5 ms·

"At another point in the discussion, a man spoke of some benefit X of death, I don't recall exactly what. And I said: "You know, given human nature, if people

"At another point in the discussion, a man spoke of some benefit X of death, I don't recall exactly what. And I said: "You know, given human nature, if people got hit on the head by a baseball bat every week, pretty soon they would invent reasons why getting hit on the head with a baseball bat was a good thing. But if you took someone who wasn't being hit on the head with a baseball bat, and you asked them if they wanted it, they would say no. I think that if you took someone who was immortal, and asked them if they wanted to die for benefit X, they would say no."" [0] [0]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aSQy7yHj6nPD44RNo/how-to-seem-and-be-deep https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aSQy7yHj6nPD44RNo/how-to-see... There's no (physics based) reason we have to die, just like there was no reason for all the deaths in child birth in early human history. It's a failure of our current capabilities. I don't know if any of the claims in Lifespan [1] hold up, but if they do stopping aging may be easier than people previously thought. Either way - I'm hoping we figure it out sooner rather than later. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nXop2lLDa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nXop2lLDa4

glitchc 5y ago
Actually there is a physics based reason. It’s entropy. Entropy can only increase over time in an isolated system. The human body is a complex multicellular organism largely isolated from the environment and largely in homeostasis once fully grown. Increasing entropy over time is inevitable. It would require increasingly larger amounts of energy to counteract its effects on our body, which over time would become impossible to supply. If stars cannot sustain themselves forever, how can we compete? We are far more complex with a far smaller energy budget.
- fossuser 5y ago
  When the human lifespan is on the order of a star's - I'll be a lot happier.
  - 8note 5y ago
    Do you really want to see everyone you care about burn up in a supernova?
- mLuby 5y ago
  Entropy may win in the very end, but that's after trillions of years (unless we're in a Big Crunch or Big Rip universe), and asserts that no intelligence will ever find a way to circumvent it (see Clarke's First Law). On a more relatable scale, humans do grow in complexity, order, and capability in their early years, until eventually decay turns the tide toward the end of our natural lifespans. It would be rather odd if it's physically impossible to re-activate those growth and healing mechanisms—much more likely that we just haven't figured out how yet. [Edit: I'm amazed at the posts saying it's not worth trying to live longer because you'll never outlast A STAR. It's not a competition people!]
  - 8note 5y ago
    If you're not living all the way till dark energy rips your atoms apart, what's the point? Seriously though, what is the point? You're gonna have the same fomo with death in the future as you do now. We've already found out how to reactivate those growth and healing mechanisms. Have children, then grand children, then great grandchildren, etc. Each generation gets its own activation
    - mLuby 5y ago
      > You're gonna have the same fomo with death in the future as you do now. I'm sure my ancestors worried constantly about their next meal because starvation was a very real possibility, but luckily I don't think about starving even though it's technically still possible. I hope that in the future the same is true of disease and non-accidental death. The point is having as much time as you want to do the things that interest you. Nobody should be forced to live when they don't want to, and nobody should be forced to die when they don't want to. Pretty simple really. > We've already found out how … Have children Come on now, we both know that a legacy isn't remotely the same as not dying.
ren_engineer 5y ago
"science advances one funeral at a time" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle Most likely outcome of immortality as humans currently are would be stagnation and power being concentrated in a few hands
- sooheon 5y ago
  Literally the end of evolution.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    s/evolution/engineering and life goes on
  - xvector 5y ago
    Evolution is already mostly over, and on the timescales that it becomes relevant we will have engineered ourselves far beyond our flesh shells.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- xvector 5y ago
  A slowdown of progress becomes as irrelevant as the passage of time. You'd experience more net progress anyways. Regardless, it's still not a reason to die. You could argue that progress is meaningless with death. Finally, progress being slowed down is something we can solve independently of death. I think it's a good idea to find alternative solutions to stagnation than literally dying - that's like solving an issue with your OS by throwing your whole computer in the trash. Alternatively phrased, if power was already stagnated and concentrated, and you had a button to start killing a couple million random people like clockwork every year to "solve" this problem, it would be insane to press it.
soheil 5y ago
It's dangerous to see acceptance of death as a kind of virtue. The amount of funding dedicated to anti-aging research is very small, it's a tiny subset of funding for Alzheimer's disease by the NIH. I think it's precisely this line of thinking that explains the lack of funding and the extremely slow progress in this field [0]. [0] https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget
- xvector 5y ago
  Exactly. It may have been "virtuous" to accept death when it was inconceivable to solve. Today anti-aging solutions are likely within reach should we concentrate research and funding in a massive push to solve the issue. We ought to abandon our fatalistic outlook (that existed solely due to prior necessity) and sprint towards this goal with every fiber of our beings.

glitchc 5y ago

Actually there is a physics based reason. It’s entropy. Entropy can only increase over time in an isolated system. The human body is a complex multicellular organism largely isolated from the environment and largely in homeostasis once fully grown. Increasing entropy over time is inevitable. It would require increasingly larger amounts of energy to counteract its effects on our body, which over time would become impossible to supply. If stars cannot sustain themselves forever, how can we compete? We are far more complex with a far smaller energy budget.

fossuser 5y ago
When the human lifespan is on the order of a star's - I'll be a lot happier.
- 8note 5y ago
  Do you really want to see everyone you care about burn up in a supernova?
mLuby 5y ago
Entropy may win in the very end, but that's after trillions of years (unless we're in a Big Crunch or Big Rip universe), and asserts that no intelligence will ever find a way to circumvent it (see Clarke's First Law). On a more relatable scale, humans do grow in complexity, order, and capability in their early years, until eventually decay turns the tide toward the end of our natural lifespans. It would be rather odd if it's physically impossible to re-activate those growth and healing mechanisms—much more likely that we just haven't figured out how yet. [Edit: I'm amazed at the posts saying it's not worth trying to live longer because you'll never outlast A STAR. It's not a competition people!]
- 8note 5y ago
  If you're not living all the way till dark energy rips your atoms apart, what's the point? Seriously though, what is the point? You're gonna have the same fomo with death in the future as you do now. We've already found out how to reactivate those growth and healing mechanisms. Have children, then grand children, then great grandchildren, etc. Each generation gets its own activation
  - mLuby 5y ago
    > You're gonna have the same fomo with death in the future as you do now. I'm sure my ancestors worried constantly about their next meal because starvation was a very real possibility, but luckily I don't think about starving even though it's technically still possible. I hope that in the future the same is true of disease and non-accidental death. The point is having as much time as you want to do the things that interest you. Nobody should be forced to live when they don't want to, and nobody should be forced to die when they don't want to. Pretty simple really. > We've already found out how … Have children Come on now, we both know that a legacy isn't remotely the same as not dying.

ren_engineer 5y ago

"science advances one funeral at a time" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle Most likely outcome of immortality as humans currently are would be stagnation and power being concentrated in a few hands

sooheon 5y ago
Literally the end of evolution.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  s/evolution/engineering and life goes on
- xvector 5y ago
  Evolution is already mostly over, and on the timescales that it becomes relevant we will have engineered ourselves far beyond our flesh shells.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xvector 5y ago
A slowdown of progress becomes as irrelevant as the passage of time. You'd experience more net progress anyways. Regardless, it's still not a reason to die. You could argue that progress is meaningless with death. Finally, progress being slowed down is something we can solve independently of death. I think it's a good idea to find alternative solutions to stagnation than literally dying - that's like solving an issue with your OS by throwing your whole computer in the trash. Alternatively phrased, if power was already stagnated and concentrated, and you had a button to start killing a couple million random people like clockwork every year to "solve" this problem, it would be insane to press it.

soheil 5y ago

It's dangerous to see acceptance of death as a kind of virtue. The amount of funding dedicated to anti-aging research is very small, it's a tiny subset of funding for Alzheimer's disease by the NIH. I think it's precisely this line of thinking that explains the lack of funding and the extremely slow progress in this field [0]. [0] https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget https://www.nia.nih.gov/about/budget/fiscal-year-2021-budget

xvector 5y ago
Exactly. It may have been "virtuous" to accept death when it was inconceivable to solve. Today anti-aging solutions are likely within reach should we concentrate research and funding in a massive push to solve the issue. We ought to abandon our fatalistic outlook (that existed solely due to prior necessity) and sprint towards this goal with every fiber of our beings.