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Some Information About Immortality From Wikipedia
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jonano
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04 December 2007
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Physical Immortality
Physical immortality
Physical immortality is the unending existence of a person from a physical source such as a brain or computer. This can either be because of a spiritual belief, such as held by members of the Rastafari movement and some who practice Rebirthing-Breathwork or it can be based on technological singularity predictions about the future.
Technological immortality
Technological immortality is the prospect for much longer life spans made possible by scientific advances in a variety of fields: nanotechnology, emergency room procedures, genetics, biological engineering, regenerative medicine, microbiology, and others. Contemporary life spans in the advanced industrial societies are already markedly longer than those of the past because of better nutrition, availability of health care, standard of living and bio-medical scientific advances. Technological immortality predicts further progress for the same reasons over the near term. An important aspect of current scientific thinking about immortality is that some combination of human cloning, cryonics or nanotechnology will play an essential role in extreme life extension. Robert Freitas, a nanorobotics theorist, suggests we may be able to create tiny medical nanorobots that could go through our bloodstream, find dangerous things like cancer cells and bacteria, and destroy them.[3] Freitas anticipates that gene-therapies and nanotechnology will eventually make the human body effectively self-sustainable and capable of living indefinitely, short of severe trauma. Some suggest we will be able to continually create biological or synthetic replacement parts to replace damaged or dying ones.
Cryonics
Some people believe that such treatments will not be available in their natural life span. Cryonics is the practice of preserving organisms (either intact specimens or only their brains) for possible future revival by storing them at cryogenic temperatures where metabolism and decay are almost completely stopped. Ideally this would allow clinically dead people to be brought back in the future after cures to the patients' diseases have been discovered and aging is reversible. Modern cryonics procedures use a process called vitrification which creates a glass like state rather than freezing as the body is brought to low temperatures. This process reduces the risk of ice crystals damaging the brain structure. Many people who wish to become physically immortal think of cryonics as a backup plan in case the emerging life extension technologies don't develop rapidly enough.
Mind-to-computer uploading
One interesting possibility involves uploading the personality and memories via direct mind-computer interface. Some extropian futurists propose that, thanks to exponentially growing computing power, it will someday be possible to upload human consciousness onto a computer system, and live indefinitely in a virtual environment. This could be accomplished via advanced cybernetics, where computer hardware would initially be installed in the brain to help sort memory or accelerate thought processes. Gradually more and more components would be added until the person's entire brain functions were handled by artificial devices, without any sharp transitions that would lead to some identity issues mentioned below. At this point, the human body would become only an accessory and the mind could be transferred to any sufficiently powerful computer. A person in this state would then be essentially immortal, short of cataclysmic destruction of the entire civilization and their computers.
However, some argue that it is impossible to truly move one's consciousness from one body to another; it could be duplicated, but the original would still exist, creating two independent consciousnesses.
Quantum immortality
Main article: Quantum immortality
Quantum immortality is the name for the speculation that the Everett many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that a conscious being cannot cease to be. The idea is highly controversial.
Biological immortality
Biological immortality
Biological immortality is an absence of aging. A cell or organism that does not experience aging, or ceases to age at some point, is biologically immortal. Hydra can be considered biologically immortal as they do not undergo senescence or aging. Bacteria, as a colony, can also be considered immortal by cell division, because damaged macromolecules can be split between the two cells and diluted. However, biologically immortal organisms can also be killed or damaged by physical destruction.
Cyborgization
Transforming a human into a cyborg can include brain implants or extracting a human mind and placing it in a robotic life-support system. One would thus be impervious to aging and disease and theoretically immortal unless killed or destroyed.
Other
Rastafarians believe in physical immortality as a part of their religious doctrines. They believe that after God has called the Day of Judgment they will go to what they describe as Mount Zion in Africa to live in freedom for ever. They avoid the term everlasting life and deliberately use ever-living instead. Another group that believes in physical immortality are the Rebirthers, who believe that by following the connected breathing process of rebirthing they will live forever physically.
Long before modern science made such speculation feasible, people wishing to escape death sought what we might term mystical immortality, turning to the supernatural world for answers. Examples include Chinese Taoist and the medieval alchemists and their search for the Philosopher's Stone, or more modern religious mystics such as Sri Aurobindo, who believed in the possibility of achieving physical immortality through spiritual transformation.
In Hinduism, one feat that advanced Yogis (practitioners of Yoga) can supposedly perform is "body jumping" — the ability to jump into another host and therefore live a longer life. Many Indian fables and tales include instances of this, and some believers treat the frequent recurrence of this idea as evidence that such an "immortality" method cannot be dismissed outright. There are also entire Hindu sects devoted to the attainment of physical immortality by various methods, namely the Naths and the Aghoras.[citation needed]
Some believe that biological forms have inherent limitations in their design — primarily, their fragility and inability to immediately morph to fit the environment. A way around that predicament may someday present itself in the ability to "exist" outside of the biological form. Over the long term, the biological nature of humanity may only be temporary; should technology permit, people may circumvent death and evolution, simply by taking artificial forms.
Some people believe physical immortality would not be possible or even desirable. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, in the preface to his book The Ocean World, expressed his meditations on physical immortality, as a part of life and its adaptive processes: “Death,” Cousteau states, “is fundamental to evolution,” and “evolution is fundamental to survival.” He concludes that, biologically speaking, “immortality does not present a possible means to avoid death”: “Mortal or immortal, [an organism] must die.”
Michael Shermer believes there is no significant scientific evidence for the proposed methods of achieving physical immortality. He says about them, “All have some basis in science, but none has achieved anything like scientific confirmation.”
Physical immortality is the unending existence of a person from a physical source such as a brain or computer. This can either be because of a spiritual belief, such as held by members of the Rastafari movement and some who practice Rebirthing-Breathwork or it can be based on technological singularity predictions about the future.
Technological immortality
Technological immortality is the prospect for much longer life spans made possible by scientific advances in a variety of fields: nanotechnology, emergency room procedures, genetics, biological engineering, regenerative medicine, microbiology, and others. Contemporary life spans in the advanced industrial societies are already markedly longer than those of the past because of better nutrition, availability of health care, standard of living and bio-medical scientific advances. Technological immortality predicts further progress for the same reasons over the near term. An important aspect of current scientific thinking about immortality is that some combination of human cloning, cryonics or nanotechnology will play an essential role in extreme life extension. Robert Freitas, a nanorobotics theorist, suggests we may be able to create tiny medical nanorobots that could go through our bloodstream, find dangerous things like cancer cells and bacteria, and destroy them.[3] Freitas anticipates that gene-therapies and nanotechnology will eventually make the human body effectively self-sustainable and capable of living indefinitely, short of severe trauma. Some suggest we will be able to continually create biological or synthetic replacement parts to replace damaged or dying ones.
Cryonics
Some people believe that such treatments will not be available in their natural life span. Cryonics is the practice of preserving organisms (either intact specimens or only their brains) for possible future revival by storing them at cryogenic temperatures where metabolism and decay are almost completely stopped. Ideally this would allow clinically dead people to be brought back in the future after cures to the patients' diseases have been discovered and aging is reversible. Modern cryonics procedures use a process called vitrification which creates a glass like state rather than freezing as the body is brought to low temperatures. This process reduces the risk of ice crystals damaging the brain structure. Many people who wish to become physically immortal think of cryonics as a backup plan in case the emerging life extension technologies don't develop rapidly enough.
Mind-to-computer uploading
One interesting possibility involves uploading the personality and memories via direct mind-computer interface. Some extropian futurists propose that, thanks to exponentially growing computing power, it will someday be possible to upload human consciousness onto a computer system, and live indefinitely in a virtual environment. This could be accomplished via advanced cybernetics, where computer hardware would initially be installed in the brain to help sort memory or accelerate thought processes. Gradually more and more components would be added until the person's entire brain functions were handled by artificial devices, without any sharp transitions that would lead to some identity issues mentioned below. At this point, the human body would become only an accessory and the mind could be transferred to any sufficiently powerful computer. A person in this state would then be essentially immortal, short of cataclysmic destruction of the entire civilization and their computers.
However, some argue that it is impossible to truly move one's consciousness from one body to another; it could be duplicated, but the original would still exist, creating two independent consciousnesses.
Quantum immortality
Main article: Quantum immortality
Quantum immortality is the name for the speculation that the Everett many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that a conscious being cannot cease to be. The idea is highly controversial.
Biological immortality
Biological immortality
Biological immortality is an absence of aging. A cell or organism that does not experience aging, or ceases to age at some point, is biologically immortal. Hydra can be considered biologically immortal as they do not undergo senescence or aging. Bacteria, as a colony, can also be considered immortal by cell division, because damaged macromolecules can be split between the two cells and diluted. However, biologically immortal organisms can also be killed or damaged by physical destruction.
Cyborgization
Transforming a human into a cyborg can include brain implants or extracting a human mind and placing it in a robotic life-support system. One would thus be impervious to aging and disease and theoretically immortal unless killed or destroyed.
Other
Rastafarians believe in physical immortality as a part of their religious doctrines. They believe that after God has called the Day of Judgment they will go to what they describe as Mount Zion in Africa to live in freedom for ever. They avoid the term everlasting life and deliberately use ever-living instead. Another group that believes in physical immortality are the Rebirthers, who believe that by following the connected breathing process of rebirthing they will live forever physically.
Long before modern science made such speculation feasible, people wishing to escape death sought what we might term mystical immortality, turning to the supernatural world for answers. Examples include Chinese Taoist and the medieval alchemists and their search for the Philosopher's Stone, or more modern religious mystics such as Sri Aurobindo, who believed in the possibility of achieving physical immortality through spiritual transformation.
In Hinduism, one feat that advanced Yogis (practitioners of Yoga) can supposedly perform is "body jumping" — the ability to jump into another host and therefore live a longer life. Many Indian fables and tales include instances of this, and some believers treat the frequent recurrence of this idea as evidence that such an "immortality" method cannot be dismissed outright. There are also entire Hindu sects devoted to the attainment of physical immortality by various methods, namely the Naths and the Aghoras.[citation needed]
Some believe that biological forms have inherent limitations in their design — primarily, their fragility and inability to immediately morph to fit the environment. A way around that predicament may someday present itself in the ability to "exist" outside of the biological form. Over the long term, the biological nature of humanity may only be temporary; should technology permit, people may circumvent death and evolution, simply by taking artificial forms.
Some people believe physical immortality would not be possible or even desirable. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, in the preface to his book The Ocean World, expressed his meditations on physical immortality, as a part of life and its adaptive processes: “Death,” Cousteau states, “is fundamental to evolution,” and “evolution is fundamental to survival.” He concludes that, biologically speaking, “immortality does not present a possible means to avoid death”: “Mortal or immortal, [an organism] must die.”
Michael Shermer believes there is no significant scientific evidence for the proposed methods of achieving physical immortality. He says about them, “All have some basis in science, but none has achieved anything like scientific confirmation.”
