From: Nicq MacDonald (namacdonald@stthomas.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 04 2000 - 12:35:08 MST
> > Life extension really
> > doesn't change much of anything except duration- every entity will still
> > perish at some time.
>
> Really? Are you sure? If that time can be put off and put off over and
> over again and one gets better and better about handling all
> contigencies and having backups of one's self in case of mishap, then
> you get a lot closer over time to "and then you die" not being so. It
> is not clear that even the heat-death of the universe will necessarily
> end it. It looks so now, from here, but I will not take bets that we
> will not eventually see even this ultimate trump beat.
A backup would just be a copy- your consciousness would be gone forever.
I'm not interested in "backing myself up", having my brain scanned into a
computer, or copied into a different body- the minute my current brain goes
offline, I'm gone- only an I that is not I would remain. Every evolutionary
step in history has lead to an increase in longevity- but not immortality.
Stardust didn't organize itself into a human being overnight, no matter what
any scripture might say.
> So as long as accidents are possible you are saying that not dying
> except by such unforeseen and unprepared for accident is simply not a
> good thing? Or not good enough for you to be particularly interested?
No. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against life extension. I just
don't believe in immortalism- and many of the immortalist scenarios I've
read offer little appeal to me.
> Maybe so, but so what? Would you rather stay on this size of stage you
> are on now for these few short years followed by oblivion or expand the
> stage and the time, perhaps enough to find real answers to whatever it
> is you seek?
Certainly- I plan to make use of any technology that comes along that can
potentially extend my lifespan without destroying my true self. I'll make
use of any nanotech devices or longevity treatments that come along, barring
the destruction of my body or brain. I'm not going to download myself,
however- I like having a body, and, until the tech is availiable for me to
transmute myself into other forms, I'll keep it.
> Does this somehow comfort you or are you somehow confronting us with
> something you think is for our own good or what?
No- it's just the truth. In the long run, we're dead. It doesn't really
comfort me- how could the idea of dissolution possibly comfort an egomaniac?
I just don't see any point in a lifespan extended beyond a few millenia...
but this is subject to change. I don't have to worry about this until 4000
CE.
(Who knows, maybe I'll take up a life of crime... there are lots of laws to
break... the laws of thermodynamics... Leibniz's law...)
-Nicq MacDonald
"We do progress, but how? Not by the tinkering of the meliorist; not by the
crushing of initiative; not by laws and regulations which hamstring the
racehorse, and handcuff the boxer; but by the innovations of the eccentric,
by the phantasies of the hashish-dreamer of philosophy, by the aspirations
of the idealist to the impossible, by the imagination of the revolutionary,
by the perilous adventure of the pioneer. Progress is by leaps and bounds,
by breaking from custom, by working on untried experiments; in short, by the
follies and crimes of men of genius, only recognizable as wisdom and virtue
after they have been tortured to death, and their murderers reap gloatingly
the harvest of the seeds they sowed at midnight." -Aleister Crowley, "On
Original Sin"
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