143 replies to this topic

[corb]

 

Now, if you want a population of only adults that all have their brains developed in a certain way - and will never look at things much differently - and you think this is progress then I simply can't agree.

 

And I don't know why you decided life extension means we'll stop having children.

If you look at statistics things like accidents kill just as efficiently as age related disease.
There are many things that can kill you even if you have a young body.

There'll always be a need for children.
 

As for progress, as demonstrated by many cultures, progress typically means destroying the old and replacing it with a "new" that works just slightly better or in some cases much worse.

 

As for your love for drugs, that's your problem, and I'm not going to comment on that.

[addx]

Sorry, I think I edited after your reply.
 

There'll always be a need for children.

Yes, the children are needed by the civilization.

On the other hand, imagine what use todays civilization would have for people that were born 200 years ago. Most live 70 year olds are "useless" from this standpoint, people over the age of 50 have issues finding a job if they lose the one they had, they can't adopt new knowledge as they did when they were young and time runs them over.

Immortality is needed by the individual so is inherently selfish furthermore because it hinders the progress of the civilization.
 

As for progress, as demonstrated by many cultures, progress typically means destroying the old and replacing it with a "new" that works just slightly better or in some cases much worse.

Exactly - progress means and requires generations, iterations, replacements - everything immortality hinders.

Edited by addx, 29 August 2014 - 12:27 PM.

[corb]

people over the age of 50 have issues finding a job if they lose the one they had,

My grandfather found a job in his sixties and worked until quite recently, he's in his late 70s now.

All of my grandparents were working into their senior years in fact.
I know quite a bit of people in their twenties quite incapable of getting a job on the other hand.

 

Most of the biggest scientific minds of humanity did a lot of their work in their senior years.

As for older people incapable of learning new skills it has much more to do with social factors, you're expected to get a job fast, you have a "family" to raise, you don't have 5 years to get a new bachelors degree, neither do you have the lifespan to do it. And bare in mind, if you're "forever" young you'll never have this problem, there won't be old people after all.

And stop equating life extension with "immortality", please, that's the biggest misconception, that has been reiterated by mass media and has nothing to do with the actuality of life extension. As I said, young people die just as much as old people.

There's also going to be a lot of people with misguided philosophies against life extension like you so there's always going to be the fast turnover cohort in human population, we'll be able to make a comparison between the two and see which one is faring better, but I'm pretty convinced just like we can see now, even cultures with small gains in life expectancy fare much better and are much more beneficial for human development than the populations with a very low life expectancy that has a lot of children and that's going to translate into negligible senescence humans even more.

[niner]

On the other hand, imagine what use todays civilization would have for people that were born 200 years ago. Most live 70 year olds are "useless" from this standpoint, people over the age of 50 have issues finding a job if they lose the one they had, they can't adopt new knowledge as they did when they were young and time runs them over.

Immortality is needed by the individual so is inherently selfish furthermore because it hinders the progress of the civilization.

 

I understand what you're saying about younger people learning faster than the elderly, but with rejuvenative therapies that work, older people should have the brain of someone in their later twenties, not someone in their seventies.   We might even develop treatments that improve brain plasticity to the point that adults can learn things the way children do- for example, learning to speak a new language without an accent.  (although normal younger adults can do that now, with difficulty)

 

I agree with corb's point that we shouldn't get too caught up with "immortality" just yet.   However, in a world where people live much longer, I do think that cultural evolution will be slowed.  Slowed, but not stopped.  That might actually be a good thing, in that change is happening at an ever-accelerating pace, but humans' ability to adapt is not.

[addx]

people over the age of 50 have issues finding a job if they lose the one they had,

My grandfather found a job in his sixties and worked until quite recently, he's in his late 70s now.
All of my grandparents were working into their senior years in fact.

Well that's nice, give your grandfather a pat on the back.

But seniors not being able to find jobs due to lack of utility is a recognized problem in basicly most countries and there's usually "agendas" that address this recognized problem.

Professions die out. There's no more blacksmiths for example. Things change. Old people have issues adapting.
 

I know quite a bit of people in their twenties quite incapable of getting a job on the other hand.

You think the situation will improve for young people if life is extended?
 

Most of the biggest scientific minds of humanity did a lot of their work in their senior years.

Sure, and that represents what? 0.5% percent of global population?
 

As for older people incapable of learning new skills it has much more to do with social factors, you're expected to get a job fast, you have a "family" to raise, you don't have 5 years to get a new bachelors degree, neither do you have the lifespan to do it.

No it doesn't, it has most to do with adaptive neuronal growth during development/childhood/adolscence which is gone after the period is over.
 

And bare in mind, if you're "forever" young you'll never have this problem, there won't be old people after all.

It doesn't seem reasonable to "trap" people at any age. It's a shallow perspective on life. Young people evolve things. Old people give them advice etc. Young people evolve by trying different approaches some of which catastrophically fail, but that's the nature of selection, such people are needed to evolve things, some of them "lose" in the process. Old people help them on their way, guide them, ground them, offer better perspective. Young people are blind to "possible drawbacks" old people see too many "possible drawbacks" given their extensive experience which hinders their ability to evolve things but increases their ability to teach. Experience you can imagine as neuronal scarring. Old people have more. But there's only enough "skin" for so much scars. Eventually you can only scar already scarred tissues and at that point the nervous system starts failing.

I do not really like this idea of playing with this. And "forever young" was not the initial premise here either - just life extension.
 

And stop equating life extension with "immortality", please, that's the biggest misconception, that has been reiterated by mass media and has nothing to do with the actuality of life extension.

Life extension as in 20% is relatively ok but some points that I pointed out still remain. But this topic is about indefinite life extension, is it not?
 

As I said, young people die just as much as old people.
There's also going to be a lot of people with misguided philosophies against life extension like you so there's always going to be the fast turnover cohort in human population, we'll be able to make a comparison between the two and see which one is faring better, but I'm pretty convinced just like we can see now, even cultures with small gains in life expectancy fare much better and are much more beneficial for human development than the populations with a very low life expectancy that has a lot of children and that's going to translate into negligible senescence humans even more.

I don't think you've really assessed things honestly at all. You have no idea what implications have some of the things you say - like being forever young (mentally). You're trying to rationalize your desire for immortality but all I see is a person trying to freeze time - and I suggest you read some "misguided" buddhist philosophy, one of the first things you'll read is that trying to freeze time by fighting the change that is inevitable is practically the source of human suffering (mentally). If you really want to offer an educated opinion, you need to allow the arguments of the counter philosophy a true chance. If you think I'm just some retard or misguided, read buddha, he was well respected and still is.

I don't have much more to say and this has turned into an argument with no potential for anything outside ego stroking so I'm out.

Edited by addx, 29 August 2014 - 03:36 PM.

[corb]

Look dude you're not the one who can decide what's good for humanity or not.
You're not the one who can decide how long anyone can live either.
That's up to any one to decide for themselves.
Democracy. The right to live. The right to think.

If you're a proponent of a more collectivist or religious system feel free to write about it in the appropriate subforums.

[addx]

Im not disagreeing with you on that one. 

 

Im not a proponent of anything such though. I did or do have thread about ageing being an adaptive mechanism crafted by evolution and I know that this is contrary to what most of forum members think about ageing.  The thread argues that ageing is a key mechanism of the evolution of species, even human life. So, I have my opinion expressed there and Ill keep this thread free of my presence. Sorry to bother you all.

 

 

Edited by addx, 29 August 2014 - 05:59 PM.

[corb]

ageing is a key mechanism of the evolution of species, even human life

 

I'm going to try to relate to you something and I hope you get something positive out of it.
Evolution is not sentient. Evolution is not omnipotent. Evolution is not omniscient. Evolution is not God.

Evolution is basically just another word for - luck.

Some monkey one million years ago climbed a tree. The other monkey didn't. The monkey that didn't climb the tree got eaten. The climber monkey procreated. And then this happened a couple million times. And then most monkeys were tree climbers.

This is evolution.

 

Now if we go back who knows how many million of years, a fast turn over of populations might have been extremely beneficial for some bacteria and that bacteria became dominant over all other bacteria and that's how aging came about. It's hard to say if that bacteria was actually better than the rest, it might have just been good at making a lot of baby bacteria. Well. Quite honestly I don't like to base the worth of my life on that bacteria's success at "breeding" over other bacteria. Or any bacteria or bacterial trait for that matter.
It's surprising I know.

This is only in the case of aging being a programmed occurrence - which it might be - if it's not the argument about evolution is even more meaningless.

 

Quite honestly considering we're dominating over all species in this ecosystem but we've not destroyed them all - that alone has marginalized evolution - a less intelligent alpha omnivore of our magnitude would have depopulated the animal world a long time ago, we're quite dramatic about it though so a lot of inferior species have been left to live long after their evolutionary welcome.

The moment we "evolved" into intelligence is the moment evolution became meaningless, we've been doing evolution's job faster and more efficient and for the gain of our species, most animals you can observe around and in our habitats today have basically evolved through a new mechanism - agriculture - also known as husbandry.

 

So stop worrying about evolution that much. We took over it's job a long time ago.

[Brett Black]

On the other hand, imagine what use todays civilization would have for people that were born 200 years ago. Most live 70 year olds are "useless" from this standpoint, people over the age of 50 have issues finding a job if they lose the one they had, they can't adopt new knowledge as they did when they were young and time runs them over.

The irony, is that I see your view as a barrier to progress already. I can easily imagine future technology/advances enabling chronologically "old"(by today's standards) people to be dramatically more adaptable and capable of learning and growth than even the most adaptable children of today. So, since you value human progress maybe you should drop your current opinion and start supporting people like me instead.

Edited by Brett Black, 30 August 2014 - 03:28 AM.

[koala_muncher]

"Evolution is basically just another word for - luck."

 

Evolution is not luck.  Evolution is a biological process of multiple individuals that can be abstracted by an algorithm that uses the mathematical and exponential accumulation of above-average genetic components in a population in order to maximize the dynamic fitness (reproductive success) of the individual therein.  Mathematically there is an EXPONENTIAL accumulation (within limits of saturation and diversity) of genetic components (genes) that helps the reproductive success of the individuals therein.  This "exponential" bit is what makes evolution so fast (as a learner) and so powerful.  Mate selection is rarely random (based on fitness), and death is rarely random (based on fitness) and the number of children is also rarely random (based on fitness).  Of course there are plenty of random elements that creep in such as accidental death, blind selection etc but even if your randomise almost every variable, as long as one part is partially-controlled determined by fitness; evolution still ticks over with its exponential magic.

Edited by koala_muncher, 30 August 2014 - 09:08 AM.

[addx]

 

On the other hand, imagine what use todays civilization would have for people that were born 200 years ago. Most live 70 year olds are "useless" from this standpoint, people over the age of 50 have issues finding a job if they lose the one they had, they can't adopt new knowledge as they did when they were young and time runs them over.

The irony, is that I see your view as a barrier to progress already. I can easily imagine future technology/advances enabling chronologically "old"(by today's standards) people to be dramatically more adaptable and capable of learning and growth than even the most adaptable children of today. So, since you value human progress maybe you should drop your current opinion and start supporting people like me instead.

 

 

Well I think (although I may be wrong) Ive done a lot more research in that field and I can not see it so easily. So I think your argument is from ignorance/emotion, no offense.

 

My efforts are in fact somewhat towards that goal, regardless of my thoughts towards the immortality plight.

 

I think healing peoples nervous systems (which should solve things from IBS to personality disorders) will produce the means for the biggest life extension leap. I have argued in many threads that ageing is mostly related to the functioning of the nervous system.

 

So we do have the same concrete goal except my motivation is more in the direction of increasing quality of life. In that sense I consider longevity a factor that affects the general quality of life and should be controlled to produce the biggest quality of life as a global community, not to the biggest satisfaction of an individual. So, we walk the same path, I have different ideas about when we reach the goal.

 

There's also the ethics implication of an ability to manipulate the nervous system fully.

 

Look around this site for example, "the hedonistic imperative", Ive read most of it and have contacted the owner about JDTic, it has been spoken about here on a thread about JDTic group buy. 

 

http://www.hedweb.com/

Edited by addx, 30 August 2014 - 09:45 AM.

[corb]

as long as one part is partially-controlled determined by fitness

 

It's "controlled" by the ability to procreate.
Sometimes it "selects" for fitness, other times not.

It didn't "select" for fitness with humans. It selected for eating less food and being better at scavenging unlike all the species which went extinct during the ice ages when we evolved.

 

But lets not talk about evolution anymore there's a separate forums for that.

[addx]

 

It didn't "select" for fitness with humans. It selected for eating less food and being better at scavenging unlike all the species which went extinct during the ice ages when we evolved.

 

 

The term "fitness", when talking evolution/biology, refers to any adaptive advantage, not actual muscle/body/physical fitness.

 

http://en.wikipedia....tness_(biology)

 

 

I do recommend that you read the last page of my thread http://www.longecity...volution/page-3

 

I think my model of ageing as an evolutionary mechanism has quite an argument to it. Many other works and studies are quoted and mechanisms explained as purposeful, ancient, evolutionary and in detail to the level of neurotransmitters responsible. The explanations and study interpretations and connecting them to current theories do offer concrete directions and ideas for research that should lead to us figuring out how to truly heal the nervous system and the body via probably mostly pharmacological means. On page 2 there is an model of evolution which predicted the study results and so offers a higher level explanation of many separate findings. Anyway, that's that. I hope you read and I think if anyone wants to continue the evolutionary aspect of this discussion to move it there as it seems I hijacked the thread and I want to leave the thread to its original topic.

 

Sorry again and cya around.

Edited by addx, 30 August 2014 - 11:25 AM.

[corb]

The term "fitness", when talking evolution/biology, refers to any adaptive advantage, not actual muscle/body/physical fitness.

 

And that is exactly what I'm talking about. Adaptive fitness.
We we're frailer, more susceptible to disease, slower, less powerful, probably even less intelligent than a lot of species which were there with us. We had a simple advantage - we needed less food and as omnivores we were better at getting it. That ONE advantage is the reason we survived.

So even though you could argue evolution selects for fitness, that is only true in a closed system. Our planet is not a closed system. It really boils down to luck, any number of "cataclysms" might happen and we might lack the advantage we need to survive them.

 

And this is the reason we want to break through biological limitations. It's not just "emotion". The scale at which evolution operates is in the millions of years, don't expect it to prepare us for every extinction event because it won't, that's not the way it works or the speed at which it works.

 

I really think it boils down to hubris - "We're humans, whatever nature throws at us we'll get on top because we have done it for thousands of years! We don't need to better ourselves! Nature does it for us!". That's not how evolution works. It's almost a religious belief if I have to be honest, thinking nature cant' select against us. As if it has intellect of it's own and treasures us or some-such misguided notion.

Or thinking every evolutionary change is beneficial, there was a couple of papers about that last year - it seems, natural selection is selecting AGAINST intelligence. Because less intelligent people have more kids, regardless of their cultural background. And I can get into more detail about that if you want, but not in this thread.

 

So in short, you should not bow down to evolution as the ultimate form of progress, that's anti science. And it's wrong. Because when a species like us has no predators and no immediate environmental risks, evolution cannot do anything beneficial for us. Because it will start selecting for whoever has more kids, and as we've observed in animal husbandry, that typically selects against many much more advantageous traits.

 

And as for everything else you've said you're mixing so much completely unrelated things into your "philosophy" it's hard to talk about them in a single post.

 

Oh, and one important thing I forgot to add, science and the change people do to their environment and themselves IS A PART OF EVOLUTION. We are a part of the biosphere and a part of nature, it very well might be the next step of evolution in fact - species selecting for their own traits, much faster and much more efficiently than natural selection for instance. So by fighting against this you might be fighting against the evolution and progress you seem to be religiously aspired to.

Edited by corb, 30 August 2014 - 12:48 PM.

[addx]

 

The term "fitness", when talking evolution/biology, refers to any adaptive advantage, not actual muscle/body/physical fitness.

 

And that is exactly what I'm talking about. Adaptive fitness.
We we're frailer, more susceptible to disease, slower, less powerful, probably even less intelligent than a lot of species which were there with us. We had a simple advantage - we needed less food and as omnivores we were better at getting it. That ONE advantage is the reason we survived.

So even though you could argue evolution selects for fitness, that is only true in a closed system. 

 

 

Not really. The nature of the term "fitness" in evolutionary biology implies that this "one advantage" means humans are more fit, even though it is just one advantage.. You can even say "small" advantage, but if its enough to proliferate the species it is not small but "key". True increase or decrease in fitness can only be determined by looking at the past to see how the species fared. You can't really play around this, no matter how you put it.

 

Humans never broke out of the "fitness" category, never "decoupled" from evolution. Humans merely somewhat sidelined genetic evolution. Humans increase their fitness by increasing their "knowledge pool" which is passed on from generation to generation and new generations evolve it further and also extinct useless or obsolete knowledge. The "line" you see between humans and animals is unnecessary as humans still evolve knowledge directed by the feedback of their more older/primitive reasoning mechanisms and instincts, which is why the world is not as perfect as one would presume if this "line" between humans and animals actually existed.

[corb]

Humans never broke out of the "fitness" category, never "decoupled" from evolution. Humans merely somewhat sidelined genetic evolution. Humans increase their fitness by increasing their "knowledge pool" which is passed on from generation to generation and new generations evolve it further and also extinct useless or obsolete knowledge. 

 

Your argument is my counter argument.
If knowledge is our most beneficial trait at this point, slowing down the turn over of generations won't have any detrimental effects it could actually be beneficial because we're going to waste less time and resources teaching our progeny.

As it has been proven in the west. Less kids actually makes the culture and science move faster. In comparison countries with faster growing populations have been culturaly and technologically stuck for generations and in some cases centuries.

Well either way it's a going to become a philosophical debate the more "what if" we include into it, you believe this is going to be bad, I believe it's going to be good, just like nature we can't know which one is better before we try it.

 

And I can debate your other arguments about sidelining evolution but I honestly think we've talked enough about it in this thread now. So that's enough from me. You have your believes so do I, lets leave it at that.
 

[Brett Black]

Well I think (although I may be wrong) Ive done a lot more research in that field and I can not see it so easily. So I think your argument is from ignorance/emotion, no offense.

My efforts are in fact somewhat towards that goal, regardless of my thoughts towards the immortality plight.

I think healing peoples nervous systems (which should solve things from IBS to personality disorders) will produce the means for the biggest life extension leap. I have argued in many threads that ageing is mostly related to the functioning of the nervous system.

So we do have the same concrete goal except my motivation is more in the direction of increasing quality of life. In that sense I consider longevity a factor that affects the general quality of life and should be controlled to produce the biggest quality of life as a global community, not to the biggest satisfaction of an individual. So, we walk the same path, I have different ideas about when we reach the goal.

There's also the ethics implication of an ability to manipulate the nervous system fully.

Look around this site for example, "the hedonistic imperative", Ive read most of it and have contacted the owner about JDTic, it has been spoken about here on a thread about JDTic group buy.

You seemed to be arguing previously that the progress of civilisation is very valuable and that old people are less capable of adaption, and that old people could/can hold such progress back. Your suggested solution: don't allow old people to continue living.

I'm saying that there is a certain irony in your argument as you are basically arguing that we should keep things as they are and always have been, namely restraining humans to a "natural" lifespan. You are opposing change, you are opposing progress(arguably) and you are projecting/imposing limitations on human adaptability(e.g. not entertaining that technology/adavances could potentially increase adaptability in chronologically old humans.) All in all, I feel like it would be appropriate for me to say to you "Get out of the way old man/woman!" - no matter current your age.

I'm very supportive of the basic goals and principles of the Hedonistic Imperative(the technical implementation is speculative.) I'm absolutely a proponent of increasing the quality of life.

It's very important to understand that the cruel and ruthless seperation of loved ones from each other and from the things they love, by the blind amoral forces of nature that lead to death, play a large part in reducing the quality of life. So I see the elimination of involuntary death(note I didn't say "immortality") as being an important component of increasing the quality of life.

Another thing: I'm not so sure that a constant turnover of children and youth through the population necessarily leads to progress. For example, from my (limited) understanding of history, the Western world was quite stalled in scientific progress for around a thousand years, between the decline of the Roman empire until the Renaissance. Had the Greeks or Romans not been subject to natural involuntary death, and stayed around to promote and practice their "old-fashioned" mindsets perhaps there would have been more progress during that period.

[addx]

 

Well I think (although I may be wrong) Ive done a lot more research in that field and I can not see it so easily. So I think your argument is from ignorance/emotion, no offense.

My efforts are in fact somewhat towards that goal, regardless of my thoughts towards the immortality plight.

I think healing peoples nervous systems (which should solve things from IBS to personality disorders) will produce the means for the biggest life extension leap. I have argued in many threads that ageing is mostly related to the functioning of the nervous system.

So we do have the same concrete goal except my motivation is more in the direction of increasing quality of life. In that sense I consider longevity a factor that affects the general quality of life and should be controlled to produce the biggest quality of life as a global community, not to the biggest satisfaction of an individual. So, we walk the same path, I have different ideas about when we reach the goal.

There's also the ethics implication of an ability to manipulate the nervous system fully.

Look around this site for example, "the hedonistic imperative", Ive read most of it and have contacted the owner about JDTic, it has been spoken about here on a thread about JDTic group buy.

You seemed to be arguing previously that the progress of civilisation is very valuable and that old people are less capable of adaption, and that old people could/can hold such progress back. Your suggested solution: don't allow old people to continue living.

I'm saying that there is a certain irony in your argument as you are basically arguing that we should keep things as they are and always have been, namely restraining humans to a "natural" lifespan. You are opposing change, you are opposing progress(arguably) and you are projecting/imposing limitations on human adaptability(e.g. not entertaining that technology/adavances could potentially increase adaptability in chronologically old humans.) All in all, I feel like it would be appropriate for me to say to you "Get out of the way old man/woman!" - no matter current your age.

I'm very supportive of the basic goals and principles of the Hedonistic Imperative(the technical implementation is speculative.) I'm absolutely a proponent of increasing the quality of life.

It's very important to understand that the cruel and ruthless seperation of loved ones from each other and from the things they love, by the blind amoral forces of nature that lead to death, play a large part in reducing the quality of life. So I see the elimination of involuntary death(note I didn't say "immortality") as being an important component of increasing the quality of life.

Another thing: I'm not so sure that a constant turnover of children and youth through the population necessarily leads to progress. For example, from my (limited) understanding of history, the Western world was quite stalled in scientific progress for around a thousand years, between the decline of the Roman empire until the Renaissance. Had the Greeks or Romans not been subject to natural involuntary death, and stayed around to promote and practice their "old-fashioned" mindsets perhaps there would have been more progress during that period.

 

 

 

 

When you put it like I sound like a nazi but I have no desire to limit anyone in any forced way, I just hope they will see it for themselves or in other words, I'm mostly betting that healing the nervous system will make people NOT want to live forever.

 

And you've picked it up right. As I get older I get more conflicted is there any sense to mindless progress - the kind that most often happens. I also see what kinds of people force mindless progress and what drives them. I see nervous systems grown in "enemy territory" circumstances (caused by from parents to schoolmates/environment etc) causing the individuals to see the world as something to conquer and progress as such is merely a secondary effect of this. I forgot who said "wars are good, most scientific progress was caused by them", no matter how wrong that sounds it is the truth. I'm hoping healing the nervous system will first and foremost help such people (me included) find peace in life, that the world will become "friendly territory" for them. 

 

I don't think having the ability to "make the world into whatever you like" is true progress. I in fact see this as end of civilisation. Living in an operable dream will become indistinguishable from dreaming and I think people will want to wake up.

 

I think having the ability to accept the world as it is - is progress. And you are correct, if we "progress" towards that, then what you call progress will slow down.

 

The difference between these two paths is that first one evolves our tools, our environment and makes us more dependant and so more neurotic and our quality of life slowly decreases but we don't see it most of the time as we infatuate ourselves with our powers in order not to think about it.

 

The other path evolves our understanding of ourselves, our bodies and an understanding of the world and its meaning that leads to acceptance of the nature of things rather than an understanding of oneself as omnipotent and nature of things other than you as meaningless(since you have all power over them). 

 

 As for "e.g. not entertaining that technology/adavances could potentially increase adaptability in chronologically old humans.)", I'm not saying it couldn't, it could, although not that easy. I'm saying "you lot" are not realising the full implications of this. As explained, young peoples nervous systems are in a state of eating up new knowledge, absorbing it and then evolving. As they get older they lose "such energy" and become more of a teacher. Their evolution of things in younger years created an "experience of evolving things". The older person becomes "worn out for evolving" but has innate motivation to share this experience which directs younger people at evolving things better. If you manipulate the nervous system of the old person to make it function as if it is young, it will most probably lose this "directing" function. In short, if there's no "mentally old" people directing younger people progress will be even more blind, especially with all the old-now-young people added to the pool - competitiveness will go sky high and blindness even higher. I think making such changes is EXTREMELY dangerous for the civilisation. I'm for helping people develop, mature and age and die(and grieve) properly, rather than living forever immersed in omnipotency paralleled only by meaninglessness.

 

I have experienced once a special mind state that I see as the "correct goal" of an idea like the hedonistic imperative. A mental state in which I saw a tree and I FELT its magnificence and beauty and ability to give life and I did not want to take it for myself somehow but felt happy to be able to visit it when I needed to. I felt grounded, safe, curious about people and happy to be a drop in the "magic ocean" that is the world. This experience changed a lot of my opinions, before it I would probably on the same page with you. Unlike most ideas conceived within the hedonistic imperative, I think this mental state could be sustained to our advantage. Most other ideas involve getting doped up but having something that prevents tolerance so you can be doped up indefinitely or ideas like wireheading. I see those also as civilisation enders.

Interestingly enough and revealed in my thread, same receptors responsible for drug tolerance/withdrawal are also responsible for age related changes (tolerance to life experience) of the nervous system - kappa opioid.

 

This was probably what I experienced http://en.wikipedia....Oceanic_feeling

Edited by addx, 31 August 2014 - 10:13 AM.

[corb]

When you put it like I sound like a nazi but I have no desire to limit anyone in any forced way, I just hope they will see it for themselves or in other words, I'm mostly betting that healing the nervous system will make people NOT want to live forever.

 

And you've picked it up right. As I get older I get more conflicted is there any sense to mindless progress - the kind that most often happens. I also see what kinds of people force mindless progress and what drives them. I see nervous systems grown in "enemy territory" circumstances (caused by from parents to schoolmates/environment etc) causing the individuals to see the world as something to conquer and progress as such is merely a secondary effect of this. I forgot who said "wars are good, most scientific progress was caused by them", no matter how wrong that sounds it is the truth. I'm hoping healing the nervous system will first and foremost help such people (me included) find peace in life, that the world will become "friendly territory" for them. 

 

I don't think having the ability to "make the world into whatever you like" is true progress. I in fact see this as end of civilisation. Living in an operable dream will become indistinguishable from dreaming and I think people will want to wake up.

 

I think having the ability to accept the world as it is - is progress. And you are correct, if we "progress" towards that, then what you call progress will slow down.

 

The difference between these two paths is that first one evolves our tools, our environment and makes us more dependant and so more neurotic and our quality of life slowly decreases but we don't see it most of the time as we infatuate ourselves with our powers in order not to think about it.

 

The other path evolves our understanding of ourselves, our bodies and an understanding of the world and its meaning that leads to acceptance of the nature of things rather than an understanding of oneself as omnipotent and nature of things other than you as meaningless(since you have all power over them). 

 

 As for "e.g. not entertaining that technology/adavances could potentially increase adaptability in chronologically old humans.)", I'm not saying it couldn't, it could, although not that easy. I'm saying "you lot" are not realising the full implications of this. As explained, young peoples nervous systems are in a state of eating up new knowledge, absorbing it and then evolving. As they get older they lose "such energy" and become more of a teacher. Their evolution of things in younger years created an "experience of evolving things". The older person becomes "worn out for evolving" but has innate motivation to share this experience which directs younger people at evolving things better. If you manipulate the nervous system of the old person to make it function as if it is young, it will most probably lose this "directing" function. In short, if there's no "mentally old" people directing younger people progress will be even more blind, especially with all the old-now-young people added to the pool - competitiveness will go sky high and blindness even higher. I think making such changes is EXTREMELY dangerous for the civilisation. I'm for helping people develop, mature and age and die(and grieve) properly, rather than living forever immersed in omnipotency paralleled only by meaninglessness.

 

I have experienced once a special mind state that I see as the "correct goal" of an idea like the hedonistic imperative. A mental state in which I saw a tree and I FELT its magnificence and beauty and ability to give life and I did not want to take it for myself somehow but felt happy to be able to visit it when I needed to. I felt grounded, safe, curious about people and happy to be a drop in the "magic ocean" that is the world. This experience changed a lot of my opinions, before it I would probably on the same page with you. Unlike most ideas conceived within the hedonistic imperative, I think this mental state could be sustained to our advantage. Most other ideas involve getting doped up but having something that prevents tolerance so you can be doped up indefinitely or ideas like wireheading. I see those also as civilisation enders.

Interestingly enough and revealed in my thread, same receptors responsible for drug tolerance/withdrawal are also responsible for age related changes (tolerance to life experience) of the nervous system - kappa opioid.

 

This was probably what I experienced http://en.wikipedia....Oceanic_feeling

 

 

I'm going to sum up for you what you said and hope it helps you reconsider your views in the future:

 

"I'm not a nazi, I just want to brainwash people into my way of thinking by making them take psychotropic drugs."

"I completely fail to see the world is in fact a hostile place and we've only managed to survive and come this far - basically to the point where people like me can be confused into thinking it's not - because we've overcome every obstacle, in many cases by being aggressive."

"I don't know what civilization means."

"I think doing nothing is progress. Furthermore I'm more interested in the speed of progress and not the quality of progress."

"Our "quality of life" has fallen so much because we don't have to worry if we'll be able to eat in the next couple of days instead we have to worry what we'll cook tonight and which supermarket to buy the groceries from."

#firstworldproblems

And I'm not even sure you know what quality of life means.

"I want to understand and accept my body and mind. While completely ignoring that it's in our nature to be a/progressive and the same applies to the world."

"I don't understand actual science and technology but I like giving opinions about it."

"I take drugs and I base my world view on hallucinations I had while on said drugs."

 

Am I mocking you? A little bit. The thing is you feel this very very false sense of security that's borderline utopian and you fail so miserably to see it's build upon our thousands of years of prior "aggression".

You say you want to see and accept the world for what it is and then you say how you can't accept the way people are and want to change them to be the complete opposite of what they are.

Again, no need for me to give an argument when your own argument is self disqualifying.

 

 

If you want to accepting the world for what it is, start by accepting humanity for what it is. Our drive is to OVERCOME not to accept.

 

You're amusing in your conviction, I'll give you that.

Edited by corb, 31 August 2014 - 12:03 PM.

[addx]

I'm going to sum up for you what you said and hope it helps you reconsider your views in the future:

You're not hoping for anything, you're just being an ass.

"I'm not a nazi, I just want to brainwash people into my way of thinking by making them take psychotropic drugs."

Where did I say that? My idea is that if mental pain is healed people will love the world. I hope people will do it because they want to.

So, you're being an ass and purposefully misunderstanding what I'm saying.

"I completely fail to see the world is in fact a hostile place and we've only managed to survive and come this far - basically to the point where people like me can be confused into thinking it's not - because we've overcome every obstacle, in many cases by being aggressive."

You misunderstood, the world OF PEOPLE is a hostile place. People see other people as hostile. Not bears or lions. No matter how much you evolve technology it will never change this as people will remain the same.

"I don't know what civilization means."

Again being an ass.

"I think doing nothing is progress. Furthermore I'm more interested in the speed of progress and not the quality of progress."

I think I clearly explained that I am interested in "the right type of progress", given what I've said above - changing people to make the world a less hostile place.

"Our "quality of life" has fallen so much because we don't have to worry if we'll be able to eat in the next couple of days instead we have to worry what we'll cook tonight and which supermarket to buy the groceries from."
#firstworldproblems

I'm sure it sounds cool to remind people of things in such a cool way. But I grew in a war so please don't tell me what's what.

And I'm not even sure you know what quality of life means.
"I want to understand and accept my body and mind. While completely ignoring that it's in our nature to be a/progressive and the same applies to the world."

Who's completely ignoring it? Where? My posts that repeatedly state that young people have a drive to evolve things etc?

Again, you're being an ass.

"I don't understand actual science and technology but I like giving opinions about it."

More of being an ass.

I quite like this claim, I taught myself how to programm at 11 and am earning 10x the average salary in my country using this knowledge. I evolved systems (simulations of worlds for my games) since 11, I developed my mind to innately understand them at a level you'll never be, and you claim I dont understand technology? I've been at every natural science competition druing school, physics, chemistry, maths, programming you name it.

I also read 1000s of pharmacological studies, psychological, evolutional and biological theories, texts, studies.

I also explained the term fitness patiently to YOU while you were displaying the same blindness, failure to understand paired with a "need to overcome it" resulting in this

So even though you could argue evolution selects for fitness, humans beat the odds with LESS fitness

And that about sums up your understanding of science. Completely and utterly wrong. Because of your "drive to overcome".

"I take drugs and I base my world view on hallucinations I had while on said drugs."

I've never had hallucinations so you're being an ass. And you claiming that's all I base my world view on is also being an ass. I have a lot of knowledge, but this experience changed the way I use it.

Am I mocking you? A little bit.

You're being an ass.

The thing is you feel this very very false sense of security that's borderline utopian and you fail so miserably to see it's build upon our thousands of years of prior "aggression".

This is some misunderstanding that I think I've cleared up above.

You say you want to see and accept the world for what it is and then you say how you can't accept the way people are and want to change them to be the complete opposite of what they are.

So you're saying all people are the same and like you? You're telling me how people are? How they should be? And I'm doing the brainwashing?

I'm also hearing in this argument that areas with lots of children are less driven - so there seems to be a spectrum of how driven people are.

Again, no need for me to give an argument when your own argument is self disqualifying.

Your purposeful misunderstanding of my argument does seem such, but yet it is still just a misunderstanding, caused by your need to be an ass towards me.

If you want to accepting the world for what it is, start by accepting humanity for what it is. Our drive is to OVERCOME not to accept.

Again, telling me how to be a human while trying to portray me as a nazi brainwasher. The previous part of the post was a disqualification of me, but it seems this immediately leads to a QUALIFICATION of you to tell me (and others it seems) how things are. Nice going, I'll be sure to never absorb any "knowledge" received in such an obvious ego-stroking manner.

You're amusing in your conviction, I'll give you that.

 
Well it's obvious that you made a bad projection onto me, then wrote a post about how you fight this bad projection, obviously you won in the end and told your projection how to fix itself as a sign of ultimate superiority. In the very end you found this whole experience played out in your head to be amusing, but make a mistake that I had anything to do with it. It's all you man.

[corb]

 

Not bears or lions. No matter how much you evolve technology it will never change this as people will remain the same.

Because we've marginalized every other hostile factor. Bears and lions very much are hostile (though the word we should use is a predator) creatures and they still kill people (and many other animals of course) to this day, there's yearly cases of bear and wolf attacks even in countries bordering yours (not sure about Croatia), maybe watch the news from time to time.

And animals are not the only hostile factor of an environment, weather, relief, the ability to procure food from, etc - we are good at dealing with those now but that was not the case historically.

 

 

changing people to make the world a less hostile place.

 We didn't make the world a hostile place, it was a hostile place, specifically for humans because we started out as an underdog and rose to the top. We evolved in this environment to be capable of handling it's hostility. Again you're incapable of accepting the reality of evolution.

 

 And that about sums up your understanding of science. Completely and utterly wrong. Because of your "drive to overcome".

Humans had by chance that one trait when a series of cataclysmic events happened. This was not adaptation, this was luck.

I was pointing out to this point in our historical path of evolution not evolution in general.

Our drive to overcome is the reason we developed later, but the two events are hundreds of thousands of years apart.

 

 

This is some misunderstanding that I think I've cleared up above.

You haven't, you've only cleared up that you've grown up in a very sheltered environment.

A sheltered environment. A family. A city. A country. Now a federation.

We created these constructs to protect ourselves. Because the environment we lived in was hostile.

Some hostility came from humans but most of it came from the environment.

It's bad that you make your philosophy without a historical grounding.

 

I can go on to dissect your whole post, but there really isn't a point to it.

Though the part where you go into the super egoistic tirade about your salary and then blaming me of being self centered was a good piece of comedy.

I only pointed out that we are proactive and aggressive creatures. I wasn't telling YOU TO BE like that(although you are even if you fail to accept it). I don't want to CURE humanity from anything, that's you. That's your words by the way - cure.

 

What's bothering me the most (one of the things) about your philosophy is you're thinking your ideas are new and progressive, when religion is absolutely the same concept. And this type of thinking is the reason why some areas with a high turnover of populations are completely stagnant, they are content with their life so they have no drive for any progress - be it sociological or technological.

 

addendum :As for my comment about you not understanding technology it was in "reply" to this

 

 As for "e.g. not entertaining that technology/adavances could potentially increase adaptability in chronologically old humans.)", I'm not saying it couldn't, it could, although not that easy.

 

I misread it a little bit, so excuse me about that. I do agree with you that it won't be easy but I'll also have to argue that during the time it takes for us to develop the technology not all people will be non-aging. So even in your views this really is more of a slow down than the cataclysm and end of civilization you imagine.

I really think you're just over dramatizing this GOOD thing, yes, I can tell you right now life extension is a good thing. I'm only being an ass because your views are so extreme. Borderline religious fundamentalist if I have to be honest.

Edited by corb, 31 August 2014 - 03:39 PM.

[addx]

Because we've marginalized every other hostile factor. Bears and lions very much are hostile (though the word we should use is a predator) creatures and they still kill people (and many other animals of course) to this day, there's yearly cases of bear and wolf attacks even in countries bordering yours (not sure about Croatia), maybe watch the news from time to time.
And animals are not the only hostile factor of an environment, weather, relief, the ability to procure food from, etc - we are good at dealing with those now but that was not the case historically.

Did you ask yourself when did technology become less about defending from bears and more about defending from(or attacking) other people? I'll repeat again - biggest technology leaps were made during wars and in preparation for them. And what is researched during a war if not weapons - against other people, not bears?

We didn't make the world a hostile place, it was a hostile place, specifically for humans because we started out as an underdog and rose to the top. We evolved in this environment to be capable of handling it's hostility. Again you're incapable of accepting the reality of evolution.

Why do you say I can't accept that? I accept it very well. My concepts though predict that an "overthriving" species will evolve its own predator and, what do you know, humanity is now its own and only enemy. That's the hostily I'm talking about. To cut the story short you're being hostile to me. Why? Why do you get agitated and attack me? Do you wonder about that? If I'm just some retard spewing crap how does that cause you to become hostile to me? If I'm really inferior to you, how you want to potray it, why do you have to attack me? I've had people tell me my place in a manner that was not hostile, interestingly those times were pretty much the only times I've accepted being told my place.

Humans had by chance that one trait when a series of cataclysmic events happened. This was not adaptation, this was luck.
I was pointing out to this point in our historical path of evolution not evolution in general.

What are you talking about here please?

Our drive to overcome is the reason we developed later, but the two events are hundreds of thousands of years apart.

The reason we developed is that high density local populations formed giving birth to first civilisations. The most famous and root of the todays western civilisation was created by the sahara desert drying out in cca. 50-100 years causing all the people in the sahara area(which was nice fertile and green) to migrate to the banks of the river nile in a small time window - causing a "civilisational primordial soup".
Without high density populations occurring and sustaining themselves we'd still be living tribes with tribe-type technology.

You haven't, you've only cleared up that you've grown up in a very sheltered environment.
A sheltered environment. A family. A city. A country. Now a federation.
We created these constructs to protect ourselves. Because the environment we lived in was hostile.
Some hostility came from humans but most of it came from the environment.
It's bad that you make your philosophy without a historical grounding.

Does it really seem like I don't know these things? That there are bears or that people weren't always safe in their homes? Are you serious? It's just offensive man.

However, bears don't change the fact that I've grown up in an environment where I hid in the basement FROM OTHER HUMANS bombing me with fighter planes, not bears. So while I'm fully aware of bears, I think most of the hostility in this world comes from people. You claim that environment is our biggest threat and when I call you up on it, you retreat into making it a "historically important grounding" and resume to bust my balls about it as if it still matter towards the discussion.

Even among great apes - they are their own biggest predator in spite of lions, snakes and whatnot.

Nothing changed.

Sure, we can fight off or segregate bears and lions, or simply live where there are none, but we're still busting each other balls as a rule.

Why don't you simply say: you're right on that one, we are our own biggest predator and have always been. Is that so hard?

If we can change one thing I'd change human hostility rather than prolong it.

I can go on to dissect your whole post, but there really isn't a point to it.
Though the part where you go into the super egoistic tirade about your salary and then blaming me of being self centered was a good piece of comedy.

Well arent you one fun appreciating guy.

I only pointed out that we are proactive and aggressive creatures. I wasn't telling YOU TO BE like that(although you are even if you fail to accept it). I don't want to CURE humanity from anything, that's you. That's your words by the way - cure.

The word comes from the topic title.

As I dig into immortality ideas they are always dependant on other utopian schemas like the one discussed here - making old people mental states as if they were young - forever young. Old people have a different mental state because their brain has access to more experience(and is so more conditioned). One could achieve a mental state of a young person only by reverting the brain to an inexperienced(unconditioned) state. How to go about that and yet still retain your memories, your self?

I don't really understand your claim that you don't want to cure anything and yet you're advocating "curing ageing" on this topic and yet my first post was actually pointed exactly towards the use of that word, go see it.

Now, if you can say that ageing is a thing to be cured why can't I say that aggression/paranoia is a thing to be cured?

Where's the difference? You don't want to die, but you want to be aggresive? See how it pans out?

Here's a VERY intelligent and tough to read text about things that I'd like to see progress with.

http://www.thenewyog...g/use&abuse.htm

What's bothering me the most (one of the things) about your philosophy is you're thinking your ideas are new and progressive, when religion is absolutely the same concept.

Yes it is, religion has evolved to take care of exactly such issues - how to handle life. But is an old tool, people have issues trusting it. Too many faults are discovered in the holy books, to many things don't make sense, too much religious war has been waged, too many people abused the religions for their own goals. The only on still standing relatively true is buddhism because unlike religions, it is more of a mental discipline and so is eternal in value(as long as we use our brains to think).

I don't care if my ideas are considered progressive or whatnot. Also, think about what you're saying. You're bothered by the fact that I think I have something good or true. You feel driven to subdue me and to reveal this good/true as utterly wrong and false.

We have not really had a discussion, I'm mostly busy trying to unproject your projections. You never ask me any honest subquestions, you never follow my line of thought and see does it get you anywhere. You more skip over my content than read it. So you're really just being aggressive towards me even though you pretend you're having an argument. It's just more subtle aggression form than outright kicking my butt. It definitely is NOT a two-way discussion.

I really think you're just over dramatizing this GOOD thing, yes, I can tell you right now life extension is a good thing. I'm only being an ass because your views are so extreme. Borderline religious fundamentalist if I have to be honest.

I'm just also playing the devils advocate somewhat I guess.

Go look at my thread and see for yourself. I believe my views, progressive or not, have led me closer to uncovering the mechanisms and nature and evolution of ageing than most IMO. It is just that the neccessary understanding required to explain or undo ageing also causes one to see it in a different light and feel conflicted about actually messing with it. I think all true such uncovering of knowledge should come exactly like that with a degree of caution and awe.

[corb]

I understand your views but I also completely disagree with them from a certain point that's the thing.

Evolution is a system, one that works well, ok. A homeostasis that has been going on for millions of years. And I agree with that. But this is where the real projection is, you think other people don't  know this. To make this a bit ON TOPIC - programmed aging is a well known aging theory, it coincides well with some of your views. There's hundreds of papers about it. It's not a secret. I don't know why you think it is.

Thinking we shouldn't try anything that goes even a tiny bit against evolution on the other hand, I can't ever agree with that. Your only base for argument is that it might mess with the order that is already in place. But how do you know? It has never happened before. It might change the timeframe, but I doubt it will change the system significantly. I already said once, slower progress doesn't mean worse progress.

And there are really so many factors that come into this, you really can't predict with any amount of precision what is going to happen. First off complete anti aging will not come any time soon, the first treatments will come in decades maybe, but they will be far from perfect, people will still age, they might not work on everyone, not everyone will be able to afford them, cancer will probably still be a problem, etc. It will take decades and maybe more for this technology to develop after that, our society will develop together with it and our way of life will change as well, it's not going to happen overnight, it will be a transition. Probably laws will be created to deal with this, for instance people who get life extension after a certain age is reached will probably be obligated to go work on another planet, and some people might get bored with living and decide they want to age and die at some point and so many other factors.

 

As for the rest of your post again, there's hardly a point to go from paragraph to paragraph, there's a lot of offtopic stuff, I told you at least once you should post about it in another subforum.

And to remind you conservative and religious thinking was the reason for the war you mentioned.

Uhm... and for last I guess I want to point out something because you keep repeating it and I'd argue it's not true, not all progress humans have made was for the sake of war, a lot of weapons of war were developed from agricultural/hunting implements and that is true from antiquity to very recent history.

I think you'd question this the most when it comes to the recent history so I'll give you some examples.
Germany used it's extensive railroad system to move it's artillery during WW2 but that railroad was build before that for trade and transport. A lot of tanks during WW2 used engines developed for tractors. And so on.

Edited by corb, 31 August 2014 - 07:48 PM.

[addx]

I quoted someone who said something like "wars are good, most scientific progress was caused by them"

And I said "I'll repeat again - biggest technology leaps were made during wars... "

And you go on to correct me there was technology invented outside of wars and I obviously never claimed there wasn't.

I'm done, nothing more to say, tired of correcting you misreading things so you can pretend there's a need to explain things to me as if I was 5 years old. I'm not your child, and it seems you can see only two roles in a discussion, child(bad - you avoid it and project it onto me) or a parent(good - you project it onto yourself) pointing to a fault in your nervous system development being stuck replaying these relations from childhood. I'm not doing this anymore, so.. laters..

Edited by addx, 01 September 2014 - 07:58 AM.

[corb]

I quoted someone who said something like "wars are good, most scientific progress was caused by them"

 

I think your problem is when someone raises a valid point you choose to ignore it.
I told you your worldview is not new and has proven to cause more stagnation than development - you ignore it. You said "I don't care, it's an old idea." And completely missed the point.

I told you how humanity has in a large part subverted evolution already - you ignore it. You said "I only care about neural development." Again you missed the point.

Other people have raised very valid points about technology has the potential to mend brain environment to a more youthful state - I personally don't even think that's needed because an adult brain IS QUITE CAPABLE OF LEARNING. You said "It's too hard." - and AGAIN you missed the point.

 

I can go on pointing out the many good points you ignored and continued, quite blindly to reiterate your little theory.

Not to mention you make your own definitions for words to point I start questioning if you even know what the original word means. Examples would be - progress, civilization, quality of life.

 

I am explaining things to you like a five year old because you act like a five year old on a tantrum. Maybe you should question your own neural development if your only way to deal with an argument is to ignore the valid points.

I'm glad you're finally going to stop though.

 

 

And I said "I'll repeat again - biggest technology leaps were made during wars... "

 

And I already told you that's not true because weapons of war are in large repurposed technology. Again missing the point.

The war industry is a new invention an american one and it brings the US quite a profit so it makes good sense for them to have it, if we go 40 years back though the same factory that made spoons would be the one making helmets, the automotive industry would make the armored vehicles and so on. The whole notion is by large fueled by WW myth and legend but it didn't have historical backing The only part of science that makes leaps during war is medicine because there's more injured but also a lot of sick people, and in the case of Germany and Japan, a lot of war prisoners they would've executed anyway.

[HighDesertWizard]

Just finished browsing this thread... The question posed by the title of the thread is clear. I posted a great video lecture in this thread on page 2 that speaks directly to the proposed thread topic. Not a single reply.

 

So I'm wondering where the Longecity moderator is for this discussion and why the discussion has been allowed to get so far off track. I think this thread should be broken up into two threads so that the thread title accurately describes the thread content.

 

If given the authority, I'd be happy to split this thread up into two threads.

Regardless of whether that happens or not, I hope the major protagonists who have hijacked the thread will show some respect for others interested in the thread title and now stop hijacking it. Take your debate somewhere else.

Edited by wccaguy, 02 September 2014 - 06:42 AM.

[corb]

Just finished browsing this thread... The question posed by the title of the thread is clear.

 

I agree with you wccaguy, I'll want to excuse myself for feeding the offtopic "discussion".

 

I did want to post on topic initially, I think I have once already years ago I don't remember and don't have the time to check right now, anyway, I'm more knowledgeable as it comes to medical research now and biology in general so I'd like to answer your question with the knowledge I have at this moment.

 

 

How likely is that aging will be cured (in the next 20-30 years)?

 

Unfortunately I believe (and I'll emphasize on believe) that's not possible.

It's not just that the research isn't getting funding, it's not just the lack of scientific understanding on the topic, it's not just the negative connotations such research induces in society, it's not just the economic climate at the moment, and so on, every factor that can effect this is pretty much pointing to a negative outcome in this overly optimistic time frame.

If you said a hundred years, I'd say yeah it's possible.

 

I guess I could go off into a bit of detail, although I prefer to keep this as an opinion and not an argument.

 

I'll use as an example a cancer immune therapy that just got approved in the US.

It was researched for at least five years, probably more. In trial for I think more than one year at this point.

It's tauted as cutting edge breakthrough research.
It's benefit? Remission in a third instead of a seventh of patients. Remission. A decade for a twenty percent increase in partially mending one of the symptoms of aging damage.

 

This is the level of science we are capable of doing right now. Even when there's funding, quite a bit of a knowledge base on the topic, it's favorably seen by society and so on.

Going after the real causes of aging and not the symptom won't take less time.

 

I'm personally hoping for some treatment that will change the opinion society has on life extension - because right now if you ask a random person on the street if he wants to live to his 90s he'll say no. And I can see their point, no one wants to be a shriveled shell of a person. A cheap widespread stem cell therapy that can keep elders much more active and fit, a therapy that  improves the skin plasticity, etc. Anything noticeable like, the better the elders look the better for changing public opinion and help guide more funds and research groups to tackle this, but before that happens I don't think we'll see a drive to research hard life extension therapies. And even after it happens whenever that will be, don't expect scientist to solve this in twenty years.

 

The optimist in me keeps hoping for a sensational breakthrough that comes out of nowhere. But we can't predict that, we can only hope.

[Rocket]

I'd give it a 50% chance in the next 30 years.  Knowledgeable people will say, "But we don't fully understand XYZ..." The problem with that argument is that you don't need a fully developed understanding of some-thing for a breakthrough to occur.  There are many instances throughout science and engineering of "fluke" discoveries and accidental breakthroughs.  With respect to aging, all of the necessary prerequisites are in place to accidentally discover a cure and to deliver into the host organism...  Its just a matter of needing that one accidental discovery. 

Edited by Rocket, 05 September 2014 - 03:01 PM.

[niner]

I'd give it a 50% chance in the next 30 years.  Knowledgeable people will say, "But we don't fully understand XYZ..." The problem with that argument is that you don't need a fully developed understanding of some-thing for a breakthrough to occur.  There are many instances throughout science and engineering of "fluke" discoveries and accidental breakthroughs.  With respect to aging, all of the necessary prerequisites are in place to accidentally discover a cure and to deliver into the host organism...  Its just a matter of needing that one accidental discovery. 

 

Curing aging doesn't require just one breakthrough, it will require about a dozen, or maybe a hundred.  If the odds of one breakthrough in the next thirty years are 50%, then two breakthroughs would be 25%, and twelve would be (0.5 ** 12) * 100 = 0.024%   (1/4096)  For a hundred it would be 8e-29%  (that's 8 times 10 to the -29th power, or approximately zero.)  The numbers are of course meaningless, since we're just pulling them out of our ass, but the math is the math.  The actual number of breakthroughs needed to "cure" aging will probably be a lot less than 100, depending on how you define "breakthrough", but a lot more than one. 

 

Your real point might be that future technological developments are inherently unpredictable, which I agree with.  One thing that we can count on is that technological development is accelerating, and new knowledge and improved tools will lead to further acceleration in the pace of technological development. 

[Rocket]

I'd give it a 50% chance in the next 30 years. Knowledgeable people will say, "But we don't fully understand XYZ..." The problem with that argument is that you don't need a fully developed understanding of some-thing for a breakthrough to occur. There are many instances throughout science and engineering of "fluke" discoveries and accidental breakthroughs. With respect to aging, all of the necessary prerequisites are in place to accidentally discover a cure and to deliver into the host organism... Its just a matter of needing that one accidental discovery.

Curing aging doesn't require just one breakthrough, it will require about a dozen, or maybe a hundred. If the odds of one breakthrough in the next thirty years are 50%, then two breakthroughs would be 25%, and twelve would be (0.5 ** 12) * 100 = 0.024% (1/4096) For a hundred it would be 8e-29% (that's 8 times 10 to the -29th power, or approximately zero.) The numbers are of course meaningless, since we're just pulling them out of our ass, but the math is the math. The actual number of breakthroughs needed to "cure" aging will probably be a lot less than 100, depending on how you define "breakthrough", but a lot more than one.

Your real point might be that future technological developments are inherently unpredictable, which I agree with. One thing that we can count on is that technological development is accelerating, and new knowledge and improved tools will lead to further acceleration in the pace of technological development.

Yeah, math is math. Agreed. So, you know for a fact that the detirioation of the aging body isn't caused by one or two phenomena which then cascades into a multitude of manifestations? I don't think anyone alive can say for a fact that aging isn't caused by one or two simple and reversible phenomena (yet to be identified).

Edited by Rocket, 06 September 2014 - 12:11 AM.