Post-humanist Probability?

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GandK
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by GandK »

No. Against my religion in a big way. I do not want to live forever. At all. And I reject on principle any artificial extension of my natural life cycle.

George the original one
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by George the original one »

Dragline wrote:Overall, I remain very skeptical -- although are living decades longer, we've never been able to change the basic shape of Gompertz mortality curve, which tells you that your chances of dying approximately double every eight years. Which means if you can reduce your chances of dying by half at mid-life, chances are you are only getting another 8 years on average.
'Zactly! People are still not surpassing the old records. 120 years is about all that people survive to and, even then, only extremely rarely; oldest documented person was 122 years at death. The oldest currently living people, all women, are approaching 117 years old. If anyone is going to break that record, we won't know for at least 6 more years.

Lemon
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by Lemon »

Any sort of a computer download wouldn't be me so that is out as an extension for me and biological preservation doesn't hold out too much hope for me. Physically alive maybe but condition is my concern there.

I am not sure ethically I would be happy about it at this point anyway. Although the is always the thought that if people thought issues in 100 years time would be there very real problem it might change how people thing. But given people seem unable to work on in 5 year horizons I don't have much hope.

The Old Man
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by The Old Man »

https://youtu.be/jAhjPd4uNFY
Genetic Engineering will change Everything Forever – CRISPR

Not sure what to make of this video, but seems appropriate for this thread. Seems like the future is now!

7Wannabe5
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Ego said: High intensity exercise, blueberries, meditation, metacognition, turmeric, healthy fats, leafy greens, sleep, friends, learning new things, fasting, thinking about complex subjects......
Right. One of the other likely results of our species achieving genetic code fluency will be that "prescriptions" or "anti-prescriptions" for all of the above, the usual suspects, and the debatable items such as sun exposure, phyto-estrogens and iron supplementation, will become much more individualized. Once the underlying mechanism is understood and put into specific context, the gross statistical analyses with which we are constantly bombarded can be tossed aside.

My recent reading on this topic has made me more convinced that it would be worthwhile to exert more effort on preventative health measures, but also more determined to learn, if possible, what actually is going on, rather than relying on general recommendations. For instance, what actually happens during the digestive process that may or may not cause me to suffer inflammation from ingesting Mike and Ike fruit flavored candies, but the opposite when I eat a HoneyCrisp apple? IOW, I think it might be worthwhile to spend some time and energy learning about biochemistry, and generally improving my level of scientific fluency. Eric Drexler, the popularizer of the notion of nano-technology, suggests the practice of complete random immersion in wide variety of journals above current comprehension level. I am going to guess-timate that adopting this practice will be moderately enjoyable, and increase my lifespan by approximately 2.2 years = 12848 waking hours, therefore it would be worthwhile to devote approximately 1 hour/day of my currently estimated 12410 remaining days on this practice.

Obviously, throwing down a few bucks or signing up for a study to get complete read of my own genome would also be worthwhile investment, especially since I have nothing but smokers, drinkers and the obese up family tree from me.

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Ego
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by Ego »

Ego wrote:
Fri Aug 12, 2016 6:54 pm
I think we'll have gene editing technologies that allow us to significantly extend life fairly soon. Unfortunately, repairing a wonky hip is not the same as fixing a wonky hippocampus. For those of us on the cusp of the change, the question comes down to whether we are able to hold off mental decline so that our neural network on the day of treatment is actually worth extending.

and

The tangled neural wiring that comes with age is not necessarily a good thing. Like software that has been patched a thousand times with half-assed work-around fixes, the brains of old people have a lot of strange quirks that are present not because of age related decline but because they've lived long, complex lives that caused the programming of buggy code. Life extension without a gradual debugging of that code will result in a some freaky people. But who gets to decide what characteristics get debugged out of existence?
I'd like to alter my response. Transcendence is wishful thinking on our part. Motivated reasoning. We are not computers.

Mind-blowing Aeon article:

https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does- ... a-computer

J_
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by J_ »

@ego: thanks for posting, reading the article was to me a reassurence. The metaphor of brain/computer has never attracted me.

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Ego
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by Ego »

@J, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've got the metaphor deeply ingrained so I am counting on you to call me on it the next time I post something like above. Thanks!

7Wannabe5
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Ego:

Very good article. Very much in alignment with what I learned by reading "The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision" by Capra and Luisi earlier this year. Determinism is dead.
The insight that emerged from this debate, though not formulated until many decades later, is that in order to explain biological phenomena, we need to take into account not only the conventional laws of physics and chemistry, but also the complex nonlinear dynamics of living networks. A full understanding of biological phenomena is reached only when we approach it through the interplay of three different levels of description- the biology off the observed phenomena, the laws of physics and biochemistry, and the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems...

...the "hard problem" turns in the challenge of understanding and accepting two new scientific paradigms. The first is the paradigm of complexity theory...This applies in particular to the phenomenon of emergence...

...Emergence results in the creation of novelty, and this novelty is often qualitatively different from the phenomena out of which it emerged.

In addition to complexity theory, scientists will need to accept another new paradigm: the recognition that the analysis of lived experience-that is, of subjective phenomena- has to be an integral part of any science of consciousness..

...three centuries after Descartes, quantum theory showed us that this classical ideal of an objective science cannot be maintained when dealing with atomic phenomena. And more recently, the Santiago theory of cognition has made it clear that cognition itself is not a representation of an independently existing world, but rather a "bringing forth" of a world through the process of living.

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Ego
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by Ego »

..... which dovetails nicely with another of my favorite recent articles about how consciousness is a process, not a thing.

The Mathematics of Mind Time
https://aeon.co/essays/consciousness-is ... -inference

Now that we've solved all the big problems we can go home and take a nap.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Post-humanist Probability?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

..or "make like a virus and reduce our temporal depth for a period of time."

Glossary
(to be completed at some juncture post-nap barring unexpected series of events)

autopoiesis- self-maintenance due to the internal networking of a chemical system that continuously reproduces itself within a boundary of its own making
boundary-
brain-
cognition- the process of knowing which is inseparable from autopoiesis
complexity-
consciousness-
contingency -
emergence-
expectance-
life-
machine-
mind-
nonlinear dynamics-
novelty- previously unobserved emergent possibility of overall system (example: women frequently wearing denim trousers from 19th century perspective)
self-
surprise-
system-

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