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.
@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!
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.
..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-
