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What's the ultimate end game of living for ever? Who's read Asimov's "The Last Question" http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html http://www.multivax.com/las

What's the ultimate end game of living for ever? Who's read Asimov's "The Last Question" http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html Imagine you can live to 1000 or more, at what point does your brain run out of space for memories? When you're finally out of room in your memory buffer do you just turn it into a FIFO queue? So you could collect a whole bunch of information you like (like favorite books, music, movies, etc) start consuming at one end, forget that by the time you get to the end and start again. Repeat forever. Alternatively you could expand your mind, you turn into a cyborg or something. See Asimov's The Last Question again. Or you could stimulate your (possibly digital) brain's please center - forever. And this leads me to a theory of what happened to all the other advanced civilizations in the universe. Assume human like intelligence evolves somewhere out there, then: Scenario #1: Self destruction. Scenario #2: External destruction, asteroid or something. Scenario #3 Super-intellect is achieved: #3.1 Rational super intellect realized existence for the sake of existence is pointless and quits. #3.2 Irrational super intellect wants to exist rational enlightenment be damned. Irrational intellect expands and expands. In other words, if some alien species out there advanced enough to reach trans-humanism (or trans-alienism hardi har har har) then it probably also transcended any irrational genetic fear of death and then promptly took a bow and exited stage left. I guess what I'm saying is you're doomed either way. Either you are primitive and doomed to die a natural death. Or you're super advanced and too smart to fear death, then you have something to do for a while but eventually...

electromagnetic 18y ago
So your assumption is life is pointless so kill yourself? Are you going to be the first person to test this laughably pessimistic hypothesis? I'm a thousand times smarter than my pet rabbit, I've yet to even try suicide because its patently moronic. If human beings were a thousand times smarter than they are today then there's a high probability that less people will commit suicide as they'll finally be smart enough to realize it's not a solution to a problem. Human culture is so diverse that even in 1000 years you'd barely manage 5 years in each country on the planet. I mean just look at how different human culture is today than it was 1000 years ago. We're talking the difference between Monarchy and Democracy in the entire western world. There's no law of conservation of information, there's no finite limit to the amount of data in the universe. It's not like once a thousand books have been written you're stuck with them, there's going to be more and more unique information as the universe ages. A being with an infinite lifespan is going to have a lot of time experiencing all there is for humanity to offer before it even has to create something itself, even then it could likely explore the universe to find another culture to experience. I'm sure if you're going to live forever and spent 10,000 years experiencing humanity, it might not seem too long to take a quick 100 year jaunt to another star system to spend 10,000 years experiencing alienity.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  I wouldn't just kill myself for several reasons, but the two top ones are: First, I am afraid of death. Second, I am mortal and my death is a certainty, there is quite literally no point in rushing it. So there you have one emotional instinctive reason and one logical one. And I have to agree with you suicide is moronic. And perhaps 1000 years is not nearly enough time to become bored. But how about 1000 000 years? More? My question was about the veeeeeeeeeeeeery long run, do you think you'll find life interesting for ever?
  - khafra 18y ago
    For that one, look away from The Last Question, and toward Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut. I think, as long as we're talking about finite time, life would have to be pretty incredibly bad to make me want to end it.
  - alex_c 18y ago
    The problem with death is that it's irreversible. If I'm bored today, I might still find something interesting tomorrow. If I'm dead today, I'll still be dead tomorrow.
    - biohacker42 18y ago
      How likely are you to find something new and interesting if you are a universe sized super intellect?
      - sgibat 18y ago
        When you finally understand everything there is to know, if that is possible, then I think you will be so far gone from human that you will be impervious to boredom.
      - steveplace 18y ago
        I'll think of something.
      - 18y ago

electromagnetic 18y ago

So your assumption is life is pointless so kill yourself? Are you going to be the first person to test this laughably pessimistic hypothesis? I'm a thousand times smarter than my pet rabbit, I've yet to even try suicide because its patently moronic. If human beings were a thousand times smarter than they are today then there's a high probability that less people will commit suicide as they'll finally be smart enough to realize it's not a solution to a problem. Human culture is so diverse that even in 1000 years you'd barely manage 5 years in each country on the planet. I mean just look at how different human culture is today than it was 1000 years ago. We're talking the difference between Monarchy and Democracy in the entire western world. There's no law of conservation of information, there's no finite limit to the amount of data in the universe. It's not like once a thousand books have been written you're stuck with them, there's going to be more and more unique information as the universe ages. A being with an infinite lifespan is going to have a lot of time experiencing all there is for humanity to offer before it even has to create something itself, even then it could likely explore the universe to find another culture to experience. I'm sure if you're going to live forever and spent 10,000 years experiencing humanity, it might not seem too long to take a quick 100 year jaunt to another star system to spend 10,000 years experiencing alienity.

biohacker42 18y ago
I wouldn't just kill myself for several reasons, but the two top ones are: First, I am afraid of death. Second, I am mortal and my death is a certainty, there is quite literally no point in rushing it. So there you have one emotional instinctive reason and one logical one. And I have to agree with you suicide is moronic. And perhaps 1000 years is not nearly enough time to become bored. But how about 1000 000 years? More? My question was about the veeeeeeeeeeeeery long run, do you think you'll find life interesting for ever?
- khafra 18y ago
  For that one, look away from The Last Question, and toward Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut. I think, as long as we're talking about finite time, life would have to be pretty incredibly bad to make me want to end it.
- alex_c 18y ago
  The problem with death is that it's irreversible. If I'm bored today, I might still find something interesting tomorrow. If I'm dead today, I'll still be dead tomorrow.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    How likely are you to find something new and interesting if you are a universe sized super intellect?
    - sgibat 18y ago
      When you finally understand everything there is to know, if that is possible, then I think you will be so far gone from human that you will be impervious to boredom.
    - steveplace 18y ago
      I'll think of something.
    - 18y ago