Arguing for Immortality • Hacker News Board

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#31

Post by yters » Tue, May 03, 2011, 11:59 PM UTC

Isn't immortality physically impossible due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics?

Sure, we can live for a much, much longer time. But, "long" is relative, mostly based on what we expect. I.e. now we believe living 80 years is a long time, whereas centuries ago 40 may have seemed a long time.

What I'm saying is that surviving until heat death may seem long now, but that's only because it is currently impossible. Such "immortality" may seem very short if we could actually do it.

A similar situation is people who always complain they don't have enough money no matter how much they make.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#32

Post by mannicken » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:00 AM UTC

Death and life are fluid points, not black-and-white absolutes as some like to see them.

Then only thing that could distinguish me from a rock is self-awareness.

One can argue that self-awareness is enjoyable but he is merely repeating words of gurus who achieved self-awareness. Without the slightest realization of what they are actually saying. In reality, self-awareness requires introspective meditation and there is nothing harder than to sit still for long periods of time without external stimuli. Just like it's easier to code in VB than to subject yourself to abstract concepts of LISP.

Most people who consider themselves "alive" are more like imperative biocomputers, programmed for a specific task by educational system. One part of their programming is repeating to everyone "I'm alive". I'm sorry, but most people are coded in Visual Basic whereas only some in LISP.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#33

Post by michaelchisari » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:00 AM 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

I have a hard time getting over the feeling that an older civilization is also more conservative.

I'd assume most conservatism would die with the generation which rejects longevity. Those who embrace it are more likely to be interested in human progress and advancement.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#34

Post by orangecat » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:08 AM UTC

tapp wrote: post #20

jessriedel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 resea…

Yes. Also consider that the long-term fiscal crisis in the US is due almost entirely to promised Medicare and Social Security benefits, which are required because the elderly generally can't be as economically productive and are expensive to keep alive. Cure aging, and the need for those programs is greatly reduced.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#35

Post by geoffc » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:08 AM UTC

Meh, live hard, have fun and then die so the next generation has their turn.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#36

Post by zizee » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:29 AM UTC

akanet wrote: post #10

rfrey wrote: post #6

I don't consider myself a Mathusian... in fact I regularly use him as a strawman/punching bag when I'm flexing my poli-sci historical muscles over beer. But the experiment has never been conducted with an immortal population, either, and his dire predictions seem a bit weightier with a bunch of 750-year-olds running around.

I chose not to address societal implications of immortality not because they're not fascinating or relevant, but because people's immediate objections almost never have to do with "what happens to everyone else?" That said I think the population will definitely level out when people realize they have literally forever to have kids and that infinite children are actually a total pain in the ass to care for.

Well, you could also let people choose between the two options: 1. Live forever + not allowed to have kids 2. Have kids and you are not allowed the wonder drug

Of course, since I have already had kids I would want there to be an amnesty :-)

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#37

Post by D_Alex » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:38 AM UTC

delinquentme wrote: post #24

the big question: " Do we believe this to happen eventually" ... if so, why not within our lifetimes?

"Why not within our lifetimes"

As things stand right now:

1. Funding for science is appallingly low 2. Many of the best minds go into banking, management consulting and law

Making this happen within our lifetimes needs prompt ACTION.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#38

Post by reasonattlm » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:38 AM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #28

I noticed a lot of people confuse "realistic" immortality (which is presumably achievable through advances in medicine, but does not imply an infinite life span - only a very very long one and the absence of mortal disease) with forced (mandatory) immortality (which means you are sentenced to live forever, you can't die no matter what you do). I am perpetually surprised how few people realize that only the first kind…

My take:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/05/merits-of-the-gun...

"Even discussion of the platonic ideal of immortality is, I think, useful provocation against the backdrop of advancing biotechnology that will be able to extend the human lifespan significantly in decades to come. Those advances won't happen by themselves: people need to work on them, support them, and demand them. An economy of longevity-enhancing biotechnology must arise, and for that there needs to be - at a minimum - a whole lot more people talking and thinking about the prospects."

Whatever sins are committed in the post are absolved by merit of generating a Hacker News discussion in which people are once again reminded that the biotechnology train is coming - and the opportunities it presents are immense.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#39

Post by reasonattlm » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:40 AM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #6

I don't consider myself a Mathusian... in fact I regularly use him as a strawman/punching bag when I'm flexing my poli-sci historical muscles over beer. But the experiment has never been conducted with an immortal population, either, and his dire predictions seem a bit weightier with a bunch of 750-year-olds running around.

There are people modeling the demographics in a rigorous way, however:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20426616

"A common objection against starting a large-scale biomedical war on aging is the fear of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation). This fear is only exacerbated by the fact that no detailed demographic projections for radical life extension scenario have been conducted so far. This study explores different demographic scenarios and population projections, in order to clarify what could be the demographic consequences of a successful biomedical war on aging. A general conclusion of this study is that population changes are surprisingly slow in their response to a dramatic life extension. For example, we applied the cohort-component method of population projections to 2005 Swedish population for several scenarios of life extension and a fertility schedule observed in 2005. Even for very long 100-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 60), the total population increases by 22% only (from 9.1 to 11.0 million). Moreover, if some members of society reject to use new anti-aging technologies for some religious or any other reasons (inconvenience, non-compliance, fear of side effects, costs, etc.), then the total population size may even decrease over time. Thus, even in the case of the most radical life extension scenario, population growth could be relatively slow and may not necessarily lead to overpopulation. Therefore, the real concerns should be placed not on the threat of catastrophic population consequences (overpopulation), but rather on such potential obstacles to a success of biomedical war on aging, as scientific, organizational, and financial limitations."

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#40

Post by rfrey » Wed, May 04, 2011, 12:54 AM UTC

michaelchisari wrote: post #8

rfrey wrote: post #6

I don't consider myself a Mathusian... in fact I regularly use him as a strawman/punching bag when I'm flexing my poli-sci historical muscles over beer. But the experiment has never been conducted with an immortal population, either, and his dire predictions seem a bit weightier with a bunch of 750-year-olds running around.

his dire predictions seem a bit weightier with a bunch of 750-year-olds running around. Not if those 750 year olds are in no hurry to have kids.

They wouldn't have to be in a hurry, they'd just have to be interested - if everybody has one kid at 150 years old, that's still 50% population growth per year when it stabilizes.

It's certainly possible that much of the impetus driving us to want children stems from our own mortality, so maybe many people wouldn't want kids after long life became the norm. Or, maybe the psychological imperative would decline enough that some sort of lottery system would actually be acceptable.