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2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal
- markyc 14y ago"[..] by then we'll be able to transfer our minds to sturdier vessels such as computers and robots" Even theoretically, how would it be possible to separate the "mind" from the body?
- confluence 14y agoSame way you deploy large distributed systems - replace tiny sections, test, and progressively move across like a virus, slowly assimilating the previous version (your neurons). Once you get 100% replacement - you are uploaded, and you are technically separate from your body. To be clear - this is merely theoretical - which is a fancy way of stating that all this singularity stuff is still pure fiction (at least for the time being).
- ramblerman 14y agoBut then you didn't move, you copied. So there would be 2 of you now?
- drcode 14y agoThat's a big question we don't have an answer for yet.
- ktizo 14y agoYep and the RIAA will sue for the royalties on any songs your new copy might remember.
- anthonyb 14y agoMaybe. If you had bits of your brain replaced with identically functioning machinery, would you still be you? What if you had your whole brain replaced piecemeal like that? What about if you had a prosthetic thalamus or visual cortex?
- Cushman 14y agoAssuming we are defining consciousness objectively as the pattern which encodes my brain state: I would continue to be me through the copying procedure, which can presumably be less disruptive to my consciousness than falling asleep. I would then begin to alter my brain state (without which process I would not be me), and, in the course of time, become something which bears no more resemblance to Me' than any other biological brain does. At this point, the effort of copying my brain state may begin to feel like a waste of time.
- anthonyb 14y agoYou're missing the point - there's strong evidence that your brain is composed of multiple bits, all working in concert. If, in the future, you get a brain injury and are treated with a prosthetic thalamus implanted with micro-robots, are you still you? Extend that to treatment for memory loss, old age or other sorts of brain damage - are you still you? If it gets to the point where your whole brain is replaced, are you still you?
- Cushman 14y agoI don't think I've missed the point, though it's possible I'm talking past you. I've granted what you're saying-- I don't think synthetic replacement of parts of my brain should alter my identity or consciousness any more than a nap does. But that's a kind of pointless philosophy, because I'm definitely not the same person I was ten years ago, and in ten years I'll certainly not be who I am now. Synthetic replacement wouldn't change that-- if it did, then it would not be me. And if that process were enabled by technology to continue at its current pace indefinitely, I don't think that Me+100years would have much more claim to being Me' than my grandchildren would; both would be radically altered derivative products. It follows that I don't see how a synthetic brain is supposed to maintain my consciousness in the long term more than having children will. Or in brief: I don't see the question "would I still be me" as particularly interesting or useful.
- anthonyb 14y ago
- Xcelerate 14y agoThere's something interesting called the no-cloning theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-cloning_theorem). Basically, it says it is impossible to copy an unknown quantum state. This could have implications on "copying" vs "moving" human identity (whatever that is) around.
- anthonyb 14y agoThat's assuming that your brain uses quantum state to encode information, which is far from proven.
- Tobu 14y agoaka the nanoreplacement procedure. A few more ideas are listed here: http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Uploading/#METHODS http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Uploading/#METHODS
- smashing 14y agoWith an emulator running on a Virtual Brain simulator hardware layer.
- gouranga 14y agoIf VMware are going to run me, I'd probably end up dying due to the license fees...
- z92 14y agoFuture scientific predictions have an extremely high rate of over-estimating based on treands of the time, and then missing the real big things that actually will matter in the future. I won't spoil my mind assuming immortality is even a distant possibility.
- drcode 14y agoI agree this stuff is far-fetched, but how do you benefit by telling yourself this is categorically impossible?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- gouranga 14y agoI'd rather die. That's a big thing to say but without motivation to do things before you die, humanity will descend into chaos.
- philh 14y agoI would be very surprised if the part of the brain responsible for motivation was so directly tied in with the part of the brain which is consciously aware that it will die.
- jakeonthemove 14y agoNo way man, if I was immortal, I could work on stuff without worrying that I'll get old and never finish it. And there's plenty to work on, for sure...
- Udo 14y agoAnd you still can, even after this "immortality tech" is available. Nobody forces you, just don't hold the rest of us back when it's time to join the revolution ;-) Seriously though, you guys are going to die out. You know that, right?
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- chris_wot 14y agoThat's what I got told when I visited my clairvoyant last week! What amazing predictive powers they have.
- lukev 14y agoI think it's a bit premature to prognosticate consciousness transfer when we don't even have a good understanding (or even a definition) of what consciousness is.
- SudarshanP 14y agohttp://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2603&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+smbc-comics%2FPvLb+%28Saturday+Morning+Breakfast+Cereal+%28updated+daily%29%29 http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2603&#... "Here lies humanity... Do not resucitate"
- jakeonthemove 14y ago2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal... unless, of course, we get hit by a solar flare, asteroid or some local disaster :-). But seriously, we should create some redundancy or protection for our technological foundation before connecting to the Matrix...
- Spearchucker 14y ago2044: The Year of the Zombie Apocalypse...
- Cushman 14y agoSigh. Not that I don't love the idea of revolutionary technology, but the very idea betrays what seems to me a fundamental misunderstanding: Man, as in mankind, already is immortal. We seem to stand a decent chance of outliving our star, anyway. The desire for one individual, by which we really mean the one ephemeral brain-state that happens to exist at this moment, never to cease to be seems positively juvenile. For life to be, change must happen; for change to happen, that which is must end. Demanding that thought continue to happen according to my design is a selfish idea of the mind that shouldn't make intuitive sense to anyone with a materialistic conception of consciousness.
- philh 14y ago> one individual, by which we really mean the one ephemeral brain-state that happens to exist at this moment No we don't. What we really mean is hard to pin down, but it's not that (at least not in this context). I have friends, and every ten minutes they're in a different brain state; but they're still the same person, more or less, and I would be sad if they were to die but I don't get sad when a particular brain state ceases to exist.
- Cushman 14y agoThere are discontinuities in brain state we are willing to accept: sleep, drug use, travelling the world for a year. There are those we are not: Death, Alzheimer's, radical personality change. Have you ever known someone who got in a relationship, or went to a foreign country, or took a job that seemed to really change who they were? Has that ever made you sad? What do you think it means to grow apart? You don't want your friends to die, but you also don't want them to change so much that they aren't your friends any more. Death is a very great and permanent discontinuity, but nothing else about it makes it special.
- k-mcgrady 14y agoIt'll be interesting to see how many people would actually want to become immortal. For example a lot of religious people would be against it as they want to go to heaven or be reincarnated when they die. If you were trapped in poverty with no obvious way out you may not want to live forever. Even taking those factors out of your decision living forever isn't, I don't think, something a lot of people really want and it would introduce incredible challenges for mankind to overcome (population size).
- DanielBMarkham 14y agoEver since I read Tipler's wildly speculative book The Physics of Immortality http://amzn.to/MarYjA http://amzn.to/MarYjA (affiliate link) I've been a fan of this line of reasoning. Critics say it's all pseudo-science, and they're right. but pseudo-science is not necessarily a bad thing. There's really not much difference in some smart guy thinking through what might happen in 50 years and some other smart guy speculating on how man might have lived 120K years ago based on a couple of bones and an arrowhead. Educated creative speculation is fun. It's not physics, but it's fun. Having said that, my money is on 300-500 years as the time frame for consciousness transfer and the beginning of the singularity. These are just really difficult problems, and it's always very tempting to project out some great breakthrough within your own lifespan. My money is on a lot of "little" breakthroughs in both biology and information technology that take us in ways we can't predict right now, but which converge in some sort of Omega Point immortality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point
- andyl 14y agoA car is a machine made from a bunch of parts. If you could upgrade those parts bit by bit, a car could run forever. You could look at the internet as a single machine made from a bunch of parts. Those parts are distributed all over the place - but still. And unlike a car, the parts of the internet do get upgraded bit by bit. The internet has been running non-stop for decades, with no end in sight. You could regard dna-based life as a kind of machine - one machine, whose parts are the organisms which carry dna. These parts are distributed all over the place, and are continuously upgraded through evolution. The dna in every organism results from an unbroken chain of upgrades that goes back billions of years. So by this definition, there are machines that go on without end. And if you could change your perspective, drop your identity as a human organism, and instead say "I am dna-based life", then you are already immortal. Congrats! :)
- carsongross 14y ago"The nineteenth century decided to have no religious authority. The twentieth century seems disposed to have any religious authority"." --GKC