Helmling

Secular,

You miss my point. It cannot be an upgrade. It is a new creation, a new being. Not an improvement, a replacement.

To wish for this, one must assume there is no value in what we are now.

Helmling

IesusDomini

He's talking about leaving all that behind. Brain, institutions, favorite socks, all of it gone.

What has defined humanity throught the course of civilizaiton would no longer define this transhuman race.

They would be something else.

And I must wonder, how would they feel about anyone who chose to stay behind?

bluefugue

Yes, that's fine for the long term. I'm talking about *short term* consequences of physical immortality for human beings. You don't get to become a pure information pattern cruising the cosmos in one easy step.

bluefugue

That sounds vaguely ominous.

bluefugue

Then what would define this race? Humans are defined in no small part by their basic needs -- pain vs. pleasure, appetites for food and sex, desire for social advancement, ambition, aggression and compassion, etc. We are not pure minds in a vacuum; we are highly specific beings whose nature relates to our physical circumstances and our evolutionary past. If a mind were to shed all this, what would remain? What would define it? What would a transhuman mind desire? Or fear? Or do all day? I'm not saying it would necessarily be a bad thing, but what in fact would it be?

SecularFuture

IesusDomini,
I used to wonder about the same thing when I first started studying transhumanism. In the future (we’re already working on primitive techniques now) we will be able to upgrade our mental capacity just like you would upgrade the RAM on your computer. The details for this can be found in a subject called “nanotechnology.”

No. Unlike our current state, there will only be addition, no subtraction.

[quote]”How would social inequality play out in a world where the rich and powerful are immortal too?”[quote]
Everything will start off expensive, as usual, like computers, and then prices will eventually drop. Cryonics is fairly cheap now compared to how it was a few years ago.

They might have to change some rules.

There’s enough room in this universe for everyone. Ya gotta think about that one for a moment.

Information and social interaction. Our thoughts wouldn’t dwell on the “tacky” things as much.

Something similar to what we do.

Think about what our lives are now.
• We are born.
• We spend 12 to 16 years in school.
• We spend the next 40+ years working until retirement.
• And then we spend the next few years of your lives aging to die.

Immortality would give you infinite room to explore, learn, and to do the things you enjoy. It is, in my opinion, far more inspiring than the routine we go through now.

Helmling
I want to become better. I don’t want to get sick, tired, or hurt anymore. I want to keep the mind that I have now and make it better through future concepts.

Wouldn’t care. It’s a personal choice.

Keith Russell

Secular said:

Think about what our lives are now.
• We are born.
• We spend 12 to 16 years in school.

(Try closer to 20.)

• We spend the next 40+ years working until retirement.

(Retirement? What's that? Visual artists, writers, musicians, and philosophers don't retire...)

• And then we spend the next few years of your lives aging to die.

(Again, I want to live forever.)

Keith.

SecularFuture

I don't believe in retirement either. Theres no point.

bluefugue

I assume you're talking about interplanetary/interstellar colonization. That is hundreds, possibly thousands, of years down the line. Suppose they find a way to eliminate aging in 100 years. We'll all be stuck on this planet for the time being, and that means we'll have to keep the population curtailed. The only immediately available colonization options would be artificial habitats on other planets like the Moon or Mars, or orbital space stations. Even setting aside the logistical difficulties, would anyone particularly want to live in such conditions?

Now, if you are talking a scale of thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of years, other possibilities emerge. While I think it's unlikely we'll find truly earthlike planets around any nearby systems, terraforming might be a real possibility. Or, alternately, changing our physiology so that we can survive in non-terrestrial environments. Those are legitimate concepts if you are looking at the long term.

But I think the short-term consequences of human immortality could be far messier, and oughtn't to be glossed over.

Helmling

SecularFuture,

"Wouldn’t care. It’s a personal choice. "

That is easy to say. I, though, am not so confident in the benevolence of a race that is so convinced it is "better" than another. Might such transhumans, out of purely good intentions, consider themselves qualified to make the decision for those who would prefer to remain human--those who figure they might lose too much in the bargain of becoming gods.

Such is, after all, the purvue of gods.