How to live forever

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The old question of immortality, mankind has tackled this subject from a very personal quest of each individual and as a group quest. I am interested in living for forever, and I am inviting everyone here to contribute his suggestions on how to live forever. Those not interested in living forever are also welcome to share with us their objections or their exceptions to immortality.

Rather an ambitious plan: so, let’s just say that we want to – at least I – live longer, much longer than the sixty or seventy years allotted by that thinker in the Bible: “Our years are sixty, seventy if we be stronger, but full of tears, and pains, and miseries” (something like that). Of course we know that science and technology in the area of medicine has prolonged our earthly life longer than the duration allowed for in the Bible. It is here projected that if we should master the materials and the processes and the machines and the skills to live longer and longer, then we might one day achieve immortality.

I see that there are two conceivable solutions to the question of immortality: the religious one and the scientific one; then there is the philosophical approach to both solutions, and to the very question of immortality. Philosophy here should be a kind of a referee to the discussion of the question itself, in its role as an overseer in the constructive and critical discipline of human thinking.

The solution from religions is essentially first an acceptance of the fact of death, and second the speculation of a life after death, which speculation has ended in the belief in the existence of a world parallel to the material world, and in many ways understood in the same fashion the material world is understood, but liberated from the circum-scriptive and inhibitive borders of the material world. I refer to the spiritual world of souls and similar entities like angels, good and bad ones, God or gods, etc.

Religion teaches that immortality is not in the existence of this life but in the existence of the post-death world, in the existence of the soul, in the spiritual world. But by way of accommodation to the material world there is a restoration of the earthly life in the end times of the material world. And at this point things get blurry, same also with the life or existence of the soul in the post-death state and stage of the individual soul.

The solution from religions would appear to be like the search of a motorist for a forever functioning car, thus:

The motorist early on realizes that such a forever functioning car is beyond hope; so on the one hand he imagines a different scenario where he would still be present in, one where things last forever; and on the other, he postpones the arrival of that other scenario to an indeterminate future for which he is waiting. In the meantime, he still has to get a new car or a newer car every so many years.

Essentially this solution to the quest of a forever functioning car is no solution to the problem in the here and now dimensions which is the actual one he lives in. But it does offer a pseudo solution to the longing of his heart, the consolation to a lamentation.

Let us instead then concentrate on science and on philosophy as the guiding hand of science. Science, we know what is science, the continuous search by observation and experimentation for the programming that exists or might exist or should exist in everything directly or indirectly accessible to our senses and to that big sense we call the brain. Philosophy is here understood as rational, logical, critical, and constructive thinking.

Very simple concepts of science and philosophy, yes; and we hope that they will be of essential service to us in the search for immortality.
Here we go:

First, find out what human existence is essentially all about.

It is all about doing everything we are doing now, like writing this post, which involves staying alive (now isn’t that circular: staying alive to search for forever staying alive) and keeping the thought function intact and working. Human existence is all about being functional in all the physiology of the human organism, par excellently, the thinking function.

Second, find out what functions we can give up without doing away with the thing that matters most to human being and acting. (Getting philosophical now…)

What is essentially human in the human organism is the thinking function of the human brain. Let’s say: the conscious thinking function of human existence – let’s call that essential human function as humanity – is the working of the brain or in the abstract mode, the mind.

Third, we want to be able to maintain the presence of the mind of an individual around and functioning forever; If we so much as attain this state of humanity, then that is human immortality, even without all the rest of human physiology. Just make sure that my mind is around forever.

Fourth, but what kind of an existence would that be, without the rest of human physiology, but that only of the brain-mind? So, are we back to the inescapable fact that we cannot have an individual’s mind around forever and functioning without the rest of human physiology, at least if it would be a functioning mind or brain or brain-mind?
Am I moving into the direction of the motorist looking for the forever functioning car, or essentially into the direction of religions in the search for immortality? I am afraid that is what all this talk about essential humanity is getting me into, namely, the world of spirits. When we focus our attention on the functioning of the brain and arrive at the idea of a mind, then trying to compromise by saying that the mind is not really spiritual but also material and organic by using a term like the one I employ, brain-mind; then I am indeed afraid that all my talk here is semantics, and I am not getting anywhere.
I think the big question should be how to keep our physiological constitution going on and on forever, and that includes most importantly the brain.

The physiology we have now is organic. Let us imagine a physiology that is machinized, founded on the latest invention of mankind and the most versatile so far among inventions, the computer.

To make a long story short, immortality is possible or living much much longer, with computers taking up all the purposes of conscious intelligence in an individual person. (Didn’t I say earlier that we need philosophy to undertake this question of immortality?) Are we now into the subject of consciousness and artificial intelligence?

I am just throwing all these ideas out and inviting everyone to put in their contributions. Let me just sum up my thoughts:

Organic physiological immortality or long long life, much longer than our present life span, is conceptually possible; but we can have a shortcut with working out a machanized physiology. The core to this machanized physiology is the computer.

The machanized physiology of course includes the most essential of humanity, the brain or the brain-mind. Now, our problem is how to rig up an artificial intelligent consciousness or conscious intelligence that can perform inputs and outputs, the whole package of communication with other artificial conscious intelligences.

Will this artificial conscious intelligence last much much longer than our present organic conscious intelligence? I submit that it will last much much longer; because machines can be built by man to last longer than an analogous machinery in the human constitution; for example, the artificial heart valve can last much much longer than the natural organic one (now, is that so?).

And here we have the biggest challenge: how to transfer the organic conscious intelligence that each individual is at present to the machanized conscious intelligence, if and when such an intelligence is custom-built to fit the demand specs of the concerned individual. And also all the other machines that will work the input and output processes for communicating with other organic or mechanized conscious intelligence.

Susma Rio Sep

2

Moving this very long non-debate to MPSIMS.

3

Sounds like something from the wrapper of Doc Bronner’s All-One Soap.

4

You cannot live forever, any more than you can step in the same river twice.

When I was seven years old, I remember calculating how old I would be in the year 2000. I remember trying to imagine what I would be like.

The fact is that I remember that seven year old boy, but I am no longer him. I have become somebody else. He is a faded memory that I know less well than casual acquaintances I know today.

Copy your consciousness into a machine and you become something else, as surely as you become something else every day of your life.

It just happens so slowly you don’t notice it.

“You” are nothing more than the illusion of self.

5

Comprehend it you cannot.

We can only hope to strive to attempt a look such as this to this most hexing idea.

6

Eh, we’re all going to end up as brains in jars anyway. Well, some of us will. I just hope my doctors clean out the Vlasic container before they chuck me in.

7

These mostly apply to continued survival as a human…

Overpopulation would become far worse if people, in any great number, could remain fertile for centuries or more.
Considering our past history, we’d solve this problem by means of immense massacres… if we didn’t all starve first.

If one person, or a very few people, had a drastically-increased lifespan, he would have to be very, VERY careful to keep it secret. If the secret got out, he’d end up spending the rest of his immortal life as a lab rat.

If you’re not one of the elite, there’s not much point in living forever. How would you like to spend the next million years serving coffee or cleaning toilets? Or working 12-hour days as a slave in a coal mine?
Remember that if large numbers of people are immortal, compound interest on your current assets won’t do you a bit of good in this respect.

As Johnathan Swift pointed out, the exact nature of the immortality needs to be considered. He imagined one race of immortals who just got steadily older, weaker, sicker, and more senile, but never died.

8

How to live forever? Don’t play this game: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196644

9

Darnit, where did I put my magnetic rings…?

10

…by hiding from it (so to speak)? Here is my idea:
-we download EVERY aspect ofour personalitys onto optical disc, every 2-3 years. At the time we are about to die, we integrate all of this stored data into a computer program, which emulates human behavior. Then, as our biological computer (brain) fadesout, we pick up existance in a hardwired computer, and the program expands to include visual sensors 9eyes), audio sensors, and tactile sensors.
Seems like thiswould mean immortality (or as long as the power cord is connected)!

11

Yes, with magnetic ring: http://www.alexchiu.com and helmet http://www.stileproject.com/helmet

12

How to live forever: don’t stop breathing. If you’re still breathing, you’re considered alive in every legal sense.

13

Note to self: adjust the solution in jar 24. It’s beginning to figure things out.

14

Further exposition on how to live forever.

We have to decide what physiological functions we want to do forever, i.e., for many many years. Now, thinking is also physiologically based. Writing posts to message boards and reading posts, that is a thinking function. And thinking, I think I would like to continue doing this kind of a function for as long as posters are around, and I would like to be around also.

What about the other physiological functions? –- and all functions or activities of life at present are physiologically founded. Why, of course, the nice ones; but not the bad ones, like stomachache and similar malfunctions or dysfunctions. Good bowel movements and good urinations are nice functions. But when you can’t move bowel or can’t pass water, that is bad. We don’t want to live forever with such malfunctions or dysfunctions. But thinking and discovering, yes I love these functions.

So why we want to live forever is really the desire to have good physiology with us for many many years, even forever. When we get to heaven, if and when, and with religious teachings about heaven being true after all; then we will have good physiology all around. Better the Muslim heaven in this regard than the Christian one, especially for guys. I am a guy.

But even for Christians there is the resurrection of the dead when the soul will get back its physiological body; then all our physiology should be at peak performance and will not wear out. However, not to congratulate ourselves too soon, because Christian mentors tell us that by that time the saved will find all physiology insipid, because the vision of God will be by far infinitely better. For the damned however their physiology will continue to be tormented by all kinds of pains, aches, and discomforts. Bad for them, how they will wish they would not live forever.

Didn’t I say somewhere here in these message boards that I would prefer after the resurrection to just go back to Paradise where God put Adam and Eve: and please no more trial of obedience and curiosity. Didn’t I say also somewhere in these forums here that for guys in hell, even after the resurrection, and certainly after the resurrection, they will have their teeth back – should they have gone earlier without a full denture. God will provide. What for? To gnash their teeth owing to the agony of eternal fire. For there will be the howling, the screaming, and the gnashing of teeth for sheer excruciating pain.

Coming back to life forever, how to live forever: the real issue I think – you see, it’s all about thinking – is how to continue with the life of thought. We can get tired of all the physiological processes of organic life, but not with thought which is the most quintessential function of the brain – I think. At least for myself and a lot of others who don’t mind missing their breakfasts and lunches and dinners for the absorbing engrossment of working out a puzzle of thinking; that is joy.

I am not a gambler, but I have heard gamblers saying that given a choice between gambling and sex, they would go for gambling. Yet, the kind of gambling they go for in preference to sex is not the purely chance kind; it is the kind where the intellect has a good share in the whole operation. What kind of gambling is that? one that involves a lot of thinking – again that word, thinking, figuring out the odds, experiencing the thrill of having done a better job at calculation on the odds, with the mingling of chance.

One reason to live forever, to be able to gamble forever, even with the wager of plain matchsticks. In my case, the search for knowledge or the working out a problem, basically a puzzle of ideas. So, the problem is how to keep the brain going and going forever; ever alive and active and keen.

That suggestion about storing our memory in compact discs, I think is a move in the right direction. Compact discs and other storage media yet to come with much more versatility and capacity can hold immensely more and indefinitely longer than our brain memory can manage.

Now, here is an insight, to live forever is first to have memory of self and as much of self as can be retained and accessed in our memory. Should a person lose totally his memory, then he is for more than fifty percent of his life extinguished, gone. That guy who came back from coma after nineteen years of vegetative existence, he was shortchanged by nineteen years of life.

Back then to the question at the start of this post, which physiological function do we want to keep going forever? The memory function of the brain. The brain can’t last long for the present however; but, while waiting for bio-engineering technology to work up a brain that will last much longer, we can make do with read/write compact discs drives. Keep feeding input of self memory data into such a drive, that should be a preservation of fifty percent of life for a much longer time than the duration of the organic memory cells in our brain.

Do we now have fifty percent of life that can be extended indefinitely, namely, in the compact discs drive? The next hurdle is the perpetuation of the conscious self, that self that is the first person and the second person and the third person in discourse: the “I” and the “You” and the “HE”, that is the holder and operator of memory.

Right away we can say that the perpetuation of the self does not have to be the continuation of the numerical identity of the self that is now living a life, the organic physiological one. It can be another numerically distinct entity or several such entities. What about a clone for such an entity?

When human clones become possible, order one and imbue it with all the memory data of accumulated compact discs; and very important now, extend and impart to it your conscious self, developing thereby a partnership or even a corporate personality with the clone or even several clones.

Is such an impartition and extension possible? To find out, try it. And even before trying it, think about it. Anyway, let’s go into this experimentation which is very simple and very possible. Look among your family members and friends for someone very similar to you in personality, so that you and he can say that you both have similar even indistinguishable preferences, likes and dislikes. Work on this coadunation of personality so that your partnership self can be in two places or two situations at the same time, and act in such a manner that each one will be acting indistinguishably in his situation as if the other one were physically acting in that situation, and vice versa.

In the absence of a clone or several clones, machines can be devised, similar to an answering machines, only now doing much more complicated and “intelligent” processes, such as making decisions for the absent self that is I, You, or He. When the machine makes a decision or takes an action in your absence, it will perfectly match the one you would have taken if you were present. The same kind of training essentially would be done to the machine as to a clone, the difference now would be the computer hardware and software that are being fitted out for the prospective reactions in every situation that you would yourself undertake.

The greatest challenge here is how to transfer the consciousness of the self to the clone or the machine that will be the vehicle of endless or indefinitely continuing life.

Susma Rio Sep