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I doubt you can cure these diseases, you can perhaps prevent them, but to cure would mean removing their effects, and if you could remove their effects and say,

I doubt you can cure these diseases, you can perhaps prevent them, but to cure would mean removing their effects, and if you could remove their effects and say, bring a seriously deteriorated Von Neumann back to his previous mental heights it seems like you should be able to make anyone the equal of Von Neumann - which I agree would be a great thing to be able to do but seems to be a much further along than the words cure or prevent would indicate.

squigz 1y ago
> I agree would be a great thing to be able to do but seems to be a much further along than the words cure or prevent would indicate. If the words "cure" or "prevent" don't indicate that, why did you bring it up? :) I think this is being needlessly pedantic. Keeping in mind that one of HN's guidelines is to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of a comment, I think we can assume that GP meant, essentially, "learn enough about these diseases so as to detect and prevent them from causing irreparable damage"
- ElevenLathe 1y ago
  The "disease" we're talking about here is death. Von Neumann was losing his mental capacity because he was dying. I know some in the silicon valley set think that "curing" death is both feasible and desirable but I disagree on both points.
  - sinenomine 1y ago
    A voice from outside SV (mine): We can extend life and prevent disease in animals and should do the same in human beings. As much as the West has exclusive access to biomedical R&D, it's an ethical imperative for the West to pursue this goal on behalf of humanity as a whole. You invented noblesse oblige and should measure up to it.
  - tough 1y ago
    no death is just part of life, there's no life without death. the disease would be alzheimer, and curing it would mean probably preventing it / being able to edit the genome to nullify whatever gen is making it come up in the first place (if its genetic)
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  sorry but the strongest plausible interpretation of the word cure is obviously not "prevent", it is to undo the damage. >If the words "cure" or "prevent" don't indicate that, why did you bring it up? :) the strongest plausible interpretation of my comment would be I brought it up for the reason I said - that if you could cure the disease you would have to be able to give anyone the capabilities the disease destroyed (because these diseases seem to destroy parts of the brain so even if you "brought back" the brain it would be a different brain with different data in it)- and that, although I did not state it, I felt that the original poster had not considered this when they expressed a wish to cure. on edit: obviously if you have experienced minor damage you can get back to what you were before because the brain has a lot of redundancies and it can recover if decline is halted, but if you have experienced major damage you're probably not getting back and asking for a cure there seems unlikely to work.
cjbgkagh 1y ago
There is a world of difference between removing an inhibitor and adding an enhancement.
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  since these diseases destroy parts of the brain not just inhibit the functioning of the brain you would need to add an enhancement and not remove an inhibitor to bring back lost functionality.
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    Depends very much on the disease, for my specific type of brain fog from dysautonomia (via ME/CFS and hEDS) it may feel like a gradual and permanent degradation but it is largely completely reversible and when you know what you're doing it's actually pretty easy to do so. This is only known by a very small minority of doctors so the chance a specific patient meets such a doctor is incredibly low which is why most people still think it's some great big mystery. I was able to remove the inhibitor and bounce back better than ever. I think the brain fog in my case was caused by excess IL-1B pro-inflammatory cytokines and directly targeting that with medication did result in the brain fog near permanently lifting. It’s also likely that even if the degradation is permanent it is also likely multifaceted and one of those facets is likely to be treatable such that the impact of the degradation could be greatly reduced. I think it’s incumbent on us to try as much as possible even in the seemingly lost causes because learnings from such attempts could yield insights for those who are not lost causes. It’s a ridiculous conflation to suggest that the inability to take a regular person and give them Von Neumann intelligence means that we can’t help Von Neumann stuffing an ailment even if a component of that ailment is clearly permanent.
    - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
      >Depends very much on the disease, for my specific type of brain fog from dysautonomia (via ME/CFS and hEDS) sorry, I thought we were talking about Alzheimer's because Alzheimer's was what was mentioned in the post I responded to but now I see it is in fact every ailment that affects the brain, and not just Alzheimer's. >It’s also likely that even if the degradation is permanent it is also likely multifaceted and one of those facets is likely to be treatable such that the impact of the degradation could be greatly reduced. this might be what was meant here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44277444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44277444 - when I said that the brain has a lot of redundancies and of course caught and stopped early enough then it wouldn't be such a big problem but hey, what do I know, I didn't even know what we were talking about evidently, thanks for correcting me. >It’s a ridiculous conflation to suggest that the inability to take a regular person and give them Von Neumann intelligence means that we can’t help Von Neumann stuffing an ailment even if a component of that ailment is clearly permanent. OK well I guess I am taking a more stringent meaning of cure than you are, you are taking the relieve meaning, which is of course to help, but I am taking the revert meaning. I believe mine is a pretty common meaning, at least in the vernacular. I mean when they say we cure cancer they don't mean it will make the pain less intense and maybe you can live twice as long as otherwise. Certainly I believe the pains and problems of a disease can be relieved, but in the case of Alzheimer's (sorry for going back to the disease I was discussing since you have informed me I was not discussing that but since I was, actually, discussing that I am just going to have to stick with it) it can not necessarily be reverted - it can potentially be reverted as I indicated earlier if not too much damage is done (because of redundancies), but if for example you have late stage Alzheimer's I don't believe you are going to get to cure (revert) all damages. In such cases you can manage to stop it and rehabilitate the patient to a less damaged earlier state perhaps, but otherwise I would think there was too much damage to revert it, because if brain tissue is too damaged I suppose (perhaps again due to a naive model of how I suppose memories and knowledge are maintained in the brain) that the data that was held by these damaged sections is now unrecoverable. on edit: removed some verbiage.
sinenomine 1y ago
With all due respect, you didn't even try at anything resembling full effort. There are 2, maybe 3 societies in the world, which have (or had) the capacity to try implementing a serious R&D effort to prevent the diseases of aging. The effort has been meager so far, and ultimately, compared to other major R&D directions (no, I'm not talking about AI, AI is fine), it's a testament to how much we value ourselves and our loved ones. As an adult who already lost a few of my relatives, and will probably lose a few more: if we truly loved them, we'd have put at least 10% of GDP into eventually curing all degenerative diseases, while implementing a simple scalable cryopreservation infrastructure for those who won't be there in time. It could be done, The West and Asia could achieve this. But didn't, due to all too well known web of aversion & coping mechanisms. In your small-mindedness you failed humanity.
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  >With all due respect, you didn't even try at anything resembling full effort. There are 2, maybe 3 societies in the world, which have (or had) the capacity to try implementing a serious R&D effort to prevent the diseases of aging. exactly who do you think I am? It sounds like you think I am some sort of avatar of one of these societies, and for some reason I am here posting on HN. >while implementing a simple scalable cryopreservation infrastructure for those who won't be there in time. ok, well as long as its simple. >In your small-mindedness you failed humanity. okey-dokey, well I can definitely see you are going through something right now, hope you get better.
tough 1y ago
Yeah tbh english isn't my first language, and I meant more into -finding the causes- and eradicating alzheimer, aka preventing it, much like we have done with polio, or whatever. Not really curing people already in advanced state of the maladie... anyways, they're not mutually exclusive, but enhanching life should preceed ending it in the order of priorities imho
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  Ok sorry about the mistake, I just made the observation as a small aside, thinking perhaps you did mean cure as in totally revert damage.
  - globnomulous 1y ago
    You shouldn't apologize. You didn't make any mistake that I can see, and your comment is kind and patient.
  - tough 1y ago
    yeah no worries at all, i appreciate your comment and the conversation it opened up!

squigz 1y ago

> I agree would be a great thing to be able to do but seems to be a much further along than the words cure or prevent would indicate. If the words "cure" or "prevent" don't indicate that, why did you bring it up? :) I think this is being needlessly pedantic. Keeping in mind that one of HN's guidelines is to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of a comment, I think we can assume that GP meant, essentially, "learn enough about these diseases so as to detect and prevent them from causing irreparable damage"

ElevenLathe 1y ago
The "disease" we're talking about here is death. Von Neumann was losing his mental capacity because he was dying. I know some in the silicon valley set think that "curing" death is both feasible and desirable but I disagree on both points.
- sinenomine 1y ago
  A voice from outside SV (mine): We can extend life and prevent disease in animals and should do the same in human beings. As much as the West has exclusive access to biomedical R&D, it's an ethical imperative for the West to pursue this goal on behalf of humanity as a whole. You invented noblesse oblige and should measure up to it.
- tough 1y ago
  no death is just part of life, there's no life without death. the disease would be alzheimer, and curing it would mean probably preventing it / being able to edit the genome to nullify whatever gen is making it come up in the first place (if its genetic)
bryanrasmussen 1y ago
sorry but the strongest plausible interpretation of the word cure is obviously not "prevent", it is to undo the damage. >If the words "cure" or "prevent" don't indicate that, why did you bring it up? :) the strongest plausible interpretation of my comment would be I brought it up for the reason I said - that if you could cure the disease you would have to be able to give anyone the capabilities the disease destroyed (because these diseases seem to destroy parts of the brain so even if you "brought back" the brain it would be a different brain with different data in it)- and that, although I did not state it, I felt that the original poster had not considered this when they expressed a wish to cure. on edit: obviously if you have experienced minor damage you can get back to what you were before because the brain has a lot of redundancies and it can recover if decline is halted, but if you have experienced major damage you're probably not getting back and asking for a cure there seems unlikely to work.

cjbgkagh 1y ago

There is a world of difference between removing an inhibitor and adding an enhancement.

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
since these diseases destroy parts of the brain not just inhibit the functioning of the brain you would need to add an enhancement and not remove an inhibitor to bring back lost functionality.
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  Depends very much on the disease, for my specific type of brain fog from dysautonomia (via ME/CFS and hEDS) it may feel like a gradual and permanent degradation but it is largely completely reversible and when you know what you're doing it's actually pretty easy to do so. This is only known by a very small minority of doctors so the chance a specific patient meets such a doctor is incredibly low which is why most people still think it's some great big mystery. I was able to remove the inhibitor and bounce back better than ever. I think the brain fog in my case was caused by excess IL-1B pro-inflammatory cytokines and directly targeting that with medication did result in the brain fog near permanently lifting. It’s also likely that even if the degradation is permanent it is also likely multifaceted and one of those facets is likely to be treatable such that the impact of the degradation could be greatly reduced. I think it’s incumbent on us to try as much as possible even in the seemingly lost causes because learnings from such attempts could yield insights for those who are not lost causes. It’s a ridiculous conflation to suggest that the inability to take a regular person and give them Von Neumann intelligence means that we can’t help Von Neumann stuffing an ailment even if a component of that ailment is clearly permanent.
  - bryanrasmussen 1y ago
    >Depends very much on the disease, for my specific type of brain fog from dysautonomia (via ME/CFS and hEDS) sorry, I thought we were talking about Alzheimer's because Alzheimer's was what was mentioned in the post I responded to but now I see it is in fact every ailment that affects the brain, and not just Alzheimer's. >It’s also likely that even if the degradation is permanent it is also likely multifaceted and one of those facets is likely to be treatable such that the impact of the degradation could be greatly reduced. this might be what was meant here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44277444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44277444 - when I said that the brain has a lot of redundancies and of course caught and stopped early enough then it wouldn't be such a big problem but hey, what do I know, I didn't even know what we were talking about evidently, thanks for correcting me. >It’s a ridiculous conflation to suggest that the inability to take a regular person and give them Von Neumann intelligence means that we can’t help Von Neumann stuffing an ailment even if a component of that ailment is clearly permanent. OK well I guess I am taking a more stringent meaning of cure than you are, you are taking the relieve meaning, which is of course to help, but I am taking the revert meaning. I believe mine is a pretty common meaning, at least in the vernacular. I mean when they say we cure cancer they don't mean it will make the pain less intense and maybe you can live twice as long as otherwise. Certainly I believe the pains and problems of a disease can be relieved, but in the case of Alzheimer's (sorry for going back to the disease I was discussing since you have informed me I was not discussing that but since I was, actually, discussing that I am just going to have to stick with it) it can not necessarily be reverted - it can potentially be reverted as I indicated earlier if not too much damage is done (because of redundancies), but if for example you have late stage Alzheimer's I don't believe you are going to get to cure (revert) all damages. In such cases you can manage to stop it and rehabilitate the patient to a less damaged earlier state perhaps, but otherwise I would think there was too much damage to revert it, because if brain tissue is too damaged I suppose (perhaps again due to a naive model of how I suppose memories and knowledge are maintained in the brain) that the data that was held by these damaged sections is now unrecoverable. on edit: removed some verbiage.

sinenomine 1y ago

With all due respect, you didn't even try at anything resembling full effort. There are 2, maybe 3 societies in the world, which have (or had) the capacity to try implementing a serious R&D effort to prevent the diseases of aging. The effort has been meager so far, and ultimately, compared to other major R&D directions (no, I'm not talking about AI, AI is fine), it's a testament to how much we value ourselves and our loved ones. As an adult who already lost a few of my relatives, and will probably lose a few more: if we truly loved them, we'd have put at least 10% of GDP into eventually curing all degenerative diseases, while implementing a simple scalable cryopreservation infrastructure for those who won't be there in time. It could be done, The West and Asia could achieve this. But didn't, due to all too well known web of aversion & coping mechanisms. In your small-mindedness you failed humanity.

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
>With all due respect, you didn't even try at anything resembling full effort. There are 2, maybe 3 societies in the world, which have (or had) the capacity to try implementing a serious R&D effort to prevent the diseases of aging. exactly who do you think I am? It sounds like you think I am some sort of avatar of one of these societies, and for some reason I am here posting on HN. >while implementing a simple scalable cryopreservation infrastructure for those who won't be there in time. ok, well as long as its simple. >In your small-mindedness you failed humanity. okey-dokey, well I can definitely see you are going through something right now, hope you get better.

tough 1y ago

Yeah tbh english isn't my first language, and I meant more into -finding the causes- and eradicating alzheimer, aka preventing it, much like we have done with polio, or whatever. Not really curing people already in advanced state of the maladie... anyways, they're not mutually exclusive, but enhanching life should preceed ending it in the order of priorities imho

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
Ok sorry about the mistake, I just made the observation as a small aside, thinking perhaps you did mean cure as in totally revert damage.
- globnomulous 1y ago
  You shouldn't apologize. You didn't make any mistake that I can see, and your comment is kind and patient.
- tough 1y ago
  yeah no worries at all, i appreciate your comment and the conversation it opened up!