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Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

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Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#11

Post by mastef »

kazinator wrote: post #6

Transfer of the mind, definitely. Hardware independence. Plus possibility of backups. Even if your body is completely vaporized in a blast, you can come back if there is a backup of you. Forget immortality through the extension of the biological life of the body; yonder lies folly.

The issue with backups / teleporting / transfer of mind is always the question if it's just a copy of you living on, or still the same consciousness. E.g. if you die on the spot, and a copy takes over for you with your memories.

However yes, that would be a much faster approach to space colonisation - it would remove the need for spaceships.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#12

Post by genopharmix »

mastef wrote: post #9
genopharmix wrote: post #8

We've proven we can increase the lifespan of nematodes by what is equivalent to 300 years in human lifespan. If we can at least make it 150, then we have a chance at 300 and if we make 300 we have a chance at 500 and so on. We can then truly solve for space travel and populating other planets and we'll have lifespans that enable us to travel for extended periods of time - a Universal requirement for the human species…

On a sidenote : It's interesting to see Elon Musk advancing into space travel, whereas Peter Thiel advancing into trying to defeat mortality. Those seem very closely related industries that clearly do benefit from each other. Re: The Nematode lifespan; What happened to the C60 buckyballs diet? Apparently rats that underwent a specific diet of C-60 fluids had nearly double the lifespan ( 22-26months vs 42 months ) htt…

Exactly. Space travel depends on lifespan. We have to solve for lifespan first. It's the largest human goal and most impactful.

Yes, we are almost there and I don't think people realize how close we are. Make the world a better place? How about making the Universe/Multiverse a better place!

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#13

Post by biomimic »

mastef wrote: post #10
biomimic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V48M5j-6zdE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbYgza4NNk8 To name some of the top roadblocks: - Cellular garbage collection - Inner-workings of Mitochondria and cell death/apoptosis at the wrong time. - DNA repair genes - Telomerase production/use Analyzing genomic pathways associated to these is key. Understanding why the expression of genes varies or decreases/increases at the…

Do you have any specific ideas of a massive road-block that would benefit from a Mechanical Turk approach? E.g. issues that would require an AI, but if split into a lot of tiny problems, that could be solved as a whole?

I've been giving this some thought and have some ideas on a few directions we can go in. For example, cognitive biomimicry/AI can be trained to predict certain things like answering "What is the capitol of Austria?"

With statistical inference and probability, a system can provide a number of answers to questions. A crowdsourcing component can be used to rate the answers the system provides thereby allowing the system to learn via feedback loops.

Apply this to Life Sciences, molecular biology, genomics/proteomics and we may have a system intelligent enough to produce new hypothesis in the area of life extension research or a system intelligent enough to combine two pieces of knowledge to come up with something new, a discovery or series of discoveries.

I have some other ideas too, look me up at biomimic@gmail.com if you want to collaborate on these.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#14

Post by MrLeftHand »

May I ask why we need to battle mortality? People tend to forget our body's limitations and that all the extra years add to the end, not in the middle. Not to mention the implications it might have on reproduction. People wont want to have children and slowly our numbers will decline. Also this will bring up an issue depriving ourself's of new Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright mind and great people who would have been born and now they aren't. We always forget that strength lies in diversity. And lastly, do we really want to give immortality to people who do not contribute anything to our society? How do we determine who is worth the while to live for hundreds of years? And how will we convince the other parts of society that this is beneficial for all of us? Too many questions on a human level which are ignored, or it looks like they are ignored...

Instead of spending all our time in the shadow of mortality why not we just step out in the light and enjoy life in its brief moment and make the most of it?

Don't get me wrong, I would like to live forever, but it might have greater risks for mankind then the benefits it holds.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#15

Post by biomimic »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #14

May I ask why we need to battle mortality? People tend to forget our body's limitations and that all the extra years add to the end, not in the middle. Not to mention the implications it might have on reproduction. People wont want to have children and slowly our numbers will decline. Also this will bring up an issue depriving ourself's of new Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright mind and great people wh…

Giving up is not an option.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#16

Post by Perdition »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #14

May I ask why we need to battle mortality? People tend to forget our body's limitations and that all the extra years add to the end, not in the middle. Not to mention the implications it might have on reproduction. People wont want to have children and slowly our numbers will decline. Also this will bring up an issue depriving ourself's of new Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright mind and great people wh…

I find the idea of immortality horrifying. People would become ridiculously risk adverse because they could live forever as long as they didn't have an accident. Imagine the sort of repressive policies those voters would support in order to remove risk.

I also think for society to evolve older generations need to die off. Peoples worldview becomes partially fixed in their youth, and for some it is entirely fixed in their youth. I wouldn't want to live with a bunch of geriatrics from the 1800's.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#17

Post by MrLeftHand »

biomimic wrote: post #15
MrLeftHand wrote: post #14

May I ask why we need to battle mortality? People tend to forget our body's limitations and that all the extra years add to the end, not in the middle. Not to mention the implications it might have on reproduction. People wont want to have children and slowly our numbers will decline. Also this will bring up an issue depriving ourself's of new Isaac Newtons, Einsteins and all the other bright mind and great people wh…

Giving up is not an option.

It's not about giving up.

It is about looking at mortality as some kind of disease and not a common thing that happens to all living beings.

As a human, I am afraid of death as the most of us. I like to toy with the idea living forever, or at least hundreds of years...

But looking at our society now. As the average lifespan getting higher, more people stay in jobs longer as usual. The young wont have any jobs, because their parent will stay in the positions. In the end the old would have to sustain the young and soon after that, no one would want to have a child, because who needs another hungry mouth.

Of course as the 1st world country citizens will afford living a longer life, 2nd and 3rd ones wont. This will create a massive gap between nations. Like we didn't have that already.

And we don't know how the human mind could handle this anyway. Maybe you would go actually mad after 200 years of living.

And as I said. The extra years always add up to the end. Maybe you live 200 years, but 2/3 of that is spent being old and useless.

As highly appreciated and acknowledged people warn us about the ramifications of A.I., so we should be extremely cautious about banning death.

To be honest I would be less afraid of A.I. as the consequences of immortality.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#18

Post by biomimic »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #17
biomimic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving up is not an option.

It's not about giving up. It is about looking at mortality as some kind of disease and not a common thing that happens to all living beings. As a human, I am afraid of death as the most of us. I like to toy with the idea living forever, or at least hundreds of years... But looking at our society now. As the average lifespan getting higher, more people stay in jobs longer as usual. The young wont have any jobs, becaus…

There are two options: A) Live B) Die

Choose your poison, however, living long enough to fight for a chance to change, defeat or restructure that poison, in whatever form it comes, is what I choose. Choice B) does not give you that option unless it's your understanding that:

C) There is another option

D) Choice A) will someday positively impact the reanimation of those who've selected Choice B).

Choose wisely.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#19

Post by DanBC »

Improve end of life care and the way people die.

Start making it acceptable for people to talk about death - how they'd like to die; what they want to happen to their organs or body after their death; what kind of funeral they want.

It's really important to let your family know how you feel about being hooked up to machines or how you'd feel about living with dementia or similar.

Re: Ask HN: How would you solve mortality?

#20

Post by MrLeftHand »

biomimic wrote: post #18
MrLeftHand wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about giving up. It is about looking at mortality as some kind of disease and not a common thing that happens to all living beings. As a human, I am afraid of death as the most of us. I like to toy with the idea living forever, or at least hundreds of years... But looking at our society now. As the average lifespan getting higher, more people stay in jobs longer as usual. The young wont have any jobs, becaus…

There are two options: A) Live B) Die Choose your poison, however, living long enough to fight for a chance to change, defeat or restructure that poison, in whatever form it comes, is what I choose. Choice B) does not give you that option unless it's your understanding that: C) There is another option D) Choice A) will someday positively impact the reanimation of those who've selected Choice B). Choose wisely.

It is good to have someone living as long as possible who actually wants to make the world a better place.

But, we all know who will be the ones actually benefiting from this.

The ones who don't give a rats ass about anything, only selfishly living longer just to make more money, have more power. Hoarders who are rather a disease for humanity then being useful.

In an ideal world it would be a fantastic thing. But we aren't living in one. We can try, but unless 90% of humanity stops acting like a maniac, it will divide humanity on another level.

We can't cope with the fact properly, if our neighbour has a bigger car then ours. Imagine how people would cope with the fact, that some of us can live for hundreds of years.

Immortality is a nice thing, but not until the minds are cleared, poverty, hunger, closed mindedness, are banished and humanity as a whole can act and decide without having constant internal struggles.

Just look at the idiots who are against vaccinations, religious nut-jobs, greedy, selfish, maniac, egocentric, etc...

All the beautiful traits of humanity. Do you want to give those power to live long, or maybe forever?

Would you prevent new generation to blossom and create something new, by selfishly clinging to life and not letting go to give way for the change? It is a common thing that the older you are, the less you can change, or keep up with trends. And this is not only about are ageing bodies. We might have the risk to stop evolving. To stop innovating, exploring, etc...

I advise to you to read "2br02b" from Kurt Vonnegut. A short story about our society perfecting immortality. It is very interesting.

And to answer your question. I would probably choose 'A', even if I fear that it will have a very negative impact on humanity.

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