Life Styles of the Rich and Immortal on Holovision and Kurzweil's

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
> --- In spacesettlers, "Richard" wrote:
>
> > Okay, gang. Time for a reality check.
> >
> > Just as there are no working space settlements, there is no proven
> > immortality treatment.
>
> True. And immortality (or even extreme longevity) is more speculative
> than space habitats. After all, we already know the physics and most
> of the engineering for habitats, and just need to figure out the
> economics, politics, etc. We don't have near as much understanding of
> the biology that would allow for immortality (or even extreme
longevity).
>
> > Consider what it takes to prove a group has had immortality
> > treatment.
>
> Or, in most cases that we are discussing, that they are very
> long-lived. You couldn't ever actually prove that somebody was
> immortal (Type II), because there would always be the possibility that
> he'd get old and die in the *next* thousand years.
>
> > It will take at least 25 years of observing them.
>
> My scenario was of a sixty year old man resenting the beautiful young
> people who had been born at the same time as his grandfather. I think
> that should be long enough. I wasn't suggesting that the riots would
> start next Tuesday.
>
> > It also depends on your definition of immortality.
>
> A *VERY* good point, and I happen to have written something about
> this. I will post soon.
>
> > Back in the fifties, there was a comic book (Possibly Strange
> > Adventures) that had a story on immortality. Some group had a quick
> > check. They shot the immortal. If he died, he obviously wasn't
> > immortal!
>
> LOL! Type III or Type IV. Most people, when they talk of "scientists
> discovering immortality" mean simply that you don't get old. Type II.
> Getting shot is still something to worry about. Yep, I need to
post it.
>
> > JJ Coupling's sf story "Invariant" had the story of an immortal that
> > lived with his dog until the 30th century. Unfortunately his body
> > would go on for about an hour, then revert to exactly what it was
> > when he took the immortality drug. Mentally as well as physically.
>
> Well, that would sure fix the "Immortals will be terribly board"
> problem, I guess.
>
> But yeah, there are a lot of stories about how terribly, terribly
> horrendous it would be to live forever, and how lucky we are that we
> don't. Sour grapes. Besides, talk is pretty cheap when you can just
> say "I wouldn't want to live forever!" because, after all, you ain't
> a'gonna whether you want to or not. Let the option appear, and I'll
> bet that a lot of folks who write these stories will be happy to line
> up outside the clinics, or riot, or go five hundred miles to Canada,
> or whatever.
>
> > And how is the human memory supposed to span even hundreds of years?
>
> The human memory is known to be good for at least one hundred ten
> years, if not diseased. A technology that can give us immortality (or
> serious longevity) can figure out, in less than one hundred ten years,
> how to give us "quark memory brain chips," or something else that
> solves the problem.
>
> > Algis Budrys had a story with an effective cover of a man with an
> > artifical memory cask chained to his wrist. Possibily "End of
> > Summer" Astounding Nov. '54.
>
> There you go. ;) But it would actually be incorporated into your new
> Quark 1080 Brain (standard options). You don't expect immortals to
> settle for biology, do you?
>
> > Immortality is a very complicated matter. It might not work the way
> > people want it to.
>
> Not at first. But it will be refined, like any other technology. I
> expect to see habitats before any longevity beyond 150% of
> unaugmented, though.
>
> > Rick Brooks

Actually, there is another type of immortality that we haven't
mentioned. On the point of death, have all your memories downloaded
into a computer. You'd "live" as long as the computer had power.

This type of immortality seems a lot nearer term than the rest.

Rick Brooks