Thread: Bull? or reality, what do you think

Your body lives on but your mind and soul travel onward.

Ray Kurzweil is a joke. He's been making these far-fetched predictions for long enough now that it's a wonder anybody imputes an ounce of credibility to him. He has a TED talk you can look up from 2005 where he predicted in no uncertain terms that by 2010, we would be directly interfacing with computers, Matrix-style. I guess we're in for some huge technological leaps this December.

Do I think it's possible? yes. However, there's going to be a problem. Thousands of years gives a lot of room for error. Not only that, I doubt it'll happen by 2050 even. The experts gain a lot of publicity by saying they'll have it done soon so that everyone alive now can live forever. It also makes others want to fund it better.

I expect that, with nanotechnology, we might see a jump of 50 - 75 years in the next 100 years at the most. I'm alright with that, I just wanna live to the next new century. I was too young to enjoy the last one.

But anyways, I see a lot of problems with nanobots. Like the fact that they could possibly short-circuit or break, clogging up your arteries. And I also question how they would indeed be able to repair anything. They'd need materials for that, right?

I don't think he's a joke. He's made a fair few predictions which seemed unlikely at the time but have ultimately come true. The predictions you reference are not even very far off (in fact most are coming to fruition), and again are actually impressive based on what resources he had at the time (iPhones would have amazed us back then). You can't expect him to get every date bang on when we're dealing with highly chaotic speculation about discrete inventions rather than perfect mathematical trends.

Personally I think the observation of exponentially decreasing lengths of time between equal technological increases is extremely sound historically. The amount to which you can extrapolate such a trend is up for debate, but certainly Moore's Law is holding, and knowledge into the workings of the mind itself are progressing at a blistering rate... if it is possible to actually understand precisely how the neural code functions, and if it is then possible to program something with some degree of metacognition and degree of control over its own thought processes, then I don't really see any end in sight. Those are two big ifs there, but I haven't heard any argument as to why they should be insurmountable.

I think that ultimately a lot of the things he forecasts (but not all) will eventually come true, sure. But a forecast is only useful to the extent that it gives us an accurate, quantifiable degree of (un)certainty about which events will occur and when they will occur. The problem with Kurzweil's forecasts is that he refuses to acknowledge the necessary degree of uncertainty inherent in any forecast. "This is what will happen, and this is when it will happen... trust me, I'm a futurist!"

Kurzweil's forecasts are not at all useful because he doesn't seem to understand that the farther you extrapolate into the future and the more specific are the events that you're forecasting, your degree of certainty most necessarily diminish rapidly. This very basic statistical fact has no doubt been pointed out to him countless times, but he consistently ignores it and insists on issuing wildly sensational and overconfident claims about what the future will be like. Maybe the predictions will come true and maybe they won't, but there is certainly no reason to believe they're any more likely because Kurzweil has predicted them -- he's much more worried about hype than accuracy, and as such he deserves to be disregarded.

I think that's fair enough, you can't stick by exact dates at all in futurology; the best you can do is make a rational, provisional guess for a wide time window. But despite this flaw I still respect Kurzweil for his general insight into the trend.

Omg recently i watched a movie called the suggorates <- not to sure on the spelling.
And its the future and everyone has suggorate ( robot ) you can change the features on how you want to look.
its sorta scary... to think that maybe one day the world will end up like that?
well i suggest you watch the movie

Some good points DuB and Xei. As we know, even extrapolating on the timescale of a few years can be very tricky due to technological breakthroughs or the next paradigm shift (or even unforeseen difficulties). So I'd agree with DuB that comments like "by 2020 X will happen" are fairly useless unless taken as a very loose approximation of current trends.

But as a general indicator of where technology is heading, it's very interesting and I would say it has some value.

One other thing. Moore's law (for example) is sort of self-fulfilling up to a point because it sets the goal for the next milestone, which causes a lot of R&D on meeting this criteria.

sounds pretty cool, but it could provide future problems... like overpopulation? Think about it. No one dies, and people make MORE babies because everyone is super hot... Unless they have some kind of super birth control. Still, people would want kids.
also, only if it de-ages you, because i don't want for it to come out when I am old, then live as an old man forever.

For your consideration, I think Dr. Aubrey deGrey is one of the leading authorities and thinkers on this topic - and he's also a fun speaker in my humble opinion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iYpxRXlboQ

I personally agree with him in that I don't know whether I want to live to be 200; I don't and cannot have the wisdom at this moment to know whether I really want to live that long. Yet I do know that I want to have that option come my 199th birthday!

I also believe that everyone should have the choice as to what they want to do about this. If someone wants to die at an age considered natural by today's standards, that's their choice and they're welcome to it in my opinion. That said, I don't think anyone has the right to impose death on others based on the idea that death is better than life for them under thus-and-such circumstances. No matter how one rationalizes it, choosing for someone else to die against his or her will is murder.

I do acknowledge that overpopulation is a problem that dearly needs a solution. However, not only do I (and deGrey) find overpopulation as an argument for keeping humans mortal morally deplorable, but it's also mathematically unsound. Because human population growth is exponential and depends on the number of children produced per unit time, the mortality rate only affects a constant in population growth. In other words, mortality just delays the problem and does nothing to solve it. The only way mortality could solve the problem of overpopulation is if someone died for every birth. If there was even one birth in excess of worldwide deaths per year, the problem would still be here.

Originally Posted by Morphenius

I do acknowledge that overpopulation is a problem that dearly needs a solution. However, not only do I (and deGrey) find overpopulation as an argument for keeping humans mortal morally deplorable, but it's also mathematically unsound. Because human population growth is exponential and depends on the number of children produced per unit time, the mortality rate only affects a constant in population growth. In other words, mortality just delays the problem and does nothing to solve it. The only way mortality could solve the problem of overpopulation is if someone died for every birth. If there was even one birth in excess of worldwide deaths per year, the problem would still be here.

Mortality is a solution for overpopulation actually. If more people die than are born, then population goes down.

Western Europe and Japan, they have negative population growth. That is, more people are dying than being born. I think this is called a Stage 5 nation where there is no natural population increase.

Immortality would only exacerbate the problems associated with overpopulation, especially if it was attainable by a large segment of societies with positive growth.

Originally Posted by Soros

Mortality is a solution for overpopulation actually. If more people die than are born, then population goes down.

Technically, yes. If the constant is large enough, it can overwhelm exponential growth.

However, in practice this simply isn't useful. We have nowhere near 1+ death for each birth on average worldwide. In fact, the ratio of births to deaths is close to 2:1. There are roughly 350,000 births per day and roughly 160,000 deaths per day. Since old-style mortality simply isn't killing us fast enough, we'd have to resort to more active means of killing people in order to pause population growth.

Originally Posted by Soros

Western Europe and Japan, they have negative population growth. That is, more people are dying than being born. I think this is called a Stage 5 nation where there is no natural population increase.

I've heard that, too. I'm pretty sure this comes from decreasing the number of births, not from increasing the number of deaths. In fact, I daresay that the death rate is lower in Western Europe and Japan than in the developing world.

Originally Posted by Soros

Immortality would only exacerbate the problems associated with overpopulation, especially if it was attainable by a large segment of societies with positive growth.

Again, the main factor that decides the rate of population growth is the number of births, not the number of deaths. This is because births generally yield more births, but deaths generally don't yield more deaths. Mathematically, this means that unless the number of births gets very, very close to the number of deaths, the population growth rate will be exponential. That's the core problem with overpopulation: exponential growth is too fast for any kind of resource-development we currently can conceive of. It's not that we have too many people now; it's that eventually there will be widespread suffering and death to balance out our growth if we don't find a way to curb it.

Because of that, if you stopped all aging-related death everywhere right now (roughly 100,000 people a day on average, or roughly one death per second on average), all you will have done is accelerated the effective growth rate. We'd be increasing our population at a speed comparable to what we'd do anyway in about ten years, if I remember the calculations correctly. Yes, it accelerates the problem, but it would end horrific suffering for tens of thousands of people every single day.

Besides, failing to stop aging if we could would not do anything whatsoever to rectify the population growth problem. It just means we'd have longer to wait and suffer more before the overpopulation problem really comes to a head.

And once again, I maintain that choosing for someone to die against their will is murder. It doesn't matter how common the method of death is; if we have a way of stopping it and the person wants his or her life saved, I think we're morally obliged to help that person live.

Thanks for explaining Morphenius

I realize my mistake now. I overlooked the importance of deaths rather than births which is kinda stupid.

I would argue with your point on the notion of it being immoral to prevent a person from having immortality, but i have to agree with you there again because i can't logically defend that.

But on a similar issue, do you think it would rob future generations of the right to live if we stopped all aging related deaths and had some sort of "immortality"?

Imagine if the whole worlds population stopped dying (due to factors like disease and old age not accidents like plane crashes or car wrecks).

We would be robbing future generations of humans from the chance to enjoy living as we did.

If the world can only support so many people, then as the amount of people not dying increases the amount of new people born can only increase so much;in effect preventing what would have been millions of other humans from being born because people are no longer dying.

Doesn't that seem in a way greedy at all?

here is a solution. Inability to reproduce could come along with the immortality. Like super birth control.

Originally Posted by sheogorath

here is a solution. Inability to reproduce could come along with the immortality. Like super birth control.

Yeah, I had a similar idea. Eternity is a really long time. So, why not just make it so people only breed once every 100 years or so? People still get children, but at a sustainable rate.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Yeah, I had a similar idea. Eternity is a really long time. So, why not just make it so people only breed once every 100 years or so? People still get children, but at a sustainable rate.

Why bother with children at all when we have computers with consciousness?

Originally Posted by Soros

Thanks for explaining Morphenius

You're very welcome!

Originally Posted by Soros

I would argue with your point on the notion of it being immoral to prevent a person from having immortality, but i have to agree with you there again because i can't logically defend that.

I have a lot of respect for that position. If you discover the reason for your inclination to disagree, I would love to hear it. I'm always open to having my mind changed.

Originally Posted by Soros

But on a similar issue, do you think it would rob future generations of the right to live if we stopped all aging related deaths and had some sort of "immortality"?

Imagine if the whole worlds population stopped dying (due to factors like disease and old age not accidents like plane crashes or car wrecks).

We would be robbing future generations of humans from the chance to enjoy living as we did.

If the world can only support so many people, then as the amount of people not dying increases the amount of new people born can only increase so much;in effect preventing what would have been millions of other humans from being born because people are no longer dying.

Doesn't that seem in a way greedy at all?

Hmm... I don't know. I think this dives into unknown areas such as the question of whether the soul exists and, if so, when they start existing. I don't think that people who currently don't exist have any rights at all, and I certainly think that people who are currently alive should not have to suffer and die just to make room for those who cannot even experience just yet. But if there is a sort of queue of souls waiting for their chance at life (e.g. dead people waiting to be reincarnated, if such a thing occurs), then I would think this is a valid concern.

So I suppose this issue comes down to a matter of one's personal beliefs about the nature of the soul, unless and until we find some empirical way of answering the question of where consciousness comes from.

I personally suspect that individual consciousness comes from our having physical bodies, and therefore people who have not even been conceived cannot suffer from their lack of opportunity to exist. So I don't think we do them a disservice by choosing to continue to exist in a way that prevents their existence.

That said, we would miss out to some degree on their perspectives. Every person brings something new to the world, and I think that if we were to never have any new lives start then that would be a terrible loss for our species.

But I don't think the rights of the not-yet-extant supercede the rights of the living, and I rather suspect that the not-yet-conceived simply do not exist.

However, I really don't know for sure. If we somehow discover how life occurs and we find out that there are souls that enter infants at some point when or after their conceived, then I'd think this is a valid objection to immortality. I'd still maintain that it's not right to force people to die against their will either, though, so I have to admit that it would severely complicate the question of whether immortality is moral to achieve. That really would be a powerful moral dilemma. The only solution I can see to it would be to do our best to grant everyone freedom from aging, but require that someone volunteer to die in order for a new birth to be permitted. I'm not convinced that's the best answer, though. Honestly, I had never reflected on it before!

Thank you for giving me a good challenge. It's a pleasure to speak with intelligent, open-minded people.

Originally Posted by sheogorath

here is a solution. Inability to reproduce could come along with the immortality. Like super birth control.

That's certainly a solution. Another variation of it would be to require that someone volunteer to die before licensing someone to give birth once. I think the human spirit is such that many people would lay down their lives to give others an opportunity to raise a family. You might also add factors such as allowing the person who volunteered his or her death to see the child grow to adulthood before passing on. It's a painful thing to have to set up, but I admittedly can't think of something better that would still allow an immortal society to have children and yet be sustainable.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Yeah, I had a similar idea. Eternity is a really long time. So, why not just make it so people only breed once every 100 years or so? People still get children, but at a sustainable rate.

The problem is that if true immortals have children at any rate whatsoever, their population growth will still be exponential. Requiring that children occur only once every century or so will just make the exponential growth take longer to become truly dangerous.

The only way I can think of to keep populations sustainable is to make the birth and death rates exactly equal. If there is no death rate whatsoever, then we must eliminate all births. If we allow births, then some people have to die. I just don't see another way around it - which, admittedly, may well be nothing more than an expression of how limited my creativity is here!

Originally Posted by Sandform

Why bother with children at all when we have computers with consciousness?

Because we derive great pleasure from children. It's part of who we are as biological beings. Creating a computer with consciousness simply wouldn't be as satisfying as participating in the miracle of bringing a child into this world.

That said, we might be able to change our feelings on this matter. This would have the effect of allowing us to bring the birth rate to zero without causing suffering.

I must admit, though, that something about that approach just feels ghastly to me.

After reading this whole thread, i feel the need to remember all of you that...
No one can cheat death.
I do belive we might achieve an eternal life span, but people would still be dieing. Well, that's what i belive.

No dude we can cheat death, immortality actualy exists on earth currently.

There is a jellyfish called Turritopsis nutricula that is biologicaly immortal, as in it will survive forever in suitable conditions. The jellyfish does this by reverting to the polyp state (an early stage of life for a jellyfish) when it reaches the age that most jellyfish would die.

So imagine an old man turning back into a baby, becoming old again, reverting back to a baby and continuing this cycle indefinitly. I know that advances in technology won't turn an old man back into a baby but you got to admit, thats pretty cool.

If you wanna read about it: http://8e.devbio.com/preview_article.php?ch=2&id=6

Keep in mind that aging is genetic, and we have the ability to manipulate genetic materials...just saying. We're closer than you think.

I read about this in Popular Science... I think that it's probably inevitable (prolonged/potentially "eternal" life), not necessarily by nanobots but at least by some future innovation.

But then again, Kurzweil is the guy who thinks that within 30 years we're going to be able to upload our consciousnesses to hard drives in the form of digital data.....

I think it's going to happen, but if given the oppurtunity I probably would not do it. Aging is part of being human... staying looking the same artificially for years and years and FOREVER... the thought of that actually horrifies me.

I wouldn't mind prolonging my life for a while, but I don't want to live for thousands of years or "forever," at some point I want to die and see what's beyond (atheists and religious, both of you please be quiet, this isn't an oppurtunity for you guys to argue).


@Evercy: that's amazing! Thank you so much for posting that


Oh, and...

Originally Posted by oniman7

But anyways, I see a lot of problems with nanobots. Like the fact that they could possibly short-circuit or break, clogging up your arteries. And I also question how they would indeed be able to repair anything. They'd need materials for that, right?

Oh sweet Jesus, now we're getting into the possibility of technological singularity and that's one ugly motherf***er.

Originally Posted by WakataDreamer

I read about this in Popular Science... I think that it's probably inevitable (prolonged/potentially "eternal" life), not necessarily by nanobots but at least by some future innovation.

But then again, Kurzweil is the guy who thinks that within 30 years we're going to be able to upload our consciousnesses to hard drives in the form of digital data.....

I think it's going to happen, but if given the oppurtunity I probably would not do it. Aging is part of being human... staying looking the same artificially for years and years and FOREVER... the thought of that actually horrifies me.

I wouldn't mind prolonging my life for a while, but I don't want to live for thousands of years or "forever," at some point I want to die and see what's beyond (atheists and religious, both of you please be quiet, this isn't an oppurtunity for you guys to argue).

Yeah, I could go for an eternity of bliss myself. I don't think it would be quite as bad as it sounds, really.

Assuming that all can be reduced to a physical cause, and that we can understand such reductions and their inverse, then there is no question of 'if', but only when.

As for the 2040 predictions: at this time, technology in itself may well have such capabilities, but advancements in technology inevitably comes with politics - if anything, this will setback 'public use'.

I suck at verbatim, but my thoughts on 'immortality' lay within this: 'a rose that never dies has never bloomed'. I would never want to habituate to life - we need contrast to live.