X-Message-Number: 23851 From: "David Pizer" <> Subject: Why we can live forever Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 01:26:21 -0700 Why (I think) we can live forever. And, what we might all at least agree on. By: David Pizer I believe that the universe has always existed and will always exist. Why? To get you to agree with me, you have to at least agree with my first premise. 1. You can make something from nothing. This, I will argue, leads to the conclusion --- So the universe has always existed. This then leads to a conclusion that the universe (or it's decendants) must always continue to exist (in some form). Before we proceed, let me explain what I mean so far. I don't intend this sfirst atement (1) to be an axiom. It is not intended to be a logical truth in that it can be proven logically. Instead it is a foundational truth. It doesn't need explaining. It is one of the bedrock statements that others are built from. It is like saying your left hand is your left hand. There is no need to explain. You know which is your left hand without arguing about it. I am not trying to make an argument for (1). If you can't see its truth, you don't need to read on. Further when I say the term "universe" I mean it in the original fashion to include everything that can exist everywhere. Today we talk about universes, as if they were separate. But when I talk about the universe I think this might be what some people call omniverse? By saying "universe" I mean all separate universes in any dimensions (if there are others). I mean everything everywhere collectively. When I talk about nothing, I am not talking about empty space. Empty space is something - empty space. A vacuum is a vacuum. Nothing (since it doesn't exist) cannot be explained since we have no example of it. It is only a concept we can try to imagine. To try to explain my concept of nothing I would start by saying that I envision that there could be two (and only two) ways the universe could be. Either it exists and there is something or it does not exist and there is nothing. If it did not exist and there was nothing, there would be no vacuum, no empty space no thing, nothing. But that is not the case and something does exist - the universe. You can have a something that contains within it, a nothing. Something and nothing are mutually exclusive. You can only have one or the other. Our universe, in my explantion of it, cannot contain nothing anywhere in it, or outside of it. Therefore, our universe must be infinite in size. (If it is infinte in size, it must be infinte in time for if it was not infinite then there would come a time when it no longer existed and that would bring about the condition of nothing and since nothing can not evlove from something that can never happen so it must be the case that the universe is also infinite in time. Another approach ---- Could there ever have been a time when there was no thing and then something came from that. No. Because if there was no thing then how could something come from that? It can't. This is not something that can be argued for. The concept of nothing includes in it that no thing now and no thing ever. No thing has to be infinite in time for similar reasons that something has to be. So, since some thing cannot come from nothing, then the only logically explanation is that some thing has always existed. It may have been some thing different from what we observe now and it could have been altered from a Big Bang-type of thing, but even the Big Bang (if there was one) came from something. If there was a Big Bang it was not a bang of creation but a bang of change. Some of you will see this and agree and if you do agree with this reasoning so far and you think that at least something has to have always existed then from that starting point, I would try to convince you that whatever has always existed can not be destroyed, it can only be changed. If you agree in principle so far then you might still say something like "..... yes some stuff will always exist but with the changing conditions that appear to be in the universe we will have to die sometime in the future because the universe is winding down or getting cold or getting hot or expanding or going to condense and crush us or turn into a big crunch and then another big bang or whatever....." And you might be right about that being the natural way the universe is heading. But no matter what the problem, if we can create physical immortality for ourselves and be smart and/or lucky enough to avoid accidents for a couple of billion years, by then we should be able to exactly figure what condition the universe is heading into AND if it is heading into a condition that will not sustain life (Remember we might be able to change our physical bodies to adapt to changing conditions in the universe) in some reasonable form, then we will have to *try* to change the universe or at least the part of it where we intend to survive and continue on. So what I am trying to do is lay out a plan that most of us would agree on. It goes like this. 1. For now get cryonically suspended to get into the future. 2. In the near future, we get reanimated and become physically immortal. 3. We work to change our physical form to adapt to changing conditions of the universe. 4. We work to change conditions of the universe (if they are becoming bad for us). In other words, over the next few billion years or so, we try to turn physical immortality into full blown immortality. ----------------- If you haven't fallen asleep yet, let me speak on one more subject - why the ability to sense awareness is more important to one's selfness then memories. Memories are conditional. The thing that senses awareness (and memories) is not conditional it has to be what it is to be what it is. If your awareness sensor was a different one, then you would be that person and not who you are. But your memories could be of many types (or could have been of many types) and as long as they are being sensed by you they are yours. It is who is sensing the memories that make them belong to a certain person and not what the memories are about. For instance, tomorrow you may go for ice cream or you may instead go for low fat cottage, for lunch. Let's say you have ice cream on a Tuesday. On Wednesday you have memories of you having had ice cream on Tuesday. But if you had had low fat cottage cheese on Tuesday instead, then your memories that you have on Wednesday would be different. But either way, which either memories you have on Wednesday (Ice cream or low fat cottage cheese), it is still you. The thing that feels the memories has to be the same thing day after day, but the memories could have been selected from many possible options of which you may have chosen any one of them. It doesn't matter what content of memories you had, you could have been hot last week or you could have been cold instead last week. So this week you might have either one of those possible memories. But the one thing that can not be conditional is the Unique Awareness Sensor that feels those memories. If it is you that feels those conditional memories then they are yours. It isn't the specific content of the memory that makes it your memory, it is the thing that remembers it. If that thing is your UAS, then and only then are those memories yours. 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