7 ms·

Aging is the condition of existing at all, a condition we share with all life across all time, with the galaxies and the entire cosmos.

ETH_start 4y ago
40% or more infants dying before the age of five was the condition of existing for all of existence, until the 1820s, when that rate started to decline for some human populations, and then all of them. Evolution is inherent to the universe, and our spirit yearns for it.
- sph 4y ago
  > Evolution is inherent to the universe It is not. Change and entropy is. And what is more change than death and dissolution of your physical body? Life is anti-entropic, and acts in the opposite direction than the universe itself. But eventually entropy has to win, for it is the universal law.
  - hedgedoops2 4y ago
    Parent is only asking for eternal youth, not a way to massively decrease the net amount of entropy of the universe.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    By evolution I mean change towards more sophisticated states of being. Entropy decreases in lifeforms and increases in the universe. The former process helps to accelerate the universal rise of entropy, so is entirely consistent with the universe. In the end, according to our current understanding, yes, entropy rises until it consumes all energy, and no more life is possible, but that is many trillions of years in the future, and until that time, the nature of the universe is to create ever more sophisticated life.
    - sph 4y ago
      I think we fundamentally disagree on nature vs. universe. What you ascribe to universe, I ascribe to nature, as seen on Earth and, as far as we know, nowhere else in the universe. The universe doesn't evolve. The universe doesn't create sophisticated life. It just is, and changes, and moves toward entropy. Nature is just a very small and very young system within that, by pure chance or other unknown factors, has managed to move a little upstream.
      - ETH_start 4y ago
        My understanding is that entropy drives both the emergence and progression of evolution, and evolution drives the expansion of life, making a universe teeming with life inevitable, simply by consequence of the laws of physics and the physical properties of our universe. There is good indication that evolution began long before the Earth, and the classical life on it, emerged: https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/04/15/113741/moores-law-and-the-origin-of-life/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/04/15/113741/moores-la...
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- tgv 4y ago
  You write some generic drivel that could come from a facebook inspirational, but you mean: I am unable accept my demise, for I am different, better, worthy to live forever.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    You're mostly right, though I think I'm no better. With rare exceptions for those who rob others of their lives, I think we all are worthy to live forever. Every death is a tragedy, and the non-augmented lifespan is woefully short.
    - CMCDragonkai 4y ago
      We need to die. Old ideas die when the old people who hold them die. I'm willing to accept that I will be old one day and die to allow newcomers to take my place. I've seen too many old people holding onto old ideas.
      - ETH_start 4y ago
        There is space, and resources, for trillions upon trillions of people, in just our solar system. There are ways of giving new people spaces of their own, to experiment on new ideas, without people slowly dying over a course of a few decades, against their will.
        tgv 4y ago
        1000x the current population? There's no way that fits in our solar system under any idea of adequate living. But you're assuming a state of affairs that we dare not even dream about yet, and spending it all on your hobby horse. There are other, more urgent needs, right now, on this planet. We should not allocate resources to the whimsical needs of a hedonistic few.
        ETH_start 4y ago
        >>1000x the current population? There's no way that fits in our solar system under any idea of adequate living. All humans on Earth could fit in a city with NYC's population density covering an area the size of Texas, which is only 0.48% of the Earth's land area. We could massively increase living space on a given area of land by building vertically as well. And outside of Earth, in the rest of the solar system, I think you don't understand how much space and matter there is. In terms of energy, I suggest this: https://planetocracy.substack.com/p/space-for-8-billion-people https://planetocracy.substack.com/p/space-for-8-billion-peop... >>For each photon of light that strikes the Earth from the Sun, around two billion miss it. Say that, using the materials of the solar system, we can practically harvest only 1/1000th of that solar output. That would still leave an opportunity to increase our energy budget as a civilisation by a factor of 2,000,000 - a population of 16 trillion each consuming 1000 times as much energy as the average person on Earth does. That figure includes the energy required to power the biospheres on which they depend. Once seeded with payloads from Earth, further growth in the solar system would not have an impact on the Earth’s biosphere at all. There would no longer be a conflict between human and environmental needs. We could allow the population to rise, fall, or remain steady as we wished based purely on social preference, not under a perceived or real physical constraint. And an upper limit of harvesting only a thousandths of the sun's energy is extremely conservative. >>We should not allocate resources to the whimsical needs of a hedonistic few. 1. Wanting to live is not hedonism. It is the most basic human drive, and it should not be stigmatized out of an unrealistically pessimistic assessment of humanity's potential combined with a misapprehension that life and prosperity are zero sum, and thus wanting more of them for one's self is immoral. 2. Solving aging is a need for all humanity, not just a few. Almost all medical expenses essentially go to forestalling its effects.
stephc_int13 4y ago
Not really. Life itself is not aging. Sexual reproduction manages to regularly reset the aging clock by building a new organism from already existing cells, there is no discontinuity in life. At some point, the mother and her child are the same organism. Biology is already immortal, but the resetting process is quite lossy. I am pretty sure that at some point our biology can be hacked to perpetually rejuvenate, in this case our bodies would look like 25 years old, not centenarians.

ETH_start 4y ago

40% or more infants dying before the age of five was the condition of existing for all of existence, until the 1820s, when that rate started to decline for some human populations, and then all of them. Evolution is inherent to the universe, and our spirit yearns for it.

sph 4y ago
> Evolution is inherent to the universe It is not. Change and entropy is. And what is more change than death and dissolution of your physical body? Life is anti-entropic, and acts in the opposite direction than the universe itself. But eventually entropy has to win, for it is the universal law.
- hedgedoops2 4y ago
  Parent is only asking for eternal youth, not a way to massively decrease the net amount of entropy of the universe.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  By evolution I mean change towards more sophisticated states of being. Entropy decreases in lifeforms and increases in the universe. The former process helps to accelerate the universal rise of entropy, so is entirely consistent with the universe. In the end, according to our current understanding, yes, entropy rises until it consumes all energy, and no more life is possible, but that is many trillions of years in the future, and until that time, the nature of the universe is to create ever more sophisticated life.
  - sph 4y ago
    I think we fundamentally disagree on nature vs. universe. What you ascribe to universe, I ascribe to nature, as seen on Earth and, as far as we know, nowhere else in the universe. The universe doesn't evolve. The universe doesn't create sophisticated life. It just is, and changes, and moves toward entropy. Nature is just a very small and very young system within that, by pure chance or other unknown factors, has managed to move a little upstream.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      My understanding is that entropy drives both the emergence and progression of evolution, and evolution drives the expansion of life, making a universe teeming with life inevitable, simply by consequence of the laws of physics and the physical properties of our universe. There is good indication that evolution began long before the Earth, and the classical life on it, emerged: https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/04/15/113741/moores-law-and-the-origin-of-life/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/04/15/113741/moores-la...
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
tgv 4y ago
You write some generic drivel that could come from a facebook inspirational, but you mean: I am unable accept my demise, for I am different, better, worthy to live forever.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  You're mostly right, though I think I'm no better. With rare exceptions for those who rob others of their lives, I think we all are worthy to live forever. Every death is a tragedy, and the non-augmented lifespan is woefully short.
  - CMCDragonkai 4y ago
    We need to die. Old ideas die when the old people who hold them die. I'm willing to accept that I will be old one day and die to allow newcomers to take my place. I've seen too many old people holding onto old ideas.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      There is space, and resources, for trillions upon trillions of people, in just our solar system. There are ways of giving new people spaces of their own, to experiment on new ideas, without people slowly dying over a course of a few decades, against their will.
      - tgv 4y ago
        1000x the current population? There's no way that fits in our solar system under any idea of adequate living. But you're assuming a state of affairs that we dare not even dream about yet, and spending it all on your hobby horse. There are other, more urgent needs, right now, on this planet. We should not allocate resources to the whimsical needs of a hedonistic few.
        ETH_start 4y ago
        >>1000x the current population? There's no way that fits in our solar system under any idea of adequate living. All humans on Earth could fit in a city with NYC's population density covering an area the size of Texas, which is only 0.48% of the Earth's land area. We could massively increase living space on a given area of land by building vertically as well. And outside of Earth, in the rest of the solar system, I think you don't understand how much space and matter there is. In terms of energy, I suggest this: https://planetocracy.substack.com/p/space-for-8-billion-people https://planetocracy.substack.com/p/space-for-8-billion-peop... >>For each photon of light that strikes the Earth from the Sun, around two billion miss it. Say that, using the materials of the solar system, we can practically harvest only 1/1000th of that solar output. That would still leave an opportunity to increase our energy budget as a civilisation by a factor of 2,000,000 - a population of 16 trillion each consuming 1000 times as much energy as the average person on Earth does. That figure includes the energy required to power the biospheres on which they depend. Once seeded with payloads from Earth, further growth in the solar system would not have an impact on the Earth’s biosphere at all. There would no longer be a conflict between human and environmental needs. We could allow the population to rise, fall, or remain steady as we wished based purely on social preference, not under a perceived or real physical constraint. And an upper limit of harvesting only a thousandths of the sun's energy is extremely conservative. >>We should not allocate resources to the whimsical needs of a hedonistic few. 1. Wanting to live is not hedonism. It is the most basic human drive, and it should not be stigmatized out of an unrealistically pessimistic assessment of humanity's potential combined with a misapprehension that life and prosperity are zero sum, and thus wanting more of them for one's self is immoral. 2. Solving aging is a need for all humanity, not just a few. Almost all medical expenses essentially go to forestalling its effects.

stephc_int13 4y ago

Not really. Life itself is not aging. Sexual reproduction manages to regularly reset the aging clock by building a new organism from already existing cells, there is no discontinuity in life. At some point, the mother and her child are the same organism. Biology is already immortal, but the resetting process is quite lossy. I am pretty sure that at some point our biology can be hacked to perpetually rejuvenate, in this case our bodies would look like 25 years old, not centenarians.