6 ms·

anti aging is probably going to have a lot of unknowns and surprises along the long road. In the mean time, brain-machine interfaces and the transfer of conscio

anti aging is probably going to have a lot of unknowns and surprises along the long road. In the mean time, brain-machine interfaces and the transfer of conscious processes outside the brain seem like a more feasible road to immortality

krapp 6y ago
Whatever we "transfer" our "conscious processes" into isn't going to last forever, either.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Eh, okay, so technically not immortal because the sun will still die. I'm happy to settle for a "only" a couple millennia of life. More than I get now.
  - krapp 6y ago
    I think you're being incredibly optimistic if you believe it's possible to build a machine both complex enough to house a fully simulated human consciousness and robust enough to last billions or even thousands of years. Bits rot, things break down, and it tends to happen to technology more quickly in most cases than to the human body. The more complex technology is, the faster it fails. We measure the life cycle of our most modern tech in months, not centuries. The idea that you're going to surf the universe in an immortal, inviolate android body untouchable by aeons of time is closer to a religious hope than likely reality.
    - mbeex 6y ago
      And people stop dying on this sphere, for which we still have no escape or distribution plan (into space).
      - krapp 6y ago
        They still die. "Uploading" is a copy operation, but the flesh and blood human and their flesh and blood brain still dies. Whether the copy counts as equivalent to the original is a philosophical matter. But as far as biology isn't concerned, you haven't eliminated death, you've just moved the goalposts on life.
        the_af 6y ago
        The videogame SOMA is a pretty good exploration of this take :)
        mbeex 6y ago
        My point was - what will these growing numbers of living things do to a non-increasing volume of 4/3 pi r^3?
        cblconfederate 6y ago
        if the living things are electric they can be shot to interstellar space and beyond. even on earth, they'd be zero emissions
        antepodius 6y ago
        In the end, the geometry does imply that for a given reproduction rate, you eventually reach a crunch where there's not enough surface area of new space to expand to for your colonists, who are proportional to your volume. Being uploads speeds up your rate of expansion, because you could send out seedships much nearer to c and then beam over the digital colonists to be picked up by the infrastructure built at the new system- but digitised people could also reproduce much, much faster than biologicals.
        WalterSear 6y ago
        It doesn't have to be. Neurons are created and die all the time. Replacing them one at a time, with their virtual equivalent, would not be entirely different to what is already happening.
    - antepodius 6y ago
      It's more that we're able to build computers from scratch, and we can transfer data between them. You can ship-of-theseus-backup yourself ad infinitum (well, until the usable energy runs out.)
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        are you even still "you" at that point? from the pov of your current consciousness, does it really matter to be copied?
        plutonorm 6y ago
        By the same logic - are you really you from one moment to the next?
        chillwaves 6y ago
        from the perspective of my experience, yes. I think that is not true if you make a copy. At least, you would leave an old you behind. Which from my intuition would be "me". I understand "me" would also live on, but at that point I think I would just prefer to die.
        plutonorm 6y ago
        so "you" is connected with the physical matter that makes you up? You are aware that that physical matter is completely replaced many times over during the course of your life time?
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        By the time we get to this thought experiment we only really need to consider people that were fine with the initial upload process. Being transferred to a new computer is peanuts in comparison.
- Shorel 6y ago
  So what? I'd settle for 50x. Damn, even 5x would be a great improvement over current affairs.
namenotrequired 6y ago
I think you have it exactly backwards. We have been increasing life span for quite a while. Uploading brains not so much
- Retric 6y ago
  Maximum lifespan extension has been very stagnant. Hieronymus of Cardia, a companion of Alexander the Great who outlived his famous friend by about 80 years, dying at the age of 104 in the year 250 BC. That’s someone famous enough to be memorable, presumably he wasn’t the record holder 2270 years ago. Most medical progress has been around avoiding people dying young rather than actually extending lifespans after 90. So moving the needle when life expectancy hits 85+ becomes far more difficult.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  increasing the average, but nowhere near immortality (actually the average has dropped a bit the past decade). OTOH if we figure out how to extract the whole brain information outside the body, we know how to simulate it forever.
ajnin 6y ago
The "transfer of conscious processes" does not seem more feasible to me at all. We have absolutely no way to do that right now, we don't even know what consciousness is. I don't know of any research avenues on the subject either, if you know of some some I'd be interested to read about it. In some distant future maybe making a copy of your brain in a simulator would be possible, but the copy would live on, you'd still die.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  > I don't know of any research avenues on the subject either There are many different brain-machine interfaces and probes , it s an active field of research for decades. Wikipedia must have an overview. > maybe making a copy of your brain in a simulator would be possible, but the copy would live on We know from conjoined twins that they can share brain structures, so maybe it is possible that only half of the person dies

krapp 6y ago

Whatever we "transfer" our "conscious processes" into isn't going to last forever, either.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Eh, okay, so technically not immortal because the sun will still die. I'm happy to settle for a "only" a couple millennia of life. More than I get now.
- krapp 6y ago
  I think you're being incredibly optimistic if you believe it's possible to build a machine both complex enough to house a fully simulated human consciousness and robust enough to last billions or even thousands of years. Bits rot, things break down, and it tends to happen to technology more quickly in most cases than to the human body. The more complex technology is, the faster it fails. We measure the life cycle of our most modern tech in months, not centuries. The idea that you're going to surf the universe in an immortal, inviolate android body untouchable by aeons of time is closer to a religious hope than likely reality.
  - mbeex 6y ago
    And people stop dying on this sphere, for which we still have no escape or distribution plan (into space).
    - krapp 6y ago
      They still die. "Uploading" is a copy operation, but the flesh and blood human and their flesh and blood brain still dies. Whether the copy counts as equivalent to the original is a philosophical matter. But as far as biology isn't concerned, you haven't eliminated death, you've just moved the goalposts on life.
      - the_af 6y ago
        The videogame SOMA is a pretty good exploration of this take :)
      - mbeex 6y ago
        My point was - what will these growing numbers of living things do to a non-increasing volume of 4/3 pi r^3?
        cblconfederate 6y ago
        if the living things are electric they can be shot to interstellar space and beyond. even on earth, they'd be zero emissions
        antepodius 6y ago
        In the end, the geometry does imply that for a given reproduction rate, you eventually reach a crunch where there's not enough surface area of new space to expand to for your colonists, who are proportional to your volume. Being uploads speeds up your rate of expansion, because you could send out seedships much nearer to c and then beam over the digital colonists to be picked up by the infrastructure built at the new system- but digitised people could also reproduce much, much faster than biologicals.
      - WalterSear 6y ago
        It doesn't have to be. Neurons are created and die all the time. Replacing them one at a time, with their virtual equivalent, would not be entirely different to what is already happening.
  - antepodius 6y ago
    It's more that we're able to build computers from scratch, and we can transfer data between them. You can ship-of-theseus-backup yourself ad infinitum (well, until the usable energy runs out.)
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      are you even still "you" at that point? from the pov of your current consciousness, does it really matter to be copied?
      - plutonorm 6y ago
        By the same logic - are you really you from one moment to the next?
        chillwaves 6y ago
        from the perspective of my experience, yes. I think that is not true if you make a copy. At least, you would leave an old you behind. Which from my intuition would be "me". I understand "me" would also live on, but at that point I think I would just prefer to die.
        plutonorm 6y ago
        so "you" is connected with the physical matter that makes you up? You are aware that that physical matter is completely replaced many times over during the course of your life time?
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        By the time we get to this thought experiment we only really need to consider people that were fine with the initial upload process. Being transferred to a new computer is peanuts in comparison.
Shorel 6y ago
So what? I'd settle for 50x. Damn, even 5x would be a great improvement over current affairs.

namenotrequired 6y ago

I think you have it exactly backwards. We have been increasing life span for quite a while. Uploading brains not so much

Retric 6y ago
Maximum lifespan extension has been very stagnant. Hieronymus of Cardia, a companion of Alexander the Great who outlived his famous friend by about 80 years, dying at the age of 104 in the year 250 BC. That’s someone famous enough to be memorable, presumably he wasn’t the record holder 2270 years ago. Most medical progress has been around avoiding people dying young rather than actually extending lifespans after 90. So moving the needle when life expectancy hits 85+ becomes far more difficult.
cblconfederate 6y ago
increasing the average, but nowhere near immortality (actually the average has dropped a bit the past decade). OTOH if we figure out how to extract the whole brain information outside the body, we know how to simulate it forever.

ajnin 6y ago

The "transfer of conscious processes" does not seem more feasible to me at all. We have absolutely no way to do that right now, we don't even know what consciousness is. I don't know of any research avenues on the subject either, if you know of some some I'd be interested to read about it. In some distant future maybe making a copy of your brain in a simulator would be possible, but the copy would live on, you'd still die.

cblconfederate 6y ago
> I don't know of any research avenues on the subject either There are many different brain-machine interfaces and probes , it s an active field of research for decades. Wikipedia must have an overview. > maybe making a copy of your brain in a simulator would be possible, but the copy would live on We know from conjoined twins that they can share brain structures, so maybe it is possible that only half of the person dies