Suppose Science Made Immortality Into A Reality?

[BAYLOR]

You’re right. Sorry, really. I most definitely didn’t mean to come across that way. I apologize.

You did get a pretty good discussion going on the topic of Immortality .

 

[Immortality]

You did get a pretty good discussion going on the topic of Immortality .

Haha...yeah, I didn’t realize so many people were going to be that interested.

 

[Danny McG]

Will your life remain interesting if your partner turns into a tortoise?

I turned into a sloth some years ago and my wife finds it interesting (she must surely sit up half the night dreaming up the merciless stream of insults)

 

[Wayne Mack]

Well, you don't get much mutation without sexual reproduction

Viruses use asexual reproduction and mutate quickly.

natural selection only works if that reproduction is prevented, not only, but certainly, mainly by death.

Assuming immortality, a new variation can become dominant by: being more attractive to mates, by have a longer breeding duration, by having larger broods at birth. Although death may be necessary to take the old population to zero, the percentage of the old population can rather quickly be dwarfed by a more successful new population.

 

[Wayne Mack]

The little discussion on evolution sparked another concern about immortality, what happens to a society if its offspring have evolved? If early human ancestors with, perhaps, a lower mental capability lived forever how would they coexist with a more evolved species? Would they be slaves? Pets? Isolated communities?

Even without evolution, how about adaptability to technical change? I see parents struggling to use computers and ignoring smart phone capabilities. How would someone born 2,000 years ago navigate today's world? Would they keep up or give up and live in isolated technology-level zones?

 

[Immortality]

The great Nick Bostrom kind of beat me to it with his ‘Transhumanist FAQ’ . Available for free :

https://www.nickbostrom.com/views/transhumanist.pdf

It answers a lot of the questions and concerns related to immortality you all have. I’m going to work in the writing forum section of this website to see how I can distinguish my FAQ from his FAQ and be original and stand out. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. He graduated from Oxford, is on the faculty and wrote a great book. So I’m not even close to that, but I want to be. In fact it may be impossible for my FAQ to surpass his. I suppose since mine will be more focused on immortality, it may be slightly different, but I don’t want any crossover, but it seems like there will be inevitable crossover with my FAQ and his. He’s the man. Darn it! What am I going to do? Perhaps I can zero in on specific questions related to immortality that I can make it completely different? Or tell me the truth and be honest , do you think me creating a free internet ‘Immortality FAQ’ ( with a pro-immortality stance, which will try to convince the world of the benefits) just like him, do you think he is just too good for me and already made a better FAQ then I ever could? Or is it a matter of self-esteem and working hard to distinguish my FAQ from his as best I can?

 

[Dave]

Viruses use asexual reproduction and mutate quickly.

You must have missed the "much" word in my sentence that you quoted. DNA viruses do not mutate very quickly. RNA viruses do.

Viruses and Evolution

The battle between the human immune system and pathogens involves continual mutation, adaptation, and evolution. Influenza viruses and HIV provide unique examples of these processes.

www.historyofvaccines.org

But that is irrelevant to the discussion anyway as viruses aren't alive.

 

[Elckerlyc]

There is one aspect which, as far as I can see, hasn't been mentioned yet. That of family life.
There has been discussions about the concerns that immortality necessitate a limiting or even a ban on newborn life. Simply because an unlimited on growing population is not sustainable (unless we, next to the ability to reach immortality, had the technology to populate the Milky Way.)
But even without ban, I don't assume that immortality will change anything regarding fertility. Or rather the duration of being able to get pregnant. I don't think that women would be very delighted by the prospect of bearing children for the next 10 million years. (But I could be wrong, though, being a dimwitted male. - btw are there women participating in this thread?)
Anyway, the point I wanted to make is this: The world, life itself, is for the most part based on family life. Generally speaking (and yes, I know there are lots of alternatives and exceptions - I myself am single and always have been, but not by choice) you start out as a child, hopefully in a stable family, next you partner up with someone you love and raise children for yourself, until after that you turn into a grandparent and looked upon to be a babysitter. Until the grandchildren (and their parents) don't need you anymore for this task and contacts diminishes and turn into visits on Sundays, every 2 or 3(?) weeks.
All that disappears when either childbirth is abolished or restricted to your first 100 years of life. After that... comes what? Emptiness? Being single I can honestly say that, though I enjoy life, I'm glad our lifespan is limited.
But of course, personal experience are just that. What say you?

 

[Montero]

A few thoughts on the theme.
My choice has always been to not have children. Happy to briefly interact with other people's children (well behaved ones who don't try and cover me in jam or crayon or scream near my ear or kick my shins). I wouldn't feel any loss from living without kids as I already largely do.
There has been communal child raising - I seem to remember it was tried in Israel.
As I child I grew up with several older relatives in the house - and that was fun - I heard a lot of stories about their grand parents and gained a sense of continuity and history.
I think that those who wanted to interact with kids would try to do that, and those who don't wouldn't. One of the potential problems if there are only a few kids and lots of people want kid time, is the kids grow up feeling really special and are then entitled pains in the arse when they reach adulthood and have a long adjustment period when they find they are less special.
In addition to sff and history, my interests include gardening and wildlife watching and campaigning for more areas for wild life. I do get a nuturing type satisfaction from plants growing, and wildlife having somewhere to live and grow.

 

[Vertigo]

I think that those who wanted to interact with kids would try to do that, and those who don't wouldn't. One of the potential problems if there are only a few kids and lots of people want kid time, is the kids grow up feeling really special and are then entitled pains in the arse when they reach adulthood and have a long adjustment period when they find they are less special.

I feel that children growing up in the absence of other children would result in severely maladjusted adults. My belief is that in this scenario the family would have to move to a 'family enclave' until the children reach full adulthood.

 

[Montero]

Thinking about people getting bored with a really long life - my late father probably wouldn't have done. He was always interested in what was going on around him, spotting something he thought needed fixing, energetic, curious, driven - and that was well into his eighties. He was still interested by the birds on the bird table outside his window at the nursing home, tracking what they got up to.
I think if I could have the health of my youth back I'd be fine for a long time - the trouble at school was having to specialise. I wanted to do art and music as well as science but had to pick one of three - and went with science in part because my father pointed out it was the more certain living, it was something that needed resources to learn and that I could do art and music later, once I had a job and a place of my own to live in.
Funnily enough, the art and music hasn't much happened yet - so having extra lifetimes to do all this while being at the top of my game physically would be wonderful. Providing my income continued.
But that is entirely from my viewpoint - and as I've mentioned earlier and others have, would have concerns regarding the health of the planet, overpopulation and the like.

 

[Vertigo]

Thinking about people getting bored with a really long life - my late father probably wouldn't have done. He was always interested in what was going on around him, spotting something he thought needed fixing, energetic, curious, driven - and that was well into his eighties. He was still interested by the birds on the bird table outside his window at the nursing home, tracking what they got up to.
I think if I could have the health of my youth back I'd be fine for a long time - the trouble at school was having to specialise. I wanted to do art and music as well as science but had to pick one of three - and went with science in part because my father pointed out it was the more certain living, it was something that needed resources to learn and that I could do art and music later, once I had a job and a place of my own to live in.
Funnily enough, the art and music hasn't much happened yet - so having extra lifetimes to do all this while being at the top of my game physically would be wonderful. Providing my income continued.
But that is entirely from my viewpoint - and as I've mentioned earlier and others have, would have concerns regarding the health of the planet, overpopulation and the like.

I agree with this in that I could easily fill two, three, a dozen, twenty lifetimes without boredom - but thousands? I'm not so sure. Except as has been pointed out I'll probably have completely forgotten the first ones by then! That said that would, I suspect, get me thinking about how pointless it all is; "Have I done this before? Maybe? What's the point?" To be fair though, it's impossible to predict that one until the occasion should arise. I think it was Neal Asher, but might have been Banks, that suggested that if someone had got through their first 300 years of life without giving up from boredom then they probably never would. Something along those lines anyway (maybe with reference to the Old Captains of Spatterjay).

 

[Danny McG]

Talking of boredom, why this 'need' to do stuff to alleviate the ennui?

I was living alone after divorce from my first wife many years ago.
After a few months I was told at work that if I didn't take 5 weeks accrued leave I'd lose it.

Five weeks lying on my sofa with the radio quietly playing in the background, doing nothing all day....it was great!
*Nostalgic sigh*

 

[BAYLOR]

When im bored , I play Skyrim. It's fun to wander and have an adventuring in that realm . Sometimes , I wish it was real place.

 

[Astro Pen]

We would sit around the monkey enclosure and make bets on how long it would be before they typed the lords prayer.
Once that bet was won I expect someone would open a new book for typing Hamlet. Because, you know, guys and sport.

 

[Wayne Mack]

you start out as a child, hopefully in a stable family, next you partner up with someone you love and raise children for yourself, until after that you turn into a grandparent and looked upon to be a babysitter. Until the grandchildren (and their parents) don't need you anymore for this task and contacts diminishes and turn into visits on Sundays, every 2 or 3(?) weeks.

An alternative to this pattern would be the multi-generational household. For immortals, this might grow to multi-generational neighborhoods or even cities. Likely, it will be necessary for the young to occasionally strike out on their own to prevent extremely huge family structures.

 

[hitmouse]

Well, you don't get much mutation without sexual reproduction, and natural selection only works if that reproduction is prevented, not only, but certainly, mainly by death. So, I can't really see how breeding and death aren't important.

When DNA replicates there is always a chance of mutation. A mutation is just a transcription mistake. Most commonly these are SNPs where a single nucleotide is replaced with another or STRs where short sequences of DNA are repeated. In the vast majority of cases these have absolutely no effect on the gene phenotype - the expression of the gene. If there is an effect it will generally be negative, simply because the gene no longer does what it used to do, for example, make some important enzyme. I think Marvel comics have a lot to answer for.

Mutation happens all the time irrespective of reproduction, sexual or asexual.

Mutation increases the variety of the gene pool. Reproduction propogates this through the generations. Natural selection favours some mutations which confer environmental advantages. Sexual reproduction has some advantages in this respect, but it is not essential: witness the propogation of Covid variants.

 

[Dave]

Mutation happens all the time irrespective of reproduction, sexual or asexual.

Mutation increases the variety of the gene pool. Reproduction propogates this through the generations. Natural selection favours some mutations which confer environmental advantages. Sexual reproduction has some advantages in this respect, but it is not essential: witness the propogation of Covid variants.

I can't understand why people keep quoting me out of context and then saying something I never said as if I said the opposite to it.

Yes, cells can mutate without dividing/reproducing such as by carcinogenic chemicals or viruses, but that mutation will not get passed on anywhere without mutation of the somatic cells or without reproduction. In short, you can't give your cancer to someone else (only your susceptibility).

Yes, cells absolutely do need reproduction to propagate mutations. Sexual reproduction developed precisely because it mixes up the genes more and so is better at propagating variation within the gene pool. So, sexual reproduction propagates variation better than asexual. It is a device to give more variety by spreading mutation.

No, sexual or asexual reproduction don't cause the mutations themselves, but the mutations occur as transcription errors during the cell division, so without cell division during reproduction you are not going to have this mutation, and therefore to say reproduction is not necessary is like saying you don't need to kick a ball to play football.

So, I still maintain that the statement:

Evolution exists by the lucky circumstance that organisms breed and then die.

is a perfectly acceptable thing to say. Natural selection can only work it fitter individuals survive to reproduce at the expense/death of the less fit individuals. That is the basic premise of Darwin's theory. The "death" part and the "reproduction" part are vital to it, and the "breed" part makes it more likely.

As for viruses, I don't see the relevance to this conversation. Yes, they show that mutation can propagate without sexual reproduction but no one said it couldn't. I certainly never said that.

Therefore, the actual point made by @Elckerlyc but ignored by everyone only discussing the mechanics, was that with Immortality, Evolution would halt. I agree up to a point. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? I don't know, but it is definitely a "thing"!

However, if we ever have genetic engineering to a level at which we can endow Immortality, then we will certainly also have it to a level where we can create designer babies free from genetic diseases and with added "favourable" genes. Whether Eugenics is a good or a bad thing is not a discussion that would be allowed on this board, and is certainly not one for this thread, but I'm just saying that Evolution of our species might still continue but in a more "managed way." It would not be a question of the science and technology but only a question of ethics. Eugenics has had a particularly bad press in recent history but societies can change, and change their values and ideals over time.

I suggest that we instead move on the second question @Elckerlyc posted of family life and structure. That is much more interesting to explore.

I think the idea of multi-generational household or even entire city quarters is an interesting one, reminiscent of Scottish Clan kinship groups that gave a sense of shared identity and descent to members, and a share of the heritable estate. Such groups could replace governments and corporations in the administration of law and order, commerce and political power.

I wonder also about the sanctity of life, and how precious human life would be considered to immortals. I've recently become a grandfather for the first time. I forgot how fragile, exposed and dependent human babies are. Both the birth rate and the death rate in industrialised countries have fallen considerably. Birth and death are already more unusual. What if they became very rare? How would that change our societal attitudes?

 

[Elckerlyc]

Thank you @Dave for not ignoring the points I made.

A few minor thoughts.

Therefore, the actual point made by @Elckerlyc but ignored by everyone only discussing the mechanics, was that with Immortality, Evolution would halt. I agree up to a point. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? I don't know, but it is definitely a "thing"!

Whether this is a good or a bad thing is hard to say. Any evolutionary changes will only be noticeable and relevant on the long run. Off course, 'long run' may be a very relative time-span set off against Immortality. But if Evolution does halt, we will never know what we could have gained if Life had run its natural course. Unless only part of humanity acquires immortal lives, while the rest (the poor buggers) are denied or can't afford the Treatment, in which case they will still fall under the law of evolutionary rule... and eventually evolve into something which will make the Immortals turn green of envy. Either way, you might miss out on something monumental!
Having said that, all this falls flat when gaining immortality is the result of Eugenics. In that case adaptations are theoretically endless (and largely individually, I assume) and only limited by ethics, which, in its turn, is an adaptable and also individually set of rules evolving as time goes by. It is however limited by humankind's imagination, whereas Nature may still surprise us.

On family life. All our experiences and expectations are based on our limited lifespan. In say a 100 years years you go through all phases, from child to parent to carer/grandparent to patient in a home for elderly care. All there different roles will shift. You will still be agile and at your height of mental abilities when your 100,000 years old. Will you know your great^n grandchild? Do you care?
The idea of multi generational households is interesting, but I wonder how strong the bond between the members will be. Will you still feel a connection with someone, equally agile and keen as you are, but 100 generations removed, though in direct line. Perhaps, but the strong bond that is so important too many of us, throughout our lives, that of child - parent - grandparent - death, will be long passed and perhaps even meaningless terms.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Thank you @Dave for not ignoring the points I made.

A few minor thoughts.

Whether this is a good or a bad thing is hard to say. Any evolutionary changes will only be noticeable and relevant on the long run. Off course, 'long run' may be a very relative time-span set off against Immortality. But if Evolution does halt, we will never know what we could have gained if Life had run its natural course. Unless only part of humanity acquires immortal lives, while the rest (the poor buggers) are denied or can't afford the Treatment, in which case they will still fall under the law of evolutionary rule... and eventually evolve into something which will make the Immortals turn green of envy. Either way, you might miss out on something monumental!

Studies of fossils and other means showed, I believe, that the average mammalian species 'lasts' about 3 million years. I.e. goes extinct or evolves into other seperate species. I'd expect normal non-immortal humans would probably have the same trajectory, maybe more, maybe less.

The thing is that even if you could make a static immortal human being, the universe is constanstly changing around about such a being. Unless we drastically change our sun or system, it's increasing energy output will cause all Earth vegetation to die out in about half a billion years. (Basically Earth heating up leads to increasing removal of CO2 in the atmosphere, until there will be not enough to sustain green life. Once that goes, there goes the oxygen...)

So that means that these immortals will either have to do some very serious stellar engineering or relocate to artificial habitats or other star systems that provide the relatively narrow range of conditions that they are used to.

Which brings up an interesting crossroads. Do immortals change the universe to make it 'static' and only suitable for them, or do they 'teleologically evolve themselves' to adapt to the conditions they find? (One assumes that if we have 'cracked' death we might be able to change our bodies to withstand alien biospheres and extreme conditions. - see for example some of the adaptions that Bruce Sterling talks about in his Schisimatrix stories.)

I suspect if it were possible (I have a long list of objections and problems with the basic idea, so this is just moot, in my eyes) it would be a combination of both.

Actually, being immortal and able to occupy any habitat or change any system of mass into earth-like conditions, makes us look like the bad guys. We'd probably consume the universe like a plague.