14 replies to this topic

[brokenportal]

It seems to me there are about 8 things to want as an existing being imbued with intelligence.

To know:
- the nature of infinity
- if there is a god, gods, no god, or something else
- how we got here
- how the universe got here
- what all else is out there like hover ability, light speed, aliens, populated galaxies, dimensions or whatever there may be.
- to know the all forms and extents of all pleasures current and undiscovered.
- to fulfill all goals that time brings you to want, resteraunt owner, pro football, climbing mountains etc..
- universal elimination of fallacy (which causes a bunch of things, philosophy to work its self out, the best good for all etc..)

I cant think of any other concepts, is there anything else that could be added to this list? To me, the biggest pro ending aging arguement is the idea that not wanting to fight aging in the face of these things is insane.

Life Extension seems to me to be the end all philosophy. Its the key to all other philosophies. So in order to persue a philosophy it seems that one would by default need to be a life extensionist. Life Extension is the meaning of life.




See Aubreys Longevity Escape Velocity argument for optimism on acheiving indefinite life extension in our life times.

Edited by brokenportal, 14 August 2008 - 10:59 PM.

[kismet]

Doesn't philosophy ask "what is the meaning of life?" What if we find out there is no meaning to life (no god, no other life forms in the universe..)? Even immortality cannot definitely answer the question.

No, I think nihilism/relativism is the end all philosophy. Life Extension to me is just a life style, the best available lifestyle, because I prefer to live, but not a philosophy (it just adds to my views on life).

I'm interested in answering your questions by living forever (i.e. as long as possible), but I do not expect to find meaning in life.

[brokenportal]

I didnt mean end all, I couldnt think of the right words.

I mean that to find "thee" philosophy, the meaning of life, or, like you say, the non existence of the meaning of life, etc.. you have to first go through life extention. So in the mean time life extension has become the default meaning of life and philosophy.

I think, and of course I could be wrong, that once we all do get through this period and fix our portals into existence and cruise on into indefinity, that we will find that that list of things there is the meaning of life and philosophy of philosophies.

[Cyberbrain]

I think transhumanism, controlling our own evolution, will one day bring forth an all new manner of being conscious and will fundamentally alter our intelligence to such an advanced degree that we will begin to see the world and the future in ways we could never imagine today. So in a way life extension could be the embodiment of all philosophies, since there will be only one end.

[brokenportal]

To a list like that I would expect some people to say things like, "Well we would run out of goals, we would get sick of goals, there are only so many pleasures, not infinite supply of new ones, theres not much more out there, just dead planets, a few more gadgets and thats it, nothing to get excited about."

Your transhumanism point is the answer to that. I forgot about that. Its going to open things up in so many ways it will be unbeleivable. As youve heard probably they are already hot on the trail of things like hover ability, super low energy vehicles, invisibility etc... virtual reality will be virtually another dimension to explore, theres so much. Just saying transhumanism opens that window of limitlessness in peoples heads.

Interesting point about there being only one end. Since presently everybody dies in a different end, in a different kind of world with different things going on and they never have a chance to be a cohesive part of existence as a one, they have a need to make sense of all those different things in different forms of philosophies. Maybe all or most philosophies are fragments of one that can be seen as one only by having indefinite life extension so you can view them through your new cohesive perspective as such.

Some philosophies, like all metaphysical philosophies, (what do you call them? Etymology or something?) Will change from philosophies to questions to persue. Like the ones listed below, which I suggest may be the philosophy of philosophies and meaning of life.

To know:
- the nature of infinity
- if there is a god, gods, no god, or something else
- how we got here
- how the universe got here
- what all else is out there like hover ability, light speed, aliens, populated galaxies, dimensions or whatever there may be.
- to know the all forms and extents of all pleasures current and undiscovered.
- to fulfill all goals that time brings you to want, resteraunt owner, pro football, climbing mountains etc..
- universal elimination of fallacy (which causes a bunch of things, philosophy to work its self out, the best good for all etc..)

[kismet]

Yes, let's hope indefinite parallel universes are proven to exist when physics advances, because I don't know how there can be a meaning in a constricted (not indefinite) universe where everything is doomed to die from heat-death, neutron decay or eventually collapse.
Biology is not progress, just adaptation. Human life, well, wars and slaughter continue since day one. No progress whatsoever. So one is easily led to believe there is no meaning...

[TianZi]

This is a rather one-dimensional view of the role of philosophy in human society.

Philosophy's function is not only to provide meaning to an individual's life, but to provide guidance as to how a society should be governed, how each member of that society should interact with the other members, how they should interact with potentially competing societies, and how they should interact with the environment and planet upon which they live. After all, no man (or woman) is an island.

It may help us to answer some of these questions--e.g., society should act in a way that promotes a longer lifespan for all of its members, meaning fewer wars, more attention to the environment, etc.--but it doesn't begin to answer all the meta-level questions.

Edited by TianZi, 03 September 2008 - 10:05 AM.

[sumphilosopheô]

It seems to me there are about 8 things to want as an existing being imbued with intelligence.

To know:
- the nature of infinity
- if there is a god, gods, no god, or something else
- how we got here
- how the universe got here
- what all else is out there like hover ability, light speed, aliens, populated galaxies, dimensions or whatever there may be.
- to know the all forms and extents of all pleasures current and undiscovered.
- to fulfill all goals that time brings you to want, resteraunt owner, pro football, climbing mountains etc..
- universal elimination of fallacy (which causes a bunch of things, philosophy to work its self out, the best good for all etc..)

I cant think of any other concepts, is there anything else that could be added to this list? To me, the biggest pro ending aging arguement is the idea that not wanting to fight aging in the face of these things is insane.

Life Extension seems to me to be the end all philosophy. Its the key to all other philosophies. So in order to persue a philosophy it seems that one would by default need to be a life extensionist. Life Extension is the meaning of life.




See Aubreys Longevity Escape Velocity argument for optimism on acheiving indefinite life extension in our life times.

Even if we don't achieve indefinate life span we can most probably have prolonged life. More importantly the side effects of investing more and more time in being creative ( life-extension research included ) that is less time and resources on destruction. Our world view would be more towards being fair with eachother and getting along than causing suffering and death due to unenlightened self-centeredness. The more we create for ourselves the more we have to lose if we are rash and wreckless with eachother. This is already happening and has been happening even though things aint perfect. This would especially be true if we had more time to live....short-termism would be less of a problem.

"Short term thinking comes from guarenteed death within 120 years. If you knew you were going to die at the end of day today, I am sure you would live your life differently than you had otherwise planned. So really, aging / what most people see as a guarenteed death is the root cause" - Ghostrider

To me life-extension is important even if I cant live indefinately....humanities survival. We could very well destroy ourselves.

Still, I think there is decent odds that I will be alive to see technology that prolongs our life if not indefinately...

[Mind]

Human life, well, wars and slaughter continue since day one. No progress whatsoever. So one is easily led to believe there is no meaning...

Some would argue that there has been progress. Take a look at this TED talk by Steven Pinker. Deadly violence has decreased by at least an order of magnitude according to most records. Violence continues to this day but it is vastly less than in times past.

As far as Immortalism being the ultimate philosophy read Mark Geddes' essay in SCOD - An Introduction to Immortalist Morality.

An Introduction to Immortalist Morality "The desire for immortality is one of the deepest, most enduring dreams of humanity. But is it a noble dream? Advanced technologies such as Bio-tech, Nano-tech and Info-tech appear to hold great promise for extending human life spans and restoring youth at some point in the not-too-distant future. But even assuming that radical life extension is possible, some people find the idea disturbing..."

[advancedatheist]

It seems to me there are about 8 things to want as an existing being imbued with intelligence.

To know:
- the nature of infinity [etc.]

Actually, Bob Ettinger nailed our most important questions so far:

The real questions of existence are: "Why am I underpaid? Why am I underloved? Why do my feet hurt? Why am I under sentence of death, and what can I about it?"

[advancedatheist]

Human life, well, wars and slaughter continue since day one. No progress whatsoever. So one is easily led to believe there is no meaning...

Some would argue that there has been progress. Take a look at this TED talk by Steven Pinker. Deadly violence has decreased by at least an order of magnitude according to most records. Violence continues to this day but it is vastly less than in times past.

Private violence has also moved down the social scale. Ruling class alpha males used to fight duels to the death to resolve disputes about status, like in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Today in developed countries only lower-class males get into literal fights over matters of "honor."

[brokenportal]

Kismet, Im not sure there can be meaning in a universe that collapses either, so indeed lets hope we can find another dimension, or make our way to some far safe reach of the universe or back ourselves up in a "black box" that can survive a potential collapsed universe or something. Of course, thats probably not possible, but we cant be sure the universe condenses itself into a little ball periodically anyways. Ive always doubted that it does, but I guess that will be another of the good exciting reasons to stick around as the universe and existence is pioneered.

Sumphilosopheo, yes I agree, life extension fills in time and gives people something to do whereas they could be doing something much less productive, which people are prone to do when theres nothing out there in the open for them that’s positive to fight for. So lets bring this to them, give them the opportunity to join this team now. The world is dying to wake up to an opportunity like this, litterally and figuratively.

Tianzi, life extension does begin to provide the meta level answers because it provides the time to find them.

Mind, Mark Geddes may point out that some people may find life extension disturbing, but I know you as well as the rest of us don’t put much stock pro aging trancists who find people trying to stay out of their graves disturbing. To to the contrary, content to resign to the grave is the most disturbing of all.

I would argue that there has been a decrease in violence too. I would also argue like a lot of us would, that uniting the world to fight for life extension will come close to extinguishing all war. People work together when there is a common enemy. If you see some bloods and cryps battling in a hostile environment and a dam breaks in front of them, your going to see a blood tossing a sand bag to a cryp.

Advanced Atheist, Bob Ettinger may be right that those things are a basic question, but definently not the top priority if it were organized like say, Maslows Heirarchy of needs. You may be right about fighting being amongst mostly the lower class, though if I were to classify it I would say that these days its mostly amongst anybody at the bars.

[brokenportal]

Im going to start putting this list that some of us are calling "the big 8" in some official sorts of memeing projects being worked on. I read through Geddes paper and the peice on Ettingers ideas again, all the way through, last time I read the excerpts given and just barely skimmed the links.


Ettingers big 4 are these:

"Why are the laws of nature what they are? Why does the universe consist of the things it does? How did those things arise? How did the universe achieve its organization?"

I hadnt thought of or remembered through any past discussions the idea of adding "Why are the laws of nature they way they are?" I was thinking that may be a good addition we had over looked but upon more thought of it I realized that it fits into the question in the "big 8" of "how did the universe get here?" All four of them fit under that question, it seems to me. Any further thoughts on that? The list isnt meant to be really, mathematically precise to the bone. There is a little looseness to the list but over all I think those 8 serve a purpose. I could be wrong, but with out much discussion against this, and because of what I perceive as a need for a list like this Im moving forward with it.


Geddes kind of eludes to a list of main things to pursue but doesn’t go into it. I think that going into the list is crucial for helping meme in the trancists.

“MOTIVATION
What would motivate very long-lived people to continue
to strive to create new things and explore new realms? The
basic moral premise we have been talking about: the desire to
see life survive. This is an ongoing process: it is a journey not
a destination.”

“There will always be exciting new challenges
to face and it is precisely the quest for immortality that will
drive humanity to face them! This is all the more reason for
believing that the quest for immortality should indeed be the
ultimate moral imperative.”

“Tipler’s idea that life will one day have to spread across all
space and develop technology powerful enough to change the
structure of the universe is intriguing because it suggests that
the very fate of the universe is tied to the efforts of living
things to stay alive. If so, immortality could be said to be the
very ‘telos’ (end purpose) of the universe.”

This reminds me of the concepts of Victor E. Frankl’s book “Mans Search for Meaning” I think there is an important illustration to be made here for why a list like "the big 8" is needed.

Frankl lived in a German concentration camp for many years. The point of his book was that he found that the sickly, malnourished, bruised, battered, frost bitten, tortured, slave worked people that tended to live through to the end, where others in the same position died, were the ones that had an idea of something that gave them a sense of great meaning that they wanted to get back to. Something like a wife or a book or a project they were working on.

Agings grasp is like a concentration camp that we all live in. Geddes is right that we have a desire to see life survive, we are excited to face new challenges, and the very fate of the universe does indeed seem to be tied up with our efforts to stay alive.

Imagine if we were to tell these things to people in the German concentration camp. These encouraging concepts probably wont work because they are a bit to vague. Im sure there was plenty of encouragement in the camps. “Come on Tommy, pull through it, think about your desire for life and the exciting challenges that await you when the allies finally free us.”

Frankl explains that stuff like that didn’t work nearly as well as having a deeper sense of purpose did for those that tended to live through the camps. I think that a list like “the big 8” as some of us are calling it, is like that higher purpose that helped pull a lot of the people in German concentration camps through.

In other words, a lot of pro aging trancists don’t care to fight through our captor, “aging”, because they don’t see a higher purpose for which to do so. In fact come to think of it, if we did a poll I suspect we may find that most life extensionists probably have some kind of higher purpose they want to get to in the future. I think all of those things can be summed up as the big 8 and should be pushed and memed in for the purpose of converting more trancists faster. I could be wrong about all this though. What are your thoughts on this?

[AaronCW]

Kismet, Im not sure there can be meaning in a universe that collapses either, so indeed lets hope we can find another dimension, or make our way to some far safe reach of the universe or back ourselves up in a "black box" that can survive a potential collapsed universe or something. Of course, thats probably not possible, but we cant be sure the universe condenses itself into a little ball periodically anyways. Ive always doubted that it does, but I guess that will be another of the good exciting reasons to stick around as the universe and existence is pioneered.

Sumphilosopheo, yes I agree, life extension fills in time and gives people something to do whereas they could be doing something much less productive, which people are prone to do when theres nothing out there in the open for them that’s positive to fight for. So lets bring this to them, give them the opportunity to join this team now. The world is dying to wake up to an opportunity like this, litterally and figuratively.

Tianzi, life extension does begin to provide the meta level answers because it provides the time to find them.

Mind, Mark Geddes may point out that some people may find life extension disturbing, but I know you as well as the rest of us don’t put much stock pro aging trancists who find people trying to stay out of their graves disturbing. To to the contrary, content to resign to the grave is the most disturbing of all.

I would argue that there has been a decrease in violence too. I would also argue like a lot of us would, that uniting the world to fight for life extension will come close to extinguishing all war. People work together when there is a common enemy. If you see some bloods and cryps battling in a hostile environment and a dam breaks in front of them, your going to see a blood tossing a sand bag to a cryp.

Advanced Atheist, Bob Ettinger may be right that those things are a basic question, but definently not the top priority if it were organized like say, Maslows Heirarchy of needs. You may be right about fighting being amongst mostly the lower class, though if I were to classify it I would say that these days its mostly amongst anybody at the bars.

I agree with Tianzi, and I don't think that providing additional time to answer philosophical questions qualifies 'Immortalism' as a philosophy. I do personally subscribe to, or quite understand, the concept of Immortalism as being a philosophy at all, and it certainly does not address any of the issues that make philosophy a necessary part of life and culture. The essay "Introduction to Immortalist Morality" in SCOD suggests 'affirmation of life' as a basis for morality, which is not far off the mark in my opinion, but is not grounded in the context of what I would consider to be a philosophy. Philosophy answers questions of existence, knowledge, ethics, politics, and art. The lifespan of a person, or of all persons, does not change the answer to any of these questions; philosophy is no different to someone with a lifespan of 10 years or 1000 years, although someone with a 1000 year lifespan had better make a good effort to get it right if they expect to live it out. I will give consideration to the idea of radical life extension as being the 'ultimate moral imperative', but my conclusion would not alter my earlier statements.

Edited by AaronCW, 01 December 2008 - 03:58 AM.

[brokenportal]

I agree with Tianzi, and I don't think that providing additional time to answer philosophical questions qualifies 'Immortalism' as a philosophy. I do personally subscribe to, or quite understand, the concept of Immortalism as being a philosophy at all, and it certainly does not address any of the issues that make philosophy a necessary part of life and culture. The essay "Introduction to Immortalist Morality" in SCOD suggests 'affirmation of life' as a basis for morality, which is not far off the mark in my opinion, but is not grounded in the context of what I would consider to be a philosophy. Philosophy answers questions of existence, knowledge, ethics, politics, and art. The lifespan of a person, or of all persons, is not pertinent to these issues; philosophy is no different, nor more/less important to someone with a lifespan of 10 years or 1000 years (although someone with a 1000 year lifespan had better make a good effort to get it right if they expect to live it out).

I agree that providing additional time to answer philosophical questions doesnt qualify life extension as a philosophy. In retrospect I realized that I dont like the title of this topic. It was a lack of words for it. Im not sure how I might rephrase the topic. Maybe, "are there any other main topics of things to want out of life?" or Im considering that they may encompass the meaning of life. If thats the case then maybe, "Is the pursuit of these 8 things the meaning of life?"

If it were to be phrased as a philosophy it would be something like that pursuit of the big 8 is the meaning of life. Im not sure if there are exactly 8 though. Thats just how it seems to me through testing it and adding to it slowly over the years in discussions and reading and thinking about it. Calling it the meaning of life is also a debatable statement of course, but Im pretty confident that it would hold up. Maybe a few changes but over all it seems like it holds up. I know this statement is bold, but I am prepared to change my mind if flaws can be pointed out, so dont dig into me to hard if you spot any.