Arguing for Immortality • Hacker News Board

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#11

Post by presidentender » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:12 PM UTC

Philosophy of mind can progress, and the immortal can keep up with newly born and educated mortals for a while. Having a few immortals running around is probably not a bad idea, actually, because stores of experience in the form of really old people would be able to give excellent advice.

The problem that I foresee is that eventually, philosophy of mind and new schools of thought just won't be able to keep up with the Flynn effect. I've read things that my grandfather and great-grandfather wrote, and while they were not stupid men, they were certainly simpler than my cousins and I. Eventually, the immortal Homo Sapiens would make for an interesting pet at best.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#12

Post by droz » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:14 PM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #7

rblion wrote: post #4

My name means Immortal in Sanskrit. :) If no one ever died, the world would overpopulate even faster. Death makes life possible. Death clears the old to make way for the new. In Hinduism and Buddhism, accepting death is a part of the path to enlightenment. Personally, I believe the body can die, but consciousness cannot...so we are already immortal, we just have to re-member it.

If no one ever died, the world would overpopulate even faster. If nobody ever died, the whole concept of procreation would change profoundly. With first world countries already in zero or negative population growth, creating an infinite lifespan would most likely further that trend. And in any case, we're talking about longevity, not immortality. You can still get hit by a bus.

Doubtful. I envision a "brave new world" styled world. Bunch of people in prime condition, "endless" amount of time to pair with everyone else. I somehow imagine that people will continue to go at it like rabbits.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#13

Post by jessriedel » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:16 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #5

reasonattlm wrote: post #2

Related: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/08/twenty-minutes-to... "If you only had 20 minutes, what would you do to convince an intelligent (college educated or professional) audience of the significance of life extension beyond 120 years?"

[deleted]

> Luckily, there is no need to convince anyone at all, except maybe to get research grants (but the true purpose of those can always be disguised as ethically clean basic medical research).

There would be many orders of magnitude more funding for life-extension research if most people wanted it. In fact, probably 90% of our health funding would be devoted to it. So I think it is a very bad thing that people generally don't want it (or think they don't want it).

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#14

Post by michaelchisari » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

droz wrote: post #12

michaelchisari wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one ever died, the world would overpopulate even faster. If nobody ever died, the whole concept of procreation would change profoundly. With first world countries already in zero or negative population growth, creating an infinite lifespan would most likely further that trend. And in any case, we're talking about longevity, not immortality. You can still get hit by a bus.

Doubtful. I envision a "brave new world" styled world. Bunch of people in prime condition, "endless" amount of time to pair with everyone else. I somehow imagine that people will continue to go at it like rabbits.

Well, luckily, your imagination and actual worldwide trends don't line up.

As long as we push for women's rights, access to birth control and abortion rights, and move away from economies which encourage large families as sources of labor, we'll be fine, as has already been the case in much of the developed world (and is showing to be the case in the developing world as well).

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#15

Post by yesbabyyes » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:18 PM UTC

Death cleans out old ideas. I have a hard time getting over the feeling that an older civilization is also more conservative. Especially a civilization where the people with money and power are the ones who are older.

"Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#16

Post by rblion » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:23 PM UTC

rblion wrote: post #4

My name means Immortal in Sanskrit. :) If no one ever died, the world would overpopulate even faster. Death makes life possible. Death clears the old to make way for the new. In Hinduism and Buddhism, accepting death is a part of the path to enlightenment. Personally, I believe the body can die, but consciousness cannot...so we are already immortal, we just have to re-member it.

All I meant...more people living longer will consume more for longer time and add stress to an already stressed planet. Immortality is always theoretical, forever is a really long time.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#17

Post by abstractbill » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:24 PM UTC

yesbabyyes wrote: post #15

Death cleans out old ideas. I have a hard time getting over the feeling that an older civilization is also more conservative. Especially a civilization where the people with money and power are the ones who are older. "Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM

It's possible that older people are more conservative because they are going to die sooner. If everyone was suddenly immortal, old people might start acting quite differently.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#18

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:25 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #13

[deleted] wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> Luckily, there is no need to convince anyone at all, except maybe to get research grants (but the true purpose of those can always be disguised as ethically clean basic medical research). There would be many orders of magnitude more funding for life-extension research if most people wanted it. In fact, probably 90% of our health funding would be devoted to it. So I think it is a very bad thing that people generally…

[deleted]

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#19

Post by nextparadigms » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:29 PM UTC

rblion wrote: post #4

My name means Immortal in Sanskrit. :) If no one ever died, the world would overpopulate even faster. Death makes life possible. Death clears the old to make way for the new. In Hinduism and Buddhism, accepting death is a part of the path to enlightenment. Personally, I believe the body can die, but consciousness cannot...so we are already immortal, we just have to re-member it.

If we were immortal, the need to "extend" ourselves through kids would also decrease dramatically. People (especially women) feel the need to have a kid after a certain age because they are afraid they will be too old if they do it too late. If you lived 1000 years, would you still be in a hurry to have a kid at 30? It's a natural instinct for humans to want to pass their genes to someone else before they approach death (and leave enough time to care for them, too).

Also, about a century ago people thought we would face terrible overpopulation by now, due to limited ground space for buildings homes. That's before we learned we could make apartment buildings.

Don't think of the future 100 years from now, with the eyes from 2011. You don't know what conditions might be created by then to allow for increased population. Humans tend to find solutions for everything, especially when approaching a huge crisis.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#20

Post by tapp » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:30 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #13

[deleted] wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> Luckily, there is no need to convince anyone at all, except maybe to get research grants (but the true purpose of those can always be disguised as ethically clean basic medical research). There would be many orders of magnitude more funding for life-extension research if most people wanted it. In fact, probably 90% of our health funding would be devoted to it. So I think it is a very bad thing that people generally…

Exactly so.

The primary killers in the Western world are cancer and heart disease, and very few people argue with the billions of dollars in annual funding that these diseases receive.

What is often overlooked is that these are both fundamentally diseases of aging. Research in to retarding aging could easily have the highest ROI (where R is measured in the addition of years of healthy lifespan) of any avenue of research, yet it receives almost none because of societal bias that views it as fringe.