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Will we be the last generation to experience death?

SafeSurfer

With medical advances and perhaps the possibility in the future of being able to upload our consciousness to a non biological storage device. Is it possible that today’s adults will be the last to experience involuntary death by natural causes?

How would it feel to miss out on the chance of extreme longevity or even immortality by a few measly decades?

Personally I would take some comfort in being the last generation to die rather than being the first to live forever.

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Uriel.

Watching a Netflix show called travelers at the moment which has this concept of a transferable consciousness from a source to a host body/brain. Is an interesting concept. I would like to be able to do it. Could be fun. But a mental mind **** too

fixXxer

Uploading your consciousness would not be uploading you. It would be uploading a copy that thinks its you.

Bob Harris

505_ wrote: »

I'm not stupid, no one lives forever. No one. But with advances in modern science and my high level of income, I mean, it's not crazy to think I can't live to be 245, maybe 300.

If you get to 300 do you get Spartan status?

JazzJaquzzi

Uriel. wrote: »

Watching a Netflix show called travelers at the moment which has this concept of a transferable consciousness from a source to a host body/brain. Is an interesting concept. I would like to be able to do it. Could be fun. But a mental mind **** too

That could be great, but the thing that some people don't immediately grasp is that, in reality, we are taking about the potential to copy ourselves into something else; not to transfer ourselves. I'm a bit selfish about this - I don't want some other entity walking around for eons, being a new, less squash-able me.

And I like me. I know my flaws, I can criticise myself, but I'm not the worst. I would be worried about the clone me. If it's something that would think like me, but be essentially some non human without rights, it could be in for an unpleasant time.

Now, if I could hop myself from body to body, that would be fun.

daithi7

_Brian wrote: »

More accurate, we will end the world before we all die

More acurate again, we will end the world and we will all die simultaneously.....

P.s. Lovely positive thought for a Monday

SafeSurfer

fixxxer wrote: »

Uploading your consciousness would not be uploading you. It would be uploading a copy that thinks its you.

What are “you” if not your consciousness?

You say it thinks it’s you. However you think you are you too.

fixXxer

How do you upload something like consciousness? My consciousness is unique to my meat brain. Unless my meat brain is involved somehow then its copying patterns. That's not me, that's a copy of my. SO I would still die but a copy would live on.

wakka12

I think there will continue to be amazing and transformative medical advances for years to come but its impossible to know when immortality might be achieved

Things like this, effectively end the chance of sudden cardiac arrest which kills millions every year, is a huge advancement that could be available within a decade
Even just the last few decades things as simple as certain blood pressure medication have saved millions of lives but theyre just thought of as normal everyday things now and we dont appreciate the advances they are

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/heart-hugging-device-could-help-keep-beat

wakka12

fixxxer wrote: »

Uploading your consciousness would not be uploading you. It would be uploading a copy that thinks its you.

Yes technically you have to die to upload your consciousness. So it really is technically cloning yourself. But what does it matter, it will just feel like going to sleep and waking up to you, if you died in your sleep and woke up the next morning and doctors said they managed to save you by putting your consciousness in a new body you wouldnt be able to tell unless they told you

Mutant z

Most certainly not death will exist for as long as humanity exists.

Necro

wakka12 wrote:

Yes technically you have to die to upload your consciousness. So it really is technically cloning yourself. But what does it matter, it will just feel like going to sleep and waking up to you, if you died in your sleep and woke up the next morning and doctors said they put your consciousness in a new body you wouldnt be able to tell unless they told you

But does consciousness live on after death?
What about those that are declared brain dead before they could have this miraculous treatment?
A lot of people die very suddenly and quickly, you'd need to plan the precise moment of your death, or make a copy of your consciousness and store it somewhere in case you had a heart attack/got into a car crash/ran over by a pack of sulky racers/tripped and smashed your skull on a patch of ice....

Right?

wakka12

Mutant z wrote: »

Most certainly not death will exist for as long as humanity exists.

The only certain thing is theres no way of knowing that

[Deleted User]

wakka12 wrote: »

Yes technically you have to die to upload your consciousness. So it really is technically cloning yourself. But what does it matter, it will just feel like going to sleep and waking up to you, if you died in your sleep and woke up the next morning and doctors said they managed to save you by putting your consciousness in a new body you wouldnt be able to tell unless they told you

But my understanding is that you won't wake up. It's the copy that will and you won't experience it

eviltimeban

wakka12 wrote: »

Yes technically you have to die to upload your consciousness. So it really is technically cloning yourself. But what does it matter, it will just feel like going to sleep and waking up to you, if you died in your sleep and woke up the next morning and doctors said they managed to save you by putting your consciousness in a new body you wouldnt be able to tell unless they told you

Would it not still be a copy? Like, I can create an Excel file, then make a copy of it, then delete the original, and what I'd have is an identical version, but not the original. The original is in the trash.

If you uploaded your consciousness seamlessly, IOW, your current consciousness that carried on without stopping, it would be "you". Any other option and you're just making a copy

If the body ages to it's death point, or is ravaged by cancer / disease etc, I wonder could there be an option to remove your brain from you body and it be kept alive, consciousness and all, remotely? The literal "brain in a jar".

professore

fixxxer wrote: »

Uploading your consciousness would not be uploading you. It would be uploading a copy that thinks its you.

So many people don't get this. It's like the whole cloning thing, where so many people think they can live as their clone. Eehhh no, in that case twins would only have a single consciousness between them and when one died they would still live in the other one.

jimgoose

professore wrote: »

So many people don't get this. It's like the whole cloning thing, where so many people think they can live as their clone. Eehhh no, in that case twins would only have a single consciousness between them and when one died they would still live in the other one.

Quite. In order for this actually to function as people imagine it does, we would have to master some sort of clustering after uploading of "consciousness".

Hector Savage

Even if we could cheat death (we maybe able to but it's a good bit off yet) psychologically how the hell could you deal with it ?
hmmm what am I gonna do for the next ......... 300 billion billion billion years ???

F*CK THAT!

wexie

Hector Savage wrote: »

Even if we could cheat death (we maybe able to but it's a good bit off yet) psychologically how the hell could you deal with it ?
hmmm what am I gonna do for the next ......... 300 billion billion billion years ???

F*CK THAT!

Eh, Netflix and chill!!

wexie

professore wrote: »

fixxxer wrote: »

Uploading your consciousness would not be uploading you. It would be uploading a copy that thinks its you.

So many people don't get this. It's like the whole cloning thing, where so many people think they can live as their clone. Eehhh no, in that case twins would only have a single consciousness between them and when one died they would still live in the other one.

They tried that in multiplicity, just didn't work, especially once the made a copy from one of the copies. Wasn't quite as sharp as the original...

[Deleted User]

That knight in the Last Crusade is a possible benchmark.

jimgoose

Hector Savage wrote: »

Even if we could cheat death (we maybe able to but it's a good bit off yet) psychologically how the hell could you deal with it ?
hmmm what am I gonna do for the next ......... 300 billion billion billion years ???

F*CK THAT!

THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

eviltimeban

Nanotech could make humans immortal by 2040, futurist says:

"It's radical life extension," Kurzweil said. "The full realization of nanobots will basically eliminate biological disease and aging. I think we'll see widespread use in 20 years of [nanotech] devices that perform certain functions for us. In 30 or 40 years, we will overcome disease and aging. The nanobots will scout out organs and cells that need repairs and simply fix them. It will lead to profound extensions of our health and longevity."

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2528330/app-development/nanotech-could-make-humans-immortal-by-2040--futurist-says.html

NIMAN

What about if you were to die suddenly, before you got your brain contents loaded to a computer?

wexie

NIMAN wrote: »

What about if you were to die suddenly, before you got your brain contents loaded to a computer?

You never played computer games did you?

Save often, save early!!

eviltimeban

NIMAN wrote: »

What about if you were to die suddenly, before you got your brain contents loaded to a computer?

You'd have a chip inserted inside your brain which would be constantly saving your consciousness. All you'd need to do is revert back to the last save point and carry on from there (ideally it could be done every hour or so, so you don't miss out on too much).

There's scope for a sci-fi story here. Protagonist dies in car crash, they revert to save point, but it's a completely different person!

brainfreeze

Necrominus wrote: »

But does consciousness live on after death?
What about those that are declared brain dead before they could have this miraculous treatment?
A lot of people die very suddenly and quickly, you'd need to plan the precise moment of your death, or make a copy of your consciousness and store it somewhere in case you had a heart attack/got into a car crash/ran over by a pack of sulky racers/tripped and smashed your skull on a patch of ice....

Right?

Most people in the tech industry don't think it will happen like that, just uploading your brain at the end of your life.

It's a slow transition, more and more technology blends with your own mind. Starting off as little brain enhancements to improve whatever it is you are trying to improve. Imagine you could access google in your mind by just thinking, etc. Stuff like that. With the recent rise of A.I you will augment yourself to an A.I, making you exponentially smarter. This in the industry is called "The Singularity". The moment in time when A.I becomes to powerful that humans will have to merge with it in order to keep up. Then eventually, since your brain and the A.I are working in unison, your "sense of self" in terms of your biological brain and the software running in the cloud are one and the same. You don't see them as enhancements or separate intelligences, you are that person. You are the A.I. Your biological brain dying will not be a concern to you because at that stage it works in unison and copied by the software, which you identify as being you anyway.

There is two competing theories in terms of the recent inevitable rise of A.I

"Be afraid, we need to control this or we will become slaves to the A.I" - Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and others.
"Relax, we will be the A.I" - Bill Gates, Ray Kurzweil, Larry Page and others.

Current predictions are we will have human level intelligence by 2029, and the "Singularity" when we have super intelligence beyond anything we can comprehend as a species, by 2045. The hypothesis is we will start to merge with A.I between those dates with it being normal in 2045.

Ray Kurzweil used to be the only person saying this, and he has been saying it since the 80s. We used to treat him like a crackpot that had a wild imagination, now everyone agrees with his 2029 date, the consensus is split on the "merge" or "attempt to control" aspect that comes after. In 2009 there was even a documentary on him as he was controversial, now he's not so much. He's currently Googles director of Engineering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

eviltimeban

It's only a matter of time before the likes of Google start offering implants or AI tech that interacts biologically.

But it'll take some kind of genius marketing or product for it to land with the general populace. Something that people want, and feel they can't live without.

We're glued to our phones now, the next natural step is to eliminate the hardware and give the brain / eyes / ears direct access to the content.

Certainly an AI / VR future is coming, where humans begin to rely less and less on their physical bodies and more on interacting with machines.

Many futurists speculate that in the future all humans will not have to work as we'll create AI and tech to do the work for us. Leisure time will be what humans exist for, and eventually will evolve as a species to be more like a cyborg than a fully bio creature.

Captain Chaos

eviltimeban wrote: »

You'd have a chip inserted inside your brain which would be constantly saving your consciousness. All you'd need to do is revert back to the last save point and carry on from there (ideally it could be done every hour or so, so you don't miss out on too much).

There's scope for a sci-fi story here. Protagonist dies in car crash, they revert to save point, but it's a completely different person!

It's called The Sixth Day.

FishOnABike

eviltimeban wrote: »

Nanotech could make humans immortal by 2040, futurist says:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2528330/app-development/nanotech-could-make-humans-immortal-by-2040--futurist-says.html

Meeeh, I'll believe it when I see it. I'm still waiting for my flying car, unlimited free power, anti gravity, (real) hoverboard and all the other 'just around the corner' miriacles promised by futurists.

Cell reproduction is not perfect, telomeres shorten, random and environmentally induced mutations affect DNA, death is not a moment, it is a continuous multifaceted process and as much a part of life as is conception and birth.

Bob Harris

eviltimeban wrote: »

Nanotech could make humans immortal by 2040, futurist says:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2528330/app-development/nanotech-could-make-humans-immortal-by-2040--futurist-says.html

Aren't we all futurists as in everyone goes to bed fairly sure there will be a tomorrow which as it happens is in the future. I'll bet that chap has a rake of bitcoin too.