Can we achieve immortality?

[u/Mindless-Item-5136]

The last similar question on reddit was 2 years ago and there was no concrete answer, maybe something has changed?

[u/Mental-Flight-2412]

Not to be rude but how can anybody answer this with certainty.

If mind uploading was to become a thing and we could upload into synthetic bodies then yes. Would we live to see it? I’m leaning towards probably not and we don’t understand consciousness so the concept is speculative. That’s just one example.

[u/Dragons-In-Space → u/Mental-Flight-2412]

Immortality, in a sense, can be pursued through these methods:

• Copy (bad)
• Slow replacement (safe)
• Extension (safe)

• Copying: Duplicating your consciousness.

Example: Transcendence, where Dr. Will Caster uploads his mind to a computer, creating a digital replica. This copy isn't truly you, so this approach is often dismissed by real scientists. If it's not you that lives on them what is the point? Perhaps these first copies can figure out the two proper methods.

• Slow Replacement: Gradually replacing brain cells or functions with digital equivalents, similar to the Ship of Theseus, where a ship remains the same despite all parts being swapped over time. Your consciousness persists as you because it’s never interrupted or duplicated, only sustained through gradual change. There is no copy or quick time transfers taking place.

Example: Ghost in the Shell, where damaged neurons are slowly replaced with digital ones, maintaining continuity, but being local, rather than a distributed intelligence still has its capacity constraints.

E.g. Replacement hypothetical. Many brain cells, grow, connect, and replace throughout your lifetime. Same would eventually happen to all brain cells if you were made biologically imortal. You just change the substrate 1 cell at a time.

Eventually, those neurons you speak of will die weather now or in 100 years and can thus be replaced without your consciousness continuity being stopped, copied, or replaced as a whole.

The slow method of replacing dying or dead cells is how you retain your intact consciousness and continuity.

The quantum processes that are your consciousness stay intact. It's not the biological architecture that makes you you, it's the job it does in terms of quantum processes that's your consciousness. Hence if the substrates is biological or not, it should matter as long as the process continue in mass.

As soon as that process as a whole stops as it does with copy and one-time replacement, that is not you.

Hence the underlying strata can be slowly replaced as long as the majority of the same quantum system doesn't stop at any time.

• Extension: Augmenting your mind indefinitely by integrating additional computational resources (e.g., CPU, memory), avoiding disruption or duplication. Your consciousness expands into this new capacity, with the idea that eventually given enough time, the biological brain becomes a minor component, like a fingernail to the body or much larger consciousness. Or perhaps an acorn to an oak tree. Should the brain eventually stop functioning, the loss is minimal, and your consciousness continues to grow and evolve seamlessly without any interruption.

Example: Lucy, where the protagonist becomes so intelligent she cracks the laws of physics, merging her consciousness with the universe’s information network, expanding and sustaining it indefinitely using this new resource. Obviously, we would most likely use some new version of the cloud. Until the first few minds discover how to achieve slow replacement of neurons instead of doing the same thing in a sense locally.

Preferred Method:
Consciousness extension – a process that allows your consciousness to evolve and expand without copying or disrupting its continuity.

[u/RawenOfGrobac → u/Mental-Flight-2412]

I just did, yes immortality is possible. This isnt even a debate. But just in case, i mean biological immortality, so our definitions are straight.

[u/UprootedSwede → u/RawenOfGrobac]

I think this is still very much deserving of debate. What do you mean by biological immortality? Immortality implies you cannot die, which in its strictest sense is impossible. But of course we usually immortality in a more loosely defined sense. But since you say it's not a debate, what do you mean by it?

[u/RawenOfGrobac → u/UprootedSwede]

Im-mortal does define as the inability to die through any means, which is physically impossible. You can drop a matrioshka brain into a star and itll still die.

So i use the term "Biological" immortality instead, because i assume we arent discussing something that is literally physically impossible, and that OP just means "Is not dying an option?"

Biological immortality just implies you dont experience biological decay due to any inherent limitation of your natural or unnatural biology, and i say this is possible for humans because we already have macroscopic animals on earth with biological immortality.

[u/RedLensman]

At some point but you wont be the same person unless memory storage space is addressed somehow.....

I can see in time death outside of violence/accident being the exception, with the above caveat

I feel this way, that in time we will understand biology and medicine will become precise like engineering.

A bigger question is will our species ever address action that is harmful to the whole society..... rampant greed, narcissism, psychopathy etc....

[u/y0nm4n → u/RedLensman]

We really have no clue how memory storage works in the brain, and we certainly haven’t the faintest clue how this intersects with identity.

[u/RedLensman → u/y0nm4n]

Just saying if your immortal.....at some point you would have to lose memory for new ones..... from a physics view. Only so much data per unit volume....

[u/THE_SE7EN_SINS]

We? No. But I’m sure some rich guy will be if they aren’t already.

[u/threebillion6]

Maybe longevity. But idk about invincible. If we could just replace each part of the body as they fail, or even uploading yourself into a robo brain that lasts forever. But still can be turned off. Neuralink is working on stuff like that. But it's almost a Ship Of Theseus, at what point are you still yourself. I mean the human body replaces all its cells every 7 years or so.

[u/EmergencyAnything715 → u/threebillion6]

The idea that all human cells are replaced within seven years is a myth; cell replacement is a continuous process, but it varies greatly, with some cells (like gut lining) replaced in days and others (like brain neurons) replaced very slowly or not at all. While the exact rate differs, the process of cell regeneration is ongoing, with different tissues and organs having distinct turnover rates to maintain health and function.

Examples of cell replacement rates: Gut lining cells: These cells are exposed to a harsh environment and are replaced frequently, often within 4–5 days.

Skin cells: Replaced every few weeks, approximately every 2–4 weeks. Red blood cells: Have a turnover cycle of about four months.

Liver cells: Regenerate at a slower pace, with a turnover rate of about 6–12 months. Bone cells: Undergo remodeling, which is a slower process, taking about 10 years for a full replacement.

Brain cells (neurons): Most neurons, especially in the brain, are not replaced after birth and last a lifetime, though some specific neuron populations may regenerate at a very slow rate.

[u/threebillion6 → u/EmergencyAnything715]

Ok so about 10 years. You could say most cells in your body are different than they were 10 years ago.

[u/C1rc1es]

There is some interesting work going on in epigenetics that may yield some results towards life extension and reverse aging, a study was published here: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)01570-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867422015707%3Fshowall%3Dtrue01570-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867422015707%3Fshowall%3Dtrue)

As for immortality, yet to be seen but we are yet to find some definitive mechanism in the universe that dictates that we must age and die from age related disease so it's not completely out of the question at this point.

[u/CosmicExistentialist → u/C1rc1es]

As for immortality, yet to be seen but we are yet to find some definitive mechanism in the universe that dictates that we must age and die from age related disease

That mechanism is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics…

[u/ScienceOfficerMasada → u/CosmicExistentialist]

We are bathed in excess energy from the sun that we can use to increase order at the local level (Earth). As long as the sun holds out, there's no physical reason we can't constantly repair ourselves.

[u/lI_-_-_Il]

I mean yeah but there’s equivalent exchange. Kinda a moral issue I’d say.

[u/Heavy_Carpenter3824]

We should be able to through various methods right up until the heat death of the universe. Then well, let there be light. 

[u/Uvtha-]

We will eventually lengthen lifespans for sure, but no, we will all die one day, no matter what science accomplishes.  

I don't think there have been any concrete advancements in this area, so I would expect to die at the same age as people die now give or take.

[u/paradox34690]

Right now? Highly improbable.

In the future? Maybe. I speculate that one of two things has to be accomplished before we can say that.

1. Biologically, we would need to halt cellular death and (mostly likely) have to figure out how to cure all diseases, permanently, including all cancers, and side affects of all known (and future) bioweapons. And this would only be a scratch on the surface of a biological solution. There could be machines like those in the movie Elysium where they repeatedly cure you of disease...

2. Redefine what "immortal" means. Is it a permanent continuence of living in your flesh and blood body? What if your consciousness were able to continue existing after your body ceases to function? What if we could truly upload our consciousness to a computer? I don't mean like the movie Transcendence where the AI is mimicking you, I mean like REALLY your consciousness. You. But digitally. Would that be immortal? If so, then the possibilities could be numerous. We could eventually develop mechanical bodies capable of receiving the human consciousness.

[u/markth_wi]

Right now we do not know of how to do that. Sure there are some snake-oil sales-guys that will tell you that some exponentiating super-intelligence is right around the corner and will gladly bring us along for the ride... and while interesting it's a speed-run - we might well accidentally birth our first daughter civilization in the next few years. But we are still so very unwise that instead of a profound moment in our shared history it could easily be our undoing.

So right here, right now, we are unprepared for anything like that. We can't even treat our fellow humans properly. So while I believe that some suffering and despair and perhaps war too will maybe be with us for a very long time, but nobody said it had to be as prevalent, and in that retirement of those failures we become a better people.

We might even become a species that other civilizations might want to know. But if we're being honest with ourselves - asking about immortality is asking about some question on the final exam while we sit here in diapers unable to clean up after ourselves and surrounded by mess.

We have a lot of growing up to do.....and if we're very, very lucky than we might survive our childhood and our adolescence as a species, I believe that we right now are a dangerous species, not by intent necessarily but because we haven't the foggiest idea of how to run our affairs.

Worse is that if we were to take someone from 1000 years ago in Europe and show them our future with flying machines and spaceships and magical boxes that talk to us and we talk back , how would we describe it as anything other than magic.

How then would they view the less positive aspects of our civilization, nuclear weapons, genetically optimized plagues, death camps, relocation facilities , or any of the even more colorful things the more sadistic members of our species get up to. No our world is as much a world of wonders as it is traumatic horrors that would send our ancestors cowering into the corner at our depravity and indifference. In that way again, we are not ready for immortality.

Even our perspective on how we conduct ourselves economically leaves what could charitably be called "opportunities for improvement". Our economics are dominated by winner take all , and scarcity constraints and zero-sum-games. That part of the failure of imagination of our species right now. We are incredibly young as a species , we have a hegemony of powerful interests that are perfectly content to arrange our civilization on min-maxing their place and managing how we use and consume resources.

In truth we need to rediscover some important lost aspects of ourselves, self-reliance and being responsible to ourselves and to our fellow members of our societies as adults/civically minded people , and while we know how to create abundance and plan for scarcity we seldom build and plan accordingly, in that way we utterly fail in recognizing our place, and again we find ourselves unready for the lofty question of immortality.

In that way immortality is nothing we could handle - perhaps at the individual level it might be interesting to imagine what must it be like to have lived from the time of Ur and the Babylonian civilization as is posited in The Man from Earth or Highlander but on a mass scale we are not ready.

We are not governed by some higher entities - there are no gods from on high that we can certainly point to, but our myths and legends are riddled with portrayals of gods and monsters which animate the various cruelties that a profoundly indifferent universe can saddle each and every one of us with in our lives.

And we have only reason and a modicum of compassion , the only two tools we have that appear to have more upside than downside and we don't exercise them anything like correctly. The real hazard would become that largely our freedom exists only because tyrants die, in the death of tyrants is birthed even the possibility of our freedom, and we are not particularly good at holding on to those freedoms. So oddly death among our species is a tool nonetheless, we might not actively use it , and we have strong prohibitions against murder and killing but, it is a tool nonetheless.

So we are not ready for immortality in some really profound ways, in that way the passing of tyrants has allowed empires to fall, new ones to rise and progress to take hold. And so with those humblest of tools, we have been engaged in a great upward movement of our species , from hunter-gatherer to tribes, to city-states , and nation-states and perhaps one fine day off-world colonies, city-states on far-flung points of light separated by vast distances.

In that way the less fortunate among us, the animals around us suffer in untold numbers and on that account I think we reach a kind of maturity when we can recognize that cosmic debt we owe to all those many who've suffered through thousands of years of our persistent stupidity and fears.

But I like to think , one fine day , our species might well be in the business of exploring and colonizing and bringing life of every description to far off worlds and ourselves become capable of bringing life and perhaps even some spark of intelligence to some other species.

I think then we might be ready for the question of immortality....but I can't be sure.

[u/skyerosebuds]

No WE can’t (this generation) but seems likely distant future generations will if we don’t destroy ourselves getting there. Hate to be a downer but I think the probability of civilisation stretching in a long enough iterative cycle of scientific development sufficient to solve the health condition called mortality but without a single bad actor causing catastrophic chaos and ruining the plan, is very low. Seems more likely we will spawn artificial consciousnesses that will exist indefinitely (well, until the power gets turned off)

[u/Ask369Questions]

This is reverse knowledge.

What is the point of being immortal.

There is something greater.

[u/RawenOfGrobac]

Yeah, its not really a matter of debate. The science is just difficult.

[u/managerair]

I have seen on youtube that you can manifest anything you want. Lets just hope manifestation technique works for staying forever young🤗

[u/ivyta76]

in my opinion this is impossible, human body can't work an infinity

[u/Wyldefire6]

Corporeal response: No. Your flesh bag will decay, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Transcendent response: No. We know next to nothing about how the human brain really works, and how your consciousness exists. (Or even what consciousness is).

Absolutely not in your lifetime.