I plan to live forever or die trying.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been saying that for years, and most people get the joke. We human beings aren\u2019t immortal. Like all other life on this planet, sooner or later our physical being gives out.<\/p>\n
I will confess that I would like to live a really long time mostly because the story of the world will still be going on after I die and I hate stopping in the middle of a good story (or, for that matter, a scary story). But I don\u2019t want to outlive my mind and I know bodies can\u2019t last forever.<\/p>\n
I have often thought that it would be good if humans had a longer life span than we currently experience on the off chance that more of us would develop some wisdom while we were still capable of doing something with it. These days things that happened forty or fifty years ago are treated like ancient history and yet those very things have a profound effect on what\u2019s going on today. Unfortunately, too many people making decisions right now don\u2019t understand what happened fifty years ago, much less a hundred and fifty years ago.<\/p>\n
When I think of extending human life, I\u2019m looking at our increased understanding of human health and ability to deal with diseases. Some of that comes from major advances in biology and medicine, but some of it is much more simple and basic than things like CRISPR or even open heart surgery.<\/p>\n
Cleaning up the air \u2013 indoors as well as outdoors \u2013 can have a large effect on our health, just to throw out one example. And that\u2019s not to mention changing work situations so that people don\u2019t literally work themselves to death.<\/p>\n
But even with some real progress, even if more people continue to thrive into their 100s, we\u2019re still not going to become immortal. We\u2019re animals and animals don\u2019t live forever.<\/p>\n
Unless, of course, you believe in the singularity and transhumanism and think we\u2019re all going to be uploaded into some kind of digital selves. <\/p>\n
I use the word \u201cbelieve\u201d because that\u2019s the way one approaches religion. And despite the fact that the broligarchs and others who are convinced that we will reach a point where we can just upload our brains into the cloud (or some such) will claim to be materialists, there is no more evidence for such beliefs than there is for gods.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a new religion, not science.<\/p>\n
Adam Becker in his wonderful new book More Everything Forever<\/i> demolishes their efforts to prove it. The idea is based on misreading a lot of \u201cGolden Age\u201d science fiction and making illogical jumps.<\/p>\n
Some people still believe, though. You hear of some men getting blood transfusions from their children because there are some theories about blood. And many of the others take all kinds of supplements and try every health fad they can lay their hands on.<\/p>\n
They want to believe.<\/p>\n
Me, I eat a healthy diet and get a lot of exercise, though I don\u2019t go to extremes. I want to be healthy enough to enjoy life as long as possible, but I\u2019m not trying to stay alive until we reach the point where I can upload my brain.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to upload my brain. I just want to live in my body as long as I reasonably can.<\/p>\n
Anyway, nobody\u2019s going to have their brain uploaded anytime soon.<\/p>\n
As anyone who has read anything by modern neuroscientists can tell you, our brains are not like computers. Further, our minds are much more than what\u2019s in our brain. The components that make it possible for us to think and be conscious run throughout our bodies.<\/p>\n
And nobody understands consciousness yet.<\/p>\n
Nobody even understands brains yet, much less all the other complicated things that we humans do.<\/p>\n
Uploading something we don\u2019t full understand into some kind of digital storage is about as far from reality as deciding we should go live on Mars instead of dealing with climate change.<\/p>\n
Which is another thing some of these broligarchs want to do.<\/p>\n
Of course, most of them just want to live in their fancy bunkers and have a bunch of servants \u2013 human or artificial, doesn\u2019t matter, as long as they\u2019re appropriately servile \u2013 and let the rest of the place rot. Though I suspect some of them do think they\u2019re going to figure out some way to cheat death.<\/p>\n
I used to want to put my saying on a t-shirt, but these days I\u2019m afraid someone will misinterpret it.<\/p>\n
I mean, some people apparently do think they\u2019re going to live forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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