From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Thu Dec 02 2004 - 11:52:10 MST
Martin,
I am less confident about the rate of biomedical research than you. I do
some work in the bioinformatics area, including some aging-related genomics
research, and to me it seems that a radical-longevity-enabling breakthrough
within the next 20 years is quite possible. But of course whether it will
be 20 or 50 or 80 years is not possible to say with any confidence.... It's
clear we are making great strides each couple years toward understanding the
mechanisms of human aging, but equally clear that we're not going to have
the immortality pill within the next few years, there is too much that's not
understood....
A good site on longevity research (though I don't agree with all his ideas
by any means) is that of Aubrey de Grey, see:
http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/index.html
Personally I am putting most of my effort into the AI domain as I also think
an acceleration in the rate of progress is the way to go. But I wouldn't
count out biomedicine so confidently either...
-- Ben G
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Striz" <metastriz@yahoo.com>
To: <sl4@sl4.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: Acceptance of death
>
> --- Ben Goertzel <ben@goertzel.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi Martin,
>>
>> In fact I am a bit annoyed that I wasn't around for such events as the
>> invention of language, the formation of the Earth from the Sun, and
>> seeing
>> Hendrix perform live at Berkeley....
>>
>> The boundedness of my existence in the past sucks almost as badly as the
>> boundedness of my existence in the future!
>>
>> However, so far as I can tell, the future-boundedness is easier for me to
>> cure than the past-boundedness....
>>
>> Hopefully once we create superhuman AI's they will help us solve the
>> problem
>> of time-travel and then we'll each be only "as bounded as we wanna be",
>> in
>> our own (optionally-consensually-shared) multiverses...
>
>
> I believe that at the current rate of biomedical research, we will not
> obtain
> the developments that we need for radical longevity within our lifetimes
> (being
> born in 1978, I am programmed to die no later than 2100, no matter what
> lifestyle choices I make). The only way that we'll be able to accelerate
> this
> process is through new molecular techniques (most likely nanotechnology)
> and
> more robust abilities to integrate concepts and solve problems
> (supertintelligence). My only chance rests on a break in the acceleration
> rate. That's why I donate to SIAI.
>
> Cheers,
> Martin Striz
>
>
>
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