X-Message-Number: 19124
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: More arguments against immortality.
Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 10:56:23 -0700

In Message #19110 Brett Bellmore offered some arguments against immortality:

(1) "Given the speed of light as an absolute, there's no way the volume and
mass available to you can continue to increase exponentially, as that scheme
requires, for more than a short while. "

But WHICH speed of light, to begin with?  Since this "absolute" required a
democratic vote to assign it a number and that the actual measurements of
the speed of light vary, there are some serious issues with this belief.
Despite its current popularity there are evidently some very real problems
surfacing with relativity theory (and, no, I tend to confuse which is which,
"special" versus "general").

(2) "Not to mention the fact that other people might ALSO find some use for
the universe..."

Unless the universe is simply infinite.

"Secondly, the scheme ignores the possibility of some common failure mode
which could propagate through the dispersed network, taking them all out.
Such as the dispersed person becoming suicidal?"

Which would require no means to correct as the errors happen.  I am typing
these words on machines which do this already to some extent.  On the issue
of suicide, there really are very limited causes for suicide which ALL boil
down to the issue of assuming that you will never have the possibility to
have fun again.  (I have compressed about thirty years of professional
crisis intervention work into that last sentence).  All scenerios which
leave you with no hope for fun require closed systems.  Again, what if the
universe is actually infinite?

(3) "Further, for dispersal to actually constitute survival on an ongoing
basis, the dispersed units would have to be in communication. There too, the
speed of light limitation gets you; The further apart the units get, the
slower that communication, and if they're to remain in sync, the slower your
subjective experience. So even if you did get an infinite objective lifespan
that way, I think you'd still end up with a finite subjective lifespan,
though I admit I haven't done the math. Maybe I will, when somebody starts
advertising this service. ;)"

My answer is the same as for #1.  This assumes the current popular dogma is
correct in regard to relativity.

"Alternatively, in as much as what we really want (Well, what I really want)
is an extremely long subjective lifespan, anything which accelerates your
thought processes without shortening your objective life span would have to
be considered a form of life extension, right? There's probably the
potential for a thousand to million-fold expansion of our subjective
lifespans right there, without violating any known physical laws, by
implementing our brains in nano-electronic form. That alone, without any
increase in objective lifespan, would give us subjective lives longer than
the time apparently remaining to this universe. And in that time, what
schemes couldn't we hatch?"

Yes, Brett.  If we don't assume that what passes for scientific theory today
may not be proven to be the absolute and final "truth" (while the evidence
which undercuts these theories is, as usual, ignored by the current crop of
status quo scientists) we may indeed discover that it is possible to keep on
going with no reason to demonstrate that we MUST ever die.

Just my thoughts,

George Smith
CI member and Immortalist

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19124