Immortality Is Possible
-
Well, I was a kid in the seventies and I ain't dead yet.
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
How about now?
-
TODO list complete? Will never happen, especially with me since I'm married. Wives never let the TODO list get empty. Not long after we were married and moved into our new place, my wife start a printed todo list for me which she put on the fridge. Despite my best efforts it continued to grow (it grew even faster after my worst efforts). When it got to the bottom of the page I warned the wife that she wasn't allowed to start a second page - so she reprinted the list with a smaller font :doh:
Graham Librarians rule, Ook!
That's how the Tories are reducing waiting lists...
-
Very interesting. Only problem is, I remember people saying exactly the same thing back in the 70s when I was a kid. I recall someone on one of the TV programmes saying that "children today have a good chance of living for ever" or at least a very very long time. All I can say is they'd better hurry up...
Back in the 70's I was reading things like 'Methuselah's Children' by Isaac Asimov. Perhaps the first Methuselah Foundation. But as for living longer, given the state of things, why would you wish to? :~ This might be the golden age as far as most things still exist, but the future doesn't seem to indicate that will always be the case.
-
Immortal Jellyfish Apparently, this certain type of jellyfish is capable of reverting to a less developed state and then redeveloping, repeatedly and without end. I'm not sure if I'd like that particular type of immortality. You'd have to become a baby every 70 years or so, and you'd probably forget everything you learned in that lifetime... or, uh, growth period. On a related note, check out the life cycle of a jellyfish: jellyfish life cycle I think I need one of these as a pet.
The only kind of immortality that's interesting is immortality of the consciousness of self-sameness, which requires memory. The immortality of a jellyfish is no more interesting than the immortality of a rock. Even the immortality of the consciousness of self-sameness is, as a practical matter, an illusion. Any being that is complex enough to be conscious of a self changes over time, to the point where what one was in the past may be completely repudiated by what one is now, or profoundly regretted by what one has become. Any interesting form of immortality is, ultimately, undesirable, and we should thank God that it does not exist.
-
The only kind of immortality that's interesting is immortality of the consciousness of self-sameness, which requires memory. The immortality of a jellyfish is no more interesting than the immortality of a rock. Even the immortality of the consciousness of self-sameness is, as a practical matter, an illusion. Any being that is complex enough to be conscious of a self changes over time, to the point where what one was in the past may be completely repudiated by what one is now, or profoundly regretted by what one has become. Any interesting form of immortality is, ultimately, undesirable, and we should thank God that it does not exist.
New iterations need not be considered to overwrite the past self. One might consider it growth, so long as such an immortal mind was capable of growing forever. And if an immortal being could remember its past self, there might be emotions and thoughts that we've never had a chance to experience. Perhaps they would feel a sense of achievement, at how much they'd changed over time. Or maybe they'd go through different stages of emotion and thought, perhaps never ending, or perhaps ending up at some inevitable conclusion. If you are interested in this subject, you might want to watch The Man From Earth. It's basically a bunch of friends talking about one of their friends who is supposedly immortal. And he's there and participates in the discussion. It's pretty interesting.
-
New iterations need not be considered to overwrite the past self. One might consider it growth, so long as such an immortal mind was capable of growing forever. And if an immortal being could remember its past self, there might be emotions and thoughts that we've never had a chance to experience. Perhaps they would feel a sense of achievement, at how much they'd changed over time. Or maybe they'd go through different stages of emotion and thought, perhaps never ending, or perhaps ending up at some inevitable conclusion. If you are interested in this subject, you might want to watch The Man From Earth. It's basically a bunch of friends talking about one of their friends who is supposedly immortal. And he's there and participates in the discussion. It's pretty interesting.
"New iterations need not be considered to overwrite the past self." In the case of a jellyfish, it does, or in the case of any organism that is reiterated by reconstructing the entire organism from a single one of its cells. Also, in cases where this reiteration is naturally possible, it is highly doubtful that there is any sense of self to begin with. Even when you clone a human being from a single cell, there is no sense of continuity from or memory of the parent. "One might consider it growth, so long as such an immortal mind was capable of growing forever" I think it's safe to assume that memory requires structure in order for memory to exist. In matter, structure requires space and mass. So over time, there is only a finite amount of memory that the organism can retain. Eventually the matter embodying the memory becomes saturated and in order to retain new memories, old memories have to gradually fade out. It's moot whether over long stretches of time we can regard the organism as retaining the same sense of self if it continuously replaces its past memories with new memories. If we can't, then there's no meaningful sense in which we can say the sense of self can be immortal. On the other hand, it's also moot to claim that an organism that eventually replaces all of its past memories with new memories necessarily loses the same sense of self that it had previously, so long as through it all the organism retains its same relationship to its environment. On the other hand, environments are constantly changing themselves, so retaining the same relationship may be impossible. "And if an immortal being could remember its past self, there might be emotions and thoughts that we've never had a chance to experience" As pointed out above, there is going to be a limit to what an immortal being can remember. But it's true that a self-conscious immortal organism can continue to evolve mentally forever. But it is moot whether it retains the same sense of self that it had, let us say, 10,000 years earlier. Hence, nothing is immortal in a non-trivial sense that is embodied in matter. "Perhaps they would feel a sense of achievement, at how much they'd changed over time" Eventually, they wouldn't even know how much they've changed over time. "Or maybe they'd go through different stages of emotion and thought, perhaps never ending, or perhaps ending up at some inevitable conclusion" If the organism goes through enough stages, it will eventually completely lose its identification with
-
"New iterations need not be considered to overwrite the past self." In the case of a jellyfish, it does, or in the case of any organism that is reiterated by reconstructing the entire organism from a single one of its cells. Also, in cases where this reiteration is naturally possible, it is highly doubtful that there is any sense of self to begin with. Even when you clone a human being from a single cell, there is no sense of continuity from or memory of the parent. "One might consider it growth, so long as such an immortal mind was capable of growing forever" I think it's safe to assume that memory requires structure in order for memory to exist. In matter, structure requires space and mass. So over time, there is only a finite amount of memory that the organism can retain. Eventually the matter embodying the memory becomes saturated and in order to retain new memories, old memories have to gradually fade out. It's moot whether over long stretches of time we can regard the organism as retaining the same sense of self if it continuously replaces its past memories with new memories. If we can't, then there's no meaningful sense in which we can say the sense of self can be immortal. On the other hand, it's also moot to claim that an organism that eventually replaces all of its past memories with new memories necessarily loses the same sense of self that it had previously, so long as through it all the organism retains its same relationship to its environment. On the other hand, environments are constantly changing themselves, so retaining the same relationship may be impossible. "And if an immortal being could remember its past self, there might be emotions and thoughts that we've never had a chance to experience" As pointed out above, there is going to be a limit to what an immortal being can remember. But it's true that a self-conscious immortal organism can continue to evolve mentally forever. But it is moot whether it retains the same sense of self that it had, let us say, 10,000 years earlier. Hence, nothing is immortal in a non-trivial sense that is embodied in matter. "Perhaps they would feel a sense of achievement, at how much they'd changed over time" Eventually, they wouldn't even know how much they've changed over time. "Or maybe they'd go through different stages of emotion and thought, perhaps never ending, or perhaps ending up at some inevitable conclusion" If the organism goes through enough stages, it will eventually completely lose its identification with
fjparisIII wrote:
Even when you clone a human being from a single cell, there is no sense of continuity from or memory of the parent.
Perhaps on some levels. Is a human baby any more valuable than a baby pig? Is a baby supermodel more valuable than a mentally retarded baby? Biological transformation is of some value. There is some "memory" of past selves, even if it's not in the form of conceptual recall.
fjparisIII wrote:
Eventually the matter embodying the memory becomes saturated and in order to retain new memories, old memories have to gradually fade out.
Suppose this being could physically increase brain size over time. Perhaps even to extremes (the size of, say, planets). Perhaps there is no limit, aside from the available mass in the universe. Maybe this being could learn until the end of the universe, supposing there will be one in several trillion years. That wouldn't be truly immortal, but it would still be an interesting experience to live that long. Say there will not be an end to the universe and there is an infinite amount of mass available. Then such a being could continue to grow forever. One might argue that there would be no value in such a large brain, as it would take so long for thoughts to transmit between sections of the brain that there would be a disconnect of thought. However, as the structure grew larger, it could take on new properties not seen in current brains. For exmaple, "processing" could be assigned to various portions of the brain... the result would eventually be passed to the "main" processor in the brain for review (e.g., to make decisions based on that information). But then, why must we assume that information has to be ever-growing? Perhaps there is only a finite amount of information to be had in the universe, or perhaps it is a matter of encoding it (i.e., the structure would change, but the size wouldn't). As with the mandelbrot set, perhaps infinite complexity can be created from a very simple substrate. And who says information acquisition is the end goal? Perhaps just experiencing life in ever changing ways is what would make being immortal an enjoyable (or worthwhile, or valuable, or whatever) experience. And while we're getting abstract, perhaps we have too narrow a definite of an "immortal being". As I described with the growing brain example, maybe civilization is one large organism. We each have specializations, and we communicate
-
fjparisIII wrote:
Even when you clone a human being from a single cell, there is no sense of continuity from or memory of the parent.
Perhaps on some levels. Is a human baby any more valuable than a baby pig? Is a baby supermodel more valuable than a mentally retarded baby? Biological transformation is of some value. There is some "memory" of past selves, even if it's not in the form of conceptual recall.
fjparisIII wrote:
Eventually the matter embodying the memory becomes saturated and in order to retain new memories, old memories have to gradually fade out.
Suppose this being could physically increase brain size over time. Perhaps even to extremes (the size of, say, planets). Perhaps there is no limit, aside from the available mass in the universe. Maybe this being could learn until the end of the universe, supposing there will be one in several trillion years. That wouldn't be truly immortal, but it would still be an interesting experience to live that long. Say there will not be an end to the universe and there is an infinite amount of mass available. Then such a being could continue to grow forever. One might argue that there would be no value in such a large brain, as it would take so long for thoughts to transmit between sections of the brain that there would be a disconnect of thought. However, as the structure grew larger, it could take on new properties not seen in current brains. For exmaple, "processing" could be assigned to various portions of the brain... the result would eventually be passed to the "main" processor in the brain for review (e.g., to make decisions based on that information). But then, why must we assume that information has to be ever-growing? Perhaps there is only a finite amount of information to be had in the universe, or perhaps it is a matter of encoding it (i.e., the structure would change, but the size wouldn't). As with the mandelbrot set, perhaps infinite complexity can be created from a very simple substrate. And who says information acquisition is the end goal? Perhaps just experiencing life in ever changing ways is what would make being immortal an enjoyable (or worthwhile, or valuable, or whatever) experience. And while we're getting abstract, perhaps we have too narrow a definite of an "immortal being". As I described with the growing brain example, maybe civilization is one large organism. We each have specializations, and we communicate
"There is some "memory" of past selves, even if it's not in the form of conceptual recall." ??? What would be the mechanism of such a thing? On the face of it, this sounds like superstition, or blind faith, or religious belief. "Suppose this being could physically increase brain size over time. Perhaps even to extremes (the size of, say, planets)." The mass would be so great that internal gravitational forces would crush all fine structure out of existence. So brains the size of planets are impossible and, frankly, nonsensical. "That wouldn't be truly immortal, but it would still be an interesting experience to live that long." As explained above, gravity limits the size that matter can organize itself into fine grain structures. However, a brain several miles in diameter might be possible, which would have enough room in it to store memories millions of years old, but not much beyond that. Also, this "brain" wouldn't be "mushy" like organic brains, but would probably be constructed out of some kind of electronic circuitry with lots of supporting "infrastructure." It also would not be mobile, like animals in our biosphere. It would pretty much be fixed in place. On the other hand, it could be embodied in a spacecraft that might travel throughout the galaxy, exploring different inhabited worlds. It might embody a "galactic encyclopedia" that records the history of intelligent species spread throughout the galaxy, including other creature-spacecrafts like itself. There might be a community of such beings existing as I write. They might be optimized for saving a "valuable" subset of memories essentially "forever," or for as long as the universe exists. (But see the latest "doomsday" scenarios that scientists paint, due to the laws of physics collapsing and eventually bringing an end to time, in the current (September, 2010) issue of Scientific American.) "Say there will not be an end to the universe and there is an infinite amount of mass available. Then such a being could continue to grow forever." As already explained, gravity would prevent such a being from existing. On the other hand, you could have a community of brains each several miles in diameter that communicate electromagnetically and "act" as a single self, and this community could be distributed over vast reaches of space. Of course the speed of light would put a limit on the "timeliness" of communicating between the parts, and it's difficult to imagine what a "distributed" sense of self would mean. "And who says information acqui
-
"There is some "memory" of past selves, even if it's not in the form of conceptual recall." ??? What would be the mechanism of such a thing? On the face of it, this sounds like superstition, or blind faith, or religious belief. "Suppose this being could physically increase brain size over time. Perhaps even to extremes (the size of, say, planets)." The mass would be so great that internal gravitational forces would crush all fine structure out of existence. So brains the size of planets are impossible and, frankly, nonsensical. "That wouldn't be truly immortal, but it would still be an interesting experience to live that long." As explained above, gravity limits the size that matter can organize itself into fine grain structures. However, a brain several miles in diameter might be possible, which would have enough room in it to store memories millions of years old, but not much beyond that. Also, this "brain" wouldn't be "mushy" like organic brains, but would probably be constructed out of some kind of electronic circuitry with lots of supporting "infrastructure." It also would not be mobile, like animals in our biosphere. It would pretty much be fixed in place. On the other hand, it could be embodied in a spacecraft that might travel throughout the galaxy, exploring different inhabited worlds. It might embody a "galactic encyclopedia" that records the history of intelligent species spread throughout the galaxy, including other creature-spacecrafts like itself. There might be a community of such beings existing as I write. They might be optimized for saving a "valuable" subset of memories essentially "forever," or for as long as the universe exists. (But see the latest "doomsday" scenarios that scientists paint, due to the laws of physics collapsing and eventually bringing an end to time, in the current (September, 2010) issue of Scientific American.) "Say there will not be an end to the universe and there is an infinite amount of mass available. Then such a being could continue to grow forever." As already explained, gravity would prevent such a being from existing. On the other hand, you could have a community of brains each several miles in diameter that communicate electromagnetically and "act" as a single self, and this community could be distributed over vast reaches of space. Of course the speed of light would put a limit on the "timeliness" of communicating between the parts, and it's difficult to imagine what a "distributed" sense of self would mean. "And who says information acqui
Just an FYI, If you select some text from my message and click "Quote Selected Text", it will create a nice looking blockquote, like this:
fjparisIII wrote:
What would be the mechanism of such a thing? On the face of it, this sounds like superstition, or blind faith, or religious belief.
I was speaking of biology and evolution. When a child is born, it takes on the physical characteristics of the parents. This is the something that gets retained in future generations, and evolution sees that this gets built opon. There are even behaviors that are instinctually descended to children, such as eating when hungry and a child grasping a parents finger with its hand. I wasn't saying anything about religion.
fjparisIII wrote:
As explained above, gravity limits the size that matter can organize itself into fine grain structures.
Who says it has to be fine grained? Planets, for example, don't collapse in on themselves. Why even be that dense? Why not be very far apart, such as the distance between galaxies. Information could still be transfered between these galaxies using radiation or gravity. Sure, the transmission would be slow, but it's a form of communication nonetheless, just like an impulse between two neurons. One could think of the entire universe as one giant organism, albiet a slow and disconnected one. That is, there doesn't seem to be any purpose to the universe's structure. But what's to say there couldn't be... that the universe could evolve into a being that does have such a structure? And us humans would be the tiny bacteria that reside within it... we could even be considered the cells it is composed of, each having their own function and contributing to the whole.
fjparisIII wrote:
it's difficult to imagine what a "distributed" sense of self would mean.
Just because it's difficult to understand doesn't mean it wouldn't mean something. Think "Skynet" ;) And I imagine having the brain the size of a planet would give one quite the imagination.
fjparisIII wrote:
a brain several miles in diameter might be possible, which would have enough room in it to store memories millions of years old, but not much beyond that
You sure about that? There are various theories about how the brain works. Given a brain that is doubled in size, you have not just twice as m
-
Just an FYI, If you select some text from my message and click "Quote Selected Text", it will create a nice looking blockquote, like this:
fjparisIII wrote:
What would be the mechanism of such a thing? On the face of it, this sounds like superstition, or blind faith, or religious belief.
I was speaking of biology and evolution. When a child is born, it takes on the physical characteristics of the parents. This is the something that gets retained in future generations, and evolution sees that this gets built opon. There are even behaviors that are instinctually descended to children, such as eating when hungry and a child grasping a parents finger with its hand. I wasn't saying anything about religion.
fjparisIII wrote:
As explained above, gravity limits the size that matter can organize itself into fine grain structures.
Who says it has to be fine grained? Planets, for example, don't collapse in on themselves. Why even be that dense? Why not be very far apart, such as the distance between galaxies. Information could still be transfered between these galaxies using radiation or gravity. Sure, the transmission would be slow, but it's a form of communication nonetheless, just like an impulse between two neurons. One could think of the entire universe as one giant organism, albiet a slow and disconnected one. That is, there doesn't seem to be any purpose to the universe's structure. But what's to say there couldn't be... that the universe could evolve into a being that does have such a structure? And us humans would be the tiny bacteria that reside within it... we could even be considered the cells it is composed of, each having their own function and contributing to the whole.
fjparisIII wrote:
it's difficult to imagine what a "distributed" sense of self would mean.
Just because it's difficult to understand doesn't mean it wouldn't mean something. Think "Skynet" ;) And I imagine having the brain the size of a planet would give one quite the imagination.
fjparisIII wrote:
a brain several miles in diameter might be possible, which would have enough room in it to store memories millions of years old, but not much beyond that
You sure about that? There are various theories about how the brain works. Given a brain that is doubled in size, you have not just twice as m
"Just an FYI, If you select some text from my message and click "Quote Selected Text", it will create a nice looking blockquote, like this:" I've known and used that for ages, but it isn't working for me right now. After composing the entire message and I click Post Message, I get nothing but a blank browser window and if I click the Back button, the window stays blank. So before I click Post Message, I have to copy and paste the entire post into a Word window, so that I have text to try again, until it works. When I paste the contents of the Word window, all the tags are escaped with entity references, which the Code Project window doesn't know how to interpret. So bear with my crude formatting.
-
"Just an FYI, If you select some text from my message and click "Quote Selected Text", it will create a nice looking blockquote, like this:" I've known and used that for ages, but it isn't working for me right now. After composing the entire message and I click Post Message, I get nothing but a blank browser window and if I click the Back button, the window stays blank. So before I click Post Message, I have to copy and paste the entire post into a Word window, so that I have text to try again, until it works. When I paste the contents of the Word window, all the tags are escaped with entity references, which the Code Project window doesn't know how to interpret. So bear with my crude formatting.
Haha, I was having that same issue and reported the bug about 20 minutes ago: http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/3583902/Long-Messages-equals-Blank-Page.aspx I'll let them know you are experiencing it too. My theory is that it's a timeout issue, so in theory I will not experience it when I post this message, which is not taking me very long to write.
fjparisIII wrote:
all the tags are escaped
Look below the textbox you are typing into. You probably have
Encode "<" (and other HTML) characters when pastingselected. Uncheck that and you can paste without it escaping characters. -
Haha, I was having that same issue and reported the bug about 20 minutes ago: http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/3583902/Long-Messages-equals-Blank-Page.aspx I'll let them know you are experiencing it too. My theory is that it's a timeout issue, so in theory I will not experience it when I post this message, which is not taking me very long to write.
fjparisIII wrote:
all the tags are escaped
Look below the textbox you are typing into. You probably have
Encode "<" (and other HTML) characters when pastingselected. Uncheck that and you can paste without it escaping characters.Yep, I didn't get a blank page. Seems only to be for messages that take me a long time to write.
-
Just an FYI, If you select some text from my message and click "Quote Selected Text", it will create a nice looking blockquote, like this:
fjparisIII wrote:
What would be the mechanism of such a thing? On the face of it, this sounds like superstition, or blind faith, or religious belief.
I was speaking of biology and evolution. When a child is born, it takes on the physical characteristics of the parents. This is the something that gets retained in future generations, and evolution sees that this gets built opon. There are even behaviors that are instinctually descended to children, such as eating when hungry and a child grasping a parents finger with its hand. I wasn't saying anything about religion.
fjparisIII wrote:
As explained above, gravity limits the size that matter can organize itself into fine grain structures.
Who says it has to be fine grained? Planets, for example, don't collapse in on themselves. Why even be that dense? Why not be very far apart, such as the distance between galaxies. Information could still be transfered between these galaxies using radiation or gravity. Sure, the transmission would be slow, but it's a form of communication nonetheless, just like an impulse between two neurons. One could think of the entire universe as one giant organism, albiet a slow and disconnected one. That is, there doesn't seem to be any purpose to the universe's structure. But what's to say there couldn't be... that the universe could evolve into a being that does have such a structure? And us humans would be the tiny bacteria that reside within it... we could even be considered the cells it is composed of, each having their own function and contributing to the whole.
fjparisIII wrote:
it's difficult to imagine what a "distributed" sense of self would mean.
Just because it's difficult to understand doesn't mean it wouldn't mean something. Think "Skynet" ;) And I imagine having the brain the size of a planet would give one quite the imagination.
fjparisIII wrote:
a brain several miles in diameter might be possible, which would have enough room in it to store memories millions of years old, but not much beyond that
You sure about that? There are various theories about how the brain works. Given a brain that is doubled in size, you have not just twice as m
"Who says it has to be fine grained?" Logic. If it isn't fine-grained, then there won't be enough structure in the nervous system smaller than a few cubic miles. If the nervous system is much larger than that, gravity will crush the structure out of existence no matter how coarse the structure. "Planets, for example, don't collapse in on themselves." Yes, the do. They collapse as much as possible. It's only quantum forces between electrons that keep them from collapsing further under the relentless pressure of gravity. This is precisely why planets are more or less round. The only structure within planets are gross layers hundreds and thousands of miles thick: far too gross to form the intricate structures you need to implement memories. "Why even be that dense? Why not be very far apart, such as the distance between galaxies." Because it would take millions of years for the signals between "synapses" to communicate, because of speed of light limitations. There have been proposals that when the space between fundamental particles is on average thousands of miles apart, "beings" might still exists that have signals that take millions or billions of times longer to propagate than do the synapses in our brain. The sense of time would then be stretched out millions of times. Such possibilities are so speculative as to be uninteresting. As I read the rest of your paragraph, you seem to realize all this, and it doesn't bother you. I say it's uninteresting, a desperate ploy to salvage the notion of immortality. What I found interesting is David Ray Griffin's speculation in Reenchantment without Supernaturalism about how God could have perfect and instantaneous knowledge of the entire universe, that somehow he transcends the speed of light and knows everything instantly. That's also highly speculative, but it's the only way he (and I) can imagine that God could "work." "If each of these relationships between neurons are the linearly related to memories, a being with a brain multiple miles wide may have the memory of a duration beyond our imagination." LOL. That it's beyond our imagination is far beyond an understatement. But I understand your point about the number of possible interconnects rising an order of magnitude faster than the diameter of the brain. I'm not sure what the math is, but it probably rises faster than an order of magnitude above the cube of the diameter. But none of that affects the basic observation I've been making that the finitude of the universe precludes literal imm
-
Haha, I was having that same issue and reported the bug about 20 minutes ago: http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/3583902/Long-Messages-equals-Blank-Page.aspx I'll let them know you are experiencing it too. My theory is that it's a timeout issue, so in theory I will not experience it when I post this message, which is not taking me very long to write.
fjparisIII wrote:
all the tags are escaped
Look below the textbox you are typing into. You probably have
Encode "<" (and other HTML) characters when pastingselected. Uncheck that and you can paste without it escaping characters.aspdotnetdev wrote:
Look below the textbox you are typing into. You probably have Encode "<" (and other HTML) characters when pasting selected. Uncheck that and you can paste without it escaping characters.
Aha! Thanks!
-
Just an FYI, If you select some text from my message and click "Quote Selected Text", it will create a nice looking blockquote, like this:
fjparisIII wrote:
What would be the mechanism of such a thing? On the face of it, this sounds like superstition, or blind faith, or religious belief.
I was speaking of biology and evolution. When a child is born, it takes on the physical characteristics of the parents. This is the something that gets retained in future generations, and evolution sees that this gets built opon. There are even behaviors that are instinctually descended to children, such as eating when hungry and a child grasping a parents finger with its hand. I wasn't saying anything about religion.
fjparisIII wrote:
As explained above, gravity limits the size that matter can organize itself into fine grain structures.
Who says it has to be fine grained? Planets, for example, don't collapse in on themselves. Why even be that dense? Why not be very far apart, such as the distance between galaxies. Information could still be transfered between these galaxies using radiation or gravity. Sure, the transmission would be slow, but it's a form of communication nonetheless, just like an impulse between two neurons. One could think of the entire universe as one giant organism, albiet a slow and disconnected one. That is, there doesn't seem to be any purpose to the universe's structure. But what's to say there couldn't be... that the universe could evolve into a being that does have such a structure? And us humans would be the tiny bacteria that reside within it... we could even be considered the cells it is composed of, each having their own function and contributing to the whole.
fjparisIII wrote:
it's difficult to imagine what a "distributed" sense of self would mean.
Just because it's difficult to understand doesn't mean it wouldn't mean something. Think "Skynet" ;) And I imagine having the brain the size of a planet would give one quite the imagination.
fjparisIII wrote:
a brain several miles in diameter might be possible, which would have enough room in it to store memories millions of years old, but not much beyond that
You sure about that? There are various theories about how the brain works. Given a brain that is doubled in size, you have not just twice as m
aspdotnetdev wrote:
Who says it has to be fine grained? ... Why even be that dense? Why not be very far apart, such as the distance between galaxies.
It occurred to me why this is probably impossible, and the reason has either been overlooked or assumptions are being made that there are laws of nature that we know nothing about. If the latter, then it is nothing more than wild speculation and transcends even science fiction into the realm of fantasy. The proposal is that somehow circuits could be constructed out of fundamental particles that are very far apart, as would be the case after all the black holes in the universe have evaporated into photons. The problem is that circuits can only work if the parts know how to communicate with each other, which means they have to know where they are relative to each other. This means that they have to be rigidly fixed in place relative to each other, as would only exist in a solid material like a silicon chip. If the particles out of which the circuit is made are widely separated they would drift around at random relative to each other and there would be no way for them to act in concert with each other. Therefore, circuits have to be rigidly bound to each other in order for them to work. They can't consist of individual electrons floating freely in space relative to each other, which precludes enormous beings many light years in size acting on time scales of quadrillions of years, as has been proposed.
-
aspdotnetdev wrote:
Who says it has to be fine grained? ... Why even be that dense? Why not be very far apart, such as the distance between galaxies.
It occurred to me why this is probably impossible, and the reason has either been overlooked or assumptions are being made that there are laws of nature that we know nothing about. If the latter, then it is nothing more than wild speculation and transcends even science fiction into the realm of fantasy. The proposal is that somehow circuits could be constructed out of fundamental particles that are very far apart, as would be the case after all the black holes in the universe have evaporated into photons. The problem is that circuits can only work if the parts know how to communicate with each other, which means they have to know where they are relative to each other. This means that they have to be rigidly fixed in place relative to each other, as would only exist in a solid material like a silicon chip. If the particles out of which the circuit is made are widely separated they would drift around at random relative to each other and there would be no way for them to act in concert with each other. Therefore, circuits have to be rigidly bound to each other in order for them to work. They can't consist of individual electrons floating freely in space relative to each other, which precludes enormous beings many light years in size acting on time scales of quadrillions of years, as has been proposed.
I'm not talking about giant mechanical organisms. I'm talking about many organisms cooperating to create something that acts as one organism. So, rather than gravity or photons or what have you actually modifying other particles across the universe, they would simply be observed. The information gathered from those observations would be used by the sub-units (say, a civilization that resides in a single solar system) to create change. You can think of the gravity/photons as the neurotransmitters and the civilizations as neurons. They transmit to each other and create change based on those transmissions. The change created is the functioning "body" of this galactic organism. This is going on today, but on a smaller scale. A man can build a tent, but a civilization can construct a planet of cities. A universe of civilizations... there's no telling yet what such an "organism" could achieve.
-
I'm not talking about giant mechanical organisms. I'm talking about many organisms cooperating to create something that acts as one organism. So, rather than gravity or photons or what have you actually modifying other particles across the universe, they would simply be observed. The information gathered from those observations would be used by the sub-units (say, a civilization that resides in a single solar system) to create change. You can think of the gravity/photons as the neurotransmitters and the civilizations as neurons. They transmit to each other and create change based on those transmissions. The change created is the functioning "body" of this galactic organism. This is going on today, but on a smaller scale. A man can build a tent, but a civilization can construct a planet of cities. A universe of civilizations... there's no telling yet what such an "organism" could achieve.
I more or less agree with all that, except that such a network would not constitute an autonomous conscious being, any more than I think that the United Nations is producing an autonomous conscious being. There may be a process involved that none of the parts fully understand or control but that doesn't mean there's some conscious higher "being" pulling the strings. There probably aren't any "strings" being self-consciously pulled. It's just a complex process going on with no central controlling being. We talk about such processes having "a mind of its own" but we don't mean that literally. There is no "mind" involved at all: just a complex mix of sub-processes interacting unpredictably because it's too complicated for any participant to "compute" an outcome. It's something like the butterfly effect of chaotic processes: even God can't predict the outcome of such processes, simply because it's impossible to know what all the initial conditions are. We have to be careful to stay on topic and not get lost in side tracks. Recall what the thrust of our thread is (as opposed to what the OP started: the assertion that a jellyfish is immortal). I did change the topic somewhat by focusing in on what would be truly significant: a single, physically embodied consciousness that persists forever and maintains the self-same identity. I've been arguing that this is not possible in our universe, and nothing that you say above refutes that assertion.
