Friday, October 15, 2010

Immortality- a matter of time part deux


A while back, I was discussing the possibility of 3D TV's with my friend. I guessed they'd operate similarly to those in Minority Report, and foolishly suggested that they would consist of three pylons projecting an image into the center of the triangle that you would be able to walk around. In response to this my friend said, "when that happens, we will be living in the future"

If you read part one of this blog article yesterday, you will know that the future is fast approaching and it brings far more extravagant technologies than my imagined pylon TV's. Currently at the Singularity Institute in the U.S are working on nanotechnology that will be able to reproduce organs and reverse ageing; they speculate that within 50-80 years, this technology will erase the "problem" of mortality.

Lets consider this

Pros
  1. We're all going to become awesome at everything. In the original script for Groundhog Day, Phill (Bill Murray) was supposed to have experienced the same day so many times that he had managed to have read every book in a library. Essentially we will be able to do the same thing, we will have the time to learn and become experts at practically everything. Because if they mean what I think by using the word immortal then we are going to have a lot of time on our hands.
  2. Immortal means, never having to say goodbye. No ones going to die! No more funerals no more mourning and no more ghosts/zombies - forget about it.
  3. You can be you forever. Nanotechnology doesn't mean just no death from disease etc, it also means no physical ageing. So pick an age and you can be that forever, we will all be like reverse Jacks....sorta

Cons
  1. Boring - dont you feel like this is kinda getting the cheats to life? So what if you can do all these things and know everything, doesn't it reduce the value of the human experience if everything becomes an eventuality and nothing really has to be worked for. At the end of the day (time) I feel like one immortal will turn to another immortal and go "so what?"


Things beyond me
  1. In a Brave New World Revisited Aldous Huxley stated the the main problem in society is overpopulation. What happens if people stop dying. yet, continue reproducing? Will restrictions be put in place, some people can some people can't? Will we be able to go against our biological instincts and fight our desire to reproduce...will we even be given the option?
  2. Who decides who gets to be immortal? Will this be a money based thing? Will the rich get to see the year 9999 while the poor take their pick of graves? Should access to this technology be governed by whether or not one can afford it? Is money any marker of the man?
  3. Everything will change. Our existence and how we carry out our existence is built upon the knowledge that eventually we will die. So what's gonna happen when we don't?


















2 comments:

  1. Well just because we could stop aging and reproduce organs does not mean we will not die. there are more ways to die besides old age afterall. If people feel invinvable, I would expect to see a lot more car crashes, sky diving accidents, everything! in which case people would still value life, maybe just in a different way.

    and also if we became experts in our feild of study, if we never aged and could continue to learn, i suspect we would figure out space travel and populate other planets pretty quickly! so no problem with over population either! so hale to nanotechnology.

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  2. I've heard figures bandied about which claim that if they figured out how to eliminate ageing then the average life span would rise to something between 800-1000 years (i.e. based on the likelihood of other stuff killing you at some point). Sounds quite tiring, nevertheless.

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