What is your view on Biological Immortality

[Jonathan Walkerin]

...or how many attempts must fail before that paradigm is rejected.

I think you are in denial.

At the moment the AI research is 27 billion dollar global business and the rate of investing is rising sharply.

CB Insights: AI startup funding hit new high of $26.6 billion in 2019

Because it will be THE game changer.

For literally everyone.

 

[SkyWriting]

There is an entire movement called trans-humanism dedicated to supporting technologies and sciences such as Biotechnology,Nanotechnology, and Robotics to become Physically Immortal and "God-like" on this Earth via technology, I wanted to know Christian views on such a attempt does this conflict with your beliefs, are you against such things?

Ageing is being cured now with the possibility of more than one year of breakthroughs being added each year. This current advancement curve suggests about 20 years we will reach the break even point. When health care extends your life more than one additional year, each year.

For example, with AI technology, it could inform you of what exactly to eat and how much to stop your aging. Plus the optimal amount of exercise for that particular day. Eventually car accidents would kill off all people who live to long though. Its just statistics. "X" Deaths per mile mean we'll all eventually die. Even pedestrians.

"Stolen car crashes into home on Milwaukee's northwest side"

 

[Victor Medvil]

Ageing is being cured now with the possibility of more than one year of breakthroughs being added each year. This current advancement curve suggests about 20 years we will reach the break even point. When health care extends your life more than one additional year, each year.

That's why I told him to wait until 2045... to continue this conversation. I thought something along those lines too.

 

[Larniavc]

There is an entire movement called trans-humanism dedicated to supporting technologies and sciences such as Biotechnology,Nanotechnology, and Robotics to become Physically Immortal and "God-like" on this Earth via technology, I wanted to know Christian views on such a attempt does this conflict with your beliefs, are you against such things?


Here are a few articles about the subject
Link1 = What if aging weren’t inevitable, but a curable disease?
Link2 = Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever
Link3 = Artificial Human Beings: The Amazing Examples Of Robotic Humanoids And Digital Humans
Link4 = Gene Therapy Is Successfully Treating a Common Form of Inherited Blindness

Great idea. If I knew my son might have the choice to have functional immortality I would be very happy (and not a little bit jealous).

 

[sjastro]

I would tend to agree with this assessment, many experts in the fields of science believe this possible even the foundations for such machines already exists like Watson.

While Watson is an impressive example of AI, AlphaZero trained itself to play chess and within four hours played at an "evolutionary level" far in advance of human grandmasters.

AlphaZero was trained solely via "self-play" using 5,000 first-generation TPUs to generate the games and 64 second-generation TPUs to train the neural networks, all in parallel, with no access to opening books or endgame tables. After four hours of training, DeepMind estimated AlphaZero was playing at a higher Elo rating than Stockfish 8; after 9 hours of training, the algorithm defeated Stockfish 8 in a time-controlled 100-game tournament (28 wins, 0 losses, and 72 draws).[1][2][3] The trained algorithm played on a single machine with four TPUs.

(Stockfish 8 is a conventional chess playing program that would destroy any human player).
The chess computer which could shape our future

 

[Strathos]

While Watson is an impressive example of AI, AlphaZero trained itself to play chess and within four hours played at an "evolutionary level" far in advance of human grandmasters.

(Stockfish 8 is a conventional chess playing program that would destroy any human player).
The chess computer which could shape our future

And yet the programmers of Stockfish then improved it so much that it defeated multiple neural network AI chess engines in the following years and won the Top Chess Engine Championship.

 

[Norbert L]

it isn't a long con like the snake oil salesmen tried in the past

I think it is a long con done in ignorance and misplaced pride that science and technology can actually save you instead of Jesus. Which without having mind reading powers that can travel back in time, it would be impossible to establish whether a salesman of oil really believed in his product or not.

 

[Ophiolite]

Biological immortality? Microbes cracked that one three and a half billion years ago, giving rise to the saying "Immortality is wasted on the small".

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

So we have not been able to extend the maximum lifetime at all. The oldest people in any era, be it Roman or mediaeval or modern, have always been around 120. The average life expectancy has been climbing, but not the maximum we can achieve. We can also make later life more comfortable, with knee replacements and the like. Thing is, any form of implants or so, tend to limit maximum life expectancy, as foreign bodies are not well tolerated in the human organism - so we tend to use them to correct a problem, which may improve life expectancy in that patient for things like cardiac pacing wires, but our oldest people are usually those that had the least medical intervention possible. Similarly, our average life expectancy has been plateauing, so this is a bit presumptuous.

Similarly, all these 'let us scan our brain' type scenarios are unbelievably silly, as we know very little of what is going on there, and no reason to think that a carbon paper copy of the brain function at one point is the same personage as 'you' are. We only have neural correlates for consciousness after all, and no demonstrable causation.

Personally, I don't think it is possible to live forever, by organic means. Our organism will breakdown eventually, and no amount of tinkering will change that. Medicine will try its best, but we are limited it seems to about 6 score at most, and the Biblical three score and 10 is a good average where most societies start slowing down their improvement. Non-organic means is in my opinion another thing in entirety, and not a continuation of the organic, and I have even less confidence in the feasibility of that.

But even more, who would want to live forever in this mortal coil? The very fact of its transience gives it so much more meaning, 'perfect' in its imperfection. Many of these theoretical attempts to achieve immortality, I think, are a bit childish, as if we are throwing a tantrum because we can't have what we want. It is much easier, and probably better, to just accept your mortality and get on with it.

 

[Ophiolite]

Personally, I don't think it is possible to live forever, by organic means. Our organism will breakdown eventually, and no amount of tinkering will change that.

I tend to agree with you, but living to 1,000 would let one learn so many more interesting things and I had always planned to emigrate to Mars when I was 150. Now, it seems, I will be unlikely to live to see the first manned landing.

 

[Marumorose]

There is an entire movement called trans-humanism dedicated to supporting technologies and sciences such as Biotechnology,Nanotechnology, and Robotics to become Physically Immortal and "God-like" on this Earth via technology, I wanted to know Christian views on such a attempt does this conflict with your beliefs, are you against such things?


Here are a few articles about the subject
Link1 = What if aging weren’t inevitable, but a curable disease?
Link2 = Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever
Link3 = Artificial Human Beings: The Amazing Examples Of Robotic Humanoids And Digital Humans
Link4 = Gene Therapy Is Successfully Treating a Common Form of Inherited Blindness

We are souls or spiritual beings. The body is just to cover up the soul so that it can experience life or the five senses on earth
Souls do return to the creator. Scientists can never create souls.
May God Bless you

 

[2PhiloVoid]

There is an entire movement called trans-humanism dedicated to supporting technologies and sciences such as Biotechnology,Nanotechnology, and Robotics to become Physically Immortal and "God-like" on this Earth via technology, I wanted to know Christian views on such a attempt does this conflict with your beliefs, are you against such things?


Here are a few articles about the subject
Link1 = What if aging weren’t inevitable, but a curable disease?
Link2 = Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever
Link3 = Artificial Human Beings: The Amazing Examples Of Robotic Humanoids And Digital Humans
Link4 = Gene Therapy Is Successfully Treating a Common Form of Inherited Blindness

I take a more Bill Joy approach to all of this rather than a Ray Kurzweil approach. And while and I think that are some aspects of the Transhumanist Praxis that may be useful to human health in some moderate to minimal level, as a Christian, I think it is a travesty of the beliefs and ontology that is a part of the Christian Faith. So, I see Transhumanism as a possible 'false religion' of sorts.

 

[eleos1954]

There is an entire movement called trans-humanism dedicated to supporting technologies and sciences such as Biotechnology,Nanotechnology, and Robotics to become Physically Immortal and "God-like" on this Earth via technology, I wanted to know Christian views on such a attempt does this conflict with your beliefs, are you against such things?


Here are a few articles about the subject
Link1 = What if aging weren’t inevitable, but a curable disease?
Link2 = Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever
Link3 = Artificial Human Beings: The Amazing Examples Of Robotic Humanoids And Digital Humans
Link4 = Gene Therapy Is Successfully Treating a Common Form of Inherited Blindness

The breath of life comes from God ... if a living creature can not continuously sustain it's life (without help from artificial means) for a prolonged period of time .... they will die ... or are dead.

We know this .... we could keep people hooked up to breathing machines forever .... but that does not mean they are alive.

Digital immortality --- this is a recording of who you were
Robotics can help with physical challenges ... and that is a good thing
Gene therapy ... if it helps ... fine

Again ... it's about the breath of life that comes from God.

 

[sjastro]

And yet the programmers of Stockfish then improved it so much that it defeated multiple neural network AI chess engines in the following years and won the Top Chess Engine Championship.

Whether the latest version of Stockfish can defeat AlphaZero is debatable since the AI chess engines that have played against Stockfish (Lc0 and its clones) are probably not as strong as AlphaZero.

While Stockfish and conventional chess programs excel at tactical chess which human players can understand, AlphaZero plays primarily positional chess at a level way beyond a Stockfish or Grandmaster player.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I don't understand all this hullabaloo about computers playing Chess. To me, it is the same as pitting a guy doing maths in his head vs one using a calculator. At heart, that is what a computer is, and even if it runs algorithms that it can refine over time, changing or expanding the functions it runs, it is still just following set programming and working off inputs to deliver set outputs, that are then measured against a standard also given as an input to the system.

So in essence, a chess grandmaster was defeated by a team of guys using a very fancy calculator. Okay, am I supposed to read something into this? A guy in a car can out-distance the fastest runner alive, too.

 

[Strathos]

I don't understand all this hullabaloo about computers playing Chess. To me, it is the same as pitting a guy doing maths in his head vs one using a calculator. At heart, that is what a computer is, and even if it runs algorithms that it can refine over time, changing or expanding the functions it runs, it is still just following set programming and working off inputs to deliver set outputs, that are then measured against a standard also given as an input to the system.

So in essence, a chess grandmaster was defeated by a team of guys using a very fancy calculator. Okay, am I supposed to read something into this? A guy in a car can out-distance the fastest runner alive, too.

It was the new approach to the game using machine learning that was of interest, but as I pointed out, conventional chess engines were able to be improved to catch up.

 

[sjastro]

I don't understand all this hullabaloo about computers playing Chess. To me, it is the same as pitting a guy doing maths in his head vs one using a calculator. At heart, that is what a computer is, and even if it runs algorithms that it can refine over time, changing or expanding the functions it runs, it is still just following set programming and working off inputs to deliver set outputs, that are then measured against a standard also given as an input to the system.

So in essence, a chess grandmaster was defeated by a team of guys using a very fancy calculator. Okay, am I supposed to read something into this? A guy in a car can out-distance the fastest runner alive, too.

To use your calculator analogy imagine a calculator that was only programmed to perform basic arithmetical functions but developed through machine learning all the complicated functions associated with scientific calculators.

AlphaZero was only programmed with the basic moves, it had to learn chess through self play.
At first it made stupid random moves but after four hours of training on a neural network it was much stronger than any Grandmaster.
Chess is about tactics and positional chess.
Whereas tactics involve calculations, positional chess involves long term planning using the "human characteristic" creativity.
The facts are under time control conditions AlphaZero's positional chess knowledge is vastly superior to any human.
We poor humans can only understand AlphaZero's play when its games are analysed where time is no limit.
In the sample game in my last post Stockfish 8 which would destroy any human player, played poorly against AlphaZero as it has very limited positional knowledge compared to AlphaZero.

As to what is the point of all this, AlphaZero is a catalyst to developing AI programs such as AlphaFold which is involved in scientific research.

 

[stevevw]

There is an entire movement called trans-humanism dedicated to supporting technologies and sciences such as Biotechnology,Nanotechnology, and Robotics to become Physically Immortal and "God-like" on this Earth via technology, I wanted to know Christian views on such a attempt does this conflict with your beliefs, are you against such things?


Here are a few articles about the subject
Link1 = What if aging weren’t inevitable, but a curable disease?
Link2 = Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever
Link3 = Artificial Human Beings: The Amazing Examples Of Robotic Humanoids And Digital Humans
Link4 = Gene Therapy Is Successfully Treating a Common Form of Inherited Blindness

This is a human's goal to cheat death and live forever. But I think any promise of eternal beauty and extending life has always left people disappointed. I think the idea itself can be destructive as it has the notion that people don't want to accept life as it comes and places too much importance on life on planet earth as the be-all and end-all.

The media such as Hollywood and magazines create this false idea that we have to look beautiful to be successful and happy. That can cause more problems in the head rather than physical life being extended and who would want to live for such a long time if they are not happy with life anyway. In fact, more and more people are ending their life so I am not sure that a promise to live even longer in anguish would be a great idea for them.

I think the idea of creating artificial humans also has its good and bad side. It may be good for people who have lost body parts to have something that can closely resemble a human function. But robotics are also taking over and making humans redundant in work which is causing many to become unemployed and feel useless.

From a Christian point of view the bible says to store up our riches in heaven and that this life is just a passing phase to eternal life which will bring true happiness. So maybe the idea of cheating death, making oneself beautiful and creating the perfect artificial human is Satans way of replicating God. It elevates humans as gods who can overcome anything and therefore can do without God. That was Satan.s intention wasn't it to be able to do anything God can do so he could deceive people into thinking he was a god.

 

[Aaron112]

There is an entire movement called trans-humanism dedicated to supporting technologies and sciences such as Biotechnology,Nanotechnology, and Robotics to become Physically Immortal and "God-like" on this Earth via technology, I wanted to know Christian views on such a attempt does this conflict with your beliefs, are you against such things?

Is not that the same deception that the devil used to trick Adam and Chavah into their sin - to "become' god-like ?
It is still an overwhelming and abominable deception worldwide today.

 

[Aaron112]

A long time ago fallen angels decided to mate with mankind

This presumption/ fallacy has detoured millions from truth.
It not only did not happen, it could not, without contradicting God Himself.