Can those living today live forever?

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Nope.

I don't profess to predict the future, beyond a few years, and those developments which are pretty well guaranteed. After that, it's anyone's guess where we go. You adhere to the past.

You are right, that's also a possible case, but I'd like to believe that the world is not following such a 'rule' and there is some randomness, otherwise our existence is kinda pointless.

Ah... Pal? [personal comment removed by lau] You take the point that because my view just so happens to be one you don't regard as noble, it's automatically primitive?
Well, excuse me for not being up to your high and mighty standards, O great and benevolent provider to the incapable! Your grasp of cultural dynamics is one peculiar.
Why delete my above comment, at that? Bah. You're type gives me cancer...

There's a way I've been thinking about for a while that might be possible with current technology, and accessible to people who aren't billionaires. It does depend on several contitions that won't be met for everyone, but why couldn't this work?

Assume you are retired and have sufficient resources to meet your basic needs and also to maintin Internet access. Assume also that you know how to program.

Find a group of people in a similar position, and set up a virtual world, a kind of 'Second Life' sort of thing. Move into it. That is, make it your primary and ultimately sole source of social contact. Then start to build more and more functionality into your avatars. Assume that at least most of the group don't die suddenly, but enter some kind of slow, progressive decline as they age. That's not guaranteed, of course, but it could happen. You, the biological you, and your avatar are partners in maintining your online life, and over time the avatar comes to be the senior partner, making more and more of the decisions with less and less input from your biologial brain.

When your biological brain dies, I would claim that "you" have survived, albeit with severly diminished capacity. There's no break in continuity. A barely contributing member of the partnership you have become ceases to contribute at all. Not that much changes.

Eventually, all the members of the original group have become their avatars, but new people have joined to keep the thing going. They might, if they like you, provide you with upgrades and eventually, when state-of-the-art AI reaches the human level, you're "cured."

There's even a traditional precedent for this sort of thing. It's rather close to the ancient Egyptian concept of immortality, as I understand it. You created a replica of your mortal life, making it as vivid and complete as possible, and relied on the living to keep it 'activated' with rituals and offerings. Perhaps, in a sense, it 'worked', but we could do the same thing much better.

Interesting thought, Rowan. Doesn't appeal to me, though. I prefer to regard the direct consciousness as life, rather than include extensions of that consciousness. Damn me, though, I can't remember the word to describe the differences in the concepts.

In I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter describes how he feels we already do this.

When his wife died suddenly, he came to realise that he was still carrying a extensive model of her within himself. In effect, she still lived on, not only in his brain, but in various other brains, although her original vehicle (which itself had had a model of Douglas in it) was no longer present.

Ishmael said:

I am working on this too but fully aware that by myself I will be unlikely to prolong my life
indefinitely before it would "naturally" end. I am absolutely certain of the possibility of
me living 700 years. I would be very interested in your practical science. BUT ... I don't
think it reasonable to assume that if we succeeded that we'd make it to the year 3000.

The idea of indefinite lifespan is absolutely morally neutral to me.

Religious objections based on not meeting God seem absurd, because I will meet him
as surely at 700 years as if I lived one day. Compared to eternity, 700 years and a day
are the same thing. I will refer Religious Objectors to Genesis, wherein Methuselah died
on the day of Noah's Flood at the age of 969!

For any other religious moral objections I assure you that a devil has often said this:
"YOU ARE GOING TO DIE ANYWAY, SO HOW ABOUT TODAY?" - SATAN
I testify of this, and suicidal people have also mentioned hearing these same words!
Knowing that devil is an intrinsic liar, I speculate that times of longevity are very near!

Guess I'm one of these intrinsically mad people that will do everything for immortality.

That whole business about death didn't sound like anything I'd willingly accept more than 15 years ago and neither does it.

What should I do or accept? World domination, everything being killed and dead, selling my (does it exist? I am a spiritual person) soul or body to the king of devils that walks earth, each sacrifice, I'm still in for it. Quite a risk in many aspects to go with your desires, but at last I can say I'm committed.

But with the years, I fear my willingness diminishes. Not yet, but I can play the events that will eventually lead to that in my mind colourful and vividly.

The closer you come in touch with people, the less you are ready to part with their limitations. I wonder if that may just turn out to be something powerful and enabling all the same.

Ishmael: I understand where you're coming from. I used to hang out with a group of hardcore transhumanist/immortalist Alcor folks. I wish them and you well and hope it works. For my part, though, I'm too drawn to ambiguity and liminal spaces. Given the choice of remaining myself forever and becoming a really interesting question, I'd choose the latter.

Lau: Ironic, isn't it, that DH worked out his theory through conversations with Dan Dennett.
When I tried to read Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" and got to the point where he compared a belief in "qualia" to a belief in "true love" that any sophisticated person would reject I threw the book across the room and wouldn't touch it again. But could anything better demonstrate the reality of true love than DH's concept of his wife's afterlife?

Last edited by Rowan on 05 Oct 2008, 3:13 pm, edited 4 times in total.

If eternal life involves making a Faustian bargain, I am not interested.

Is the universe finite?

I said that the devil is advocating death, NOT long life!

I did not say that God forbids long life, I attempted to say he is all for it. JOHN 3:16 example.

I also said that it is a religious sin to be against long life.

At least that's what I meant to say.

LOL question. Any answer will do. THE universe is ONE universe, therefore it is finite.

Last edited by ValMikeSmith on 05 Oct 2008, 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

slowmutant Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:29 am Post subject:
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If eternal life involves making a Faustian bargain, I am not interested.


Whose Faust? Marlowe's came to a bad end, but Goethe's triumphed over God and the Devil both in the end.

Ah, damn it, lau! Look, if you're going to call my thoughts archaic, at least man up enough to keep my posts intact! I'm gettin' sick of it!

Slowmutant said:

I thought he was a Christian. Aren't all Christians interested in eternal life?

I did not mean to say anything about making a deal with the devil. Misinterpretation.

EDIT:
OH!

Sora said:


Forget about it, you can't get there from here. Just keep reading Harry Potter and stuff.

Christians are interested in an eternal life in heaven, not so much one as some grostesque physically immortal form.