Hi CCDers. I thought I’d write a quick and dirty guest post on a little thought experiment I find interesting. I hope you enjoy it.
With all of the recent technological advances in genetics, health, robotics, virology and other areas of science, we all may, within our lifetime, face an incredible choice: do we want to live forever? I remember reading a very interesting article not too long ago (I don’t recall the author or title) that suggested the ability to create robotic/organic hybrids to replace or complement our blood, organs, etc. which could prevent the breakdown and aging of our bodies and minds might not be too far off. It is possible that, generationally, we may be at just about the cutoff point where some of us will survive to have the option to take advantage of such technology, and some of us will not. The article called it “Surviving long enough to be immortal,” although realistically, it would probably just mean a very large increase in life expectancy (maybe multiplying it by a factor of 100 or so) and we would still be susceptible to sabotage, getting buried by a rock slide, etc.
So I invite you to ponder this possibility and offer what you think your reaction would be. If the technology suddenly came along that allowed you to live at peak physical and mental health for an average of, say, 5000 years, would you go for it? For believers, does this present a sort of reverse-Pascal’s wager? Even if you’re fairly sure about your God and your afterlife, don’t you want to stick around here for awhile longer just in case there’s nothing else? How strange would it be to see some of your friends, and some of their children, and some of their children, and some of their children, etc. choosing to die and go on to Heaven while the rest of us stay on here. What would happen to the movements of those who chose this path over time? Would these sentiments slowly go out of style as the memory of times when we only lived for 80 years or so faded, eventually to be seen as some kind of odd romantic, mythical tradition? Would most religions adapt and decide that God now wanted us to love longer, or else he wouldn’t have allowed for this? It’s especially interesting to think that the Survivors and the Departed might both continue for quite some time with no one here ever knowing whether the Departed were living happily in paradise, or just gone.
It’s also worth noting that we’re culturally and evolutionarily fine-tuned to expect to live within a certain range of years, and some might debate that they wouldn’t WANT to live that long. But would our frame of reference change? Would 100 years fly by and leave us wondering how anyone could have felt that they had led a complete life in so short a period of time? 500 years from now, how would you think about the people who were born 20 years before you and missed the boat?
So what would YOU do? How would you react to the news that this capability had become available? Do you expect we’ll get to that point? How soon do you expect it?
-Thor Odhner
November 12, 2008 at 2:22 pm |
This is difficult thought experiment for me, because the idea of living 500 or 5000 years in optimal health sounds very far off in science fiction.
So that answers the final question: I don’t expect it for a very long time.
Furthermore, I don’t think it will be very sudden. I think a little here a little there and we may gradually increase life expectancy. But the idea of a sudden jump which adds even 450 years doesn’t seem plausible to me.
Would I do it? It would probably depend on quality of life. If it were anything like the life-support and drug world of today’s geriatric medicine I would not be interested.
But you suppose something completely different, better….
I’d probably ride along for a while.
Let’s assume this technology is highly affordable (another far out assumption). Does it then become almost like suicide to refuse to accept it?
I don’t know how religions would respond. The stories in the early Bible tell of people living hundreds and hundreds of years. (which I don’t take literally). But, if we suddenly could, I don’t think Judeo-Christian religions would be starting from scratch to make sense of it Biblically.
Another challenge that would present itself would be the pressure to limit/control and possibly stop reproduction. How would people feel about that?
As a religious person, I look forward to dying eventually. I think if I made it to 80 and was suddenly told I had to consider another 500 years I would feel a bit disappointed.
But, I don’t think I can generate many really answers to an un-reality.
Brian
November 12, 2008 at 4:56 pm |
Something else I read (forget where) was the possibility of downloading our minds into a virtual world, so that we continue to exist after our bodies are finished. This would be like taking a chip that is as programmable as the brain, and reconfiguring it for each individual. I think this is more likely, and probably a more interesting dilemma for people. I think most would like to live and look like they were 20 for hundreds of years. But what if only your mind could survive? And what if you could tweak your chip a certain way to change yourself once you have been downloaded? I suppose most think of The Matrix when this is brought up.
As for physically living for hundreds of years, I have no comment. The idea is too foreign and implausible.
November 12, 2008 at 6:40 pm |
Kon and Brian, I recommend you read Fantastic Voyage, by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman. Kurzweil is known for his extravagant predictions, but he’s also known for his accuracy. The concept of a significantly extended lifetime, accessible within *our* lifetime, is not implausible. Our knowledge of the human body continues to advance at an impressive rate, including our understanding of aging processes. You can get some idea of their ideas from their site: http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/
Incidentally Kon, the complexity of the human brain and all its capabilities makes the concept of downloading one’s mind far less plausible, at our current level of technology, than life extension. We’re barely able to simulate a tiny fraction of the brain at the neural level using the power of a supercomputer. We’re a long long way from understanding enough about the mind to create a complete digital representation of it, even if we account for the the vast amount of redundancy present within the brain.
Brian, I think you raised an interesting point when you mentioned suicide. What repercussions might such technology have for suicide, euthanasia, abortion, etc? If everyone has the option to live indefinitely, but some choose not to, are we right to now refuse to let people choose to die? And since we *do* now refuse them that option, at least officially in many countries, wouldn’t it be hypocritical to allow people to choose to end their extended life? Does that mean that if you choose to extend your life, you can’t then choose to end it later? (I think euthanasia should be legal, for what it’s worth).
As for me, I’d make full use of this technology, in the same way that I exercise and eat well. Why *not* live for longer, if possible? Why *not* try to improve the quality of your life? We all do it now anyway. Well, most of us.
November 12, 2008 at 10:15 pm |
No way, I am already fed up with the limitations of my body after 27 years. I don’t think I could stand living in it for 10 times as long. I am totally cool with dying after 80-120 years. What is the cost of dying? If there is an afterlife I will still be alive = no big deal. If there is no afterlife and I choose to die I won’t know or care = no big deal. (Sure there can be all kinds of debate about hell and how nice the afterlife can be in comparison to this one but that was not part of the question)
Yes I will “take death by his proffered hand” ~Shakespeare (Blackadder) when the time comes.
I expect that if the technology is possible it will not happen for a long time, say 1000 years. If age-prolonging drugs/gene treatment is developed sooner sooner I predict there will be more associated health problems with them than benefits (at least for several centuries). I certainly wouldn’t anticipate this kind of breakthrough until cancer, aids, etc. have been cured.
Kon,
Fascinating thought but I don’t think anyone has a clue how to transfer a human consciousness to a computer or anything else. With cloning becoming more of a reality there was some speculation that the clone would could some how carry-on the consciousness of the DNA-donor. “Clones” have been around for about as long as reproduction. Every identical twin is a clone in the sense of sharing the identical DNA. Twins can seem to read each other’s minds at times but do not have the same mind. I think mind transfer is not at all likely outside of fiction. But for virtual minds you could check out Eliza and the Turing test.
Peace,
Corvus
“Nevermore”
November 12, 2008 at 10:25 pm |
Another thought:
Why does fiction dwell on the dangers/downfalls of immortality? (“Tuck Everlasting” for one)
Do we have some innate evolutionary/god given fear of physical immortality? Is this just rationalizing fear of the unknown or is the human race, subconsciously, convinced of the need to die?
Peace,
Corvus
“Nevermore”
November 12, 2008 at 10:39 pm |
I’d love to live forever. I’d definitely go for it, especially if I could expect to enjoy my life in ways I currently enjoy life (as you suggest). I don’t expect the technology to be available within my lifetime, though. I don’t think it will be anything like 1000 years down the road. Maybe a couple hundred?
I do expect life to be extended well into our hundreds though, and maybe the medical technology for this will happen in my lifetime. If I can expect to live with no more pain than your average, present-day retiree, then sign me up for living to 200.
We’ve actually encountered this topic (Singularity) on CCD before. http://createcognitivedissonance.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/homo-bots/
CCD,
Ben
November 12, 2008 at 11:33 pm |
Mark and Corvus,
.
Thanks for the Kurzweil recommendation. I believe I’ve seen some TED (www.ted.com) presentation of his. Perhaps it’s because I know so little of biology and medicine that I find the idea of human flesh surviving for centuries somewhat silly. On the other hand, assuming we can put as many transistors on a chip as there are neurons in our brain, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to emulate a human brain. Yes it is all a long way off, but that to me seems more likely. Then again, I don’t know much
November 12, 2008 at 11:59 pm |
Absolutely. I sometimes despair that 80 years (or so) will never be enough time for me to learn all I want to know and see all I want to see.
The entirety of human experience is out there- art, music, literature, science- and I want to grasp it all. The only way to do this is to become immortal.
Of course, this is on a purely personal level. Who’s to say what the psychological and societal impacts of immortality could be? It’s possible it would make us less short-sighted and reasonable, but it’s impossible to say at this point.
As to how plausible the idea is, I’m still a little skeptical, but I find myself fascinated by the trans-humanist movement and the possibilities that exist. I certainly hope it will come to be in the near future, but I don’t know enough on the subject to say if it will.
Anyway, as someone new to the site, I would like to say hello, and that I’ve enjoyed reading the posts and comments so far. The level of consideration you guys have for each other’s positions is something I really respect and hope to emulate.
November 13, 2008 at 7:38 am |
Great responses everyone. Keep ‘em coming.
I wanted to let a few responses pile up before chiming in… I’d definitely do it. (An my wife said yes too, so I’m cool there.)
A couple of responses/thoughts:
I’m certainly not an expert on the technology (it hasn’t been developed yet) but I definitely concur with Mark that I find it FAR more plausible to extend human life with assistive and preventative measures than to develop hardware to replicate a human brain sufficiently to serve as an alternate seat to the conscious and subconscious mind. To do the latter, we need a relatively complete knowledge of the brain, which I think is a long way off. And even if we did develop a workable alternate hardware, the data of the brain is largely physical. And there are not necessarily outputs that will allow us to transfer the contents. Downloading and uploading are relatively simple procedures when all data can be broken down to a series of zeros and ones. But this data isn’t stored that way. (I’m not saying these are insurmountable challenges, but at the very least, we’ll need a nearly comprehensive understanding of the brain, its functioning, its makeup, etc.)
By contrast, extending the life expectancy of the human body and mind can be as simple as identifying the weakest links one at a time and preventing or delaying them. We’ve already done this in a number of ways by learning about hygiene, decay & dementia, exercise, diet, etc. Advancements in our understanding of DNA could break things wide open… maybe allowing us to flip a switch and turn tissue regeneration back on? Who knows. But in the meantime, it’s certainly possible that in our lifetime we’ll get over a few early hurdles to buy most of us another 50 years… then what will happen in those 50 years? That’s the thing… If this is anything like other technology, advancement won’t happen all at once, but there will be big discrete breakthroughs along the way that get us really far in a short time, and buy us more time to find the next breakthrough. The internet was still in an infantile 20 years ago. Higher function computers haven’t even been around very long, relative to our lifetimes. Think of our health/bodies as a car we didn’t build. At some point we’ll realize that changing the oil every 3,000-5,000 miles goes a LONG way. And changing the timing belt before it starts to go makes an enormous difference. Then Bam! we’ve quadrupled the average life expectancy.
I don’t know when the science will really get its first real kick start, but I do know that once the ball’s rolling, it will take off like other technologies and leave our boldest predictions in the dust.
Cheers,
Cyber-Thor
November 13, 2008 at 2:43 pm |
Your thought experiment causes me anxiety. Obviously not the “eternal life” scenario, but the probability of people living longer. Think about the logistics of living 50 years longer than currently expected… am I expected to work longer? Will the retirement age to increased to 115? Will I need to keep increasing my 401k contributions to keep up with inflation so I can actually retire someday? What about the impact on healthcare, if for example, if the old old OLD require new expensive technologies/therapies/medications to keep them ticking? Who’s paying for that? Us? Wait…we don’t like taxes (so I’ve read here.) What about the impact of over-population on earth, natural resources? The list goes on! You might dismiss my concerns as silly, but this is actually happening, to some degree. Life expectancy in the US is going up, healthcare costs too, the baby-boomers are at retirement age but must go right back to work to supplement their incomes. It’s fun to imagine unlimited life, in the same way it’s fun to imagine having a super power — but it’s not real. What’s real is that the economy is crap, people are losing their homes, the unemployment rate recently climbed to 7% in CA alone, and millions of kids are un- or under-insured. We often have a tendency to think about these problems from an outsider’s perspective, like “too bad, those poor people”. But we are those people, if you consider that we’re all interdependent. I know, I know, taxes are too high, government is bloated…we all know this. But we cannot live in a society that doesn’t take some responsibility for the well-being of others. If you’re a small business owner, what good is it to you if your customers cannot afford to purchase your goods? To some extent we pay taxes and we give to charity to help ourselves — a kind of reciprocal altruism. Tax benefits are in place to do just that — incentivize the wealthy to give. So on and so forth…. I’ve got to get back to work, money doesn’t raise itself, but I couldn’t resist imposing my anxieties on you all – haha!
Ben, maybe you can cut/paste this into that political thread you’re talking about, probably more appropriate there. Thor, so sorry to derail your discussion!
November 13, 2008 at 2:46 pm |
Hmmm. I think that maybe I’d think about it. But it wouldn’t be one of those “Sign me up now” things.
What I wonder is whether fundamental changes in our culture would be in order if our life expectancies were to increase like that. As it is, there is an expectation that (typically) you work at a certain job for X years, get married and have / raise kids for Y years, etc. Eventually retire and move to Florida (or wherever) and then wait to die.
It is considered in our culture a major accomplishment to be married to the same person for 50 years or more. Would things change if you were now looking at the possibility of 480 years of marriage? Might we be in less of a hurry to rush into a commitment?
If I were to live longer, I might be more prone to ditch this job that gives me security on my current timeline, but may not fulfill me for 400 more years, and go and do something else. Something a bit more … timeless.
I can’t have more kids, so I won’t be starting any more of that.
The more I think about, the more I think that I’d be a bit annoyed that the framework shifted on me.
But that’s probably because I’m in my 40’s and have left my best years behind me already
.
November 13, 2008 at 5:11 pm |
I would opt for extending my life indefinitely. I would be all for replacing organs and limbs with artificial ones.
If I have the option I would choose it because dying will be the last experience I’d ever have. I don’t believe in any notion of an afterlife.
The thought of outliving everyone I know would be daunting, but I have no delusion that I can follow them into some afterlife, so I will deal with my losses and move on and form new relationships.
There is the serious issue of overpopulation, i.e. population over-burdening available resources. This is an issue that should be being addressed now, but folk continue to ignore it and sweep it under the rug.
Everlasting life has to go hand-in-hand with extraterrestrial expansion and exploration or we’ll end up running around chopping each others heads off claiming there can be only one, because there will only be enough resources on this planet (perhaps even in the universe) for just one immortal.
I’ve already did my part at population control by making a conscious decision not to have children.
In another vein, why should I choose to die to make room for future generation? I exist now, and therefore have the right to continue my existence. People who don’t even exist yet have no right to demand that I die to make room for them. I do not exist for their sake.
On another hand, mortality does force us to choose paths we perceive to be in our own best interests. For instance, if we were stuck in meaningless job, would our immortality spur us on in making a change, or would we grow complacent and figure there will be plenty of time to change later? There are so many things I’d like to explore in detail, having eternity to do so I might get lost in the details and never really make anything new from it all.
Still, I’d choose immortality, cause then at least I’ll maybe have the opportunity learn the answers to all these other issues.
November 14, 2008 at 2:10 pm |
Kon,
Just to show you a little clearer a picture of the difference between computers and brains, and why matching transistors to neurons is not enough to emulate a brain:
1) Transistors have 3 connections, 2 inputs and 1 output. Neurons can have 1000’s of connections.
2) Transistors are binary. Voltage levels at the inputs determine if the output is ‘on’ or ‘off’. Neurons are analog. Input levels must reach a certain point before the output starts firing, but increasing the input increases the rate of firing, which alters the signal.
3) Transistors transfer information only via electrical signals. Neurons not only involve electrical signals, but chemical signals as well. And there many different forms of chemical transmitters (neurotransmitters) and many many ways that the chemical levels can be modulated.
4) Transistors connect to each other only via their inputs and outputs. Neurons connect to each other in every way possible. Synapses (where chemical signaling occurs) connect to dendrites (the input branches), or to axons (the output branch) or to other synapses, or to the body of another neuron, or many other ways. They can even have direct electrical connections called gap junctions.
So basically, the complexity of the brain is far far greater than is revealed by the number of neurons alone.
December 7, 2008 at 5:37 pm |
Amen to TRig – I started thinking along the same lines as soon as I read Thor’s article.
But would I go for it? Hell, yes! Not forever – I’ve recently blogged about that very thing, in a different context – but 2-5,00 years would be cool. I could do just about everything I need to do and see everything I need to see in that kind of time. I would, though, reserve the right to terminate my life by painless medical means at any time if I became fed up with it, or achieved everything I wanted to achieve and simply had no more I wanted to do.
And yes, this raises the issue of overpopulation – which can be solved by the simple expedient of only allowing *me* to have an extended life. Sorry, but the rest of you only get your threescore years and ten…