think you might be confusing this with the 2D/3D random walk in a discrete infinite space? Poincaré recurrence is about exhausting the phase space in (discrete or continuous) bounded systems.

leggomylibro 7y ago

The idea of individual immortality seems at odds with how the universe works. But the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of matter and energy is appealing, because it opens the door to the idea that we are all facets of the same thing. What is 'we' to us (and whatever other life is out in space) could be 'me' to the universe, and some philosophers like Spinoza have explored the idea of a "God" which is more or less defined as the empirical laws of this universe. And sure, eventually this universe will also die. But that's okay, because it is also probably part of some larger entity which will also eventually end, and so on. That's how I choose to interpret the infinite, and it brings me comfort because it lets me see death as a change in perspective rather than a finality. It also helps me practice empathy, by not seeing much difference between what I feel and what others feel. The idea of collective transcendence is also interesting. One work which explored it was Alpha Centauri, a Civilization-style game where the players' colonies crash-land on a planet which eventually turns out to be sentient thanks to global networks of fungus which act as neurons. If the player is eco-friendly, they can eventually communicate with the planet and dump their citizens' consciousness into the seemingly-immortal planet. Even that would only delay the inevitable, but to quote the game's CEO Nwabudike Morgan: >I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice. Sound familiar, Thiel?

eternalny1 7y ago
I consider myself a pantheist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism So this is all in line with what I think. We must remember that the human mind is not separate from the universe, it is part of the universe just like anything else. So in essence, via your consciousness and mine, the universe is learning about itself. Let that one sink in! I do not believe that eternal life is something that is intended in this universe, but the Russian's are free to try.
newsbinator 7y ago
> the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of matter and energy is appealing Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain > In this physics thought experiment, a Boltzmann brain is a fully formed brain, complete with memories of a full human life in our universe, that arises due to extremely rare random fluctuations out of a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Theoretically over a period of time on the order of hundreds of billions of years, by sheer chance atoms in a void could spontaneously come together in such a way as to assemble a functioning human brain. Like any brain in such circumstances, it would almost immediately stop functioning and begin to deteriorate.

cryptonector 7y ago

Immortality == the end of childhood. Yes, I'm referencing the title of the novel, Childhood's End. But it's true. If we lived 1,000 years, we couldn't have two children per-woman every 40 years -- we could only have two children per-woman every 1,000 years. That would yield a minuscule number of children at any time. A life expectancy of 1,000 years would require finding a way to extend fertility from ~35 years, otherwise many opportunities to reproduce would be missed completely and fertility would drop well below replacement rate, furthering the end of childhood. No, we can have immortality, or we can have children, but not both. I can't imagine a life without children. So I choose mortality. I want to die (in time) so that my children may have children. And my children too will have to die (in time). It's just how it has to be. But we can talk about what would be a good life expectancy. 200 years would be fine, provided the first 160 of them one could have a young body and mind. And provided we can find a way to not get too bored :) Even 1,000 would be fine provided our bodies and minds stayed young for 850+ of those 1,000. In any case, I don't want to live 120 of 200 years in an old people's home.. Who would?!

_ytji 7y ago
If you haven't experienced 17776 yet, please do! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17776 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17776 https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football
- catbird 7y ago
  Wow. That was beautiful. I just spent the last couple hours reading through it. Being stuck in my house looking at the world through a screen, I can empathize with that little trashcan hurtling through space. Thanks for sharing.
rowanG077 7y ago
Huh that doesn't seem true at all. Even if you lower the amount of children 20 times then there still would be hundreds of thousands of them in the US. This doesn't seem like a problem at all. Actually it would be a blessing since those children could receive way better education compared to now.

aww_dang 7y ago

More than a few intrusive overlays covering an article largely about politics, a paragraph about NeuroNet, followed by talk of climate change. I seem to have skimmed past the part about life after death?

steve76 7y ago

Last week I walked out of the grocery store and saw some grouch blow his nose in the air and sulk off. How much disease is preventable? A lot? Like over 90%? How much is spent on trauma? Car wrecks. Falls. Burns. How about we start there.

TomMckenny 7y ago

This will sound odd to the vast majority but there are some who view the whole idea of their personal immortality as awful and the drive to obtain it incomprehensible. Even if it were in some harp filled cloud borne paradise let alone in the real word. To some, permanent existence seems unspeakably nightmarish.

antocv 7y ago
One more feeling the same.
xwdv 7y ago
Permanent existence doesn’t have to be nightmarish. For instance, imagine simply reliving your current life forever. You don’t know you’re in a loop, but the feelings you had and the people you’ve known you will always feel again. So make it a good life, and make it good for others as well.
antepodius 7y ago
I don't think most people advocating for, say, curing death through aging are advocating forced immortality. It's just a few years more- it's just not dying tomorrow, or next year, or next decade. Yes, if you imagine an arbitrary boundless personal future, there are a lot more ways it could end up being on average a negative experience than a positive one. I've never heard anyone argue against having an exit plan for that eventuality (i.e., I've never seen anyone argue a 500-year old should be prevented from killing themselves). I don't think you would turn down a magic pill that would extend your lifespan-with-a-21-year-old's-vitality tomorrow, would you? I think all the 'immortalists' want is for everyone to live as long as they choose to, and not have the choice taken away from people as it is now.

pnathan 7y ago

Fascinating review. But, honestly, I really wish these ideas were treated as derivative of the religious-cultural matrix they came from. Why is transcendence given such a high priority? Speculatively - I am not an expert - it is due to the regional influence of the "East" Orthodox church and the underlying notions of theosis and transcendent mysticism that threads it in ways that were less common for the West. Ideas, particularly recurring and popular ones, do not arise _de novo_, but have an interlinking with a population susceptible to them. Personally, while I believe (religiously) in an afterlife, I don't desire immortality. Long & healthy life would be nice; but my time in this universe has an end, and _that's ok_. Let my child be an adult free of my control.

Koshkin 7y ago

"Life after death" sounds like an oxymoron to me (unless we are talking about revival, of course).