[IMG]http://dailydose.righthealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Telomere_caps.gif[/IMG]
[I]A picture of chromosomes in a cell nucleus, with the telomeres a bright white. Telomerase was discovered by a dyslexic student at Berkeley admitted after a special interview.[/I]
To start off;
[QUOTE]
[B]Background for non-transhumanists:[/B]
Transhumanists are not fond of death. We would stop it if we could. To this end we support research that holds out hope of a future in which humanity has defeated death. Death is an extremely difficult technical problem, to be attacked with biotech and nanotech and other technological means. I do not tell a tale of the land called Future, nor state as a fact that humanity will someday be free of death - I have no magical ability to see through time. But death is a great evil, and I will oppose it whenever I can. If I could create a world where people lived forever, or at the very least a few billion years, I would do so. I don't think humanity will always be stuck in the awkward stage we now occupy, when we are smart enough to create enormous problems for ourselves, but not quite smart enough to solve them. I think that humanity's problems are solvable; difficult, but solvable. I work toward that end, as a Research Fellow of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
This is an email message I sent to three transhumanist mailing lists, and a collection of emails I then received, in November of 2004. Some emails have been edited for brevity.
[B]Update, at bottom, added May 2005.[/B]
Date: Thu Nov 18 22:27:34 2004
From: Eliezer Yudkowsky
My little brother, Yehuda Nattan Yudkowsky, is dead.
He died November 1st. His body was found without identification. The family found out on November 4th. I spent a week and a half with my family in Chicago, and am now back in Atlanta. I've been putting off telling my friends, because it's such a hard thing to say.
I used to say: "I have four living grandparents and I intend to have four living grandparents when the last star in the Milky Way burns out." I still have four living grandparents, but I don't think I'll be saying that any more. Even if we make it to and through the Singularity, it will be too late. One of the people I love won't be there. The universe has a surprising ability to stab you through the heart from somewhere you weren't looking. Of all the people I had to protect, I never thought that Yehuda might be one of them. Yehuda was born July 11, 1985. He was nineteen years old when he died.
The Jewish religion prescribes a number of rituals and condolences for the occasion of a death. Yehuda has passed to a better place, God's ways are mysterious but benign, etc. Does such talk really comfort people? I watched my parents, and I don't think it did. The blessing that is spoken at Jewish funerals is "Blessed is God, the true judge." Do they really believe that? Why do they cry at funerals, if they believe that? Does it help someone, to tell them that their religion requires them to believe that? I think I coped better than my parents and my little sister Channah. I was just dealing with pain, not confusion. When I heard on the phone that Yehuda had died, there was never a moment of disbelief. I knew what kind of universe I lived in. How is my religious family to comprehend it, working, as they must, from the assumption that Yehuda was murdered by a benevolent God? The same loving God, I presume, who arranges for millions of children to grow up illiterate and starving; the same kindly tribal father-figure who arranged the Holocaust and the Inquisition's torture of witches. I would not hesitate to call it evil, if any sentient mind had committed such an act, permitted such a thing. But I have weighed the evidence as best I can, and I do not believe the universe to be evil, a reply which in these days is called atheism.
Maybe it helps to believe in an immortal soul. I know that I would feel a lot better if Yehuda had gone away on a trip somewhere, even if he was never coming back. But Yehuda did not "pass on". Yehuda is not "resting in peace". Yehuda is not coming back. Yehuda doesn't exist any more. Yehuda was absolutely annihilated at the age of nineteen. Yes, that makes me angry. I can't put into words how angry. It would be rage to rend the gates of Heaven and burn down God on Its throne, if any God existed. But there is no God, so my anger burns to tear apart the way-things-are, remake the pattern of a world that permits this.
I wonder at the strength of non-transhumanist atheists, to accept so terrible a darkness without any hope of changing it. But then most atheists also succumb to comforting lies, and make excuses for death even less defensible than the outright lies of religion. They flinch away, refuse to confront the horror of a hundred and fifty thousand sentient beings annihilated every day. One point eight lives per second, fifty-five million lives per year. Convert the units, time to life, life to time. The World Trade Center killed half an hour. As of today, all cryonics organizations together have suspended one minute. This essay took twenty thousand lives to write. I wonder if there was ever an atheist who accepted the full horror, making no excuses, offering no consolations, who did not also hope for some future dawn. What must it be like to live in this world, seeing it just the way it is, and think that it will never change, never get any better?
Yehuda's death is the first time I ever lost someone close enough for it to hurt. So now I've seen the face of the enemy. Now I understand, a little better, the price of half a second. I don't understand it well, because the human brain has a pattern built into it. We do not grieve forever, but move on. We mourn for a few days and then continue with our lives. Such underreaction poorly equips us to comprehend Yehuda's death. Nineteen years, 7053 days, of life and memory annihilated. A thousand years, or a million millennia, or a forever, of future life lost. The sun should have dimmed when Yehuda died, and a chill wind blown in every place that sentient beings gather, to tell us that our number was diminished by one. But the sun did not dim, because we do not live in that sensible a universe. Even if the sun did dim whenever someone died, it wouldn't be noticeable except as a continuous flickering. Soon everyone would get used to it, and they would no longer notice the flickering of the sun.
My little brother collected corks from wine bottles. Someone brought home, to the family, a pair of corks they had collected for Yehuda, and never had a chance to give him. And my grandmother said, "Give them to Channah, and someday she'll tell her children about how her brother Yehuda collected corks." My grandmother's words shocked me, stretched across more time than it had ever occurred to me to imagine, to when my fourteen-year-old sister had grown up and had married and was telling her children about the brother she'd lost. How could my grandmother skip across all those years so easily when I was struggling to get through the day? I heard my grandmother's words and thought: she has been through this before. This isn't the first loved one my grandmother has lost, the way Yehuda was the first loved one I'd lost. My grandmother is old enough to have a pattern for dealing with the death of loved ones; she knows how to handle this because she's done it before. And I thought: how can she accept this? If she knows, why isn't she fighting with everything she has to change it?
What would it be like to be a rational atheist in the fifteenth century, and know beyond all hope of rescue that everyone you loved would be annihilated, one after another as you watched, unless you yourself died first? That is still the fate of humans today; the ongoing horror has not changed, for all that we have hope. Death is not a distant dream, not a terrible tragedy that happens to someone else like the stories you read in newspapers. One day you'll get a phone call, like I got a phone call, and the possibility that seemed distant will become reality. You will mourn, and finish mourning, and go on with your life, and then one day you'll get another phone call. That is the fate this world has in store for you, unless you make a convulsive effort to change it.
Since Yehuda's body was not identified for three days after he died, there was no possible way he could have been cryonically suspended. Others may be luckier. If you've been putting off that talk with your loved ones, do it. Maybe they won't understand, but at least you won't spend forever wondering why you didn't even try.
There is one Jewish custom associated with death that makes sense to me, which is contributing to charity on behalf of the departed. I am donating eighteen hundred dollars to the general fund of the Singularity Institute, because this has gone on long enough. If you object to the Singularity Institute then consider Dr. Aubrey de Grey's Methuselah Foundation, which hopes to defeat ageing through biomedical engineering. I think that a sensible coping strategy for transhumanist atheists, to donate to an anti-death charity after a loved one dies. Death hurt us, so we will unmake Death. Let that be the outlet for our anger, which is terrible and just. I watched Yehuda's coffin lowered into the ground and cried, and then I sat through the eulogy and heard rabbis tell comforting lies. If I had spoken Yehuda's eulogy I would not have comforted the mourners in their loss. I would have told the mourners that Yehuda had been absolutely annihilated, that there was nothing left of him. I would have told them they were right to be angry, that they had been robbed, that something precious and irreplaceable was taken from them, for no reason at all, taken from them and shattered, and they are never getting it back.
No sentient being deserves such a thing. Let that be my brother's true eulogy, free of comforting lies.
When Michael Wilson heard the news, he said: "We shall have to work faster." Any similar condolences are welcome. Other condolences are not.
Goodbye, Yehuda. There isn't much point in saying it, since there's no one to hear. Goodbye, Yehuda, you don't exist any more. Nothing left of you after your death, like there was nothing before your birth. You died, and your family, Mom and Dad and Channah and I, sat down at the Sabbath table just like our family had always been composed of only four people, like there had never been a Yehuda. Goodbye, Yehuda Yudkowsky, never to return, never to be forgotten.
Love,
Eliezer.[/QUOTE]
To illustrate, here's a chart indicating the processes involved in ageing, and the treatments that can inhibit some of them:
[MEDIA]http://i51.tinypic.com/11ieoex.png[/MEDIA]
The subject of today is death.
It's the backbone of evolution, which is why so many people argue it should not be stopped. It weeds out the old and makes way for the new. It brought us into existence. The death of ideas and their replacement with new ones brought us into the modern era.
Religion, in general, makes a few of its points about death. A few hundred of them, and generally all moral codes are based on death: Being something so foundation-shattering to people, it is easy to make it something mystical, and thus it's easy to make it religious, which is why most modern-era religions are based on a good "afterlife" for the good and judgement by [insert your local deity of preference] and the bad afterlife.
For an atheist, death is just the end. Kaput. And in many ways the ability to just deal with it and move on without being fooled by all the comforting lies says something good of people. For most atheists, death is something that is to be accepted. For most religious people, death is actually something good, which is a rationalization [of some kind] that comforts people and allows them to go on in their quiet lives knowing that at some point they are going to get the phone call.
But what if you're a transhumanist atheist? I could go on and on about telomere reconstruction and SENS but instead I think this short post illustrates the point
[QUOTE]Whilst discussing with a friend how difficult it would be to use a brain emulation to predict someone's actions, a tiny speck
of dust floated through my field of view as if to illustrate the point.
I have decided as a result of seeing the speck that I'm going to attack death with renewed vigour, and if I succeed in
conquering it, then that speck will be one of the most important specks in man's evolution.
I ask you to do something transhuman today, in honour of the speck.
Mark A. Plus wrote:
> My current challenge to any Extropian stuck in this loop,
> or to any >H, for that matter, is: Either do it, or shut up about it.
Way to go, Mark. Good luck.
What am I going to do? Well, as soon as I hit the Send button on this message, I'm going to find out what education I need to
achieve my goals, and where I can get it. Then I'm going to make the entry requirements, and sign up. That inevitably means a
big reduction in income <gulp>, but there's just a chance it could save my life.
Mark is right. The philosophy has gone on for long enough. It's time for action.
Darren[/QUOTE]
Discuss.
{
Meaningfullness/Lessness and Immortality: [url]http://www.maxmore.com/meaning.htm[/url]
SENS: [url]http://www.sens.org/[/url]
Telomeres: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere[/url]
Nanotechnology and medicine: [url]http://thenanoage.com/#medicine[/url]
Progress and it's sustainability: [url]http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/[/url]
Cybernetic Immortality: [url]http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBIMM.html[/url]
}
Aubrey de Grey on Ageing:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iYpxRXlboQ[/MEDIA]
Hans Rosling on the Myth of Overpopulation:
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpKbO6O3O3M[/MEDIA]
Ray Kurzweil on Scarcity and the Availability of Advanced Technology:
[url]http://singularityhub.com/2011/04/18/transcendent-man-plays-in-san-francisco-heres-a-transcript-of-qa-session/[/url]
(Skip to 'Question: How do we solve the problems of scarcity and hierarchy?')
:pcgaming: [B][I]tl;dr[/I][/B] :pcgaming:
So, should we? Why yes or why not? What about resources, population, ennui (This is actually more important than you think), the value of human life, and most importantly; what happens to evolution with immortality?
I'm pretty sure we just recently determined that aging is more of a disease than anything. In fact, we've been able to reverse the effect in rats by depriving them of that certain gene.
Oh wait, I remember now. It was in Time Magazine. Our bodies develop deficiencies in telomerase (thanks, Eudoxia) which causes aging.
[QUOTE=Matix;29655468]I'm pretty sure we just recently determined that aging is more of a disease than anything. In fact, we've been able to reverse the effect in rats.[/QUOTE]
Actually all we did was remove the telomerase (Accelerate ageing :downs: ) and then inject it again, returning ageing to its normal pace.
It's not death that scares me it's the whole dying part.
We're getting pretty close to Biological Immortality anyway (within a lifetime hopefully) so I'm not [I]too[/I] concerned, of course that assumes I become wealthy enough to afford it :ohdear:.
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;29655487]Actually all we did was remove the telomerase (Accelerate ageing :downs: ) and then inject it again, returning ageing to its normal pace.[/QUOTE]
That's still huge, because we've found what causes it. (Or, more accurately, what stops it.)
[QUOTE=Matix;29655509]That's still huge, because we've found what causes it. (Or, more accurately, what stops it.)[/QUOTE]
Well at least we can pull telomerase out I guess that's something.
Who needs immortality anyway,everyone before us has died when they were supposed to. Why should we be any different.
It was shown in the tests that excessive amounts of it, when injected, virtually stopped the aging process all together.
[QUOTE=Gump;29655565]Who needs immortality anyway,everyone before us has died when they were supposed to. Why should we be any different.[/QUOTE]
When we have the technology to effectively stop and even reverse ageing, would you decline on the idea that death is the absolute moral solution? Why death at that precise, biologically-chosen age?
[QUOTE=Gump;29655565]Who needs immortality anyway,everyone before us has died when they were supposed to. Why should we be any different.[/QUOTE]
What a load of ignorance. Why do anything different than our ancestors? Why should society advance at all? Because if we don't, we will die out.
What a coincidence, my friend lent me Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton and rejuvenation is a big part of it.
It's interesting to imagine how effective immortality would be used and abused by people.
Isn't aging caused by our body getting damaged and used?
[QUOTE=johan_sm;29655613]Isn't aging caused by our body getting damaged and used?[/QUOTE]
There's no biological reason outside of aging that causes our bones to lose density, our skin to lose tension, or our brains to lost functionality. In fact, our bodies usually grow back even stronger when damaged.
[QUOTE=Matix;29655595]What a load of ignorance. Why do anything different than our ancestors? Why should society advance at all? Because if we don't, we will die out.[/QUOTE]
If we were to choose to be immortal however many, then we will be depriving generations of their lives that could have been. Don't get me wrong It would be pretty cool but I just think it would be foolish to be used on a large scale.
[QUOTE=Gump;29655650]If we were to choose to be immortal however many, then we will be depriving generations of their lives that could have been. Don't get me wrong It would be pretty cool but I just think it would be foolish to be used on a large scale.[/QUOTE]
But... We would still be able to have children.
[QUOTE=Gump;29655650]If we were to choose to be immortal however many, then we will be depriving generations of their lives that could have been. Don't get me wrong It would be pretty cool but I just think it would be foolish to be used on a large scale.[/QUOTE]
Depriving who? How are we depriving anyone? If you're talking about population density, that's a problem anyway.
All this makes me happy for being a biotechs student.
And, as said above. Telomeres are one of the reasons of aging, I imagine. For example, some guys gave minimal meals to mice. That made them live twice longer.
And we aren't talking about immortality. You can still die just as easily. Your body just won't really deteriorate the way it does now.
:v:
I don't, we haven't even colonized space and the people who could probably afford this, are rich people who DON'T exactly need to live longer.
I'm not saying its bad but we focus too much on trying to create long term goals that are actually...too long term.
Personally I would never want it because we already go insane but the inane bullshit general society does. Multiply that by infinity.
[QUOTE=Matix;29655683]Depriving who? How are we depriving anyone? If you're talking about population density, that's a problem anyway.[/QUOTE]
Well yes this would result in an increase in population. Although I was trying to say that it would make more sense to use this to a certain extent, because with everyone choosing to be immortal, well that would just result in all kinds of shit.
[QUOTE=Gump;29655650]If we were to choose to be immortal however many, then we will be depriving generations of their lives that could have been. Don't get me wrong It would be pretty cool but I just think it would be foolish to be used on a large scale.[/QUOTE]
What.
Are you suggesting that if we don't all have as many children as possible we're depriving. . . possible people of their possible lives?
[QUOTE=Swilly;29655736]:v:
I don't, we haven't even colonized space and the people who could probably afford this, are rich people who DON'T exactly need to live longer.
I'm not saying its bad but we focus too much on trying to create long term goals that are actually...too long term.[/QUOTE]
I, for one, welcome our immortal plutocracy.
[QUOTE=Gump;29655750]Well yes this would result in an increase in population. Although I was trying to say that it would make more sense to use this to a certain extent, because with everyone choosing to be immortal, well that would just result in all kinds of shit.[/QUOTE]
Like what? I don't see any inherent problems with humans living to be 200 years old instead of 100. In fact, it could have a lot of beneficial implications.
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;29655752]What.
Are you suggesting that if we don't all have as many children as possible we're depriving. . . possible people of their possible lives?[/QUOTE]
Its Forest Gump :v:
What do you expect?
Isn't this the argument against abortion?
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;29655752]What.
Are you suggesting that if we don't all have as many children as possible we're depriving. . . possible people of their possible lives?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, dude. Every time you masturbate, you murder millions of potential babies.
[QUOTE=Matix;29655762]Like what? I don't see any inherent problems with humans living to be 200 years old instead of 100. In fact, it could have a lot of beneficial implications.[/QUOTE]
Like what?
We can already see how the older generations tend to have more political power and are holding us down. Hell, they're is always an equal negative to each positive. Most of the time though we don't see the negative until it occurs.
[QUOTE=Gump;29655750]Well yes this would result in an increase in population. Although I was trying to say that it would make more sense to use this to a certain extent, because with everyone choosing to be immortal, well that would just result in all kinds of shit.[/QUOTE]
Fuck that, I don't care. I want to be immortal or atleast live longer than 80
[QUOTE=Swilly;29655776]Like what?
We can already see how the older generations tend to have more political power and are holding us down. Hell, they're is always an equal negative to each positive. Most of the time though we don't see the negative until it occurs.[/QUOTE]
That's because of their generation, not their age.
I'm not gonna have a different ideology simply because I'm 150 years old. It all depends on what happens between now and then, not my biological age.
:sigh:
Am I the only one not planning to live past 60?
[QUOTE=Matix;29655762]Like what? I don't see any inherent problems with humans living to be 200 years old instead of 100. In fact, it could have a lot of beneficial implications.[/QUOTE]
All I am saying is that it could cause problems as well as have many benefits.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
