A requested topic for Falkus.

Let's start with a more controversial subject, shall we? Digital immortality, beating death by uploading your mind to a computer. Scientifically, it's possible, though the technology isn't there yet. The starting point is there though, basic mind machine interfaces are now a proven technology. I'm interested in seeing how this fits in with various religious beliefs.

One concept that I think this fits in with is people really want to live forever. We do seem to be programmed to desire this. As creations of God, our minds are designed for eternity, but our bodies are designed for a brief stay. When we die, and go to God, we will be given resurrection bodies which will be forever.

This "technology" is already available, and planned for.

As creations of God, our minds are designed for eternity, but our bodies are designed for a brief stay.

And the point of transhumanism is to transcend this. There's no reason why we can't eventually make our bodies immortal. Replace failing flesh with machine, upload our minds into computers. Recognize what needs to be improved, repaired or replaced and fix it through technology.

Intersting. You think the plan for humanity should be immortality, essentially? I don't necessarily see how metal constucts should be our fate, however. Can we not simply perfect the human body enough to make it self-rejuvinating, maybe periodic injections or nanomachines dedicated towards the preservation of youth?

TitL, do you think it could be possible for one to keep their mind here on Earth beyond bodily limits? If we could digitize the mind, for example. Or master the aging process? If we could do it, and the technology is available, maybe God meant for there to be a way?

     Why does it have to be metal bodies? Why not just inhabit cloned/genetically-engineered bodies? And for me, the idea of immortality with God (or in Hell, whichever) isn't so much a reward as it is a punishment. Consciousness equals pain; why would I seek to prolong it?

   Also, can someone (simply and easily) explain "transhumanism" to me? Like, what does it mean, exactly?

Wikipedia has a good definition.

Transhumanism is an international, intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and overcome what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death. Transhumanist thinkers study the possibilities and consequences of developing and using human enhancement techniques and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Possible dangers, as well as benefits, of powerful new technologies that might radically change the conditions of human life are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.

A bit off topic, but I would suggest it's healthier to accept a finite lifespan, and become comfortable with the idea.  That's not to say there's necessarily anything wrong with attempting to increase natural lifespans, nor with trying to improve our situation while we live.  But realizing that the only certainty is death, and that the time at which it will come is uncertain, can make one apprecaiate ones life more, and better use the time you have.  Also, once one accepts that death will come at some point, no matter what, it actually becomes much less frightening.

Think about the most enjoyable thing you have on this earth, and I'm not talking about something as favorite food or sex, but something that while you are doing it and afterward you are extremely satisfied and relaxed.



Okay got it?  Now that would be how you feel in heaven, all the time, because you would be doing the one thing you are ment to do.  Continually.

     So ... sleeping?

  Okay got it?  Now that would be how you feel in heaven, all the time, because you would be doing the one thing you are ment to do.  Continually.

That sounds like the single most boring existence possible. I'd rather cease to exist that suffer that for all eternity.

That's not suffering, that's fulfilling everything you are ment to do, not doing the mundain things in life.

You only think its boring because you don't know what being fulfilled truely is.  It's like being married and haveing the person fits you.  I have done it.  My wife fills me where I am empty and my wife (I hope) feels the same.

Life is about accomplishment and progress. What you describe is stagnation, we need to strive to overcome obstacles and solve problems, that's what it means to be human.

Ah, but here is where you are partially wrong.

Why do you work to tword a goal?  For a benefit or to better yourself, and when you gain these you get a sense of fulfillment.

Lets say your an automech.  You love the job and when you succeed in fixing a tricky problem you feel a sense of satisfaction.  Now you get a job offer as a manager with more money, but you don't work on cars anymore.  You will no longer feel satisfied because you are not accomplishing what you love to do.

Now is it stagnation if you stay in that job you love and turn down better money?  No you are doing what you are made to do.

This is what I am talking about, you love what you do so you do it.  A truck driver will never feel satisfied as a clerk.  The call of the road will be too much for him.

The key to life is to find what you unjoy doing and do that.

If you cease to be challenged by it and use it to grow, yes.  If every day you played video games, then went home where your sexbot had prepared dinner and a pre-programmed romantic encounter.  While this might all be very enjoyable, it is shallow.  You aren't growing.  You aren't becoming a better or different person.  Falkus is very right, we need growth, we need change, and ultimately, we need decay, because decay makes space for new growth.  The problem with the Greco-Roman view of heaven which has since been married into the contemporary Christian understanding of the same is that it's unbalanced.  Always spring time?  How can it always be spring time without the fall to make space for it, the winter to make us appreciate it, the summer to plant the seeds?  We need our seasons.  We need our pain.

Vexen - no, it must be metal.  The flesh is weak.

Falkus - the problem is, "downloading" your brain isn't immortality, it's making a copy of yourself.  If I copy myself, does that make me immortal?  Or does it mean there will be a facsimile running around for all time?  This is sort of like the Star Trek transporter problem.  Does the transporter actually transport you?  Or does it kill you and create a clone somewhere else?

I think, ethically, creating a cybernetic copy of yourself is okay.  Vaporizing yourself in the process probably is not.

  Falkus - the problem is, "downloading" your brain isn't immortality, it's making a copy of yourself.

What if the process was done in a fashion that the sentience continues throughout the process? Replace your brain with a computer one piece at a time, rather just uploading it all at once?

The Catholic Church would say it's unethical.  I don't know if we would be able to psychologically manage it though.  We aren't mentally designed to live forever.  I imagine depression would set in after a point.  But since we're replacing our brain with computers, of course it's all hypothetical as to whether we can 'feel' depression at all.

That's another valid point, but I also believe in the right to suicide, a person who isn't mentally ill should be afforded the right to end their life if they chose to. I regard involuntary death as something we strive to eliminate, but not voluntary death.

Soylent Green is people!  It's made out of people!

Er...sorry, couldn't help myself after that last post. (those that have seen soylent green will get it.  Those that haven't, well, sorry for just ruining the end for you).

For what it's worth, though, I do agree that people should be allowed to end their own life if they wish, especially if we somehow reach a point where are lives can continue for orders of magnitude longer than they currently do.

I don't know, is it desirable to make people live forever?  I have to agree that it seems against the nature of things.  There isn't anything inherently 'good' about living forever that I can see, except that it puts off existential anxiety.  On the flip side, it would take up a lot of critical resources.

Here's the problem with allowing people to kill themselves for medical reasons.  What is the problem then if a teenager has had her heart broken and commits suicide?  How can this be wrong, the pain is still the same?

It's like abortion.  A human being is human at the moment of conception and should be given a choice to live or die on its own and not have some one else deside it's worth.  Ask anyone who has been handycapped from birth if they wish that they had been aborted or not.

Unfortunetly once you allow it for some, you have to allow it for everyone.

Well, with teenagers, there's the issue of whether they're legally old enough to make that decision.  I would say that if you're going to make it law, then it'd be okay to require some sort of psychological examination and/or a waiting period.  But in the end, yes, if you let people do it, you do have to live with some people doing it that you think shouldn't.  In the end, though, is what you want for them, or what they want for them the more important thing?

I don't know, is it desirable to make people live forever?  I have to agree that it seems against the nature of things.

I don't really regard nature as a valid argument. After all, transhumanism is about going above and beyond nature, taking our evolution into our own hands.

There isn't anything inherently 'good' about living forever that I can see, except that it puts off existential anxiety.

I believe that people should have the right to choose the time and means of their own death. Nature didn't give us this ability, so we should develop it ourselves.

On the flip side, it would take up a lot of critical resources.

I'm confident that we once reach that point, many of our resource problems will have been solved. Fusion power, nanotechnology. Call me optimistic, but I believe that many of the resource problems we face right now will be rendered irrelevant once we reach the technological singularity.

Here's the problem with allowing people to kill themselves for medical reasons.  What is the problem then if a teenager has had her heart broken and commits suicide?  How can this be wrong, the pain is still the same?

Severe depression is a mental illness. As I said, only people thinking rationally should be allowed to commit suicide.

A human being is human at the moment of conception and should be given a choice to live or die on its own and not have some one else deside it's worth.  Ask anyone who has been handycapped from birth if they wish that they had been aborted or not.

That's a discussion for an entirely different forum.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:17, Tue 14 Oct 2008.

Let me rephrase, you're ignoring the law of unintended consequences.  We are the products of billions of years of evolution, all of which centered around us dying.  We are literally built to expire.  After a certain number of years, our body shuts down.  Acting as though that's just accident and charging onwards seems foolhardy.  Maybe there's a reason why those animals who didn't have a built in 'and now you die' gene ultimately didn't pass it on?  Perhaps there's a reason why those species ended while the rest of us continued on?  Nature isn't inherently good, but it is inherently functional.  Changing that functionality begs for problems.



Why is that?  Should they be given the right to choose the time and means of their birth?



For the sake of argument, let us assume physical resources are taken care of.

What about the mindspace?  Can you imagine growing up where you're 14 and 90% of the population is 200 or above?  Can you imagine the size of the republican party?  Geez, can you imagine the painfully long stories over family dinner?

By letting the older generation lose power allows a new generation to form a new world, realizing a new world view.  I can assure you, if the population were primary made up of people like my dad, we wouldn't have computers, everyone would just use a pencil and paper still.  And I'm guessing my kids accept my 'new' reality as the baseline in their formative years, and they will adopt some new protocol I simply can't or won't keep up with.



How can someone who is either in extreme pain, or hopped up on painkillers all the time, possibly think rationally?

A bit off topic, but I just wanted to point out that there are species that do seem to lack such a "and now you die" gene.  Everything does die eventually, but for some species it's simply a case of "you can only swim around here so long before a shark eventually gets you" rather than their bodies giving out.  Human's aren't one of them, so this doesn't take away from your point, but I just wanted to point out that not all those species ended, as you put it.

But here's the problem, how many people who attempt suicide go for help?



Your question doesn't seem to be fitting into my head, could you refraise it?
This message was last edited by the player at 16:18, Tue 14 Oct 2008.

ROFLOL!!

That is true.  My original paragraph was about how there were people who didn't have a 'now you die' gene, but then I realized that may not be the case, while there ARE animals that didn't (or don't) have it.  I neglected to update the rest of the statement to reflect that, clearly.  But that does make the question more poignant; this IS a real, viable trait for creatures to have.  And in fact, one would think the active break down of systems (things like menopause, which sucks calcium out of the bones) would be so easily to breed out of the species, it must have been actively enforced by outside influences.  Why do tortoises survive basically forever, while humans don't?  What happened to those human ancestors who were free to 'live forever'?

True, but there's not much we can do about that, really.  Legal or no, if someone wants to kill themself bad enough, they'll find a way to do it.  Making it illegal right now doesn't stop it.  Legalizing it, though, may encourage more people to go for help, since they'll know they won't be locked up if they do.



If you give people the freedom to make a choice, it's pretty much guaranteed that some of them will make what you feel to be the wrong choice.  Give them an option of chocolate or vanilla, and some crazy bastard will inevitably pick vanilla. ;)  So yes, if you give people the option of committing suicide, you will inevitably get people who commit suicide when you think they shouldn't.  However, they think they should.  And, in the end, whose opinion on the matter is really more important?  Part of giving people freedom to make decisions, is accepting the fact that they won't always decide what we think they should.

Oh I know this answer will get someone fired up.  :D

God.  He is the author of life so it is his choice on when we are to go or not.  Who knows if someone in pain can't lead someone else to Christ?  My depression almost killed me, but if it had my daughter nor my son would not be alive today and who knows what they are going to do with their lives.

The trouble, though, is God doesn't buy up commercial time to let us know what He wants us to do.  We have to listen to human statements about what God wants.  If you say God's opposed to it, and someone else says He's for it, who gets to have their way?  What about people who think Allah should have the final say?  Or Vishnu, or whoever else?  How do we determine whose god gets to make the rules?  That's the problem we run into whenever someone tries to use the "God makes the rules" argument.  It only helps if all agree on what God (or whoever) says the rules are.  If we don't agree on that, we're back to deciding who gets to make the rules, and we haven't made any progress.

Let me rephrase, you're ignoring the law of unintended consequences.  We are the products of billions of years of evolution, all of which centered around us dying.  We are literally built to expire.  After a certain number of years, our body shuts down.  Acting as though that's just accident and charging onwards seems foolhardy.

I'm not saying it's accident, any more than other aspect of evolution. I'm saying that if we have the ability to direct and control our evolution, we should do so.

Maybe there's a reason why those animals who didn't have a built in 'and now you die' gene ultimately didn't pass it on?  Perhaps there's a reason why those species ended while the rest of us continued on?  Nature isn't inherently good, but it is inherently functional.

Nature isn't functional, that's why species evolve. Circumstances changes, environments change, what guaranteed survival yesterday becomes a death sentence today.

Why is that?  Should they be given the right to choose the time and means of their birth?

I believe it extends logically from the right to life. If you have the right to live, you should have the choice when to end that life. It's just that, apart from voluntary euthanasia, there's never been the ability to do so.

What about the mindspace?  Can you imagine growing up where you're 14 and 90% of the population is 200 or above?  Can you imagine the size of the republican party?  Geez, can you imagine the painfully long stories over family dinner?

I don't know how it'll work socially. This an entire new form of society we're constructing here, like nothing that has come before. Will we even have or see a need for democracy when thinking machines can run the government better than any human? How do you define economic classes when nanoconstructors are widely available? Would currency even have a meaning when energy becomes too cheap to meter, and creation is essentially free?

They're interesting questions, and I don't have the answers. I just think that this future is inevitable, since I don't believe that we, as a species, are going to stop scientific progress.

  How can someone who is either in extreme pain, or hopped up on painkillers all the time, possibly think rationally?

Interesting question. I don't know the answer.

That's also going by the assupmtion the human didn't get his wires crossed! :)

While Yahweh doesn't interupt the Super Bowl he does talk to us through his holy book for those who will listen, but that is an arguement for another thread.

God does make the rules, but He gives us the option to follow them or not.  That's what makes Jehovah so great.  Most of the others I have read about only give you the "my way or else" option.  Jehovah, God, says "go my way, or go your way, I'll advance my plans with or without you".  This sounds like railroading, but its not, He let's you go and accomplishes what he wants to do through someone/something else.

This assumes we have an understanding of nature and evolution (or more broadly, cause and effect) beyond what we actually do.  Again, we need to go back and generate models of what would happen if 20%, 50%, even 90% of the population lived for centuries or forever.  What would happen to us biologically?  As a species?  Would it allow for new growth, or would it lead to stagnation?  I have a distinct fear that, should we never clear out the old growth in regards to genes or ideas, we will have no space for fresh seedlings, and where there is no growth, there is rot.



Evolution is a function of nature (although perhaps we're using different terms here).  And while I do think nature is functional, I certainly don't think it is constant.  You're right, a species evolved 5,000 years ago may (or may not) be suitable for life today.  But similarly, a mindset that evolved 5,000 years ago may not be suitable for life today. *cough* umm... don't apply that to any thread but this one.



I'm not sure I agree.  I don't know that I have a 'right' to determine the universe around me.  I don't think I have a right to choose when I die any more than I have a right to choose what waits for me after that point (as in, God exists or not, Vishnu exists or not, etc.)

My right to life doesn't mean I have a right to a long or happy life, but I have a right to not be killed, and a right to fight to hang on to that life.  But I'm not sure, really.  These philosophical concepts are sort of soft.  Does a person struck by lightning have a 'right' not to be killed?  Did nature ignore that right?  Or do rights only extend to interactions between people?  Is old age between people, or is it between individuals and nature?



And in the space of this quote is where things have the potenntial to go catastrophically wrong.  Should we proceed into such a dark unknown?  This isn't splitting the atom, it's questioning the very nature of what drives us.



I think it was Heath who indicated that Revelations isn't the end of the Earth, btu rather, the change from one age to a new, better one.  I thought this was very interesting, as it suggests that, perhaps, getting to that point won't be one of destruction and suffering, but of human creation, and that the second coming is God saying 'you got it.  Now YOU have made heaven, and through your efforts you have found the way to be true creators yourselves."  It's an idea I've toyed with (although obviously we are so very, very far away still).

Which is sort of my point!  When you tell me God put his rules down in the bible, I have to assume you didn't get your wires crossed.  If someone different says god put their rules down in some other holy book, I just have to decide which of you I think is less likely to have gotten your wires crossed.  Which is the same situation we were in from the start: trying to decide whom to believe.


I don't know, "accept me or suffer an eternity of torture in hell" sounds an awful lot like "my way or else" to me!  I don't know that I've heard of any religion that promises any thing worse than that if you don't follow their god.

And, of course, there's that Jonah story...
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:41, Wed 15 Oct 2008.

*** Well, are we making them live forever, or just allowing them to? Forced immortality would be wrong, but if someone wishes to choose that, why would it be undesirable?


*** Yes, I do.


*** See, this is what I meant above (in response to Katisara); if someone wants to choose to put off their death, why would that be bad? And using the nature argument is like saying we shouldn't try to cure cancer, or AIDS, or polio (or any other "natural" disease).


*** While I totally agree with this, I worry that the arguement would be something along the lines of, "Anyone who wishes to commit suicide isn't thinking rationally, and thus can't." It's Catch 22.


*** Isn't that what we have to do in order to discover new things? Albert Einstein didn't intend for his theories to be used in the creation of the hydrogen bomb; should he then not have formulated them? For that matter, Christ (I am certain) never intended for His life to be used as justification for (un)holy wars; would we better off had He not lived? There are always unintended consequences, and if we get caught up in worrying about them, we'll not accomplish anything.


*** Becos what right does anyone else have to choose it? Are we not masters of our own selves, if nothing else?


*** Well, if we could figure out how to pull off that trick, I'd be in favour of it.


*** Yes. What's the problem?


*** Well too, one would hope that once we're that sufficiently advanced, there won't be any more Republicans. (Or at least, that whatever party(s) we do have will be better than all the ones we have now.)


*** Okay, now this one is funny. Also a very good point.


*** Well you know, in the end, there can be only one ....


*** You meant "pick chocolate", right <grin>?


*** Well, unless and until He decides to make His opinon clear on the subject, I don't really see the logic of worrying about what He thinks.


*** Okay, given that, it still doesn't matter what He thinks. If He's gonna do whatever He intends regardless of our actions, then we still don't need to worry about Him.


*** One of the arguements made against immortality (not sure who made it, sorry) was that after a while depression may set in, which is what led to the whole suicide discussion. If we're going to let people be killing themselves off, won't that make new space?


*** It seems as if you're equating these, and if so, I don't see how.


*** So you're agreeing, then, that we have "a right to fight" for immortality? And do you not agree that if one has a right to life, one also has an equal right to death?


*** Yes, we should proceed, and precisely becos it is "such a dark unknown". How are we ever to bring it out of the dark and make it known if we do not proceed? And while a fear of death (as I think you're saying) may be what drives some, it doesn't drive everyone.

That's the whole point of my posts.  We don't know.  And that makes it dangerous.  What might happen if 90% of the population never died?  What would happen to our young people?  Our economy?  Our ability to grow as a society?  I'll tell you one thing, the taxes for social security will be staggering.



Curing basic deases has resulted in a staggering population jump in many countries, to the point that very many children are starving to death rather than a few dying as infants.  It may also be watering down the gene pool, increasing the incidence of genetic diseases.  And by pushing back the amount of time we live, it's also pushing back retirement, to the point that many people won't be able to retire at all.  Not to say these things don't make those discoveries worthwhile, but that everything has a cost.  Accepting a deal without knowing what you're actually paying for it seems dangerous to me.



Nature is not 'anyone', nor would I daresay is God.



In theory, if enough people got depressed, it could be self-regulating.  I suspect it won't be, however.

This is the point that I'm trying to make, we do not know what will happen, and what will happen may be very bad.  Crowding out the mindspace means that we will see fewer and fewer new inventions or new methods.  It means we will stop growing as a culture.  Everyone will still like Elvis and the Ramones will never come on the scene, it'll just be different versions of Elvis.  Everyone will be fine doing division by hand because that's how they always did it, and computers will never become as hugely popular as they are.  It's only by clearing out the old methods that we make space for new methods to be tried, understood and assimilated.  If we invent immortality, I have a fear that social progress will roll to a halt.  We won't continue any farther into the stars.  We won't continue to grow and change our world.  The dreams our own children have not had yet will not be realized.  We'll just be stuck with what we like, what we want right now, and that's where the human race will end.

It would make for a very interesting sci-fi book though, where humans invent immortality, and so the young people all move to a new planet to start a new culture.  Earth is caught in the 21st century, Mars in the 22nd, the moons of Jupiter in the 23rd, etc.




We do have a right to fight for immortality.  But that doesn't mean using that right is prudent.

*** I don't understand this. What if Edison would've lived another, say, fifty years? You don't think he would've invented lots of other things? Or if Shakespeare would've been able to write more plays, DaVinci paint more pictures, Michaelangelo carve more statues? If we have more time to create, why do you think we'll create less? And if we have immortality (or at least longer lifespans), wouldn't that make it easier to go to the stars? The biggest hurdle is the time factor; eliminate that, and we can get to Alpha Centauri or wherever. Our kids' dreams will be realised becos they'll have the time and the ability to realise them. One of the human race's biggest limitations is our physical state; if we can eliminate (or at least mitigate) that, then we can do anything.

Yes, no question, give people more time and they'll produce more of whatever it is they're good at.  Shakespeare would have produced very many more plays.  But would he ever have been able to direct a good movie?  Would Edison have been able been able to add anything to miniaturized circuits?  The old adage 'can't teach an old dog new tricks' has a grain of truth in it.  As we get older, we get more set in our ways, and we have a tougher time adapting.

Of course, if we pick one or two people, that really isn't a bad thing.  There's still a lot that Shakespeare even now could teach us.  There's certainly a lot Edison could teach us.  So having either of them around forever isn't really a problem (for us).  The problem is when EVERYONE lives forever, then what'll happen?

Well, there's the distinct possibility we'll have fewer real geniuses as time goes on.  There's no one with the zim and vigor of youth, nothing 'new', since all of the peope and all of their experiences are old.  There are no more revolutions.  Old timers don't lead revolutions.  Young people do.

Perhaps more of a concern, will we continue to expand our dreams?  Right now we talk about travelling into space.  That's our dream.  We could see travelling to other solar systems, across the galaxy.  And perhaps we will!  But once we've achieved it, then what?  Most people would say 'wow, we've done it, let's sit back and enjoy'.  Most people, once they've paid off their mortgage, they don't go out looking for a second house.  They enjoy their 'golden years'.  The drive is gone.

So when we finally conquer the universe, will we have the drive to go any further, without new blood coming out and saying 'hey, I want my chance!  I want to put MY name on something!'  What dreams of theirs will we lose, or perhaps even shout out?  If in 1700 we found a way to make everyone live forever, would we ever have abolished slavery?  Would they ever have landed a person on the moon?  Or would they have any interest in Bosun particles?  Sure they'll achieve their dreams, perhaps of bringing a human back from the dead or proving (or disproving) God, but will they continue beyond that?

*** Okay, why won't there be "new blood"? Just becos there will be more old (and less dead) people, that doesn't mean there won't be any young people. Logically, if we're living longer, we'll have even more kids, thus, more "new blood" to explore, invent, etc. Then too, it's entirely possible (and probable, I'd think) that if we do have more people (both becos of fewer deaths and more births), we'll come up with solutions for over-crowding, hunger, and other ills.

It has to do with percentages.  If 99% of the population is 100 or older, that's what the culture will be.  How many inventions do you see coming out of retirement homes?

     None, but it won't just be people living in nursing homes. It'll be 90-year olds who are like, middle-aged. I imagine they'll invent lots, given the chance.

The question isn't if they'll invent, it's if they'll dream.

Not saying I believe in immortality or anything, but I think we as humans feel limited in what we can accomplish in this life more often than not. Therefore, a lot of inventions that would otherwise be created get quelled by the rat race, the fight to survive and make ends meet, and the struggle to give your loved ones all you feel they deserve for being that special someone.

For myself, I know that if I quit my job to pursue my dream career, not only does that put all the bills on my fiance while I'm in school, but it also halves our income (more than, since I make more than him) and destroys our ability to have any "us" time where we just take off and do something for ourselves together. (On that note, I think I've found a good online program to go through to get my degree, but I have to make sure I can get the money together. >.>)

Take your courses through the evening program. Or just take one or two classes at a time. I remember a friend who took 10 years to do a 2 year program as they did not want to leave their job, but wanted to improve their skill base.

On the flip side, that same competition drives people to put forth the total dedication required for many of our greatest discoveries.  A cure for cancer certainly isn't something you're going to find in your free time, after all.

     But if you had more free time, you might.

How much free time would it take you to spend ten or twenty years examining dyed slides and noting which have which color slide?  And...  nothing else?

   It's not so much that it'd take free time, I'd just have to not have anything else to do. But I'm sure that for someone interested in that sort of thing, the more free time they have the better.

So you're suggesting than that our goal is boredom?  That the more bored people are, the more likely they are to fill up that time with ground-breaking inventions (instead of say, just looking at lots of porn?)

You make it into an either/or situation, katisara!  Don't you realize internet porn is a groundbreaking invention! ;)

Sorry, carry on with serious conversation, it was just too good a setup to let go. ;)

*** Not at all. I'm saying that for me "to spend ten or twenty years examining dyed slides and noting which have which color slide", I'd have to be very bored. But I do believe that there are people out there who would be interested enough in that sort of thing to do it, provided they had the extra time.

Interested enough to spend 10 or 20 years to do it? I would be pretty surprised. I suppose it's possible, but it seems unlikely. At minimum, I have to expect it would take a good deal longer, since you no longer have those with a burning interest in examining colors AND those who want to do something else, but took the job for money, but only those who really like looking at colors.

This would be especially true in cases where there's one super cool, important part of the job, and one boring, mind-numbing part of the job. When I worked in an entemology lab, we had about 8 people. One guy was a scientist who spent all his time overseeing us, writing grants, and doing actual studies of insects. One guy was a scientist in training, who helped. The rest of us were people who needed money, and so worked 10 hour days planting, harvesting and searching corn and brassica for teeny little bugs we'd then carefully care for until they die.

I would much rather have been doing the science work, but I needed the money. If I didn't need the money, I (and most likely the other 6 people in my position) would have stayed home and played video games all day, and the two guys who did the cool sciency work wouldn't have had any more insects to study.

     I would presume that people would still be able to get paid to do jobs they'd not do on their own, and for some, the money would be enough of an incentive to do it. But anyway, my point is (was?) that if we have more time, we'll be able to do more. Write more songs, make more films, paint more Mona Lisas, etc. Invent more stuff. Do more.

This message was deleted by the player at 15:35, Tue 28 Oct 2008.

I understand what you're saying, and I agree. If Edison hadn't been limited by death, the fax machine likely would have been invented a good deal earlier. But if 90% of Edison's fellow humans survived as well, population would drop and, most likely, we wouldn't have the shift in paradigms which lead to the Internet.

You say that assuming that those people wouldn't have thirsted for the worldwide communications network that led to the creation of the Internet in the first place. After all, the Internet developed from Bell's simple wire-to-transmit-sound telephone to what it is today, and that itself stemmed from a desire for more efficient means of communication.

_{Edit: fixing grammar. I hate being a perfectionist. >.>}
This message was last edited by the player at 23:30, Mon 27 Oct 2008.

You don't generally thirst for something you don't really imagine existing. Do you thirst for the ability to immediately manufacture any three-dimensional plastic object? Probably not. You might like it if you had it, but you don't really think about it unless it's brought up.

So you think after good ol' Alex developed the telephone, even people from that time would have been happy with just that for the rest of however long, and not wanted to improve on his invention? Personally, I disagree with that line of thought; after all, what are we humans if not forward thinkers after a fashion? We're always looking for ways to better ourselves, protect our families better, protect our beliefs better, protect our nations better, make things easier/more convenient/less complex for ourselves. This goes as much for the people of Mr. Bell's day as it does the people of today. In fact, the moment we STOP thinking this way is the moment we start dying as a species.

I think they would have explored the telephone paradigm as far as it could go, even making telephone-based devices we don't have, then sort of stopped. And it is because of this that I am precisely worried they would die out.

Remember, on average, most people are their most creative and most inventive between the ages of approximately 25 and 40. Past 40, your number of inventors and creators drops off precipitously. People just don't seem to invest themselves in creative behaviors as much past 65. I don't know why this is, but it's a statistical fact. We NEED those young people coming in and pushing forward the boundaries of our thinking.

     Maybe people's ... creativity (for lack of a better term) goes down after 40 'cos they're getting ready to die. If they have the chance to live twice as long, then it wouldn't be like that. They could stay creative longer. And I still don't get why there wouldn't be just as many (if not more) young people to give that fresh perspective.

Perhaps, and that window has risen slightly over the years (but not significantly). It does not seem to be tracking with the rise in average lifespan, which is suggestive that it may be psychological as well as health-based.

I'm not concerned about a drop in young population, but young people raised surrounded almost completely by old people are going to be young people caught in an old person's paradigm. Imagine if you were raised in a retirement home and weren't introduced to the Internet until you were 14. Would you be as into it as you are now? Would you care, when you've already been taught letters and telephone are all you really need to hang with your friends (your friends mostly being 80 years old with their own party lines)? Would you like punk rock when you were raised exclusively with classical music?

*** Well, I wasn't really introduced to it 'til I was ... 22? 23? So I think I might be okay there.


*** No, becos presumably I'd still have better taste than that.

On the first count, how much do you use the internet for now? Twitter? File-sharing? Hulu? Do you youtube?

As for the second, I'm not sure what your particular taste is, but to a degree, you're proving my point. You don't like the new types of music (alright, i admit, punk rock is a bit dated even now) because you're used to something else. When my mom was young, she was not allowed to listen to anything but classical music. Now she has little appreciation for anything else. My dad was given more freedom and at least enjoys most modern pop, but could never get into punk or goth music.

*** RPOL, mostly <grin>. Also for work stuff and a few other games. I use wikipedia a lot, and amazon. I download some stuff, and watch some stuff online. I don't know what twitter is, and I haven't used Hulu. I watch youtube ... not sure if that's what you mean or not.


*** No, I just think lyrics are the most important part of a song, and most punk songs have indecipherable lyrics. This to me is an intelligence issue, not an age one.

And you aren't alone. I know what twitter is because I work in a technical field. But in general, a lot of stuff like the facebook and twitter are only getting real traction with the younger generation. Older people tend to be willing to adopt tools to do what they already do; look at maps, watch TV, shop, but not to do stuff they don't normally do; chat with online-only friends, generate or distribute videos, mod video games, etc. My son is still a little young to be outpacing me, but he will in another four years, just because I'm getting old and he's still young and new. I think that my son will be more "hip" and "with it" by virtue of being exposed to lots of other young people. People in urban centers, where there are more people within any given age group, are more likely to pick up new technologies than people in urban areas, where young people are far fewer and cultural diffusion is slower.

(BTW, Hulu.com is a site that shows mostly shows new and old television shows and movies. I watch things like Fringe only on Hulu, because otherwise I might actually have to pay attention to what time it is and turn on my TV for something other than cartoons. Worth your time. Check out the Sing-Along Blog of Dr. Horrible, great show, but also noteworthy in that it's a professionally produced show that did not go through any production company and was released only on the internet - but is making a profit. A sign of things to come?)

But my concern is that insufficient young people, relatively speaking, with insufficient contact with other young people will reduce the cultural diffusion necessary for substantial ongoing discovery.


*** No, I just think lyrics are the most important part of a song, and most punk songs have indecipherable lyrics. This to me is an intelligence issue, not an age one.
</quote>

To come back to that argument, I also wasn't really that much onto the net until I was older... 19-20, to be exact. So yes, yes I would be as into it. And while I had been taught the stuff about letters and the telephone, long-distance bills are expensive (although not so much anymore as long as your calls are domestic) and there's a reason it's called snail mail. ^_^ Regarding music, I was raised mostly on (real) country, but I now listen to most anything I can get my hands on, whether it be classical, pop, metal, rock... you name the genre, I can probably name a few favorite songs of mine.

Same question; twitter, facebook, hulu, MMORPGs? Do you make your own youtube videos or share Guitar Hero riffs?

What I'm trying to push here is there are a few ways to look at the internet;
1) It makes things you already do faster. Most people who do these old things can adapt to the new method.
2) It allows you to do things you could never do before. This seems to be more of a generation thing. People who were already adults when this stuff became available seem significantly less likely to pick them up (and oftentimes those people who do enjoy the new gadgets and services are called "kids at heart" ;).) It's a shift in paradigm, and the older the person is, the less able or willing he seems to be to adapt.

I don't like social networking, and MMO's are a waste of money. I mostly use the internet to research the object of my most current fancy (right now it's steampunk... go figure) which would be nigh unto impossible without the internet. Also, without the internet, where would I order my anime fix? ^_^

   Ashlayne, I'm curious, what age group are you in? I ask, becos I agree with you, both about social networking and MMOs, and I wondered if it's becos we're the same bracket (as Katisara seems to be suggesting). For myself, I'm 35.

25 here, so a little difference, but not too much.

I'm 28 (as of today) and start using computers when I was 12 (although no internet until I was 18). I'm also in a technical profession. I don't use twitter because I'm not very social, but we basically never use snail mail or the telephone, nor our television (we only have one because we found it on the side of the road). I'm in contact basically 24/7 with my family via gmail, which is always on, and I met my wife MUDding.  So I feel like I've got a foot in each, although I realize the serious social networking I'm not taking advantage of.

My wife started on the internet even earlier and not only does she do the social networking stuff, but she runs an entire business, market research, design, production, shipping and marketing, all via computer (she does art).

My dad is 50 and gets the gmail, but doesn't seem able to move too much farther (although he's always impressed by anything new and cool that comes up). My mom is a few steps beyond that.  My grandparents seem to think they have to attach postage to e-mails and have sort of fallen out of our social network because they keep depending on that telegramaphone thing.

Some interesting ideas here, but nothing seems to have come of them.

I'm 36 and I've done all of that stuff except the sharing of Guitar Hero data.

My father has a hard time operating a mouse, but my mother (5 years younger) has been programming for the past 30 years (mostly managing now) and more than aware of these things.

I still tend to hang out with geeks who know this stuff and use it. I don't think that technological use or innovation is bound to age. It may have something to do with the culture that you grow up in.

Bill Gates' kids may be sheltered from the rest of the world and still have a pretty good grasp on technology. Same for Linus Torvald.

**Bumped for Zephydel**

Thanks.

I do not know if you guys will agree with me but I think that the next step in human evolution is leaving the flesh and becoming pure data.

Para-Psychologists and those who hunt the paranormal always start looking for the spirits of people by looking for strange electromagnetic signals. During my studies in psychology I have read that the human nervous system (brain, spine and nerves) also generates electromagnetic signals.

People are becoming more and more mental and less physical as technology progresses. Our knowledge is evolving faster than our physical bodies and the results of our knowledge is becoming more than what the planet can actually handle. If that is not enough, the diseases that ravage us are also evolving faster than ever before.

If mankind's destiny is indeed space travel, the flesh will not be enough. The flesh may even be a weakness. Being stored as data and acting through robots might be the next best thing for us. By evolving as pure data and energy, we might even be able to use some form of telekinesis to move around.

Individuality should still be there. Without physical bodies, we become clusters of data. We are like files containing data. We may have the same kind of data but this redundancy is only there for preserving data. Mating is still possible. Instead of physical mating, individuals will mate through communication. The exchange of information will lead to the creation of new information and new copies of old information - the creation of a new individual.

In reply to Zephydel (msg #76):

The shift from flesh to data is a common trope for transhumanist sci-fi stories (along with attendante re-sleeving/downloading/etc back into flesh).

While I can get on board with the possibility, and I can agree that it may be one option for future space-travel, I am not certain that it will be the only option nor the first one we hit.

Unlike some, I don't think we'll hit a singularity and make a sudden jump. Though it may seem that way in hind-sight or history books, I think that those of us who live through it will instead see it as a series of revolutionary breakthroughs that build upon one another.



As a side note, I'm also not entirely sold on the idea that the leap to data-forms is precisely what paranormal investigators are finding. Rather I think that many of those instances are time-loops or disjointed instances of time. But that's another thread, no?

I don't think I'd give up tactile stimulation, personally.

Biological singularity would be good enough; genetically engineer a smarter human that can in turn genetically engineer smarter humans, until children are able to understand quantum mechanics at the age when we understood how to speak (our minds barely comprehend the quantum world now), that's what I'm hoping for.  You can apply it to anything, really; where our medical advances in longevity progress fast enough so as to make us virtually immortal.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:33, Tue 15 June 2010.

I would tend to agree. I don't feel comfortable with the use of the word 'step' - that implies a discrete, easily defineable change.

What we're seeing right now is a gradual increase of the incorporation of technology into our bodies - now through medical implants (to restore functionality) and genetic manipulation of our food, soon through genetic manipulation of ourselves and medical enhancements. I expect my children will be dealing with the psychological ramifications of significant body alteration (and those ramifications won't be as severe as cyberpunk would have you think, just like the ramifications of our not hunting our food did not cause a sudden, deep psychological trauma).

But I think in the next few generations we're more likely to see Sterlings 'Holy Fire' than Eclipse Phase - you have a bunch of old people who live, more or less, like humans, but not resleeving into new bodies or launching off to Titan or anything. At least, not without some serious AI interference ;P

In reply to katisara (msg #79):

Incidently, there was a doctor sometime in the past ten years - I'd really need to dig up the articles about him again - who basically posited the idea that in our brains there's a 'map' of the body.

Sudden abrupt traumatic changes to the body do not immediately effect the map, thus resulting in one of the causes of phantom limb syndrome. I.e., the brain map of the body still records that limb as being there, when in fact it is not. As the brain tries to interpret incoming data, it ascribes nerve impulses to the part of the 'map' where that limb was, and thus the person 'feels' things coming from a limb that is missing. He theorized that this map, of course, adapts over time. As we age and grow we compensate for our limbs growing and so forth. However, he suspected that should gradual changes to the body be introduced that the brain would compensate and adjust.
Now, in some respects he was talking radical change. Things like cosmetic alteration of the body in major ways - altering facial structure, altering ear-shape or limb-length, even the addition of 'limbs' and 'wings.' It must be noted, however, that he did not fully expect these grown and slowly built limbs/wings to be functional - no paying several million dollars to have wings added and then fly around town. Instead, these things would be purely cosmetic. BUT, as the brain grew used to their presence of the alterations and the body accepted them, they would grow to be a part of the person.

Bah, I'm not doing a good job of explaining it. It's been 10 years, after all.

In any case, obviously not much came of it - you don't see any big fashion models with wings or some Hollywood machoman with an extra arm. But the concept of our brain's plasticity to grow and adapt and accept a dramatic physical change was interesting.

I'll have to see if I can track it down.

edit: Found him. Plastic surgeon Joseph Rosen. Google searches bring up a variety of things on him. Can't find the specific article I read yet, however.

edit 2: links!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/soci...health.lifeandhealth - general article, found quoted in part or in tota in other places. Not sure if this is the original but it's close to what I recall.
Quote:
"This is possible because our brains adapt to create neural maps for new body parts. When we have a limb amputated, our neural map of that limb gradually fades away; and if we gain a body part, our neural map expands accordingly."

http://www3.hi.is/~lobbi/ut1/a_a/DR.%20DAEDALUS.pdf
a pdf file/article about Joe Rosen, a little less on the sensational journalism side and a bit better on the reporting end.
Quote:
"Plastic surgery is the intersection' of art and science. It's the
intersection of the surgeon's imagination with human flesh. And
human flesh," Rosen says, "is infinitely malleable. People say
cosmetic surgery is frivolous--boobs and noses. But it's so much
more than that! The body is a conduit for the soul, at least
historically speaking. When you change what you look like, you
change who you are."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:31, Tue 15 June 2010.

I do recall an expiriment in which people were blindfolded for a week with a video camera strapped to tehir head and outpus 'pixilated' across tehir back as tactile sensation, and by teh end of teh week they were 'seeing' through the camera. They have also demonstrated that a monkey with a wire placed into it's motor cortex connected to teh controls for a cybernetic arm will wind up controling that arm even over great distances. The brain is a very adaptable organ.
As to being 'reduced' to data I don't think that's going to happen for a very long time- we would need to be able to map activity in the brain, the physical structure of teh brain (which varries person to person and changes over time, *and* store the DNA code of the indiviual, and that still wouldn't replicate hormonal effects. we're still looking at the better part of a century at best before that becomes a practical idea.

It just intrigues me that the electromagnetic signals that the paranormal investigators are finding may be the same ones found in the brain. It makes you wonder if the soul is nothing more than electromagnetic signals or thoughts without a brain.

A magentic brain recording of one moment in time that could then be 'read' by another brain under certain circumstances would hardly require that it be the definition of a soul. If I take a picture of an attractive naked woman and then become arroused looking at that picture that does not mean the woman is nothing more than her visual image, it simply means that a visual recording is sufficient to evoke certain emotional reactions in me. Similary is electromagnetic or chemical 9phermone) 'residue' in an area evokes certain thoughts or feelings that does not mean that is the entirety of the person who'se feeling were 'recorded' by the situation. I can write a book without *being* a book, it merely records some of my thoughts.

By the by, I was very surprised to hear about a new transhumanist roleplaying game, Eclipse Phase (also, it's released under Creative Commons, just because the creators are anarchists like that). I've been giving it a try and it can be a bit of a mind-bender sometimes.

I've been reading Accelerando by Charles Stross (available for free via CC if you're interested). A major theme is the evolution of intelligence in unexpected areas. For instance, once character is a little robotic pet that starts out as one of those toys we're used to seeing at toy stores. The main characters keep upgrading it, installing better processing power and neural images, until it spontaneously develops self-awareness.

This begs some interesting questions; how should we tell if/when things like computers become self-aware? What rights to self-aware devices have, and how is that impacted by distributed awareness (imagine if the Internet became self-aware - should it be illegal to take computers offline because it causes harm, albeit very small, to a self-aware intelligence)? And should we wait until intelligences request their rights for us to award them?

Well, the only reason we ever seem to take computers offline that I can think of is because we're installing newer, more advanced ones.

So I suppose that would be essentially the quid-pro-quo of ripping your muscles through exercise in order to make them bigger; no pain, no gain.

EDIT: Additionally, I'm not sure; one could make the case for animals as well as computers that, if they started demanding rights themselves, there would be no good argument as to not giving them it (the very ability to ask for one's rights is a sign that one has them).

In the meantime, like animals, we'd probably need people requesting their rights for them.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:49, Fri 15 Apr 2011.

So if I program my computer to ask for the right to vote then vote teh way I want it too, it should be allowed to vote?
Although I guess Diebold's computer's had the right to vote...

You're funny, silveroak :P

Asking for the right to vote may be evidence, but it's not the complete case. However, the more pressing question I think is, if I create an actual artificial intelligent but it does NOT ask for the right to life, should I still work to protect it?

Of course you should. That thing is worth some major cash!

Protect its rights :P (for instance, the right from being 'owned').

Well the declaration does state "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights", which may be arguable in the case of humans but brings up other issues when discussing synthetic senteince. For example one migt argue from a religious perspective that we can be owned by our creator 9or that his enemy might own our soul in some situations) but that what we are protected against is ownership by our biological/spiritual peers. in which case you could easilly enjoin your senteint machine from owning other sentient machines...

I don't know that the Declaration of Independence is meant to be taken as a moral guideline in quite that manner. However, the general moral stance of it makes sense. We say God is our creator and knows better than us, therefore God 'owns' us. I'd never considered that, should we have an AI which is provably not as intelligent as a human, that we may wish to 'own' it, similar perhaps to how own might 'own' a child.

I think at that point it also depends on how much of  ahand we had in te design and oteh rfactors. For example, I would say that giving it free will to decide if it wants to be owned or not and then deciding to own it when it chooses freedom would be the height of irresponsibility. I do think that there would not eb anything unethical with making a machine that is otehrwise sentient however, but feels safe only when owned by a human being (provided it isn't designed to become obsolete either...), and that other solutions exist where one wouldn't have to give up property rights simply because they amde something sentient. It does however require more thought than a simple answer.
Of course this is also one of thse things tha I think if you view the christian 'take' on the issue (hath not the potter power over the clay etc.) then God of the bible really botched the job - designing humans with free will then penalizing them for exercising it. But I digress...

Plato would like a word with you. Meet him in his cave.

More seriously, that's confusing the mind/soul/spirit/however you call it with its mere physical manifestation. My mind is not a bunch of electric signals; the electric signals are inseparable from it, but to know a mind you need to know more than brain signals.

but to know a mind you need to know more than brain signals.

Why?

Because just measuring the wattage between points doesn't tell you the information carried by that wattage, or the structures that information creates. Just like having a video card on your computer that only passed the ones and zeros to the screen, rather than portraying windows and words, wouldn't be especially valuable.

BUt that's a n issue of translation. In fact your video card does portray ones and zeros ont your screens, it simply does so through the manifestation of pixel color and intensity.
And a brain signal is far more than wattage - there would be frequency, waveform, phase, and timing of the bursts. Of course you would still need context to translate, but if an EM pattern designed to operate in a human brain encounters another human brain, then there is compatability to the context.

It's the difference between the words and the message, the bits and the abstraction they support. Yes, it requires 'translation', although I wouldn't reduce that to a 'just'.

I'm not sure what your point is. I didn't say 'just' anything, But when you look at a lot of myticism the idea that it is primarilly EM intraction is hard to dismiss. For example did you knw that hundreds of years ago teh best diviners used copper and iron rods for divining? Copper of course being exceptional for picking up an electric feild and iron for picking up a magnetic...

What I mean is, if you took the data stored in a human brain and translated it to an optical computer, or a quantum computer, or whatever, while maintaining identical performance characteristics, would it be different? I may be misinterpreting what you're writing, but it seems like you may be caught up on the mechanics of it being EM. I would argue the platform is almost irrelevant, compared to the abstract data stored in it.

How does that matter? If the 'ghosts' are EM 'echoes' of brain patterns being read by another brain then the platform in the end is the same: brain to brain. If I record sound on an EM tape and then play back the tape through a speaker it is sound on both ends, and if the recording is good then it is effectively the same sound.

It matters because I was agreeing with Kat and answering Falkus's question.

The method of data storage is (mostly) irrelevant. Only the message is of value.

Dang it, I'm used to you being called Kat, this just confuses teh conversation..

Sorry. If it helps, you can call me 'isara'.

Trying to reduce threads, so I'm putting this one under the larger umbrella.

Body modification; the good, the bad, the extreme. How far is too far?

I'd say almost all body modification probably comes with some good, and some bad, and it all depends on how any given individual weighs up the costs and benefits.

Some will care a great deal about whether or not it makes people around them uncomfortable, but others might actually consider making those around them uncomfortable a good thing (challenging pre-conceptions, and getting people out of their comfort-zone, etc.).

Some will care a lot about functionality, others will care much more about appearance.

Some will want to minimize hassles (e.g., avoid setting off metal detectors in airports), but others won't be as worried by that.

I guess the thing that comes to mind as being potentially "too far" is when things become non-voluntary.  Some body modifications are done to children too young to understand what's going on or give consent (e.g., circumcision), which raises questions about whether parents have the right to make such decisions.  And if we're speaking about transhumanism, it's within the realm of consideration to imagine a body modification that let you violate privacy in ways an unmodified person could ("x-ray" vision, or being able to record what your "eyes" see), and that opens another can of worms.

Also, I'm pretty sure when your essence score reaches 0, you become an NPC, which is something to be avoided.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:41, Wed 19 Mar 2014.

I loled.

I'm thinking more about the fringe cases. I know there are people who would argue cutting off a perfectly good, natural arm in exchange for a superior robotic one is sinful, but I don't fall into that category :) However, there are issues with for instance 'self-mutilation'. I read news-stories about people cutting off parts of their bodies, and normally those people are taken to the hospital for psychological care.

I also see issues with the topic of suicide. If I'm doing something that is likely to kill me, should I be permitted to do that?

In reply to katisara (msg # 107):

Ah, yeah, the question of when people are considered so mentally unwell that we don't trust them to make decisions about their own well-being anymore is a tricky one.

On suicide I'm of the opinion that if a rational person wants to do it, then that should be their right (the main reason "rational" person would want to do so is due to inescapable medical conditions, such as very painful or degenerative illnesses, or things like locked-in syndrome).  On the other hand, when someone is mentally unhinged, I can sympathize with those who want to prevent them from harming themselves.  There are plenty of cases where its easy for me to pick which way I lean in such situations, but also plenty where I see it as a tough call, and I don't have any hard-and-fast rules to cover all cases.  I guess a rule of thumb might be that if a person is ruled incapable of governing their own finances, then they're probably not in a position make a decision on self-mutilation or suicide, either.  But I'm not sure I'd want that to be the law of the land, as such.