From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Aug 19 2003 - 22:31:04 MDT
On Tue, 19 Aug 2003, BJKlein wrote:
> Robert Said:
>
> >So by preserving the meme that one "will" die, you don't have
> >to break the entire christianity/death/salvation meme-set.
>
> Robert, just curious, but by preserve the 'death' meme, are you suggesting
> an afterlife awaits us after death? Or, is death simply oblivion? Or, am I
> missing some other option you have in mind?
In *my* mind the only real "salvation" would appear to be uploading
and then some post-singularity clever tweeking of the physics of the
universe to avoid those paths that currently do not look good.
But I am *not* suggesting that in typical conversations that one get
into these concepts or the concepts of an "afterlife". If it facilitates
the evolutionary process, let people believe in an "afterlife", let people
believe in "death", and just move people up to the lifespan-extension bar.
(We are trying to be extropians here -- more people believing in some of
the core ideas is probably better than more people rejecting all of the
ideas.)
I am simply suggesting that one not *break* existing memesets by suggesting
that "immortality" is possible to people who are unlikely to believe it --
because in its technical sense "immortality" is very very difficult to
achieve and probably cannot be "proven" using our current understanding
of physics and the hazard function of the universe, galaxies, solar systems,
etc.
Far better to leave people "part of the way there", e.g. a healthy life
for a few hundred years or a few thousand years (depending on how much
their minds may stretch). Because who knows what we may know at the
end of such periods? People are much more comfortable extending trends
that their parents and grandparents saw (e.g. "gradual lifespan extension
is accelerating") rather than replacing them with a very different meme
(e.g. "we can become immortal").
It makes it much easier to attack someone like Leon Kass, by asking
"How much healthy life is 'enough'?" Should one be forced to die at
80, 90, 120, 150...? Why not 30 (an average age of death in pre-Roman
times)? The news today noted work on a controversial therapy for Parkinson's
using gene therapy. Should we *not* attempt that? The bioethicists that
oppose lifespan extension are on a very slippery slope. But what would
be useful is to get more people on board with the idea that they can attend
the birthday parties of their great-great-great grandchildren.
> Thanks for clarifying this for me. I hope I'm not asking a question that's
> been asked a hundred times before.
I do not believe it as been discussed in detail before, certainly not
a hundred times.
Robert
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