6 ms·

I find it a little odd that you think Aubrey de Grey is crazy but Eliezer Yudkowsky isn't, given that EY is a vocal supporter of de Grey's research and claims t

by dfranke 17y ago

I find it a little odd that you think Aubrey de Grey is crazy but Eliezer Yudkowsky isn't, given that EY is a vocal supporter of de Grey's research and claims that we'll live forever for considerably more speculative reasons than any that de Grey asserts. Any explanation of the distinction other than that EY is probably reading this comment and that de Grey probably isn't?

araneae 17y ago
The answer to your query is that I confess a blazing ignorance of EY. Basically, the only people that buy the whole load of nonsense are folks that desperately want to live forever, like my ex (who regularly makes donations to fund longevity research). Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they evolved to be that way. It's a little unintuitive, but consider the tarantula. The female tarantula lives 8 years; the male tarantula only about 2. This is because it's advantageous for females to live longer. For the males, it's more advantageous to live for shorter periods, so they age and die earlier. You're not going to be able to treat aging because it's programmed in. The only solution is to fix the source code.
- dfranke 17y ago
  False all around. Aging is a result of evolutionary neglect, not evolutionary pressure. We haven't evolved to live longer because until extremely recent times, only a negligible fraction of us lasted long enough for old age (or menopause) to become an issue. Furthermore, your argument about tarantulas rests on group selection, which is discredited.
  - araneae 17y ago
    That's a semantic argument. But what it means for aging is functionally the same; we're programmed to last a certain amount of time (when there is pressure) and when the pressure runs out... we break down. This is essentially the same as having a programmed break down time. Secondly, the argument on tarantulas does not rest on group selection at all. For any one male tarantula, he spreads his genes better by living 2 years than living 8. Long living male tarantulas don't do as well, presumably because of some trade-offs between reproduction and lifespan. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_history_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_history_theory
    - Locke1689 17y ago
      So what if there's pressure? You argue that we must rewrite the source code -- so? Genetics = source code. So rewrite the source code.
      - MikeCapone 17y ago
        We're too far away from understanding metabolism for that to be a realistic path to defeating aging in the near future. The engineering approach of periodical repair seems like the only game in town.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  > Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they evolved to be that way. That's incorrect. Our genes don't care if they carry on by reproduction or by living longer in a single individual, but we care. How a body ages after reproductive age is in an evolutionary blind spot. Individuals with mutations that promote longer life aren't passing those genes on so the selective pressure if very small. We don't have a clock that runs out of time. We just keep accumulating long-lived damage (misfolded proteins, advanced glycation endproducts, etc) until its enough to cause pathologies, from which we eventually die. You are not the cells that you were a few years ago. Most have been replaced. But there are certain types of damage that your body can't fix, which is where an engineering approach could come in (for example, say we could have a vaccine that would make your body target beta amyloids in your brain, so you'd clear those misfolded proteins before they accumulate enough to give you alzheimer's).
  - araneae 17y ago
    It's true that individuals that live a little bit longer but have the same end of their reproductive period do no better in the gene pool. However, if it were advantageous to live longer, and those folks had a slightly longer reproductive period, then we would expect the lifespan-while-fertile to increase. Presumably this would also increase the overall lifespan as well, but really that's irrelevant to this discussion. Yes, we keep accumulating damage. But we have mechanisms to control that damage. And clearly there's not a set limit on it. Tarantulas that only live 2 years are not constrained by cell damage. Cell damage is allowed to happen.
    - dfranke 17y ago
      Through your own argument, you've conceded that aging happens when the body doesn't invest enough resources in controlling damge, and that the amount of investment made can vary widely between species and even within a species. So then what in the world leads you to believe that, provided with appropriate medical support, the body can't be made to invest far more?
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  > Basically, the only people that buy the whole load of nonsense are folks that desperately want to live forever How about people who just don't think getting sick and frail looks like fun? People who don't want to lose loved ones, who think that 100-200k people dying each day is a tragedy, and who think that we and future generations should have a choice on the matter (you can refuse any therapies that are developed if you want, but shouldn't make the choice for others). I bet you're not against finding a cure for cancer or malaria. Why would you think it's ridiculous to try to find a cure for the diseases of aging?
  - araneae 17y ago
    I'm not against it, I just find his predictions to be so optimistic as to be unrealistic. Cancer is, effectively, a form of aging, which is why it's so damn hard to cure. Fortunately, it's what happens when one cell breaks down. Most other aging happens to all your cells, all at once.
    - dfranke 17y ago
      De Grey's research is aimed at preventing cancer, not curing it. De Grey names his efforts "engineered negligible senescence". Senescence means the increase in your probability of developing a deadly disease within the next N years as you grow older. The probability of developing most cancers increases rapidly with age. The aim is to prevent that increase.
MikeCapone 17y ago
My admiration of Eliezer comes from two things: 1) His work in the field of Artificial General Intelligence 2) His desire to see human rationality turned into something a bit more organized and easy to spread (see his post cycles at lesswrong.com).

by dfranke 17y ago

araneae 17y ago

The answer to your query is that I confess a blazing ignorance of EY. Basically, the only people that buy the whole load of nonsense are folks that desperately want to live forever, like my ex (who regularly makes donations to fund longevity research). Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they evolved to be that way. It's a little unintuitive, but consider the tarantula. The female tarantula lives 8 years; the male tarantula only about 2. This is because it's advantageous for females to live longer. For the males, it's more advantageous to live for shorter periods, so they age and die earlier. You're not going to be able to treat aging because it's programmed in. The only solution is to fix the source code.

dfranke 17y ago
False all around. Aging is a result of evolutionary neglect, not evolutionary pressure. We haven't evolved to live longer because until extremely recent times, only a negligible fraction of us lasted long enough for old age (or menopause) to become an issue. Furthermore, your argument about tarantulas rests on group selection, which is discredited.
- araneae 17y ago
  That's a semantic argument. But what it means for aging is functionally the same; we're programmed to last a certain amount of time (when there is pressure) and when the pressure runs out... we break down. This is essentially the same as having a programmed break down time. Secondly, the argument on tarantulas does not rest on group selection at all. For any one male tarantula, he spreads his genes better by living 2 years than living 8. Long living male tarantulas don't do as well, presumably because of some trade-offs between reproduction and lifespan. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_history_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_history_theory
  - Locke1689 17y ago
    So what if there's pressure? You argue that we must rewrite the source code -- so? Genetics = source code. So rewrite the source code.
    - MikeCapone 17y ago
      We're too far away from understanding metabolism for that to be a realistic path to defeating aging in the near future. The engineering approach of periodical repair seems like the only game in town.
MikeCapone 17y ago
> Aging isn't a disease, because lifespan is something which is subject to evolutionary pressure. Our lifespans are what they are because they evolved to be that way. That's incorrect. Our genes don't care if they carry on by reproduction or by living longer in a single individual, but we care. How a body ages after reproductive age is in an evolutionary blind spot. Individuals with mutations that promote longer life aren't passing those genes on so the selective pressure if very small. We don't have a clock that runs out of time. We just keep accumulating long-lived damage (misfolded proteins, advanced glycation endproducts, etc) until its enough to cause pathologies, from which we eventually die. You are not the cells that you were a few years ago. Most have been replaced. But there are certain types of damage that your body can't fix, which is where an engineering approach could come in (for example, say we could have a vaccine that would make your body target beta amyloids in your brain, so you'd clear those misfolded proteins before they accumulate enough to give you alzheimer's).
- araneae 17y ago
  It's true that individuals that live a little bit longer but have the same end of their reproductive period do no better in the gene pool. However, if it were advantageous to live longer, and those folks had a slightly longer reproductive period, then we would expect the lifespan-while-fertile to increase. Presumably this would also increase the overall lifespan as well, but really that's irrelevant to this discussion. Yes, we keep accumulating damage. But we have mechanisms to control that damage. And clearly there's not a set limit on it. Tarantulas that only live 2 years are not constrained by cell damage. Cell damage is allowed to happen.
  - dfranke 17y ago
    Through your own argument, you've conceded that aging happens when the body doesn't invest enough resources in controlling damge, and that the amount of investment made can vary widely between species and even within a species. So then what in the world leads you to believe that, provided with appropriate medical support, the body can't be made to invest far more?
MikeCapone 17y ago
> Basically, the only people that buy the whole load of nonsense are folks that desperately want to live forever How about people who just don't think getting sick and frail looks like fun? People who don't want to lose loved ones, who think that 100-200k people dying each day is a tragedy, and who think that we and future generations should have a choice on the matter (you can refuse any therapies that are developed if you want, but shouldn't make the choice for others). I bet you're not against finding a cure for cancer or malaria. Why would you think it's ridiculous to try to find a cure for the diseases of aging?
- araneae 17y ago
  I'm not against it, I just find his predictions to be so optimistic as to be unrealistic. Cancer is, effectively, a form of aging, which is why it's so damn hard to cure. Fortunately, it's what happens when one cell breaks down. Most other aging happens to all your cells, all at once.
  - dfranke 17y ago
    De Grey's research is aimed at preventing cancer, not curing it. De Grey names his efforts "engineered negligible senescence". Senescence means the increase in your probability of developing a deadly disease within the next N years as you grow older. The probability of developing most cancers increases rapidly with age. The aim is to prevent that increase.

MikeCapone 17y ago

My admiration of Eliezer comes from two things: 1) His work in the field of Artificial General Intelligence 2) His desire to see human rationality turned into something a bit more organized and easy to spread (see his post cycles at lesswrong.com).