[extropy-chat] Re:- Biggest Hope for Immortality

[Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.]

Might not the biggest hope and also the rate limiting step be the
computational and programming capabilities required to interact with the
chemistry of the genome, the
epignome and the dynamics of whole body systems and continue to solve
ever more complex  problems to sustain and then to modify the organism as
its lifespan potential increases and its level of degradation decreases;
Then to understand and direct new
whole system architectures on an ongoing basis.

"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > 1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"
>
> Boredom.  In the *first* place immortality is probably impossible
> unless one can assert that protons do not decay -- and in the
> current standard model of physics they probably do decay
> (though this takes a *very* long time and has yet to be proven
> experimentally to the best of my knowledge).
>
> So you have a terminology problem with the question as stated.
>
> The boredom problem will probably lead to people taking increasing
> risks (extreme extreme sports -- e.g. Fear Factor with no safeties)
> or perhaps committing suicide after a few hundred years.
>
> Population growth is not a problem in "achieving" immortality.
> Its a moral problem as to whether one devotes more resources
> towards helping many people live better -- but shorter, non-immortal
> lives or whether one devotes the resources towards helping fewer
> people live longer lives (which will eventually help everyone still
> alive live longer lives).
>
> Its also true that if the singularity arguments hold -- then the
> population growth ("Club of Rome") arguments are all ca-ca.
> We *know* that nanotech -- and extremely advanced biotech
> (significantly changing the food and energy equations) are
> going to be available before 2050 (the standard point where
> everyone says everything from famine to global warming are
> going to start destroying humanity).
>
> > 2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"
>
> I'd tend to agree with the stem cells perspective.  After that
> I'd say "whole genome engineering".  After that I'd say organogenesis
> based on synthetic genomes.  After that I'd say nanorobotic
> enhancment from respirocytes to vasculoid systems.
>
> Robert
>
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