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Arguing for Immortality

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Re: Arguing for Immortality

#41

Post by michaelchisari »

rfrey wrote: post #40
michaelchisari wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And where do you think technology and resource creation and allocation will be in 750 years?

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#42

Post by pjscott »

lukeschlather wrote: post #21
droz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Brave New World , contraceptive implants are mandatory, and there's a huge stigma around /not/ having an abortion. The stigma around childbirth is a little scary to think about. But all things considered, I think that a society would adapt to limit births by some means if we achieved clinical immortality. And there are plenty of means to limit birth without stopping sex. Just asking people to sterilize themselves…

It's also usually possible to reverse some forms of sterilization. Vasectomy reversal, for example, has a high success rate and is minimally invasive.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#43

Post by pjscott »

delinquentme wrote: post #24

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

Incidentally, even partial progress within our current life expectancies can extend our lifetimes, perhaps enough for more progress to be made which will extend our lifetimes more, and so on. This gives longevity research more runway, which is nice.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#44

Post by pavel_lishin »

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…

Talking about the extremes of things - such as this - is a useful way of thinking about the subject.

After all, physicists posit perfectly spherical cows in a vacuum, why can't we posit something at the end of the spectrum of possibility?

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#45

Post by pavel_lishin »

akanet wrote: post #30
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 reasoning is that if I can convince someone that even unrealistic immortality is desirable, the rest falls into place. Realistic immortality is also sort of more boring to argue about. Sorry, please don't hate me.

> Realistic immortality is also sort of more boring to argue about.

Not necessarily. People seem to find talking about health care rewarding in some way, and that falls in the immortality discussion spectrum, I think.

> Sorry, please don't hate me.

You're going to make an awful immortal if you spend eternity worrying whether people will hate you or not.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#46

Post by Helianthus »

orangecat wrote: post #26
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

Once again I defer to an alternate version of Harry Potter: "Uh huh," Harry said. "See, there's this little thing called cognitive dissonance , or in plainer English, sour grapes . If people were hit on the heads with truncheons once a month, and no one could do anything about it, pretty soon there'd be all sorts of philosophers, pretending to be wise as you put it, who found all sorts of amazing benefits to being hi…

the thing about Eliezer's rather snide take on cognitive dissonance is it doesn't really address the issue at hand.

people dying does clear out old ideas. the leopard doesn't change his shorts.

or at the very _least_ you could make an argument that people can be changed, that old hard-line racists can be won over, instead of claiming that any idiot who thinks immortality might have its seamy side is just displaying 'cognitive dissonance.'

labeling arguments 'cognitive dissonance' ought to be a fallacy all its own. it says "I won't tell you what arguments defeat your argument; you're just being irrational."

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#47

Post by pavel_lishin »

presidentender wrote: post #11

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 th…

Have you considered that perhaps you're simply smarter than your grandfather and great-grandfather, regardless of the Flynn effect?

Ancient history is full of geniuses - and that's people that had the opportunity to use their minds. I'm willing to be a thousand Einstein-equivalents died every year as slaves on galleys, thralls on a farm, and footmen in war. The Flynn effect is still pretty new - it might only hold for recent times.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#48

Post by SkyMarshal »

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'm pretty sure the benefits would outweigh any perceived drawbacks:

1. Like elves in Tolkien's works, people who can only die by disease or by being slain might be much more careful about starting wars that could kill them (politicians probably wouldn't, but those who have to do the fighting might).

2. Imagine a world where the Einsteins, Hawkings, etc. don't die just as they've come to master their field, but continue contributing for centuries.

3. Would the saying "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" still hold? Would we keep making many of the same mistakes over and over, or would our longer term memory and experience allow us to better avoid them?

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#49

Post by repsilat »

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…

> So you start talking with them about realistic, scientifically achievable, immortality, and you end up answering arguments against mandatory immortality. WTH?

In a society in which life-extending practices are widespread and accepted, an intentional "failure to take your medication" could be tantamount to suicide. Most governments don't currently support a person's right to choose to die, often acting to prevent suicide and (admittedly, inconsistently) bringing legal prosecution for the performance of euthanasia.

Granted, it isn't the same thing, but it suggests that consideration of "fantastic immortality" might bring insight into the ramifications of more realistic life-extending procedures.

Re: Arguing for Immortality

#50

Post by SkyMarshal »

Helianthus wrote: post #46
orangecat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again I defer to an alternate version of Harry Potter: "Uh huh," Harry said. "See, there's this little thing called cognitive dissonance , or in plainer English, sour grapes . If people were hit on the heads with truncheons once a month, and no one could do anything about it, pretty soon there'd be all sorts of philosophers, pretending to be wise as you put it, who found all sorts of amazing benefits to being hi…

the thing about Eliezer's rather snide take on cognitive dissonance is it doesn't really address the issue at hand. people dying does clear out old ideas. the leopard doesn't change his shorts. or at the very _least_ you could make an argument that people can be changed, that old hard-line racists can be won over, instead of claiming that any idiot who thinks immortality might have its seamy side is just displaying '…

>people dying does clear out old ideas. the leopard doesn't change his shorts.

First, that's not necessarily true. Old ideas persist across generations even today. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, etc. etc.

Second, new ideas are not necessarily valuable anyway. Having just moved to the SF Bay Area, let new age religions and whatnot be exhibit #1. There's something to be said for passing the test of time.

Third, your implicit assumption is that immortality would then prevent old ideas from being cleared out, which is not necessarily the case. The reason why older people 'cling' to old ideas is that as we age our neural pathways become calcified along current paths and connections, making it more difficult to change our minds about something. If aging were inhibited, presumably that problem would be one of the ones solved as well, so people's minds would remain as agile and flexible as they were in young adulthood, indefinitely, and hence able to change and adapt new ideas.

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