Cure For Death?

[heyrabbit]

I've talked about this with some people. when will we have the technology to transplant brains?

We can already transplant hands, hearts, kidneys, etc. this technology can't be far away

 

And once we have this technology, why can't we clone our own bodies (or other bodies) and transplant our brains into younger versions of ourselves, escaping death?

 

It would be expensive, of course, but it seems like a viable idea to me. and it seems to me like it would be the obvious first method of prolonging human life. Why wait until we can create some kind of robot substrate when we can already create human bodies?! brains have a shelf life, but organs are known to survive for years after the death of its body.

 

there are "moral" implications involved (you'd have to grow the body as a vegetable in order to morally justify removing its brain), although I don't see why this idea wouldn't work( a part from the fact that we don't have this technology yet)

 

Discuss

[ecnarf]

Entropy, bitches. You can't escape it.

[Ravenous megin-sane]

i think it would be a waste of time

[ecnarf]

Let's also not forget that the brain decays with age.

 

EDIT: And liquor consumption.

Edited June 20, 2007 by ecnarf

[Hyphnip]

cure for death

[ecnarf]

Now is the time of the quickening.

[Seanathon]

Let's also not forget that the brain decays with age.

This was my first thought.

A 150 year old brain and a 20 year old body wouldn't do you much good.

[ecnarf]

It'd be like that episode of the Simpsons where Mr. Burns injects that aphrodesiac from the pockets of a pocket fox...

 

It existed for 2 weeks in the 1700's.

[Crusader]

1) magic cliff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwH5rIQF8qA

2) results of immortality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHaxK_-1fy8

[heyrabbit]

yeah you wouldn't live forever, but an 70 year old brain and an 18 year old body could buy you 30, or 40 years of life! how would that be a waste of time?

[Ravenous megin-sane]

there's a reason people don't live that long

[heyrabbit]

because the body atrophies. if 95 percent of your body is new (or whatever hte percentage is) there's that much more chance that you'll live longer. we're already living twice as long as people from only 200 years ago

 

maybe in the near future we'll be able to prolong our life expectancy to well over 100, although your organism can't be sustained forever( and you wouldn't expect or want that anyway)

Edited June 21, 2007 by heyrabbit

[ecnarf]

because the body atrophies. if 95 percent of your body is new (or whatever hte percentage is) there's that much more chance that you'll live longer. we're already living twice as long as people from only 200 years ago

 

maybe in the near future we'll be able to prolong our life expectancy to well over 100, although your organism can't be sustained forever( and you wouldn't expect or want that anyway)

That's mostly because we don't dig wells right next to the outhouses anymore.

[heyrabbit]

exactly, so what's going to be obvious to civilization 100 years from now. our lives will probably look like an outhouse to those people

 

or did our progression end when 21st Century Living came out loL?. evil ambition

Edited June 21, 2007 by heyrabbit

[ecnarf]

exactly, so what's going to be obvious to civilization 100 years from now. our lives will probably look like an outhouse to those people

 

or did our progression end when 21st Century Living came out loL?. evil ambition

There are limits. People these days die of cancer so much because there's less shit out there to kill em. No matter how many fruits, vegetables, anti-oxidants, multivitamins and new age bullshit people eat, they're still going to die. Remember that humans have incredibly long life spans compared to most animals. There are only a small handful that live longer than we do. We can, and should, only live for so long.

[heyrabbit]

we should only life for how long? according to whom?

 

If you could extend your life, would you?

[ecnarf]

Come on. People living for 150 or 200 years? Presents clear problems in terms of overpopulation and resources. And how much time and resources are going to be committed to the furtherance of life instead of living it?

 

If I could extend my life, would I? It's a blanket question. Extending the last years of my life aren't going to be all that interesting.

[Lauren]

i really don't think most people could benefit from living another few hundred years. sure there are people who die at 30 because of some freak disease or cancer or accident or whatever, but most of the public die old and thir brains are garbage anyways. why would you want to live another 20 years if you can't remember how to tie your shoes? i suppose it would be a service to those who sufffer from cancers of specific organs...

[heyrabbit]

it seems like an impertinent question, but it's really not. we're talking about your entire existence. you want to exist today, so why should you want to exist in 100 years time if the opportunity is available to live? of course anyone is indifferent to the idea if you assume that technology will be hte same in 50 years time, but it won't be.

 

for it to be practical, it depends on certain things like society becoming highly efficient with its resources. we'd need a cultural and intellectual revolution, but I don't see why it's not possible

[Lauren]

not that i'm up in the world of technology, but i've been hearing quite a bit how we're getting close to reaching the peak of our technological advances. there's only so much more for us to figure out.

 

 

and most old people are ready to die by the time they do. they know it's then end and they are prepared.

[heyrabbit]

there's only how much more for us to figure out and according to whom?

 

you shouldn't be resigned to death (at what age?) just because that is natural today.

[Lauren]

i think there's some places technology shouldn't go. as people have been saying, people die for a reason. let it be.

[heyrabbit]

yeah but you phrase it as if it's "our destiny" to die.

 

there's a reason why everyone dies, although not every death is morally justifiable to you. if that were the case, you wouldn't consider murder to be immoral

 

the fact that death is considered moral when you're old and decrepit relies on you being old and decrepit.

 

so the difference between you wanting to live today - and being alright with death in 80 years - is only a difference of however-many-years

Edited June 21, 2007 by heyrabbit

[ecnarf]

it seems like an impertinent question, but it's really not. we're talking about your entire existence. you want to exist today, so why should you want to exist in 100 years time if the opportunity is available to live? of course anyone is indifferent to the idea if you assume that technology will be hte same in 50 years time, but it won't be.

 

for it to be practical, it depends on certain things like society becoming highly efficient with its resources. we'd need a cultural and intellectual revolution, but I don't see why it's not possible

Okay, imagine someone who lived in 1850 being alive today. You cannot tell me with a straight face that they would be able to be a productive member of society today. Aside from the butter churn being considered advanced technology, social progress would slow to a grinding halt. We'd have slave owners from the civil war still kicking around. We would have university professors who grew up being taught Dalton's billiard ball theory of the atom.

 

I'm sorry to have to break it to you but death is necessary. Imagine five generations of people being alive at one time and what that would do to the population size. Sure, we can become more efficient with resources but when the size of the population would quadruple or more it doesn't matter how efficiently we use them. Every type of population has an upper limit - it's basic ecology. If people started to live on the order of 200 years, the population of each generation would have to become incredibly small so as to reduce resource consumption. Health care costs would absolutely skyrocket. All for what? So the decrepit and elderly can keep on going? All the advancing technology in the world won't change the fact that people will only be able to be productive for so much time before disease and decay inevitably take over.

[heyrabbit]

I understand that death is likely, but that's not the point. everything great is unlikely. our existence was unlikely.

 

everyone's mindset is completely naturalistic. death is necessary for what reason? so new generations can live? that's assuming that we couldn't co-exist. and health costs, who the hell knows what type of government will exist in 100 years ( or even if there will be one )?

 

see when does your death become necessary? I find it bizarre that nobody cares about their own consciousness.

 

maybe there's a 1 in trillion bazillion chance that you could have 50 more happy years of existence, but why wouldn't approve of that idea. once you're gone, your entire consciousness is gone forever.

Edited June 21, 2007 by heyrabbit