Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: jammer5 on 12/01/2022 23:30:06
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Questions: on the assumption mankind may, in the distant future, discover immortality. What are the consequences of everybody living basically forever? What would be the politics? Would food even be necessary? What would it consist of, if indeed it was necessary? Would, or could, crime be controlled - and/or would it even exist? What psychological burden would anyone, or everyone, be under?
It's something I've thought long and hard on, and it seems one solution brings up other problems, so I wondered if anyone else thought about it and what their findings are.
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One of the problems with immortality is entropy: We can't beat it.
One novel solution I heard is this (at least for people living in The Matrix):
- Computing is very efficient on quantum computers (at least in theory)
- But quantum computers need to be very cold, and that takes lots of energy when the world around us has a temperature well above absolute zero. (Running a refrigerator increases entropy)
- One idea is to locate your quantum computer in deep space, where the ambient temperature is 2.7 degrees above absolute zero; so you have much less energy wasted in your refrigerator
- For those thinking on a much longer timescale, if you wait for the temperature of the universe to drop to less than 0.001 degrees above absolute zero, you probably won't need a refrigerator at all!
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A thoughtful response, and quite fascinating. Immortality, under that particular scenario, would end up being zero in = zero out as entropy would cancel any attempt at energy fluctuation. It's a prediction of the end of the universe, and hence time, as even black holes would eventually lose their engines. I think it was either Hawking or Einstein who predicted such an ending. Would, or could, immortality exist if nothing else does?
I was looking at it a bit differently, that being immortality had been perfected, and what affect would it have on the human species, assuming the human species still existed in physical form.
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Would, or could, immortality exist if nothing else does?
You mean, would immortality be meaningful in such a situation.
I was looking at it a bit differently, that being immortality had been perfected, and what affect would it have on the human species, assuming the human species still existed in physical form.
To give any sort of response to that, you need to be a lot more specific about what you mean by it being 'perfected'.
You've eliminated a lot of scenarios (uploaded to flash drive, or head-in-jar on shelf) by requiring us to maintain our current form, but of course our current form is not immortal, so at least something needs to have changed.
I can think of a few ways to interpret this:
1) Only the very privileged get some sort of procedure that removes any form of defect/disease as they appear. It costs massive resources, so it's not for the masses. This scenario will likely result in revolt against the hard division of classes, thus preventing the expensive procedure from being performed on those that need it.
2) They put something in the water, or change DNA, or something that eliminates aging. Nobody gets old, and can thus theoretically live indefinitely, but they're all still susceptible to disease, accidents and such which do irreversible damage, so accidents are still to be avoided.
The planet cannot support the current population, let alone one where attrition is massively reduced, so this cannot last any more than the current setup can.
3) People are truly immortal, by unspecified magic. That means that nothing can kill anybody, even if they're burnt to ash, disassembled into little cubes, or whatever. Think Cpt Jack from Dr Who, who at least reassembles himself each time. This would be utter torture for everybody because there could be no escape from some inevitable situation where one is permanently trapped in a non-functional state without being able to just die. It would be like Dracula being trapped for eternity in a box. This 3rd option is pure fiction and violates physics all the way.
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If everyone was eternally young, i think retirement would either be a thing of the past or would have to be temporary (unless you have so much money that you can live off the interest alone, but that may very well not be an eternally reliable source of income due to market crashes and the like).
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The manner of perfection is basically immaterial for the sake of argument. It is fiction to the point it could never happen. As you said, physics prohibits it. On an assumption it could happen, we would almost certainly have to be energy, the form of which would be rather intriguing. Social distancing would probably be a necessity, depending on the type of energy. :) Being a black hole might be fun.
Immortality is really an exercise in futility, as any answer to one question leads to other questions ad infinitum. Science kinda works that way, but not on an ad infinitum level - somewhere along the line, we find answers that work.
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Some recent work suggests that the Epstein-Barr virus could trigger multiple sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease.
- Apparently 95% of the population have a chronic infection with this virus.
- Would a vaccine against this virus make a large improvement in the health of a small number of people - plus a small improvement in the health of large number of people?
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/epstein-barr-virus-may-be-leading-cause-of-multiple-sclerosis/
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It is recognised that to extend human healthspan will require genetic changes to eliminate negative mutations.
- There are come common recessive mutations (eg cystic fibrosis) which significantly reduce lifespan if you have two copies, and perhaps slightly reduce healthspan if you have 1 copy. These would need to be corrected.
- There have been a number of Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) looking for mutations which have a bad impact on health. Researchers have been frustrated because they generally don't turn up anything major. This has led to a question about our genome:
- Are there a large number of mutations which each have a very small impact on lifespan
- Or are there rare mutations which have a big impact on a small number of people (and so won't be found by GWAS)
Even if we can find such negative mutations, correcting them is beyond our current technology.
- CRISPR+CAS9 are often touted as the precise genetic scissors that can make any desired surgical change to DNA
- But as I understand it, these bacteria-derived antiviral tools are more like a chainsaw massacre, designed to shred any DNA it matches.
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I was looking at it a bit differently, that being immortality had been perfected, and what affect would it have on the human species, assuming the human species still existed in physical form.
The species is inherently mortal, so the question is meaningless. An immortal object cannot be human.
The inverse question is interesting. Like all animals, we survive because we automatically manufacture replacement bits to repair minor injuries. This requires a degree of flexibility, adaptability and tolerance in our cells and processes, and it is these very qualities that also permit ageing, neoplasms (cancers) and plaque formation (stenosis). In short, the mechanisms that keep us alive are ultimately responsible for our death.
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Making immortality an impossible objective. Even as energy, immortality is an impossibility. The saying, nothing lasts forever, is true on every level.
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Even as energy, immortality is an impossibility.
We are already a source of energy, so not sure what you mean
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We're not pure energy, but that's not what I was saying. Even energy loses some energy just by being. It's that perpetual motion thingy: It can't exist.