21 replies to this topic

[Matt]

Making superman real.

Would it be possible that sometime in the future, possibly before 2050 to give humans the strength, speed, eye sight (x ray and other) , hearing and best of all, Flight... which I dont even think that would be possible, even with nanotech ? :S

Any ideas how you could incorporate nanotech or any sort of technology into humans to give them all or most of them abilities? Like enhancing the structure of your bones to be able to support tons of weight etc..

I am pretty sure most of you seen Superman at some point of your life. maybe Im just sad and the only 1 here... but didnt you ever want super human abilities.

When do you think this will happen, or maybe you dont?

Give us your thoughts on it..

[Infernity]

I don't think such a dramatic change will achieve till 2050, but I believe we are always improving.

As you still did not answer this poll http://www.imminst.o...f=169&t=5263&s=
If it would be possible, but only for throwing totally the one you are less interested in- would you still take it? which will you lose?

Yours truthfully
~Infernity

[advancedatheist]

Desirable background reading:

Man Into Superman, by Robert Ettinger

[antilithium]

Making superman real.

Would it be possible that sometime in the future, possibly before 2050 to give humans the strength, speed, eye sight (x ray and other) , hearing and best of all, Flight...  which I dont even think that would be possible, even with nanotech ? :S

Any ideas how you could incorporate nanotech or any sort of technology into humans to give them all or most of them abilities?   Like enhancing the structure of your bones to be able to support tons of weight etc..

I am pretty sure most of you seen Superman at some point of your life.  maybe Im just sad and the only 1 here...  but didnt you ever want super human abilities. 

When do you think this will happen, or maybe you dont?

Give us your thoughts on it..

Well lets take a good look at Soup's powers:

He can move faster than a speeding bullet. I think he could move faster than the speed of light.

He can emit lasers from his eyes at varying degrees.

He's freakishly strong, his strength varies at times. I'd say he *could* bench press up somewhere around 60 to 800 metric tons(1,000 kg).

He's near invulnerable, we're talkin' about an guy who can fly througth a star scatheless.

He can also see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. And he has microscopic with telescopic vision.

Plus the fact, he can fly at supersonic speeds (maybe even relativistic speeds) in any direction.

Plus the fact, he has supersonic hearing. He can hear in space too!

Plus the fact, he's an master at ventriloquism and vocal mimicry.

Plus the fact, that he has typhoon breath. And he can freeze things with it by pure willpower.

*Superman's abilities change over time.

Damn, that's a lot of crap, even if you impede it with the laws of physics.

So in conclusion, creating an supermen via nanotech or whatever, in the next fifty years, is hopeless.

I'll post again with some ideas for an feasible superhuman. In the meantime, you can amuse yourself with this.

[advancedatheist]

Bob Ettinger pointed out over 30 years ago that we have plenty of ideas to play with given what we know is possible now. We don't have to speculate about "psi" powers, magic rings and other apparent violations of scientific principles -- though with quantum mechanics the boundary between science and "magic" isn't as obvious as it once seemed.

Basically we have rare human talents, animal talents and machine talents, each of which derives from physical substrates that we can in principle articulate and duplicate in a "superhuman" body. So, for example, we can learn how to give people "savant syndrome" abilities or yogi-like control over physiological states or artists' heightened sensory appreciation. We could give them the ability to dive for prolonged periods in icy waters like whales, improved vision in dim light like nocturnal birds and mammals, superior physical coordination like monkeys etc. And as for machine abilities -- well, a superhuman could be integrated into a technological system that gives him the ability to do anything a machine can be made to do.

BTW, the science fiction writer Ted Chiang has put some very interesting thinking about the powers of a cognitive superman into his short story "Understand."

[th3hegem0n]

Some researchers created an artificial muscle that is 100 times stronger than normal muscle.



bench press ~ 200lbs
top human speed currently ~37 mph
top human vertical jump currently ~6ft
top human long jump currently ~30ft

the transfer wouldn't be direct... but all of those x100 would be

bench press = 20000 lbs
top speed = 3700 mph
vertical jump = 600 ft
long jump = 3000 ft

damn... i want some of that [lol]

[Matt]

That would be nice [sfty]

[verdantburst]

See also:

http://www.foresight...pirocytes1.html

According to Mr. Freitas's calculations, respirocytes would be able to outperform red blood cells at storing and distributing oxygen to tissue by a factor of more than 10,000 to 1. One would be able to hold their breath underwater for hours or days, sprint continuously without getting tired, or perform a number of other extraordinary feats. This reminds us that biological science-based approaches to human enhancement and life extension could easily be rendered obsolete within years or even months after the emergence of the first functioning nanofactory.

[LifeMirage]

In the future all current limits of science will be pushed....and then broken as our understanding of science expands.

[cyric]

He can move faster than a speeding bullet. I think he could move faster than the speed of light.

He can't, nothing can. Light (as proved even before Einstein) is a universal constant. And as a universal constant, can't move any faster or slower. But one of Einstein's work's proved another thing, that it is impossible to travel faster than light. Because any physicist knows that if your speed increases, your mass also increases. To prove this, some notable physicists used an atomic accelerator to accelerate a proton to .998 the speed of light. Once it reached top speed, they flung the proton along a tunnel towards a 5 feet thick wall of steel. The impact it had, was the equivalent to a 100,000 ton train hitting the wall of steel. And it was only a proton. So, what Einstein proved, was that nothing could reach, let alone exceed C (C = the mathematical representation of the speed of light), as it would attain an infinite mass. And if it became an infinite mass, where would you get the infinite energy required to attain C?

[Infernity]

The Improbabilistic Propulsion hehe

Yours
~Infernity

[antilithium]

He can't, nothing can. Light (as proved even before Einstein) is a universal constant. And as a universal constant, can't move any faster or slower. But one of Einstein's work's proved another thing, that it is impossible to travel faster than light. Because any physicist knows that if your speed increases, your mass also increases. To prove this, some notable physicists used an atomic accelerator to accelerate a proton to .998 the speed of light. Once it reached top speed, they flung the proton along a tunnel towards a 5 feet thick wall of steel. The impact it had, was the equivalent to a 100,000 ton train hitting the wall of steel. And it was only a proton. So, what Einstein proved, was that nothing could reach, let alone exceed C (C = the mathematical representation of the speed of light), as it would attain an infinite mass. And if it became an infinite mass, where would you get the infinite energy required to attain C?

I understand that, however, Superman is a fictional character within a fictional universe. Its a comic book for goodness sakes! But thanks for the reminder. ~_^

[situationalist]

Matt

Much has been done in the way of science to increase mans physical capabilities. Those who control, through way of funding and legislature, such ventures need motive. One may question why the army for example doesn't investigate the 'superman/woman' concept in the name of defence. That is simply because you cannot control a super human soldier as well as you can a normal man/woman. Some suggest that the American troops in Vietnam were high on heroin in order to make them more submissive to thier team leaders and troops in Iraq are high on various 'dumbifying' substances known formally as 'vitamins'. Supermen aren't manageable, ignorant ones are!

Supermen presumably would not take direct orders, would rebel against authority and would basically be uncontrolable. Presuming that super human wo/men are not as far away as we think one needs to look at the society which allows them to happen (and who pays for them to be created) and for what reason. What purpose does the world have for superhuman men (superhuman women perhaps - wink) but men?

Furthermore if this is an immortality forum - superman does not live forever...can't he be killed by a green rock?

[apocalypse]

Supes, abilities have at times reached ridiculous heights, moving planets, going into stars, virtual indestructability, near instant accel/deccel at near lightspeed without disturbing the surrounding environment or destroying whatever his carrying(If I gave a relatively reasonable answer to that... I'd say he probably's uses spatial distortions to achieve such ability, making him be basically stationary while moving, thus neither he nor what he carries is actually accel/deccel... something like having an Alcubierre drive ). I'd say you'd need vast resources probably those of a kardashev I at the least, and someway of sending those resources into such a body, and you'd probably need to at least bend a few laws...

Well, you can still do them easily in artificial reality, so it shouldn't be so much of a fuzz anyway.

[Karomesis]

what a delectable scenario to ponder [sfty] When the experimental stages augmentation are finally realized, I will be one of the first to volunteer [lol] However, This is only the beggining of the expansion of reality to the nexus of the universe itself, when even time bows to the might of technology. And when omnipotence is attained, all that will be left is the pursuit of bliss. Hence; my sig [wis]

[quadclops]

Ah, now we are in the region of comic-fanboy-geekdom, where my super-nerd powers hold sway! [lol]

Situationalist wrote:

Furthermore if this is an immortality forum - superman does not live forever...can't he be killed by a green rock?

Well yeah, the krypto-junk kills him but, he doesn't age though. This superhuman lifespan power of his has popped up many times over the years, throughout a number of his comics.

Most recently, it appeared in a special one-shot story called Red Son. Notice the line near the bottom of the story description that reads:

Superman survived and is apparently immortal.

Over the years, his continuing exposure to the super-invigorating effects of Earth's yellow sun not only continue to increase his powers as he grows older, rather than the reverse as for us non-krptonians (dammit!), but it also retards the ageing process until he reaches a point where he seems to stop ageing completely! In the story, he seemed to keep going for what must have been about 5.000,000,000 years, when the Earth's sun turned into a red giant and he consequently lost his powers.

[quadclops]

As far as one of Superman's powers go, namely Invulnerability, I remember some literature I got a number of years ago from Alcor in which Brian Wowk speculated that with nanotechnology we would be able to upgrade our body's toughness to the point where we could . . .

casually survive airplane crashes!

At least I think it was Brian Wowk. Like I said it was a number of years ago, memory dims. [wis]

I'm also assuming he(?) didn't mean we could do this with our current gooey, organic substrate.

[Infernity]

The real Superman in the comics couldn't even fly, what are you talking about? He did jump like very high, but did not fly.
With time, TV and the children's wanting they've ameliorated him

Yours
~Infernity

[eternaltraveler]

Supes, abilities have at times reached ridiculous heights, moving planets, going into stars, virtual indestructability, near instant accel/deccel at near lightspeed without disturbing the surrounding environment or destroying whatever his carrying(If I gave a relatively reasonable answer to that... I'd say he probably's uses spatial distortions to achieve such ability, making him be basically stationary while moving, thus neither he nor what he carries is actually accel/deccel... something like having an Alcubierre drive ). I'd say you'd need vast resources probably those of a kardashev I at the least, and someway of sending those resources into such a body, and you'd probably need to at least bend a few laws...

Nah, all I need is your Earth's yellow sun.

[eternaltraveler]

He can't, nothing can. Light (as proved even before Einstein) is a universal constant. And as a universal constant, can't move any faster or slower. But one of Einstein's work's proved another thing, that it is impossible to travel faster than light. Because any physicist knows that if your speed increases, your mass also increases. To prove this, some notable physicists used an atomic accelerator to accelerate a proton to .998 the speed of light. Once it reached top speed, they flung the proton along a tunnel towards a 5 feet thick wall of steel. The impact it had, was the equivalent to a 100,000 ton train hitting the wall of steel. And it was only a proton. So, what Einstein proved, was that nothing could reach, let alone exceed C (C = the mathematical representation of the speed of light), as it would attain an infinite mass. And if it became an infinite mass, where would you get the infinite energy required to attain C?

100,000 ton train hitting the wall of steel eh?

Whereas this is certainly possible by the laws of physics I don't believe we have put that much intertia into a single proton.

And relative intertial mass is not the same thing as actual mass.

http://www.imminst.o...T&f=1&t=6139&s=

[knite]

Hehe, that would take just a hair under 100000 tons of steel turned into pure energy I believe. Something I dont believe the whole of humanity has come close to reaching .001% of in its entire span of energy generation.

[eternaltraveler]

Besides, at .998% of the speed of light the relativistic mass of a proton can be determined by calculating (1.661129568 -27(normal mass of a proton/(1-.998^2/1^2))= ~1.660299418 -24 (relativistic mass of the proton at .998 c.

Masses are in kilograms

so at ~1.66E-24 kilograms the relativistic mass has increased by around a factor of 1000. But even so it is still incredibly small. Hardly with the inertia of a train or even a mosquito.

Also it should be noted that relativistic mass only applies to it's inertial frame vs. our own. Relative to itself it's mass has not increased at all.