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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 02/15/2005 : 03:13:52
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6959575/
He's not the first respectable scientist to predict (in very recent times) that some of us living today could end up living fantastic lifespans.
Fear of death just overcomming rationality? Or could there be something to this?
Aging is, after all, a biological process. As our knowledge and understanding increase, so will our ability to control it.
I think he may be off on the timeframe for achieving functional biological immortality, but it seems to be (if it is possible) an inevitable conclusion.
I'm pretty sure that medicine/biotech (in the next 20 years) will make 100 year lifespans commonplace and worth living.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 03:26:48 [Permalink]
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I like the beginning of the article quote:
Ray Kurzweil doesn't tailgate. A man who plans to live forever doesn't take chances with his health on the highway, or anywhere else.
Avoiding tailgating is a first step to immortality.... |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 03:55:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
“In my view, we are not another animal, subject to nature's whim,” he said.
It is not nice to fool Mother Nature.
Just for shits and giggles: say we could live for, oh, I dunno, 2 or 300 years. What might the suicide rate be among people, say, 150+? And would these 'nanobots' quickly repair the damage caused by the attempts?
Talk about hell on earth.....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 05:25:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
What might the suicide rate be among people, say, 150+? And would these 'nanobots' quickly repair the damage caused by the attempts?
Talk about hell on earth.....
I think I've seen a Ray Bradbury or twilight zone on something like that.
"I've been stabbed, shocked, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned."
"Oh, really?"
"Every day I wake up without a scratch on me, not a dent in the fender... I am an immortal. "
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"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 06:01:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
In his latest book, Kurzweil defines what he calls his three bridges to immortality. The “First Bridge” is the health regimen he describes with co-author Dr. Terry Grossman to keep people fit enough to cross the “Second Bridge,” a biotechnological revolution.
The "First Bridge" should be enough to keep most people from the second bridge. I suspect that as a trend we will be living longer, but do to the life styles of most, unhealthy lives. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 10:16:57 [Permalink]
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You think Social Security has a problem now...
Personally I think Logans Run is a better system than the way we are going.
Oh and on the subject of Sci-fi and the in-ability to die storyline, check out my favorite, Zardoz- Post-apocolyptic Sean Connery, gratuitous nudity and ultra voilence what more could you ask for. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 11:19:34 [Permalink]
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I have read The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil
I must admit it was one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. Ray tends to get a little excited, but I'm telling you, this guy is on to something when it comes to making technological predictions. There is definitely a method to his madness, and that method looks pretty sound to me. So, either we have approximately 20 years before we can all live a very, very long time. Or we have about 20 years before we are all wiped out by runaway nonotechnology (The Bill Joy scenario). |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 11:27:12 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Starman
[br"I've been stabbed, shocked, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned."
"Oh, really?"
"Every day I wake up without a scratch on me, not a dent in the fender... I am an immortal. "
Bill Murray - Groundhog Day (1993) |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Wendy
SFN Regular
USA
614 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 12:09:52 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
You think Social Security has a problem now...
True, but if we stay in good health we could work longer and pay in longer. It could be a postive thing.
quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Personally I think Logans Run is a better system than the way we are going.
I usually agree with you, BigPapaSmurf, but as someone who would have been put to death nine years ago, I disagree this time.  People who have a child at age eighteen would be dead by the time the kid turned twelve. No, thanks.
quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Oh and on the subject of Sci-fi and the in-ability to die storyline, check out my favorite, Zardoz- Post-apocolyptic Sean Connery, gratuitous nudity and ultra voilence what more could you ask for.
You're 100% right about Sean Connery though. I nominate him for someone who should stay young and live forever. [sigh] |
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.
-- Susan Ertz
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 12:44:17 [Permalink]
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Japan is a very crowded yet very pleasant place. There is an incredible amount of space on the planet, just not enough and not evenly distributed resources. I think we should invest in the immortality science. There isn't any reason those of us naturally selected to survive by using science shouldn't go down that path for fear of consequences to the unselected.
I don't mean this as some kind of moral judgment about who is better to populate the planet. Rather I'm trying to put it on a non-judgmental natural selection level.
And mostly, being the greedy, but honest little person I am, I'd be the first in line to take more than my share of years of life on this planet. |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 13:03:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
You think Social Security has a problem now...
Personally I think Logans Run is a better system than the way we are going.
Oh and on the subject of Sci-fi and the in-ability to die storyline, check out my favorite, Zardoz- Post-apocolyptic Sean Connery, gratuitous nudity and ultra voilence what more could you ask for.
Would it be? Or would SS retirment age be hiked into the 80-90 year range?
I loved Zardoz, because it is good to be Gamma. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 13:06:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
Japan is a very crowded yet very pleasant place. There is an incredible amount of space on the planet, just not enough and not evenly distributed resources. I think we should invest in the immortality science. There isn't any reason those of us naturally selected to survive by using science shouldn't go down that path for fear of consequences to the unselected.
The population pressures would force us off this world.
The time available to any single individual would make long term projects (like interplanetary and intersolar exploration) more of a viable option.
And filthy, I don't see all that many people commiting suicide over a long lifespan. Bored? Just go do something new. Depressed? Long productive life seems to me it would give people something to look forward to.
And think about the implications.... if we can repair and regenerate the body, why not enhance it as well?
I admit it is only speculation, but while the prediction of us having these abilities in 20 years seems overly optomistic, I can't help but think that eventually we'll be capable of doing exactly what he predicts.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 13:21:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
And filthy, I don't see all that many people commiting suicide over a long lifespan. Bored? Just go do something new. Depressed? Long productive life seems to me it would give people something to look forward to.
Perhaps. But in my experience, boredom is not necessarily having nothing new to do. Often, it comes just in doing. You can get tired of 'doing.'
I do not think I'd like to live a super-extended life.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 13:27:56 [Permalink]
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| Yeah the immortals in Zardoz end up as apathetics, totally withdrawn from reality, unable to die and no longer the will to live. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 13:51:01 [Permalink]
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| I don't think you can predict the consequences of very long lives and subsequent population growth without factoring in the other scientific advances that will be occurring as the population grows. Also, infectious disease and other potentially fatal afflictions would not necessarily be eliminated all at the same time. |
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2005 : 17:21:48 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
I do not think I'd like to live a super-extended life.
Why is this the popular opinion on immortallity?
I have to agree with this though:
quote:
Critics say Kurzweil's predictions of immortality are wild fantasies based on unjustifiable leaps from current technology.
I think we may eventually have some useful simple nanomachines (indeed we already do), but tiny robots that work together to fix our bodies from the inside? Unlikely using traditional semiconductor technology.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/nanotechnology.php
quote:
The much hyped possibility of nanoscale robots - ‘nanobot' - that can repair damaged cells, or self-replicate and run amok, as equally feared, remains in the realm of science fiction. Many scientists including Richard Smalley, 1996 Nobel laureate for ‘buckminister fullerene', a new form of carbon in the shape of the geodesic domes designed by architect Bucksminter Fuller, and George Whitesides, Professor of Chemistry in Harvard University, are both sceptical.
There are simply no working examples of molecular machines outside living cells, and those in living cells are made and assembled on totally different principles from the way chemists make them in the laboratory.
In the lab, one can use the atomic force microscope to pick up and move individual atoms; but that doesn't mean one can make molecular-size machines that assemble other molecular machines. The atomic force microscope is a macroscopic device that can be precisely controlled to control individual atoms. Molecular size machines, on the other hand, will be subject to quantum forces that are basically uncontrollable. Another major problem is to supply the source of energy that can sustain the artificial molecular machines to do their work. (My own critique of nanobots is contained in "Can computers become super-intelligent?", this series.)
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