Why it may be impossible to live forever

[ceptimus]

This reminds me of a related question I have. As I understand it, medical science has made great strides in eliminating things that keep people from living to their potential maximum age, but has medical science done anything to increase that potential maximum age?

Dawkins has written some thoughtful stuff about this in some of his books. He suggests (light heartedly) that it would be easy to raise the expected life span of humans by preventing younger humans from procreating. You would start by not allowing anyone under, say, 40 years old to become a parent. After a few generations of that, the minimum age limit would be raised to 45, and so on. Extrapolating from experiments on animals would indicate that an expected human life span of 200 or 300 years might be achievable by such means.

The more interesting section is where Dawkins discusses how human evaluation of probabilities and risk taking is influenced by how long we expect to live. For example, if you expected to live for 10,000 years then you would likely not want to cross roads, as you would almost certainly be run over. Similarly you would not want to live in an ordinary house, as the risks of it collapsing or burning down would be unacceptably great.

ceptimus.

 

[BillyJoe]

Re: Re: Why it may be impossible to live forever

Considering the context of your entire post, you're positing an alternative universe in which time is non existent.
If there is no time, then there is no distance or motion.
If there is no distance or motion, then there is no space.
If there is no time and space, then there is no universe.

I'm stuck here.....

"If there is no time, then there is no distance......"

Wouldn't there still be distance, just no time to measure it in.
There would be space and distance but no time and motion.
In other words, we would have a static universe.
A static universe would not be worth living in - because nothing happens.

 

[xouper]

ceptimus: The more interesting section is where Dawkins discusses how human evaluation of probabilities and risk taking is influenced by how long we expect to live. For example, if you expected to live for 10,000 years then you would likely not want to cross roads, as you would almost certainly be run over. Similarly you would not want to live in an ordinary house, as the risks of it collapsing or burning down would be unacceptably great.

I guess this would explain why old people are more likely to go skydiving than young people?

 

[sorgoth]

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ceptimus: The more interesting section is where Dawkins discusses how human evaluation of probabilities and risk taking is influenced by how long we expect to live. For example, if you expected to live for 10,000 years then you would likely not want to cross roads, as you would almost certainly be run over. Similarly you would not want to live in an ordinary house, as the risks of it collapsing or burning down would be unacceptably great.
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I guess this would explain why old people are more likely to go skydiving than young people?


Hmm....I think Xouper has a good point there. People aren't going to avoid all risk to live forever (well, a few might...)


Anyway, a few thoughts about Time: (This is all my personal opinion, probably littered with errors)

Time seems to be simply how we measure the changing of matter. "Time", as an actual thing, does not exist. A universe without time would be a universe without energy. So since gravity creates potential energy (Wait, not quite, but I don't know how else to say it), Nothing could be made. So it would just be a jumble of protons and neutrons, just stuck in the before big bang stage. Right? So if you DID find a way to travel to that universe, you would put energy in it (by the simple act of traveling) and kick start time there. However, since there is no possible way (so far) to even observe othere universes, the question is moot.

 

[csense]

Re: Re: Re: Why it may be impossible to live forever

I'm stuck here.....

"If there is no time, then there is no distance......"

Wouldn't there still be distance, just no time to measure it in.
There would be space and distance but no time and motion.
In other words, we would have a static universe.
A static universe would not be worth living in - because nothing happens.

Just as you can not divorce time from space, you also can not divorce distance from motion. None are mutually exclusive. We can analyze them individually, but they ultimately mean nothing unless they are also correlated with their counterparts. Motion means nothing unless there is something to move, and someplace to move to...and motion equals time. they are all correlated...


Do you want me to continue?

 

[rwald]

"Space" and "time" are not seperate concepts which can be treated individually. Both "space" and "time" are components of a bigger concept, namely spacetime. While I guess there could be a universe with no time dimentions (just as there could be a universe with fewer spacial dimentions), you couldn't "transport" there even if interuniversal transports were allowed. It would be as if you tried to transport onto a planer universe. You wouldn't fit.

 

[ceptimus]

Time is what stops everything happening all at once.

ceptimus.

 

[csense]

"Space" and "time" are not seperate concepts which can be treated individually. Both "space" and "time" are components of a bigger concept, namely spacetime. While I guess there could be a universe with no time dimentions(sic)

You're contradicting yourself

 

[csense]

Time is what stops everything happening all at once.

ceptimus.

But in order to say everything you must make the necessary assumption that there is a distiction between things, which involves time

Time is inseperable from space, or concepts.

 

[Frostbite]

Yes, as far as evolution is concerned, once we've finished procreating, we may as well be dead.

I don't agree. As a human being you have genetic and cultural influence over the specie.

 

[BillyJoe]

Okay, apart from....

Parenting, grandparenting and great- grandparenting, and so on.
And genetic and cultural influence over the species.

.....as far as evolution is concerned, once we've finished procreating, we may as well be dead.


Anyone else?

 

[ntech]

Okay, apart from....

Parenting, grandparenting and great- grandparenting, and so on.
And genetic and cultural influence over the species.

.....as far as evolution is concerned, once we've finished procreating, we may as well be dead.


Anyone else?

You have it wrong. It's the fundies that don't think sex is fun for the sake of sex. The problem with them is they try to have kids until they're dead.

They feel that it's a sin to have sex without trying to infest the world with non stop little fundies that they can brainwash.

Yea as far as evolution is concerned, once we've finished procreating, we may as well be dead.

Well OK except for:
Fun sex
A kiss
Art
Music
Intellectual pursuits
A walk on the beach
A day as a family
Reading a book
Watching a movie
Seeing a Play
Visiting a museum
Science
Sitting by a lake
Hiking
Climbing
Learning
And everything else

Sorry but your statement makes no sense to anyone but possibly a blind creationist.

PS I thought this was a science section. Not the fundy section.

 

[American]

If each couple has 2 kids (who also live to have 2 kids), we're good. Less than 2 and we'll perish, more than 2 and we'll choke this planet to death with overpopulation.

That's speaking strictly on long-term averages.

 

[ntech]

If each couple has 2 kids (who also live to have 2 kids), we're good. Less than 2 and we'll perish, more than 2 and we'll choke this planet to death with overpopulation.

That's speaking strictly on long-term averages.

I agree with that. My wife and I stopped at two as well.

We know of a fundy family from our old town that had 12 kids who each had 8 to 10 kids etc.
I find this practice vain and disgusting and with no regard for the health of the planet.

They write letters to the paper with the attitude that god wants them to spit out good little Christians to dominate the earth. I see the same thing with orthadox Jewish families and other born agains etc.

 

[Landis]

I saw a program on the Discovery Channel a few days ago in which they profiled a scientist who created a SuperFly. The Fly by human standards would be 250 years old and still functioning like a young 'n . Working on the theory that after we procreate and create children, the aging process in our bodies begins to speed up. He began selectively breeding flies and postponing the onset of procreation. After many generations (and about 20 years) he bred the Super Flies. An interesting comparison was made to the fact that in our current society, working women are postponing children until they are near the end of their fertility periods (i.e. in late 30's or early 40's). Theotricaly, over a period of a few hundred years, this trend could create humans who live to as much as 250 years.

On another topic, time, in Ken Wilber's book "Up From Eden" he postulates that early humans had little if no sense of time. When they sat around a fire at night, with a full belly, they were pretty much in "Eden" because they had no sense of tomorrow. He goes on to discuss that the advent of the farming culture was one of the epic changes in human evolution since it was the first indication that human's had developed a sense of time. They finally could grasp that a seed planted in the ground would produce food a few months later.

 

[Sundog]

I was thinking about this while I was taking a shower and I was thinking.

Nothing man made can last forever. It would inevitably degrade. The only solution would be to transmit yourself into a universe where time has no meaning.

The problem is that you would 'contaminate' that universe. Think about it. Time is zero, but for you it's one. Even a butterfly changes the mass of the universe if it suddenly popped into it.

Now, we would cause the time to go from zero, to a very small number. Do you understand?

We would sort of "contaminate" their timeline.

Additionally... you did originally come from a universe that had time, that means that you may (if you even do) achieve immortality, but your roots are originated in mortality. So that means what?

Umm... what exactly does "forever" mean in a universe where time has no meaning?

 

[xouper]

American: If each couple has 2 kids (who also live to have 2 kids), we're good. Less than 2 and we'll perish, <span style="background-color: #ffc">more than 2 and we'll choke this planet to death with overpopulation</span>. That's speaking strictly on long-term averages.

Sounds like a good motivation for expanding humanity's habitat beyond Earth.

 

[Sundog]

Sounds like a good motivation for expanding humanity's habitat beyond Earth.

So we can ruin and overpopulate another planet?

The math doesn't work. The steel doesn't exist to build the ships that could move people fast enough to make a dent in the population problem.

It's important that people understand this so they know there will be no deus ex machina to save the day; we have to solve the overpopulation problem ourselves the old-fashioned way - either fewer people get born or more die.

 

[xouper]

Sundog: So we can ruin and overpopulate another planet?

Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

The math doesn't work. The steel doesn't exist to build the ships that could move people fast enough to make a dent in the population problem.

Perhaps I need to clarify that I didn't propose a solution to the population problem on Earth. I was trying to make the point that off the Earth, we are not limited by the Earth's resources, so it won't be necessary to limit total population growth for that reason.

It's important that people understand this so they know there will be no deus ex machina to save the day; we have to solve the overpopulation problem ourselves the old-fashioned way - either fewer people get born or more die.

Well, that's one opinion.

 

[Sundog]

Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

Of course not, we'd never do that TWICE, would we?

My money says we'd just muck up the new planet too.

Perhaps I need to clarify that I didn't propose a solution to the population problem on Earth. I was trying to make the point that off the Earth, we are not limited by the Earth's resources, so it won't be necessary to limit total population growth for that reason.

Understood, but now you've simply limited yourself to the resources of the NEW planet. TANSTAAFL.

Well, that's one opinion.

Yup. From a fellow named Malthus. Unpleasant fellow, but ignore him at your peril.

What's your opinion? Leaving out things like enormous Arks In Space or teleportation?