32 replies to this topic

[Solve]

I want to know all the alternative ways one could become immortal.

I'll go first:- Way number 1

Future scientists solve how to time travel and now they have access to every person that ever lived.
So they transfer the consciousness of everyone, a nanosecond before death, to man-made virtual bodies in a man-made virtual heaven for eternity.
So every being that every existed (human/animal) will become immortal.

Who's next

Solve

[JLL]

Future scientists solve how to calculate and backtrack the movement of each atom, so they do a reverse calculation and bring dead people (whose atoms have disintegrated) back into life.

Yeah I can't explain it but y'all know what I mean.

[seekonk]

Brain transplants. Perhaps into a cloned body.

You may laugh, but this one actually seems at least within the realm of possibility. I wonder why it is never mentioned.

Edited by seekonk, 20 June 2009 - 12:36 PM.

[Solve]

Then there's staying alive long enough until science invents anti-aging pills.
Therefore you never die and you might upgrade yourself as the technology presents itself.
So this way you upgrade youself to an immortal version.

Solve

[mentatpsi]

Brain transplants. Perhaps into a cloned body.

You may laugh, but this one actually seems at least within the realm of possibility. I wonder why it is never mentioned.

Like the cognitor or cymeks of the Dune series (the ones by Brian Herbert, not his father)?

[Solve]

One possible way to become immortal would be, if God exists, to somehow convince him to make you immortal.
You might convince God by praying, being/doing good, believing in Jesus or whoever, etc.
Well it is a possibility!

Solve

[forever freedom]

Brain transplants. Perhaps into a cloned body.

You may laugh, but this one actually seems at least within the realm of possibility. I wonder why it is never mentioned.

Probably because hysteric bio ethicists would get a bit more hysteric, and somehow somewhy there are people who listen to them.

It's a great idea; currently impossible but maybe with enough research, the complications in the procedure could be solved. Then the real problem would be how long the old and frail brain would last in the young body. The procedure, if successul, could give the person a few extra decades (in the case he didn't die of old age) but not much more than that unless we learn how to keep the brain young.


This is an interesting piece of news, published in the New York Times in 1982 (which makes us imagine how far would we have perfected the technique if we decided to give it some attention instead of listening to the hysterical bioethicists):

http://www.nytimes.c...se-s-brain.html

TRANSPLANT SUCCESS REPORTED WITH PART OF A MOUSE'S BRAIN
Published: June 18, 1982
A piece of brain has been successfully transplanted from one mouse into another, where it not only survived but also correctly hooked itself up and functioned almost normally, a New York scientist reported at a conference here.

''This is what I call my science fiction experiment, except that it works,'' said the scientist, Dr. Dorothy T. Krieger, chief of endocrinology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Although the partial brain transplant succeeded in seven out of eight attempts with mice, Dr. Krieger said, she declined to speculate on any possible application of the procedure to humans, cautioning that it was only the first experiment.

The findings of the research, the most dramatic ever done with such transplants, are to be described this month in the British journal Nature. Dr. Krieger discussed the project in an interview Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.

She said the transplants involved a specially bred strain of mice that produces both normal animals and some mutants that completely lack a crucial substance called LHRH, or luteinizing hormone releasing hormone. LHRH, which is produced in the brain, controls production of yet another set of hormones, the gonadotropins, which affect development of sex organs.

In the transplants, she said, the part of the brain that normally makes LHRH, a piece smaller than the head of a match, is taken from the donor brain and dropped into a natural cavity of the thimble-size brain of the adult mouse.

''Then,'' she said, ''we just leave it alone.'' The brain cells grow in the cavity, which is near their normal location, and begin to send out nerve fibers that hook up with the rest of the brain.

''Somehow,'' Dr. Krieger said, ''the nerves know just where to grow, and they make the right connections.''

The whole brain doesn't need to be transplanted; just the part responsible for the person's consciousness, memories, personality etc. The mechanica parts, the one that mechanically take care of the body, wouldn't necessarily need to be transplanted to maintain the person's sense of continuity.

Edited by forever freedom, 20 June 2009 - 05:43 PM.

[Cyberbrain]

The mind is like software and the brain like the hardware, the mind can exist in almost any median as long as it's hardware is compatible.

[forever freedom]

One possible way to become immortal would be, if God exists, to somehow convince him to make you immortal.
You might convince God by praying, being/doing good, believing in Jesus or whoever, etc.
Well it is a possibility!

Solve

Yes, but you would spend your entire life trying please every god conceived by humankind to make you immortal. And for what? For a chance of becoming immortal of 0.000...∞...1.

There's also the problem that some gods are very jealous and if they catch you trying to please other gods you're already on very bad terms with them. You just can't please them all. So this is an impossible task.

[Cyberbrain]

Alternative methods to immortality:

-How about we create a time capsule with all of our information and with instructions for future generations to either travel back in time to save us or to simulate us or to clone us (assuming we put DNA samples in the capsule).

-There's a chance cryonics may work.

-There's a chance there may be some sort of afterlife (heck even hell doesn't sound bad if you get to be immortal).

-Mind uploading; Simulating our mind in a computer.

-I heard high ranking scientologists get to be immortal.

-You could always achieve immortality through your legacy, work, kids, etc. Though I'm not for this.

-The fountain of youth may be out there.

-May the fact that you're alive and thinking means you already achieved immortality and you're just revisiting the past.

-Maybe we're already dead.

-Alien abductions could work.

[Luna]

Get the evil witch of oz to curse you being an immortal cat !
Or go to the wizard of oz and make a wish :D

Find a lamp! make a wish (you have 3!)

[DeadMeat]

Make/find a philosophers stone and draw tea from it. Add sugar for the taste.

Drink the blood of a vampire and try not to get staked by those obnoxious vampire hunters.

Reincarnation. And then preferably not in a fly or plant or something. I wouldn't mind reincarnating in some thoroughly spoiled pet rat/cat/dog though.

[Solve]

-Alien abductions could work.

Yeah, a benevolent alien race, many millions of years ahead of us technologically speaking knows that time travel is impossible, but has perfected a system to make beings immortal.
And they want to share it with us.

[Luna]

-Alien abductions could work.

Yeah, a benevolent alien race, many millions of years ahead of us technologically speaking knows that time travel is impossible, but has perfected a system to make beings immortal.
And they want to share it with us.

They want to buy our cats! they abduct us, turn us immortal in order to establish an inter-galactic cat trading market~!

[k10]

Apparently David Copperfield has discovered the fountain of youth on his private island.

http://www.hecklersp...ly/20064460.php

"I've discovered a true phenomenon… You can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water, they become full of life again… Bugs or insects that are near death, come in contact with the water, they'll fly away. It's an amazing thing, very, very exciting."

Copperfield, obviously, understands if the world remains a bit dubious of his claim, and he's takes measures to scientifically back them up. With a cape and a wand. Not really, there's no wand here, but he really did hire biologists and geologists to examine the effects the fountain may have on people, and to study from where the fountain springs. And then to maybe work the fields of his newly acquired massive banana plantation.

[Solve]

Alternative methods to immortality:

......

-Mind uploading; Simulating our mind in a computer.

......

How about just scanning our brain, in 30 years time for example, to such a level that the information collected will have to wait another 100 or 200 or x years before the technology is available to take that data and reconstruct ourselves on an artificial medium.
Is this also mind uploading? (yes I suppose). One just has to wait around awhile to get resurrected!
This sounds better than cryonics (especially if it's only the head that is suspended).

Solve

[Solve]

Alternative methods to immortality:

......

-Mind uploading; Simulating our mind in a computer.

......

How about just scanning our brain, in 30 years time for example, to such a level that the information collected will have to wait another 100 or 200 or x years before the technology is available to take that data and reconstruct ourselves on an artificial medium.
Is this also mind uploading? (yes I suppose). One just has to wait around awhile to get resurrected!
This sounds better than cryonics (especially if it's only the head that is suspended).

Solve

Yet this Mind Uploading would only be a copy. The real you would be dead.
At least with cryonics you have a chance of resurrecting the 'real' consciousness!

Solve

Edited by Solve, 22 June 2009 - 06:33 PM.

[Cyberbrain]

Head in a jar doesn't sound bad either

[seekonk]

Alternative methods to immortality:

......

-Mind uploading; Simulating our mind in a computer.

......

How about just scanning our brain, in 30 years time for example, to such a level that the information collected will have to wait another 100 or 200 or x years before the technology is available to take that data and reconstruct ourselves on an artificial medium.
Is this also mind uploading? (yes I suppose). One just has to wait around awhile to get resurrected!

The copy would almost certainly not give any sense of continuity to the self-awareness of the original (as you can simply see by considering what happens if the copy is activated before the original dies), but I guess that is a the subject of another thread.

[Solve]

Alternative methods to immortality:

......

-Mind uploading; Simulating our mind in a computer.

......

How about just scanning our brain, in 30 years time for example, to such a level that the information collected will have to wait another 100 or 200 or x years before the technology is available to take that data and reconstruct ourselves on an artificial medium.
Is this also mind uploading? (yes I suppose). One just has to wait around awhile to get resurrected!
This sounds better than cryonics (especially if it's only the head that is suspended).

Solve

Yet this Mind Uploading would only be a copy. The real you would be dead.
At least with cryonics you have a chance of resurrecting the 'real' consciousness!

Solve

Maybe a combination of Cryonics and Brain scanning.
From the two one might be have a greater chance of becomming immortal.

Solve

[AgeVivo]

Brain transplants. Perhaps into a cloned body.
You may laugh, but this one actually seems at least within the realm of possibility. I wonder why it is never mentioned.

I agree. It has already been discussed in imminst. See info below. Despite moral issues and technical difficulties it is a little surprising that there is appearently no research team in the world to currently work on it.

It's a great idea; currently impossible but maybe with enough research, the complications in the procedure could be solved. Then the real problem would be how long the old and frail brain would last in the young body.
...TRANSPLANT SUCCESS REPORTED WITH PART OF A MOUSE'S BRAIN

There is much better:

There have been plenty of head transplant experiments, and even a patent for a device to keep the head & brain alive for an extended period after being discorporated (what a great term).

Device for perfusing an animal head

• www.bpmlegal.com/whead.html
• v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US4666425&F=0

The Russians actually experimented with discorporated dog heads kept alive, and seemingly conscious, with such devices. Note: Don't watch the following YouTube clip if you are sensitive about severed, living dogs heads:
http://www.imminst.o...mp;#entry260699

In 1954 Vladimir Demikhov conducted created a two-headed dog by grafting a puppy's head to a full-grown animal. Again, don't watch if you are disturbed with two-headed dogs:
http://www.imminst.o...mp;#entry260699

In the West experiments with primate head transplants were carried out:
www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/stranger-than-fiction/head-transplant.html

For an America in the grip of cold-war paranoia, the prospect of Russian two-headed dogs was too much to ignore. The United States would soon begin it's own head-transplant programme.

In 1960, the US Government, eager to stay ahead of the Russians in all aspects of medical science, helped White establish a specialist laboratory at the County Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Here he set about creating a world-leading brain research centre.

By day, White operated on patients with all kinds of brain injuries and illnesses. His surgical skills were renowned. But, as a scientist, it was the mysteries of the brain he wanted to unlock. His ambition was to be the first person, in the world, to isolate the brain. To take it out of the skull, to study it, and to keep it alive throughout.

Robert White decided that if he could transplant a head from one monkey to another, then it would be apparent of the brain activity represented awareness. It took him three years to plan the surgery. He knew that this would be, to some, morally offensive.

The monkey was conscious after the transplant:
http://www.imminst.o...mp;#entry260699

A word of caution though, don't try this at home or PETA will be over to have a few words.

Edited by AgeVivo, 23 June 2009 - 09:08 AM.

[Solve]

The copy would almost certainly not give any sense of continuity to the self-awareness of the original (as you can simply see by considering what happens if the copy is activated before the original dies), but I guess that is a the subject of another thread.

Lets say you have cryonics head suspension and a high resolution brain scan (whilst still alive).
300 years later you awaken finding yourself within a plastic and metal body!
The thing is will you know whether you were resurrected from your cryonics head or from the brain scan (mind uploading)?
I think probably not.

Solve

[seekonk]

The copy would almost certainly not give any sense of continuity to the self-awareness of the original (as you can simply see by considering what happens if the copy is activated before the original dies), but I guess that is a the subject of another thread.

Lets say you have cryonics head suspension and a high resolution brain scan (whilst still alive).
300 years later you awaken finding yourself within a plastic and metal body!
The thing is will you know whether you were resurrected from your cryonics head or from the brain scan (mind uploading)?
I think probably not.

Solve

The thing is, by using the pronoun "you" for both possibilities, you are begging the question.

[Teixeira]

One possible way to become immortal would be, if God exists, to somehow convince him to make you immortal.
You might convince God by praying, being/doing good, believing in Jesus or whoever, etc.
Well it is a possibility!

Solve

"You might convince God by praying".
You just had a funtastic idea!!! The secret is on the details! If you knew that, you knew the entire "know-how" of becoming immortal!
One day i´ll explain it to you in mathematical terms because I don´t have the courage to tell it in real words.

[exapted]

Body emulation, and eventually Whole Brain Emulation (WBE). According to Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap, it is estimated according to current technology trends that a whole human brain could be completely emulated by around 2045 on a million dollar supercomputer. This takes into account current trends in brain imaging, computer science (image processing, computational neuroscience, etc.) and computer architecture/capacity; it assumes we will need to model electrophysiology, ion channels, glial cells, etc. in fairly high detail. Emulating the rest of the body should be easier than emulating a brain. I think there could be "affordable" WBE by 2060.

Regarding the issue of "continuity of consciousness" and such, I think the opposition is stuck at some kind of spiritual blockade. I am sure I would be willing to go under general anesthesia and have my brain destructively scanned and my mind re-instantiated on a new substrate.

[Singularity]

The mind is like software and the brain like the hardware, the mind can exist in almost any median as long as it's hardware is compatible.

A particular mind is a product of the particular brain... the PHYSICAL brain matter. You're looking for something mystical.

[Cyberbrain]

The mind is like software and the brain like the hardware, the mind can exist in almost any median as long as it's hardware is compatible.

A particular mind is a product of the particular brain... the PHYSICAL brain matter. You're looking for something mystical.

It's my assumption, until science can definitively prove it that the mind could be replaced with similar hardware (the brain). Say by nanotechnology, where neurons are slowly replaced by artificial ones slowly over time until you have a completely new brain. We're actually doing it now, "you are what you eat", but the median more or less stays the same. Consciousness, memory, emotions, etc, are all electrical signals powered by an intricate neurochemistry. Presumably in the far future one could also upload themselves to other medians or computers (I don't think it would be silicon based), but I wouldn't hold my breath just yet.

[exapted]

The mind is like software and the brain like the hardware, the mind can exist in almost any median as long as it's hardware is compatible.

A particular mind is a product of the particular brain... the PHYSICAL brain matter. You're looking for something mystical.

A particular mind is a pattern or a set of patterns, embodied in the brain, embodied socially and embodied in tools. Many particulars of the physical brain matter are integral to the embodiment of a mind. All of these particulars can be identified, delineated and emulated. Destroying a brain while the corresponding mind is unconscious and unaware, and replacing it with an emulation, would have no discernible effect on the behavior of the body that is occupied by the brain; nor would it alter the hierarchy of patterns which embodies the patterns of mind normally existing in the brain.

[Singularity]

The mind is like software and the brain like the hardware, the mind can exist in almost any median as long as it's hardware is compatible.

A particular mind is a product of the particular brain... the PHYSICAL brain matter. You're looking for something mystical.

A particular mind is a pattern or a set of patterns, embodied in the brain, embodied socially and embodied in tools. Many particulars of the physical brain matter are integral to the embodiment of a mind. All of these particulars can be identified, delineated and emulated. Destroying a brain while the corresponding mind is unconscious and unaware, and replacing it with an emulation, would have no discernible effect on the behavior of the body that is occupied by the brain; nor would it alter the hierarchy of patterns which embodies the patterns of mind normally existing in the brain.

I agree and I agree with James who said that mind is a process, which is a temporal pattern.

And I don't believe there is any mystical "substance" that can emerge from it... aka a "soul". But, that's not to downplay the realness of conscious experience.

[JJN]

And now for something totally different...

Quantum foam(from wikidpedia) http://en.wikipedia....ki/Quantum_foam

"The foam is supposedly the foundations of the fabric of the universe,[1] but it can also be used as a qualitative description of subatomic spacetime turbulence at extremely small distances of the order of the Planck length"...

"The "foamy" spacetime would look like a complex turbulent storm-tossed sea. Some physicists theorize the formation of wormholes therein; speculation arising from this includes the possibility of hyperspatial links to other universes".

Consider that if, there is a link, through wormholes, to another universe in all things, it may be that the patterns of our brains (bodies, trees, frogs, and so on and all else) may be replicated in other universes. Perhaps we could access this link to replicate ourselves at any future time. It may be possible to even take a 'copy' of ourself at a past given time, that would correlate to the time of our local 'demise', so that subjectively, we would experience continuity. As to a 'copy' being not-continuous, it may already be happening, and we are simply not aware of it. Ah, the mind boggles... someone enterprising could make a religion out of this...