>From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
>Zero Powers wrote:
> >
> > Why? Because meat-based things decompose with age?
>
>Because evolution-based designs come with a warranty expiration date. It
>has nothing to do with physical repair or the lack of it. Living past a
>certain point will require software restructuring, not just medical
>restructuring. The human software is not designed to accumulate
>experience for a thousand years. This doesn't mean that immortality is
>impossible. It means that in the course of growing up you need to change
>cognitive architectures, whether suddenly or gradually.
Not so sure. It's hard to tell how the human mind would hold up after a
couple thousand years seeing as how no one has yet made it to a couple
hundred. Although senility and Alzheimers might tend to support your
theory, seems to me the problem with old brains is physical wear and tear
and degradation, rather than the running down of some amorphous biological
clock. But, again, I'm no scientist.
-Zero
Life is good. Refuse to die.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:58 MDT