33 thoughts on “Thoughts On A Longer Life Span”

  1. Would I be reading too much into your comment if I thought you were saying something about our prospects for attaining relativistic speeds, or for attaining something like sleeper ships.

    Also, if you just want to *see* other star systems, there is the idea of staying home but “Exploiting the Sun as a Gravitational Lens”:

    http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=8813
    http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=12327

    Dr. Maccone at one point in his talk pointed out that with proper instrumentation, the magnification would be so extreme that we could see vehicles moving on the streets of a habitable planet around one of the Centauri stars, assuming such vehicles and streets exist.

    Of course, if such telescopes were possible, even a million year lifespan might not be enough to see all the wonderful things there are to see….

  2. I see one major problem.

    Even if you can eliminate all the possibilities for dying by accident (or homicide) in the course of a million years — by surrounding yourself with an army of infallible secret-service robots, let’s say — a million years is still a very long time.

    If you start out on a journey that takes a million years, what is the probability that you will complete that journey before you change your mind and decide to turn back or change course?

    Pretty small. Even if your determination level is 99.999%.

    The only way I can see this working is if your colony ship provides an environment that is sufficiently diverse that you would never become bored. Or, at least, no more so than you would be had you stayed at home.

    But in that case, an extremely long lifespan (while perhaps desirable) is not really necessary. Given a colony ship that provides that sort of environment, a multi-generation mission is perfectly reasonable. (After all, we’re on a multi-generation colony ship called “Earth” right now.)

    An extremely long lifespan is really only necessary if you want to personally be the one who arrives at the destination. Not an unreasonable desire, perhaps (but again, what are the chances you could you sustain such a desire over such a long period of time?), but it’s not one that’s likely to be an important design criterion unless you are financing the mission.

  3. Edward: the spacecraft’s propulsion system might not allow you to turn back — you might need to be near a star to slow down.

    Fortunately, some desires, like the desire to breath and the desire to eat, never wear out, at least, for many people. Knowledge of brain chemistry might allow other desires to be rigged such that they never wane.

    I’d rather spend my million year long life working on faster propulsion, rather than dooming myself to living on a slow ship. Maybe developing faster propulsion will take less time than one ride on a slow ship, and then I’ll get multiple journeys. I’m reminded of what Lincoln said: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

  4. The main problem of traveling to stars is exactly same problem of getting off earth.
    One advantage in comparison of going to another star is governments
    probably will not limit what can be “launched”.
    [Of course anyone who imagines we can star travel without first opening space frontier, and therefore imagining some starship being launched from JSC has a very limited view.]

    The big disadvantage of going to stars as compared to leaving earth, is trip time- and this is a economical barrier. Or political/economical barrier.

    Going to Mars to have settlement, is the lite version, of going to a star.
    Mars takes a couple months to get to, stars take several years to get to- even if traveling at lightspeed. Not crew time, but everyone else’s time, which is what is more significant in terms of economics.

    We need to markets in LEO and cislunar before we can have a robust settlement on Mars. Or in simplest terms, we need markets in space, before there could be any economical value of living on Mars.

    Need don’t need markets in space to do manned exploration of the Moon and/or Mars [or anywhere else], but to have settlement in Mars we need markets in space. One of course can turn this around and say that Mars settlement would cause markets in space.

    The distance in terms of time is barrier, in relation of Mars and markets, assuming you already at the point of having settlement in our solar system, and you want to go to different star, the same barrier because of time and markets is 100 times worse than what it was going to Mars.

    So it seems to me that to get to a different star, the voyage would need to get economic benefit in the near term. And such economic benefit “could be” related to exploring the space between Sol and the star. It could include exploring the Oort Cloud. Perhaps interstellar rogue planets and such.
    And in this regard, going really fast [more than 1/2 speed of light] is a disadvantage. A 1/10th the speed of light could better.

    Of course another thing one might want to “explore” is near light speed. Since 1/10th the speed of light is currently possible, one would start there and perhaps later work on getting faster velocities [to study the “new environment”].

    If you leave Sol at 1/10th the speed of light to explore distant parts of our solar system, you need intelligence on that ship [too much delay due transmission that kind of distance]. And rather roar out there, then stop and return to the inner planet on earth, might seem rather wasteful compared to continuing towards different star system [and basically have a one way to Mars, sort of thing].

  5. “The only way I can see this working is if your colony ship provides an environment that is sufficiently diverse that you would never become bored. Or, at least, no more so than you would be had you stayed at home.”

    This is why I’d prefer to see some form of suspension for interstellar travel if neither FTL, nor seriously relativistic near-light speeds can be done. Even with a fair probability of living a million years, I don’t know that I’d want to spend 1,000 of them, conscious and aware, to reach Alpha Centauri or points more distant…

    And a sleeper ship can likely be smaller, lighter, faster, for the same size crew and distance.

  6. Once “humans” brains are made of silicon, and their bodies of titanium and graphene, accidental death would be nearly impossible, it’s not like having your head crushed in an industrial press is a likely accident, and even if you suffered complete body loss, you’d only lose a few hours of your life having regularly downloaded your memories, and Suspended animation gets pretty easy without the organic bits.

  8. A million years in a space ship? I think you’d need some sort of super food to keep you going. Perhaps a root of some kind.

    No-one is getting this reference are they?

  9. Can the brain — nanotechnology modified — even handle a thousand years worth of memories, experience, skills, etc.?

    For example, there are only so many ways/times one can upgrade an old computer before the physical limits of the motherboard and the electronic limits of CPU cannot be pushed any further and a new PC entirely is required.

  10. Trent,
    Maybe a large tank of air to make up for diffusion through the hull?
    Or a bag of thallium oxide to plant crops in …

    Loved that story!

  12. To misquote you on “Thoughts on a longer life of Spam…in a large can”, all I can think of is eons of hearing “Are we there yet?” It would have to be a sleeper for me.

  13. Even if you can eliminate all the possibilities for dying by accident (or homicide) in the course of a million years — by surrounding yourself with an army of infallible secret-service robots, let’s say — a million years is still a very long time.

    If you start out on a journey that takes a million years, what is the probability that you will complete that journey before you change your mind and decide to turn back or change course?

    Pretty small. Even if your determination level is 99.999%.

    At a determination level of 99.999%, you’d turn back 1 in 100,000. That’s not pretty small. I know you meant per unit of time (where unit of time is rather short), but that’s a dumb way to look at the problem.

    We already have a lot of experience with small groups or individuals doing large projects. And one of the things we’re learned is that the project needs to be broken down into small digestible pieces. Then you start it. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step and all that.

    And there’s no reason that your million plan can’t have a lot of detours and diversions or for that matter get discarded completely while still achieving the intermediate goal of visiting other places in the galaxy. After all, it’d be pretty foolish to spend the next million years carrying out without fail something that you thought about for fifteen minutes while ranting on the internet.

    For example, if I suddenly had a lifespan of a million years, then I would start planning for interstellar travel. Look for a star with a large interstellar motion. Perhaps Barnard’s Star, for example. While my eyes would be on that eventual prize, in the short term I’d be working and investing in space tech, much as I do now. A few thousand years of such activity should be enough to save for any serious interstellar project.

    And there we have it. Even a first implementation of the fifteen minute plan requires thousands of years to get the ducks in line. Plenty of time to decide whether that is a good approach or not. Plenty of time to change one’s mind. But also plenty of time to figure out how to live and do things when you have a million years at your disposal instead of a few decades.

  15. I still come down on the side of those of us who think that there is a substantial difference between living, organic, human beings and anything metal-and-silicon (simple mimicry). I’ve worked in the computer science end of the business for more than thirty years, too, so I guess I would be a peculiar kind of rube. Well, except that Norbert Weiner would have agreed with me, and he invented cybernetics.

    However, there is a possible solution to this dilemma, and I’ve been toying with an SF novella on the subject for a couple of decades. The enabling technology would come from a rather unusual place: an ability for humanity to create very small wormholes. Once that is accomplished, embed a gate in the midbrain, put another in a vat of saline, then genetically modify the human subject to extrude a replica body through the wormhole.

    Voila, fault-tolerant human beings.

  16. Overcoming all the obstacles to preserving physical and mental health over such a long period of time would be hugely difficult. It’s likely that we’ll have reliable suspended animation techniques long before we have the means to extend normal life out to thousands or millions of years. So in terms of its impact on spaceflight, by the time it becomes possible it will be a solution to a problem that’s already been solved by other means.

  17. We already have a lot of experience with small groups or individuals doing large projects. And one of the things we’re learned is that the project needs to be broken down into small digestible pieces. Then you start it.

    We have zero experience with projects that last for a million years. Even projects lasting for centuries are rare, and they are never carried out by small groups or individuals. The only organizations that carry out projects lasting for centuries are governments and religious groups. Even they have limitations. How long did the Roman Empire last? Or the British? The Catholic Church has lasted for two millennia, but there has been a major reformation and a lot of smaller changes during that time.

    Buzz Aldrin is about to divorce his third wife. You’re talking about a project that requires a higher level of commitment than a marriage — and sustaining that commitment for 10,000x as long.

    “A fanatic is someone who won’t change the subject.” The fanaticism required to pursue a project for a million years would be unprecedented. Granted, a million-year lifespan would be unprecedented also. Perhaps life extension would bring about major changes in human psychology and politics, but I wouldn’t automatically assume that — and whatever changes did come about they wouldn’t necessarily be in your favor. Some science-fiction writers have speculated that extremely long lifespans would cause people to become more risk averse and give up exploration entirely.

    And there’s no reason that your million plan can’t have a lot of detours and diversions

    Of course there is. If we had a propulsion system that allowed for a lot of detours and diversions, we wouldn’t be talking about a trip that takes a million years!

    Another factor you overlook — even if you have the single-mindedness required to pursue a goal for a million years, the destination itself could change dramatically in that time. We’re talking about a geological timeframe. The destination will see climate change, volcanism, continental drift, evolution of new species, maybe even the development of new civilizations. The nice, quiet inhabited planet you saw in the travel brochures may suddenly be overrun by six-legged centaurs playing Klingon empire.

  18. Once “humans” brains are made of silicon, and their bodies of titanium and graphene, accidental death would be nearly impossible, it’s not like having your head crushed in an industrial press is a likely accident,

    Events that are “improbable” over short time periods suddenly become significant when the numbers increase. A good example is automobile accidents. Automobiles are 100 times safer (per hour) than horseback riding. Yet, automobiles kill more Americans than horses ever have because Americans spend so much time in cars.

    and even if you suffered complete body loss, you’d only lose a few hours of your life having regularly downloaded your memories,

    Sorry, but I don’t buy that argument. It ignores questions of identity. A copy might be your identical twin, with the same memories, but it would not be you.

    As a thought experiment, assume there’s a mad scientist out there who has already perfected the process. He’s been sneaking into your house every night and downloading a copy of your mind to his android. Tonight, he finally reveals himself, says he’s tired of these nightly visits, so he intends to kill you and let the android take your place.

    Would you really be okay with that?

  19. As a thought experiment, assume there’s a mad scientist out there who has already perfected the process. He’s been sneaking into your house every night and downloading a copy of your mind to his android. Tonight, he finally reveals himself, says he’s tired of these nightly visits, so he intends to kill you and let the android take your place.

    Would you really be okay with that?

    All rather like the Schwarzenegger movie The 6th Day, of course the original didn’t like the idea of losing his life to someone else, but to the copy it was still his life too.
    The idea of re-lifing is a theme in Peter F Hamilton’s stories, no one wants to be killed, even if re-lifing is an option, but for the copy life goes on, and those around him his life goes on.

  21. no one wants to be killed, even if re-lifing is an option, but for the copy life goes on, and those around him his life goes on.

    Exactly. Your boss might be satisfied with the copy, because he doesn’t have to hire a replacement. Perhaps even your spouse would even be satisfied — although, I find that idea a bit disturbing. But you would simply cease to be, while your copy lived on.

    Strangely enough, advocates of “uploading” never seem to recognize that contradiction. They talk about saving themselves, not (copies of) other people.

  22. Ed, the difference is in what you see as “you”.

    To me, the only possible thing that can be “me” is the software. Both the software and the hardware are constantly changing, but if you replace every part of me slowly with new parts to keep me going I will remain “me’. But if you wipe my memories and replace my software with someone else’s, I would not be “me”.

    You question, “he intends to kill you and let the android take your place. Would you really be okay with that?” is poorly formed. The answer is no, that is not OK. But neither would killing the android be OK. At that point, there would be 2 “me”s, each diverging rapidly. Killing either is still killing an independent life.

    The real question would be more like this: Let’s say that you have terminal cancer. They can only save a small portion of your brain, the part that holds the software. They build you a new body – but it isn’t identical. They tell you that you may experience a different level of sexual drive, for example, or your pain thresholds may be different. The question is do you transplant “you”, the software (or in this case the part of the brain holding the software), into the new body – or do you die, because that wouldn’t be you anyway?

  23. “Strangely enough, advocates of “uploading” never seem to recognize that contradiction. They talk about saving themselves, not (copies of) other people.”

    Saving copies of other people does seem more practical:)

    Some friend is doing something annoying. Get a new one!
    Nothing changes except the new one might not be annoying you- if “it” is, get another one, etc.

    You don’t lose the memories and history of association.
    I think women would find this appealing- no need to re-train the hubby.
    Hubby wants to do some dangerous, “ok, but make a copy first”

    I imagine, it might be “fun” to be born an adult with some interesting history already [hey i know how to play the piano] , but it seems the social consequences could be quite dire.

  24. Hopefully they’re talking about decades long trips, not millions of years. I doubt a ship could hold together that long. The million year lifespan just makes the decades long trips far more palatable.

    More of a very-long-ocean-voyage instead of most of your entire life just to reach the nearest star.

    I would tentatively try to stay awake as much as possible, given certain environmental conditions on board. What better place to really knock out some serious book learning than during a 30 year trip somewhere?

  25. Regarding the identity question, it brings to mind an old Greek saying:

    “Wherever I am death is not, and wherever death is, I am not. Therefore, I don’t worry much about death.”

    He was being a typical half-serious Athenian smartass, but was also thinking, like the uploader advocates, in terms of an information-state or “software” concept of identity.

  26. We have zero experience with projects that last for a million years.

    Evolution of life on Earth. It’s a several billion year old project. Jury is still out on whether it was intentional or not.

    As to human projects, we have civilization and the acquisition of knowledge. Both are here for the long term and quite intentional.

    What are the chances of you not going bat shit crazy after only a thousand years?

    So what? Bat shit crazy need not be a permanent state. And most people don’t seem inclined biologically or mentally to go insane to that degree.

    Exactly. Your boss might be satisfied with the copy, because he doesn’t have to hire a replacement. Perhaps even your spouse would even be satisfied — although, I find that idea a bit disturbing. But you would simply cease to be, while your copy lived on.

    Strangely enough, advocates of “uploading” never seem to recognize that contradiction. They talk about saving themselves, not (copies of) other people.

    No contradiction. They are saving themselves not copies of other people. I don’t see any intelligence creature not having a bit of concern over losing memories or a physical body (even if they have plenty more where that came from). I would similarly have some concern over losing a finger, even if that finger grew back. That doesn’t imply what you are claiming.

  27. Sorry, but I don’t buy that argument. It ignores questions of identity. A copy might be your identical twin, with the same memories, but it would not be you.

    There’s only one measure of identity. Can you tell them apart? (Say, I copy someone then put the two in a room with you.) If you can’t, then to you, they are identical no matter what you claim. In the hypothetical scenario above, they could get to that point where you couldn’t tell which was the copy and which was the original. OTOH, there would be two bodies in the room so while to you, they’d be the same person, they would simultaneously be different from each other, merely by the fact of occupying different places in the room.

    Incidentally, the scenario above of the person who is two people is merely due to the vagueness of semantics (namely, the limitations of current definitions of “person”) not some contradiction.

  28. But neither would killing the android be OK. At that point, there would be 2 “me”s, each diverging rapidly. Killing either is still killing an independent life.

    David, what you have just described is a form of asexual reproduction.

    The problem is, what the uploaders seek is not reproduction but personal immortality. And uploading does not provide that.

    Let’s say that you have terminal cancer. They can only save a small portion of your brain, the part that holds the software. They build you a new body – but it isn’t identical.

    That’s an interesting question. What if the brain doesn’t hold all of the software, but only a portion of it? How much can you lose before you’re no longer you?

    But as interesting as that question might be, it’s not the question we’re discussing here. In “uploading,” as it’s generally proposed, you aren’t saving any part of your brain. You’re simply making a *copy* of the software.

    Even in electronic computing, there’s a distinction between code that is running on a system (a process) and code on disk (a file).

    Consciousness seems much more like a process than a file. Copying a process to a new machine does not result in immortality for the original process, it simply results in multiple processes on multiple machines.

  29. There’s only one measure of identity. Can you tell them apart? (Say, I copy someone then put the two in a room with you.)

    Is that a trick question?

    I couldn’t tell the difference between Karl Hallowell and an exact copy of Karl Hallowell, but it would be trivially easy to tell the difference between myself and and an exact copy of myself.

    In the hypothetical scenario above, they could get to that point where you couldn’t tell which was the copy and which was the original.

    Being able to tell which is the copy and which is the original is not the point. A perfect copy would no doubt think he was the original.

    But each copy would know that he was himself and not the “other” copy.

    And the existence of Copy B would not mean that Copy A’s consciousness continues once Copy A is shut down.

  30. Lets say a copy is made of someones mind, which one is the original and which is the copy is indistinguishable, one of them is put into storage, or destroyed, while the other goes about living its life, does it make any difference which is which?

  31. But as interesting as that question might be, it’s not the question we’re discussing here. In “uploading,” as it’s generally proposed, you aren’t saving any part of your brain. You’re simply making a *copy* of the software.

    This is just a semantics game. You still haven’t said what you are. Clearly, you’re not just a hunk of biological material since there are many things with similar constitution (such as trees) and we wouldn’t confuse you with them. Even if we exactly reconstitute your body, there’s still the matter of memories. Nor are you just memories since you have a present mental state that can and does act with the world around you.

    But it’s not unreasonable to consider it possible to copy the memories, the body, and the present mental state. That is, bring everything that is you, perhaps at some point in the past, to a working, active state. That’s good enough for me.

  32. So, you would have no further desire to preserve your life, if you thought someone else was out there who had Karl Hallowell’s memories and thought he was Karl Hallowell?

    Sorry, but I don’t buy that for a moment. What most people want is personal survival, not a simulation which they won’t even around to see.

  33. So, you would have no further desire to preserve your life, if you thought someone else was out there who had Karl Hallowell’s memories and thought he was Karl Hallowell?

    I’d have some desire to preserve the life of each body I had, but I’d definitely be less risk adverse to death than I currently am.

    Sorry, but I don’t buy that for a moment. What most people want is personal survival, not a simulation which they won’t even around to see.

    Suit yourself.

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