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Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

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Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#61

Post by tim333 »

r3bl wrote: post #41
tim333 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can check most of the predictions / dates on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzwe... 2009 "Artificial voices sound fully human" seems a bit optimistic. as does 2019 "Household robots are ubiquitous and reliable."

Well, sure, but... 2009 "Though desktop PCs are still common for data storage, individuals primarily use portable devices for their computer-related tasks." sounds pretty realistic now. So does 2019 "People experience 3-D virtual reality through glasses and contact lenses that beam images directly to their retinas (retinal display). Coupled with an auditory source (headphones), users can remotely communicate with oth…

Yeah I picked a couple of ones that didn't seem quite there. For me the most interesting prediction has been 2029 for the Turing test which he's been saying since 2000 or so. The hardware seems pretty much on track. It will be interesting to see if the software gets sorted in the next 12 years or not.

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#62

Post by Balgair »

jknoepfler wrote: post #43

As someone with a reasonable foundation in both the state of AI and the state of neuroscience research, I honestly have no idea why people give Kurzweil any attention. Just about nothing I have ever read from him is even remotely plausible, yet I've met intelligent people (usually mathematically oriented people) who think the detail-sparse garbage is gospel. It's a little infuriating, honestly. The details, which are…

Yeah, I've noticed that too. It always seems to be the math and physics-majors that just swish off biology as 'trivial'. In physics, you can assume a cow is a 1 meter radius sphere of density 1. You can be fine with that approximation. In biology, you are very very interested in the exact number of cells in the lining of that cow's third stomach 5 minutes after it ate wheat. Approximations don't really work in such complex systems as a mammal.

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#63

Post by OneWordSoln »

owebmaster wrote: post #55
Asdfbla wrote: post #9

I imagine if it ever comes to that, society is likely to stagnate intellectually. People grow more conservative and reactionary as they grow older (I don't just mean that in the political sense), what would happen if all there is are infinitely old people? I think young generations are necessary, but if everyone lives forever, there's hardly space in the world for them. Maybe it's the fate of humanity and a singulari…

> People grow more conservative and reactionary as they grow older What if they do because they are going to die? Without that limitation, society would be a lot less conservative.

I disagree because murder would still be possible, which would make the pack mentality of conservative institutions that much more attractive.

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#64

Post by iamonkara »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #57
iamonkara wrote: post #19

That's a pursuit in the wrong direction..... Hidden underneath the quest for immortality is the eternal quest of freedom from all known and unknown bounds. Unfortunately enough, this quest, when expressed from the confines of the apparatus called "mind" shows up as ego which is limiting, self serving and divisive. To experience the real singularity and immortality one needs an instrument which at its very core is lim…

> within Within what , exactly? If there's a within , what and where is the barrier or boundary that separates it from without ? How does one reconcile that separation with a cosmic/unity consciousness?

Within your own self. The first layer of "within" can be easily understood. In between 2 successive thoughts is a state of "no thoughts". Can we like a scientist hypothesize that we are more than the thoughts? To prove or disprove it we need to observe/experience this state of thoughtlessness, initially they are just few milliseconds long but with practice will be seconds and minutes in length.

And remember if we are always observing through the filter of our thoughts then we are changing the thing being observed - just like in quantum physics "act of observing affected what is observed".

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#65

Post by iamonkara »

glorkk wrote: post #52
iamonkara wrote: post #19

That's a pursuit in the wrong direction..... Hidden underneath the quest for immortality is the eternal quest of freedom from all known and unknown bounds. Unfortunately enough, this quest, when expressed from the confines of the apparatus called "mind" shows up as ego which is limiting, self serving and divisive. To experience the real singularity and immortality one needs an instrument which at its very core is lim…

> The reason current scientists have not been able to understand the limitless and eternal nature of consciousness is their fundamental assumption which is "matter gives rise to consciousness". Unless this assumption is turned around to "consciousness gives rise to matter" until then this quest for immortality will remain just that, a quest and never a realized goal. I can’t tell if you’re trolling. If you’re not, I…

History is full evidence that true scientists have many a times revised their initial assumptions in the quest of truth.

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#66

Post by T-A »

OneWordSoln wrote: post #27
tim333 wrote: post #12

While I agree with Kurzweil's stuff on computing per dollar increasing exponentially, in that it has for a long time now, I'm skeptical of the lifespan thing. There doesn't seem particularly good experimental evidence - our life span is longer because of less childhood death but it seems old people have always maxed out in the 70-100yrs old range.

Didn't an article just come up (Nature, I believe) that just proved that the way our cellular division works, mortality is an important feature of how we work? Of course it is.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/10/25/1618854114

"Selection between somatic cells (i.e., intercellular competition) can delay aging by purging nonfunctioning cells. However, the fitness of a multicellular organism depends not just on how functional its individual cells are but also on how well cells work together. While intercellular competition weeds out nonfunctional cells, it may also select for cells that do not cooperate. Thus, intercellular competition creates an inescapable double bind that makes aging inevitable in multicellular organisms."

... and so you end up getting cancer, sooner or later.

Which of course doesn't exclude external interventions, from chemotherapy to resetting your DNA to a previously backed up state.

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#67

Post by T-A »

vorotato wrote: post #42
OneWordSoln wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't an article just come up (Nature, I believe) that just proved that the way our cellular division works, mortality is an important feature of how we work? Of course it is.

I mean if people start living forever we would have to start killing them. So it's kinda moot anyway.

Why? If you are concerned about population growth, a one child policy would be quite sufficient (1+1/2+1/4+1/8+... = 2).

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#68

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

iamonkara wrote: post #64
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> within Within what , exactly? If there's a within , what and where is the barrier or boundary that separates it from without ? How does one reconcile that separation with a cosmic/unity consciousness?

Within your own self. The first layer of "within" can be easily understood. In between 2 successive thoughts is a state of "no thoughts". Can we like a scientist hypothesize that we are more than the thoughts? To prove or disprove it we need to observe/experience this state of thoughtlessness, initially they are just few milliseconds long but with practice will be seconds and minutes in length. And remember if we are…

> Within your own self.

I don't know what that is.

> The first layer of "within" can be easily understood. In between 2 successive thoughts is a state of "no thoughts".

That doesn't match my experience at all. There are times when I don't pay attention to my thoughts, or my thoughts aren't distinct enough to grasp, but that's not an absence of thought. For me, the concept of "between 2 successive thoughts" makes about as much sense as "between two drops of water in a river".

The only way I can relate your description to anything I understand is to suspect that what you're describing is shifting your attention away from your thoughts to interoceptive sensations, and then reifying your integration/synthesis of those sensations into a distinct entity rather than a representation of your body. But maybe I just haven't read enough Deepak Chopra to "get it".

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#69

Post by [deleted] »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #49
forthefuture wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd only add that it's another way to manufacture hope for people who have been left behind by how unbelievable most religions are. I've been trying for years (and will continue trying) to switch my parents hope for an afterlife with a hope that cryo will work. There is definitely no afterlife, but cryo might eventually work. That's how I see most of these "living forever" positions. It's just a more intellectual hop…

>There is definitely no afterlife For the sake of argument, how do you definitely know this?

[deleted]

Re: Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029

#70

Post by vorotato »

T-A wrote: post #67
vorotato wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if people start living forever we would have to start killing them. So it's kinda moot anyway.

Why? If you are concerned about population growth, a one child policy would be quite sufficient (1+1/2+1/4+1/8+... = 2).

I'm not, I'm concerned with the ability to collect power and resources in a capitalist society, and how that ability grows with age.
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