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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
Would you give up your immortality to ensure the success of a
posthuman world? Answering hard questions at the World Transhumanist conference. Ronald Bailey | July 27, 2007 "...The final speaker was inventor and self-acknowledged transhumanist Ray Kurzweil, who argues that "The Singularity is Near." The singularity is a metaphorical social event horizon in which accelerating technological trends so change society that it is impossible to forecast what the world will really be like. Kurzweill believes that humanity will accelerate itself to utopia (immortality, ubiquitous AI, nanotech abundance) in the next 20 to 30 years. For example, he noted that average life expectancy increases by about 3 months every year. Kurzweil then claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. In other words, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy could be indefinitely long. He projects that by 2030, AI will be ubiquitous, and most humans will be physically melded to information and other technologies. Kurzweil argued that we must reject the fundamentalist desire to define humanity by its limitations. 'We are the species that goes beyond our limitations,' he declared." http://www.reason.com/news/show/121638.html Indefinite lifespan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_lifespan If so, that might alleviate the problem of the very long times for (sublight) travel between the stars: indefinitely long lifetimes. Bob Clark |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
Jon Schild writes:
Robert Clark wrote: Would you give up your immortality to ensure the success of a posthuman world? Absolutely. And it isn't that hard a question. Maybe when you are 20 or 30 the idea of living forever seems attractive, but wait until you get older and assorted body parts no longer work like they should. Then you can understand the full meaning of a button I have seen at several worldcons: "Immortality -- A Fate Worse than Death" I kind of suspect that given an infinitely vast stretch of time to work on the problem people might be able to figure out a way to treat knees so that they get back to working comfortably like what they should. -- Joseph Nebus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And they make excellent progress on commercial fusion power plants, too. |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
Robert Clark wrote:
Kurzweil then claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. In other words, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy could be indefinitely long. Guy doesn't understand "life expectancy" statistics. |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
lal_truckee wrote in
: Robert Clark wrote: Kurzweil then claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. In other words, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy could be indefinitely long. Guy doesn't understand "life expectancy" statistics. Or a lot of other things. -- Terry Austin "There's no law west of the internet." - Nick Stump |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
On Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:02:39 -0800, Jon Schild wrote:
Robert Clark wrote: Would you give up your immortality to ensure the success of a posthuman world? Absolutely. And it isn't that hard a question. Maybe when you are 20 or 30 the idea of living forever seems attractive, but wait until you get older and assorted body parts no longer work like they should. Then you can understand the full meaning of a button I have seen at several worldcons: "Immortality -- A Fate Worse than Death" Which mostly only means that the English language doesn't yet have the right terminology for discussing "immortality". Any technology capable of vastly extending the human lifespan, would almost certainly be capable of ensuring that all the assorted body parts work the way they should. After all, it is the increasing dysfunction of many of those body parts that causes mortality in the first place; it seems highly unlikely that we'd be able to perfectly repair only those parts relating to the duration of life but not the ones relating to the quality of life. So, "immortality" in the body you had at twenty-five? Because I think that, barring a short transitional period, that's the only sort that's really in the cards. And I don't think we'll actually see it in fifteen years, but possibly within fifty years. -- *John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, * *Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" * *Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition * *White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute * * for success" * *661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition * |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
On Dec 24, 10:07 am, Robert Clark wrote:
Kurzweil then claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. Back in the sixties, I read an article in Analog where the author claimed speeds attained by humans were increasing so fast that before the end of the century we would be able to travel faster than light. It came equipped with a graph, which extrapolated these speeds into an asymptotic blowup. Finding the fallacies in this class of argument is left as an exercise for the reader. |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
Robert Clark wrote: Would you give up your immortality to ensure the success of a posthuman world? Absolutely. And it isn't that hard a question. Maybe when you are 20 or 30 the idea of living forever seems attractive, but wait until you get older and assorted body parts no longer work like they should. Then you can understand the full meaning of a button I have seen at several worldcons: "Immortality -- A Fate Worse than Death" -- I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -- Galileo Galilei |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
Gene Ward Smith wrote in
om: On Dec 24, 10:07 am, Robert Clark wrote: Kurzweil then claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. Back in the sixties, I read an article in Analog where the author claimed speeds attained by humans were increasing so fast that before the end of the century we would be able to travel faster than light. It came equipped with a graph, which extrapolated these speeds into an asymptotic blowup. Finding the fallacies in this class of argument is left as an exercise for the reader. And practical fusion is only 20 years away. -- Terry Austin "There's no law west of the internet." - Nick Stump |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
On Dec 24, 11:57 am, John Schilling wrote:
So, "immortality" in the body you had at twenty-five? Because I think that, barring a short transitional period, that's the only sort that's really in the cards. And I don't think we'll actually see it in fifteen years, but possibly within fifty years. What's your definition of "immortality"? |
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Ray Kurzweil: Immortality within 15 years.
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy schrieb:
Gene Ward Smith wrote in om: On Dec 24, 10:07 am, Robert Clark wrote: Kurzweil then claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. Back in the sixties, I read an article in Analog where the author claimed speeds attained by humans were increasing so fast that before the end of the century we would be able to travel faster than light. It came equipped with a graph, which extrapolated these speeds into an asymptotic blowup. Finding the fallacies in this class of argument is left as an exercise for the reader. And practical fusion is only 20 years away. Don't forget about flying cars, PRT and the paperless office. mawa |
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