58 replies to this topic

[chrwe]

Well, in a leaflet from the Cryonics institute, a smart flight engineer who is 50 now said that it is unbearable for him to miss a chance at immortality maybe by one generation or two, so he is taking the only chance science is giving him now. I can only say I can relate to that. Although I do see a chance that SENS and the other aging-intervention strategies will have some degree of success in our lifetime, maybe enough for us to survive longer and get a chance to see the real progress.

[e Volution]

I'm looking at it like this: We know the maximum human lifespan is around ~120 of which IIRC niner did a great back of the envelope calculation to say that basically only a handful of people in billions get dealt all the right genetic cards to achieve this, explaining Jeanne Calment, and other super centenarians. I am confident that by 2060 if we haven't achieved physical immortality, modern medicine will have at least allowed humans to reach this maximum lifespan of around 120. This means I have a real good shot of seeing 2100, which even many of the pessimists seem to think will bring something akin to LEV.

I am only months into this "Immortality may be possible" thinking and I must admit from time to time I do almost skip a heart beat in pure fear with the fleeting thought of being one of the last generations to miss out on physical immortality. That's the rub with this amazing idea, it is not IF it will happen, it is WHEN. And that can be a hard pill to swallow when you start thinking about the possibility of missing out. I had one of those moments just now, a dashing thought of perishing before true AI, or visiting another star with an alien world teeming with life, or making contact with another intelligent civilisation, or fully immersing in a virtual world and sailing the skies like superman. I can see how people get so worked up about this. It must happen! It must! We can't miss out! I feel like just marching out and changing the world, shaking everyone by the shoulders and yelling 'wake up we can do this!'. To be dead forever rather than living forever is a sad idea indeed.

[e Volution]

Question: If Kurzweil's and other Singularity proponents ideas are incorrect and off the mark, when will we start seeing this discordance manifest itself? Basically if we will not achieve Physical Immortality/LEV in the next 50 years, when will this first start becoming apparent?

[chris w]

I am only months into this "Immortality may be possible" thinking and I must admit from time to time I do almost skip a heart beat in pure fear with the fleeting thought of being one of the last generations to miss out on physical immortality. That's the rub with this amazing idea, it is not IF it will happen, it is WHEN. And that can be a hard pill to swallow when you start thinking about the possibility of missing out. I had one of those moments just now, a dashing thought of perishing before true AI, or visiting another star with an alien world teeming with life, or making contact with another intelligent civilisation, or fully immersing in a virtual world and sailing the skies like superman. I can see how people get so worked up about this. It must happen! It must! We can't miss out! I feel like just marching out and changing the world, shaking everyone by the shoulders and yelling 'wake up we can do this!'. To be dead forever rather than living forever is a sad idea indeed.

I like your attitude here, man, and my thought's exactly - it's all or nothing in this story, if you manage to get your hands on all this, you can call yourself semi-god I guess ... which is very motherf cool ! If you don't ( by dying ) it sucks cosmically. I can understand that somebody's deathist views may be a way of defending yourself from this recognition, because of how massively horrible it is to think you could be like a soldier who died in the last five minutes of the war. Like my friend ( who is an athiest and definitely pro science ) who I am confident I convinced about the technical feasibelity of getting in control of the aging process, and if so, then that we are in fact on our way there and it's a matter of time right now, but still he comes up with ad hoc reasons why it's not going to happen at all, ever, because for example the social change would be too vast ( yeah, because that has never yet happened, right ? ) or something about the elites seizing it forever or even that they won't let it happen to not cause the revolutionary rage of both the baby products' and the funeral branch ( seriously ! ), all to just keep himself immune to seriously thinking about this thing in my opinion.

As for the time table, I guess that in twenty years, we should be seeing clearly where we stand ( and remind me I said that when it's 2030 ), when I see for example the first engineered mammal with neglibile senescence, I'll open up the bottles. Remember also that it's not like Kurzweil has to be accurate on exactly everything to be judged credible, like for example some stuff may not be of common use when he says it will be, but that doesn't mean the essential trend doesn't hold, from what I know up untill now, he was often wrong about the more spectacular everyday examples of the tech trends ( where's my damn speech to text translator !? ), that might have to do more with the market aspects, but right on the milestones ( like the thing with Deep Blue beating Kasparov ). Recently I saw in one of the popular science programmes about the wonders of the future on Discovery a guy talking to an avatar, which seemed to display in its replies some level of human - like humor ( maybe close to a pre teen kind trying to say something wity to an adult ) and it's things like this that make me think that indeed something potentially stunning is comming. In medicine I would say that the idea of "organ repair kit" will be a gamechanger, and I think two decades is a reasonable time here, I just read the news about rat replacement liver grown by dudes from Boston here, looks like things are going smooth for now.

Edited by chris w, 14 June 2010 - 04:47 PM.

[lonemoon]

Just registered today, Being a Naturopath i find this forum very interesting. Immortality is here already we are just restricted.. Humans are created to evolve forever, and if my theories are right(in which I have no way of proving in a mortal lifetime) we humans will evolve to a much higher being (That can even travel stars). There are endless possibilities, it is there, we just haven't discover or unraveled it yet. For instance, matter is a composition of energy and these energy are made up of vibrations that relates to different dimensions. (In my layman's term matter is a sound that has different dimensional aspects and can be dispelled, transported, transformed, or molded into something else by someone who knows how the sound works, or by someone who created these sounds.

I believe everything is there for a reason. An existence must have a purpose otherwise it shouldn't exist in the first place.

Immortality is here already, but the problem is when do we get to hold it.

[rephore]

Hey lonemoon! Welcome to the community. Nice to meet not just a fellow immortalist but an immortal as well.

[chris w]

I love that the location of Lonemoon is...Eden

[Luna]

I think I finally grasped over the idea that I should stop looking at 2060 as some sort of a deadline year for me.
At 2060 I will be 71, so what? my grandmother is 82 or 84.. very healthy (relatively) and within 50 years I hope I am not being silly but I hope that there is a reason to believe that 71 won't be all that bad. I see people working very well up to late 60s.

I believe I can quite naturally, especially since I am trying actively to keep myself healthy with lifestyle and diet, to get to the next century without the need for amazing technology to hold me together, though I do want it to be there so I can get forever more over/than that.

So if I know I can expect at least 80-90 years more.. I think I feel a bit more optimistic.. consider that something should hopefully come in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.. generally every decade now. That something will hopefully extend us far enough to the next thing too and so on until the big thing that keeps us indefinitely.

[Reno]

So if I know I can expect at least 80-90 years more.. I think I feel a bit more optimistic.. consider that something should hopefully come in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.. generally every decade now. That something will hopefully extend us far enough to the next thing too and so on until the big thing that keeps us indefinitely.

That is... if a Hamas doesn't lob one of those missiles into your house. I got to say, there are people in this forum that won't even risk using crest toothpaste because of the "toxic" fluoride. I imagine living in the middle east right now is probably one of the most dangerous thing a person interested in life extension can do right now.

[Luna]

So if I know I can expect at least 80-90 years more.. I think I feel a bit more optimistic.. consider that something should hopefully come in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.. generally every decade now. That something will hopefully extend us far enough to the next thing too and so on until the big thing that keeps us indefinitely.

That is... if a Hamas doesn't lob one of those missiles into your house. I got to say, there are people in this forum that won't even risk using crest toothpaste because of the "toxic" fluoride. I imagine living in the middle east right now is probably one of the most dangerous thing a person interested in life extension can do right now.

I am hoping to move

[moore850]

Don't forget that as we advance into the future, more new things will come out all the time, so just mentally skipping ahead to 50 years from now ignores all the advances that come in between there and now. For example, suppose the true cure for biological mortality is in 2100. Sounds too late for some, however, if by 2020 we can each tack on a guaranteed 10 years and by 2050 we can tack on 20-30 more years, and by 2080 we take the 2050 tack-on again, that's gonna push most of us to the 2100 mark anyhow. Then we can take the real cure and be done with it.

[Rational Madman]

No, we're certainly not immortal, and based on the rate of life expectancy change, quite a distance from the elusive goal of immortality. So let's not delude ourselves with fantasies.

[niner]

No, we're certainly not immortal, and based on the rate of life expectancy change, quite a distance from the elusive goal of immortality. So let's not delude ourselves with fantasies.

Certainly not at the moment; that's delusional. However, aren't you assuming that technology development will be linear, looking at the current rate of life expectancy change? Seems like a bad assumption.

[Rational Madman]

No, we're certainly not immortal, and based on the rate of life expectancy change, quite a distance from the elusive goal of immortality. So let's not delude ourselves with fantasies.

Certainly not at the moment; that's delusional. However, aren't you assuming that technology development will be linear, looking at the current rate of life expectancy change? Seems like a bad assumption.

I'm not assuming that technological development will be linear, but I think the more imposing obstacles might be widely subscribed to explanations for life and death, the popular appeal of the notion of immortality, and with how policymakers may be loath to contend with the dilemmas that might arise with immortality. Immortality, as I've previously stated, is a laudable goal, but a fixation on this end goal may lead to negligence of preceding goals that are necessary for building a movement that may finally reach this destination.

[Forever21]

Maybe, consciousness is like energy, magnet or gravity. There is a huge size of it 'out there' / 'nowhere', and just like lungs take a breath of air, our brain takes a 'breath' of consciousness, a little piece of it. Maybe that whole consciousness itself out there is immortal or atleast as old as the universe and will stay as long as the universe exist.

[extofimpediments]

We are immortal, since we are composed of timeless matter, the subatomic particles that do travel mostly at the speed of light, therefore placing most of our constitutional matter beyond time. Existence or awareness o individuality is just a freezing or camera shots of infinite undefinable portions of timelessness. Living is a slowing and partition of the potential infinity of possibilities. Stop measuring time and you will understand. See you in a couple of centuries.

[TelepathicMerg]

Kurzweil thinks the singularity will happen sometime in 2050, and that it will provide immortality.

Maxlife.org founder, David Kekich thinks that Nanotechnology will provide immortality or at least extend our lives a hundred extra years by 2019.

As immortalists, we are gods roaming this earth. As gods, we control our destiny. We can predict the future, and control it. Hence we control life.

So do you consider yourself immortal now? Or do you consider yourself immortal only when the inevitable death conquering technology arrives?

Not to rain on your parade but there's a huge difference between being an immortalist and being a full on immortal. To be able to credibly claim to be an immortal one would likely need to have full control of their own universe. An immortalist is one who strives to push back the odds of death to a greater and greater degree over time as new methods open up to be able to do so.

Perhaps what you were trying to get at with this poll is "do you think you will survive to live for an expansive period of time during which you will continue to be availed of improved life extension methods?" At least that's what I think you were going for. Personally I answer this question with a percent likelihood rather than a simple yes or no.

"an immortal one would likely need to have full control of their own universe." - I like the term "control" but have a problem with "full". Personally, I am thinking of "increasing control" and that in my view is achieved via MEMORY. We know nothing about "death" because we have no memory of it. To gain the memory we must improve communication methods, i.e. communications with those who've been "there".. or any "advanced beings" who know (remember) something about it. Thus I believe that immortality is closely related to memory, just as any quality we wish to observe or discover.

[Herckuleon]

Immortality in my opinion is quite possible, from the technology we have discovered now to save peoples life we can use that to further advance our own lives in a way that is quite achievable by means of finding new methods of medicine that stop the decay of cells or slow the bodies functions to the point where the organs and such will never cease

[Slahzer]

We are immortal, since we are composed of timeless matter, the subatomic particles that do travel mostly at the speed of light

Not we so much as our atoms.

I consider myself as my thoughts, experiences, personality and consciousness, regardless of what form it takes.

[F.L.U.]

I believe that all are immortal. I’ve read a book that gives interesting explanations of the immortality concept.
Here’s a summary of some of them:

There’s branching of life scenarios for every personality from the very conception.
All choices already exist but each in its own individual world. If a person “dies” in one world, he/she automatically refocuses (continues to be aware of himself/herself as alive) into the world where he/she is still alive and never perceives his/her own “death”. The person is considered “dead” in that world and people don’t know that there are other interpretations of them that continue to perceive this person alive in many other worlds where “death” hasn’t come yet. We never notice our numerous “deaths” and always just change the focus of interest of our self-consciousness.

Circumstances of our life depend on our inner state (thoughts and feelings) and actions that we make. If we react with more understanding and positive attitude, with less selfishness to some vicissitudes, we live further in more favorable conditions. If we have negative reactions the conditions of life aggravate. It’s because we state by our reactions what we want to feel, and the universe has all possibilities to experience it and provides us with them accordingly. If we feel love, circumstances will develop to feel even more love. If we feel hatred, the environment will correspond to this feeling. Reacting in this or that way we claim that we still have some unstudied levels of consciousness and would like to study them.

Gradually studying various manifestations of our self-consciousness, from bitter hatred to unconditional love, we evolve, get more synthesized experience, and refocus further into more developed bodies.
There are no time limitations for refocusing. Only resonance counts. Refocusing can be made into one’s own interpretation which is either younger or older, into another personality of a historical epoch in the past or in the future. In most cases, we don’t notice such things, because that part of self-consciousness that refocuses into another body of manifestation accepts the memory of this new personality. There may be some short feelings of sadness or nostalgia, or some quick glimpses of previous memories. A lot refocusings happen when we are asleep. Waking up from a nightmare that ended with your own “death” is one of such refocusings.

And so on. The author has six thick volumes that explain principles of immortality, but they are in Russian. Only one book is translated and is titled Immortality is Accessible to Everyone.

[drus]

I believe that all are immortal. I’ve read a book that gives interesting explanations of the immortality concept.
Here’s a summary of some of them:

There’s branching of life scenarios for every personality from the very conception.
All choices already exist but each in its own individual world. If a person “dies” in one world, he/she automatically refocuses (continues to be aware of himself/herself as alive) into the world where he/she is still alive and never perceives his/her own “death”. The person is considered “dead” in that world and people don’t know that there are other interpretations of them that continue to perceive this person alive in many other worlds where “death” hasn’t come yet. We never notice our numerous “deaths” and always just change the focus of interest of our self-consciousness.

Circumstances of our life depend on our inner state (thoughts and feelings) and actions that we make. If we react with more understanding and positive attitude, with less selfishness to some vicissitudes, we live further in more favorable conditions. If we have negative reactions the conditions of life aggravate. It’s because we state by our reactions what we want to feel, and the universe has all possibilities to experience it and provides us with them accordingly. If we feel love, circumstances will develop to feel even more love. If we feel hatred, the environment will correspond to this feeling. Reacting in this or that way we claim that we still have some unstudied levels of consciousness and would like to study them.

Gradually studying various manifestations of our self-consciousness, from bitter hatred to unconditional love, we evolve, get more synthesized experience, and refocus further into more developed bodies.
There are no time limitations for refocusing. Only resonance counts. Refocusing can be made into one’s own interpretation which is either younger or older, into another personality of a historical epoch in the past or in the future. In most cases, we don’t notice such things, because that part of self-consciousness that refocuses into another body of manifestation accepts the memory of this new personality. There may be some short feelings of sadness or nostalgia, or some quick glimpses of previous memories. A lot refocusings happen when we are asleep. Waking up from a nightmare that ended with your own “death” is one of such refocusings.

And so on. The author has six thick volumes that explain principles of immortality, but they are in Russian. Only one book is translated and is titled Immortality is Accessible to Everyone.

Back in the early/mid 1990's (while in my late teens and early 20's) i came to a similar conclusion regarding the nature of (human) consciousness. It's interesting to see that someone actually explains the idea in a book. Ironically i had considered writing a book touching on the same concept several years ago, but i never got around to it. Very cool.

[1thoughtMaze1]

I keep hearing this 2020 date at which some of you believe humanity will conquer aging, and to all those that believe this STOP SMOKING CRACK!! That is all.

[drus]

End aging by 2020?! LOL! No. 2120 maybe if we're lucky, assuming we don't run into any civilization stoppers, or do something disasterously stupid between now and then.

[pulsar]

what do you mean by immortal now? we aren't immortal till were immortal

[mikeb80]

Immortality is a very ambitious goal... and it will need a gradual approach.
But I trust on Dr. Aubrey de Grey, when he says that a significantly elongated lifespan (120+) is within our grasp.
In 2030s / 2040s the first generation of effective anti-aging genetic therapies should be available.
And this could be our "bridge" toward the 2nd generation of therapies (nanotechnologies).
So I am moderately optimistic.

On the less bright side... one of the biggest obstacles are the government agencies, like the FDA in USA and the EMA in Europe.
With oppressive regulations and bureaucracy, and a VERY conservative mindset they slow down the progress.
http://www.fightagin...s/2008/05/x.php

I know that clinical trials need time... but the BIG scandal is that in the last decades countless human beings probably died ONLY because anti-cancer drugs weren't approved fast enough. This sounds almost like a genocide.

A good solution to speed up things could be a "global competition"... something similar to the Space Race.

If Asian countries will begin to invest a lot of resources in rejuvenation & anti-aging medicine, USA and Europe will be stimulated to follow the trend and to move faster.

I believe that this will happen very soon.

Japan is already full of old people... included thousands of centenarians.
And within few years China will face the "timebomb" of aging population...
according to trustworthy statistics in 2030s there will be barely two workers for every over-60
http://www.guardian....eing-population

so their government could be very interested to keep people healthy and productive for a longer time, shifting the retirement age.

Edited by mikeb80, 24 August 2012 - 02:28 PM.

[Major Legend]

I believe it will reach a tipping point where we have possibly extended life span but the idea of immortality at the moment seems infeasible.

I think it will be a huge market because seniors generally have savings, and people will spend everythig to save their own lives or the ones they love. The problem is will these medical costs be extortionate for the average person. I believe life extension will first become only to the extroordinary rich and gradually trickling down.

There will be alot of moral implications as wel as physical implications too, would it be immoral to not grant further upgrades to people whose stem cell replacement cost is not worth their life, or how would various organs like the brain react to extensive aging way beyond the time it was designed to?

Personally i think we are headingin a good direction, if people live longer then population needs to be controlled, but thats already a problem regardless life extension or not with advanced technology we dont need an exponentially increasing population. People with longer lives will be able to persue much grander goals becuase they can set goals truly in the long term, instead of worrying about the rat race.

Though back on topic it does seem we are going to one of the last few generations to either make it to extended life spans or the lasts ones to die from the normal man aging process, which is frankly sad because we could just be close enough but not make it. I also think its not going to be smooth its going to be progressive, there will still be hiccups people still die a lot or get mentally disabled from surgery complications the technology is miles away from guranteed life extension. We are unable to as yet to suspend people in accidents so people are dyin in accidents wirhout the full facilities of a trauma surgery room, there are a bunch of imperfect technologies that forbid life extension as of yet.

The problems wont be solved all at once, however seeing as there has been a significant lack of progress so far not in medical science but in medical amethodology for the past 30 years or so, there better be a tipping point soon. Our current medical capability and accuracy in terms of complications would be an embarassment to the last era who thouggt 2013 would be filled with many wondrous advances.

Edited by Major Legend, 19 November 2012 - 11:56 AM.

[F.L.U.]

I believe that all are immortal. I’ve read a book that gives interesting explanations of the immortality concept.
...
one book is translated and is titled Immortality is Accessible to Everyone.

Now this book is finally available on amazon.com for free if you have Kindle

[Bron]

Save your money if you think drastic life extension therapies will be available in your lifetime. Obviously I can't estimate the costs, but I can tell you that your medicare certainly won't be covering it.

The baby boomers won't even be getting the same quality of care as the previous generation. Can't even imagine what 'immortality' would do to the politics of it. And if you have been retired for 20 or 30 years, good luck getting back to work once the therapies are available.

Edited by Bron, 29 March 2013 - 03:14 PM.

[Amichai Řezník]

No we're not immortal. We're gonna end up like these people if we don't do cryonics:

Don't watch this video if you have a weak heart.