EPTWill Science Unlock Immortality Before We Die? - Page 11
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
On April 02 2013 07:24 Griffins wrote: OP needs to determine the parameters for "immortality". Does this mean you are immune to age, or disease, like Elvish immortality, or are we talking about some sort of bullet-proof, regenerative vampire thing. Anyway, immortality is unachievable in absolute terms because not even the universe is immortal. Whether you believe in heat-death or the big crunch, it will all end someday. Our galaxy will collide with Andromeda in some billion years, tossing us someplace uninhabitable. That's if our sun doesn't melt us before then. Put things in a cosmic scale and living 'forever' becomes a silly notion. In absolute terms, caiming it's unachievable is a bit odd, also. Sure, it seems obvious at the moment that the end of our universe is something unvoidable, but that doesn't mean that will still be the case in 10 billion years. It also relies on us not gaining technology to avoid general things that'll kill us and spreading out over the universe and all of that still relies on another universe not being reachable. Though, to be fair I think the end of our universe likely marks the end of us too, just arguing the point.  To the thread in general, I'm not really sure how the idea that science is religion is relevant, but the statement itself is asinine. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On April 02 2013 07:31 Iyerbeth wrote: I'm not really sure how the idea that science is religion is relevant we're discussing immortality... edit: people ALWAYS want to believe that they're somehow, somehow, dear lord please somehow, not going to die. I don't see what's different about all of this. that's the point. you're all going to die. get used to it. | ||
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MichaelDonovan
United States1453 Posts
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
We're discussing the possibility of technology augmenting biology in accordance with the current trends in technology and spaces of research to question whether biological death might be averted. There might be some issues for religious people in that, but the topic itself is not religious, nor is discussing the potential boundaries of science and ethics behind it. Even if you were to claim that all of that were though, getting to the point where science itself could be argued to be religious is a long way off. Edit: In response to your edit, hoping to avoid death is not limitted to religion. Neither is discussing the fact that people really are making nano-technology etc which could augment health concerns. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + (edit: god isn't religious either. god is just god. the way people think about god, what god means, and what god is going to do for them, is religious) the reason that people want to talk about science making them biologically immortal is exactly the same basic human urge that makes people want to believe in the afterlife. the only difference is the decorations. On April 02 2013 07:40 Iyerbeth wrote: hoping to avoid death is not limitted to religion. "avoid death" no. "transcend death" yes. edit: it will be possible to extend human life indefinitely. it won't work very well, the only people who will have it will be our tyrants, and it probably won't make them happy edit: oh, this reminds me! you should all go read Shadrach in the Furnace, great book | ||
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DeathProfessor
United States1052 Posts
Also we have discovered many things about the bible, the Shroud of Turin over the weekend was tested to be 99% real (there is a small doubt but we are pretty sure its real now YMMV), http://www.religionnews.com/2013/04/01/new-testing-dates-shroud-of-turin-to-era-of-christ/ There is a strong likelihood that scientists are going to prove that the Biblical Flood is real http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/evidence-suggests-biblical-great-flood-noahs-time-happened/story?id=17884533#.UVoNljeQOO4 That's just recent this year stuff, of course most of the biblical stories have been proven by archeology in the last few hundred years but you can Google all that. Its become this new thing for young people to think religion must be the opposite of science, it doesn't have anything to do with opposites! As a Christian, most of us believe that science is a way to discover the nature of the works of God, you can be a science respecting Christian, or a anti-science guy but we aren't all the same. Mostly Christians are indifferent or even up to the point of loving science. Religions may decide to impede science when it threatens the sanctity of human life, for example Stem Cells from aborted fetuses, there are objections there. Also religion can influence science too in some ways mainly in the way they began perceiving their ethics. I am NOT saying we have gotten as far as we can go, we still could live longer or be happier than we are now. We as a planet need to decide how far our ethical boundaries can go and then operate under that new framework. | ||
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D10
Brazil3409 Posts
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Leafren
Belgium66 Posts
edit: people ALWAYS want to believe that they're somehow, somehow, dear lord please somehow, not going to die. I don't see what's different about all of this. that's the point. The difference is that the OP asks a scientific question, i.e. the answer will be falsifyable. Religion doesn't offer that insecurity. On topic: there are many hurdles to overcome, not only 'bad copying of genes' as someone posted earlier. I wouldn't say it's impossible but I don't think we'll live to see the day of an immortal human (i.e. not dying by means of age). I imagine major points of critique on the work of dr. de Grey are that his ideas yet have to be implemented in any organism succesfully and that they are symptomatic by nature. But then again, many people not so long ago thought it would be impossible to discuss biology with people around the world on 'the internet'... | ||
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sorrowptoss
Canada1431 Posts
But anyways, I don't see any advantages in living forever that I would enjoy. I'd be bored to tears. There are only so many things a human can do in a life, at one point I'd just sit around and just browse TL forever and play minesweeper all day. | ||
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
On April 02 2013 07:43 sam!zdat wrote: science itself obviously isn't religious. the way people in our culture think about science, what science means, and what science is going to do for them, is religious. the reason that people want to talk about science making them biologically immortal is exactly the same basic human urge that makes people want to believe in the afterlife. the only difference is the decorations. "avoid death" no. "transcend death" yes. edit: it will be possible to extend human life indefinitely. it won't work very well, the only people who will have it will be our tyrants, and it probably won't make them happy edit: oh, this reminds me! you should all go read Shadrach in the Furnace, great book I've no doubt that there are some people in all cultures who might overestimate the reach of science, but even that is still different to religious faith. There are no religious aspects to it, there is no dogma, ritual or belief associated, no faith required and obviously no superstitious elements typically. I'm not meaning to claim that religion is inferior or bad or anything, but it is something very different. Some (perhaps many) of the hopes and aspirations might come from the same place, but that isn't sufficient to claim the two are the same, they're simply part of the human condition. On this issue specifically though, it is certainly incorrect to suggest that it's a religious belief when there are people working in fields that really might make progress towards it. A quick google search of the book you recomended sounded interesting though, so just picked it up on Audible (had a credit to use, lol). | ||
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D10
Brazil3409 Posts
On April 02 2013 07:59 sorrowptoss wrote: I don't follow the sudden religion debate thingy going on... But anyways, I don't see any advantages in living forever that I would enjoy. I'd be bored to tears. There are only so many things a human can do in a life, at one point I'd just sit around and just browse TL forever and play minesweeper all day. If you live long enough you could be captain of the USS enterprise | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On April 02 2013 07:40 Iyerbeth wrote: We're discussing the possibility of technology augmenting biology in accordance with the current trends in technology and spaces of research to question whether biological death might be averted. There might be some issues for religious people in that, but the topic itself is not religious, nor is discussing the potential boundaries of science and ethics behind it. Even if you were to claim that all of that were though, getting to the point where science itself could be argued to be religious is a long way off. Edit: In response to your edit, hoping to avoid death is not limited to religion. Neither is discussing the fact that people really are making nano-technology etc which could augment health concerns. Yeah, machines have been made immortal, some rats have been made immortal, so it's pretty clear that given this current trend in technology, Humans will be next. The current trend in technology has not produced any of this. Even our attempts to make a self-sustaining ecosystem have been spectacular failures. It's faith in the utopia of scientific progress that goes from miracle drugs to miracles. I analyze the jump from finite lives to infinite as much different than slide rules to computers, mail to email, the horse-powered vehicles to modern cars. Earlier, we talked about how current technology would look to someone 500 years ago. Maybe someone of that time would ask, in his terminology, "Why do they have any expectation of soon becoming like gods?" | ||
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tooldtoplay
Sweden5 Posts
I don't think immortality is a good thing, because death means that life can develop or evolve. Death means that life can evolve by leaving the living-space it occupied to other species. This is simple to understand, life adapts to the environment, not the other way around. Humans are humans because of the complex (hostile) and always changing environment around us. What do I mean by that? First, if you are immortal, you also deny evolution, and if you deny evolution you put the entire species at risk. For instance a change in oxygen-levels could trigger necessary changes to(evolve) the lung -functions. These changes could later be passed on to children. If you are immortal you must fix this with technology. Your children however might adapt eventually. Second, you probably do not want children, because if you allow it, a population-explosion will be inevitable. Third, immortality will mean that humans no longer should reproduce due to environment problems it will create plus the human species will be even more fragile to environmental changes because death is no longer present to leave living-space to a more adapted human sub-species. Humans will be even more dependent on technology than ever before. It could even mean that an immortal human might not be able to live without for instance a breathing apparatus if let say 10 million years from now. It could also mean, ironically that humans are even more fragile to infections since the evolution has not stopped for viruses or bacteria. The microbes will simply win the evolution-race. So if a technology breakdown of some sort would occur for the immortal human, the entire human species could easily vanish in an "evolutionary second". So no thank you to immortality... EDIT: fixed typo | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On April 02 2013 07:59 Iyerbeth wrote: On this issue specifically though, it is certainly incorrect to suggest that it's a religious belief when there are people working in fields that really might make progress towards it. Those aren't incompatible. People still relate to it with the same religious structures of thought (science is fundamental principle of reality, science offers salvation, etc). The possibility of life-extension and the social construction of the possibility of life-extension are different things. the former is just a technical matter-of-fact, that second is a religious idea. the fact that your religion is based on something real doesn't mean it's not a religion (of course, I believe that ALL religions are based on something Real). I also don't think it's even going to be possible in the way that people want. we'll have some tycoons-in-vats, but that's about it. which is to say, I think 'immortality' (in the sense of 'much longer than normal human lifespan) is probably possible but not very feasible, and certainly not economical. On April 02 2013 07:59 Iyerbeth wrote: A quick google search of the book you recomended sounded interesting though, so just picked it up on Audible (had a credit to use, lol). Cool!! <3 that book is a real forgotten gem | ||
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
On April 02 2013 08:09 sam!zdat wrote: Those aren't incompatible. People still relate to it with the same religious structures of thought (science is fundamental principle of reality, science offers salvation, etc). The possibility of life-extension and the social construction of the possibility of life-extension are different things. the former is just a technical matter-of-fact, that second is a religious idea. the fact that your religion is based on something real doesn't mean it's not a religion (of course, I believe that ALL religions are based on something real). I also don't think it's even going to be possible in the way that people want. we'll have some tycoons-in-vats, but that's about it. which is to say, I think 'immortality' (in the sense of 'much longer than normal human lifespan) is probably possible but not very feasible, and certainly not economical. The social construction around life-extension is extremely varied though. You seem to be suggesting that hope (no matter the basis) and religion are interchangeable? If there are people out there who know that there will be life extension available for them through personal experience or revelation of some kind then I would have to agree. If there are people who live their life according to the fact they will be immortal through science, then maybe so too (especially if they do so without an understanding of where we’re at as a species in that regard). I think though, that this thread goes someway to suggesting that it's certainly not the prevalent thought, and the idea that it almost certainly will be possible in some form someday muddies the water somewhat. | ||
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Campitor
36 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On April 02 2013 08:24 Iyerbeth wrote: The social construction around life-extension is extremely varied though. just like the social construction around god!  i'm not really sure what specific point is being disputed here. all I'm saying is that, when you put on your anthropologist hat and take a look at your own culture, the whole "modern"/"premodern" thing starts to feel a little shakier. and the difference between the way people talk about science and the way people talk about religion is, well, not that much of a difference, most of the time I just want people to be careful about how they fetishize science (it's a big problem in our culture), and this is just a specific arena in which that danger is very close at hand. that's all. edit: because it really seems to me that the logic here is "science can give us anything we can imagine, we can imagine immortality, therefore science is going to give us immortality. furthermore, since science always makes progress, and always accelerates, science is going to give us immortality very soon! thanks, science! let me send my children to the STEM priesthood, so that they might help accelerate Your coming!" edit: and we should definitely be thinking about the fact that evolution can create diseases faster than we can find ways to beat them, and I don't think that's an arms race we're going to win. | ||
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Iyerbeth
England2410 Posts
On April 02 2013 08:43 sam!zdat wrote: I just want people to be careful about how they fetishize science (it's a big problem in our culture), and this is just a specific arena in which that danger is very close at hand. that's all. Purely on that statement, I think I could agree. | ||
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Nachtwind
Germany1130 Posts
Do you believe that in the next ~60 years human science would be able to develop methods to stop death from aging or even reverse aging. Yes/No , plus why Yes.. IF human mankind would focus on that target. The problem is that science and technology progress is based on economic factors. If science would have all the money in the world. We would solve many problems. In the long term with those focus it´s just stupid not so say: Yes we can beat aging. Yes we can cure all diseases now. Yes, no human need to starve from hunger anymore. We also would have no energy problems whatsoever. We could even colonize other planets or terraforming our planet even better. But that´s not going to happen because that would be against economical laws. Like AI. There is just no interest in the market to produce artificial intelligence. Since decades now we didn´t have jumps in that technology. Market is focusing on highly specialized problem solvers for single tasks. That´s happening from the 1970 till now. | ||
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