This series is a continuation of my conversations with an atheist friend of mine. These are my edited responses from that conversation. The thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth entries deal with extending one’s life artificially. More and more research has come to light which might allow us to one day replace our entire bodies with artificial mechanisms that duplicate the functionality of our biological systems that we depend on. We already replace certain parts with mechanical options already, though generally it is because a biological part has failed. I don’t know of anyone who has opted to get a mechanical version of a part when their biological part still works. There is some speculation that one of the current generations alive will have the option to replace entire bodies with cybernetics. So if you could, would you? We probably have a few more decades of Moore’s law holding, and by the end of it we will have computers (perhaps quantum ones) that can process a lot faster than our brains can. It will only be a matter of finding a way to put ourselves inside a computer. I feel very uncomfortable with that. I am not sure placing my consciousness inside a computer is really me anymore. However, if I were to gradually replace one failing part at a time, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. It could be that I’m so uncomfortable with it because the brain is still such an unknown device. How much of my brain is “me” and how much of my body is “me”. On the other hand, if parts of my brian were replaced gradually and my stream of consciousness was continuous, I won’t have a problem with it. I think it is our sense of continuity and uniqueness that draws such fine lines in this matter. (More on this in the next post.) My friend posited that it is “our natural aversion to change and our natural ability to adapt to small perturbations that makes us feel this way. We have our normal concept of self, and it changes minutely all the time due to various influences and experiences in our lives. But sometimes a significant change can completely upset your concept of what is normal for you and your own life, and you are forced to renormalize quickly and painfully.” So given that if I adapt slowly enough I would be all right become computerized, would I demand to have some sort of corporal form to manipulate or would I be okay existing as nothing but code in some sort of stationary mainframe? I know I would want some sort of mobile form that I could manipulate with my mind, and I would prefer it to be very similar to the form of my present body (enhanced of course). Another interesting idea is that we could control objects but not be a part of them - for example have some sort of machine that we can control mentally by remote through an interface, but that interface doesn't have to be some sort of clunky object, it can be implemented simply through code.
This series is a continuation of my conversations with an atheist friend of mine. These are my edited responses from that conversation. The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth entries deal with leaving a legacy. Leaving a legacy could be something as grandiose as changing the world, or it could be as simple as leaving a record of what you did. I keep a journal though not a daily one. The problem with keeping a daily journal is that most of life is, unfortunately, mundane. I tried to write something down every day, but I quickly found that I was boring myself. Most amazing things happen gradually, not day to day, so I’ve found that if I write something every time I post to the blog (about once every three weeks or so) that I usually have something worthwhile to write. I frequently go back through my old twitter and facebook feeds to see what I was doing this time last year. Some of that fascination with myself is because I want to know that I wasn’t and am not just wasting my time on trivial things. On the other hand, perhaps I find my past doings interesting because we find the most interesting person in the world to be ourselves. Regarding the side questions of post 34 from Serious Conversations (what is it to be remembered? I don’t think merely having my name remembered is worth it. I think that what I’ve done must be remembered. And: is it enough to have your accomplishment remembered but not who you were?): If your name is remembered, but what you did is not remembered then I wouldn’t be satisfied. I think I’d be okay if my name was forgotten but my deeds remembered. Still though, I would prefer to be remembered as a person, but I doubt that will happen. That really happens to almost no one, so I won’t expect it of myself. I’ll just hope for it. I do accept the premise to divide the thought of leaving a legacy into two distinct items: to make a contribution to humanity and to be remembered as a thoughtful person. You can certainly accomplish one but not the other. As to which one is more important, I won’t hazard a guess. I suppose it depends on how important your relationships with other people are that dictates how important it is to you to be remembered as a person. I understand that the way history as a concept is treated is much different now than it was in the past. I feel relatively certain that it will continue to change and that the concept of history will be much different in a few thousand years, perhaps to the point where the individual doesn’t even matter (Though that is difficult to rectify with the fact that our culture is so pervasive with the concept of ego right now.) or to the point where only individuals matter (though that doesn’t make much sense.). I suppose my point is that it is pointless to try to leave a legacy because we don’t know how our actions or ourselves will be interpreted in the future. Perhaps we should be more content with the now - be more concerned with bettering ourselves and humanity for the now, not for the future.
This series is a continuation of my conversations with an atheist friend of mine. These are my edited responses from that conversation. The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth entries deal with leaving a legacy. Sorry for the hiatus. Writing a thesis takes a lot of work. For the next few months, the blog should resume its normal post every three weeks schedule. My friend begins: In the past, people have been studied and remembered through letters they have written or journals they have kept - what about us? What will happen to our vast archives of e-mails, Facebook and Twitter updates, blog posts, etc? But the cycle of life and death and the fading of memories over time are central and fundamental to human existence. Maybe they are ultimately the most fundamental things of all in the human consciousness, and that's why people are so driven to leave a legacy. Whereas we are biologically driven to reproduce our genes, we also have this extra mental baggage of memories and ideas that we want to pass on, and that can't be done biologically. Throughout our lives, we witness the fading of memories with time and death and also see younger generations running off with ideas of their own, and we are afraid of being forgotten. I respond: As I continue to work in academia, I am impressed by the difficulty in making a name for oneself. The renown meteorologists publish vast quantities of research across a multitude of different disciplines. I believe it will be very difficult to leave a legacy in the scientific community though that is my ultimate goal, so I'm forced to consider ways to be remembered outside of the science. Because I don't really have very many grandiose ideas that might make me memorable, I'm simply making sure that I leave all my thoughts and work that I do produce well documented in digital form and saved in many places. It is partly why I am sure to keep my website up to date and easily visible. If I die tomorrow, there will be some record of me out there that can be viewed. It might be that to be human, you must not only live and die, but accomplish and be forgotten. Consider this, think about all the people who have done something far in the past that made them be really memorable to their generation and the next couple of following generations, but we have no idea who they are now. I could site innumerable examples, but here is one: can you name something significant that each of the US presidents did? I bet you can’t. I can’t. (I can’t even name all of them from memory.) I bet no one except presidential historians can. They were the leaders of what would be (for a time) the “greatest” country in the world, but no one remembers anything about them except their names. (Another side question, what is it to be remembered? I don’t think merely having my name remembered is worth it. I think that what I’ve done must be remembered.) I think almost universally that to be remembered for long periods of time you must contribute something to the arts, sciences, philosophy. I don’t think any political accomplishments will be remembered for all that long. And beyond that, at some point we will all be forgotten even if humanity continues for another 100,000 years. Another example, who invented the wheel? We have no clue. An inventor who could rank up and beyond with da Vinci, Edison, Ford, Franklin and we have no idea who he/she is. The reasons are because it was so long ago, and the communication mechanisms used to record the event and name (stone, primitive language) were rendered obsolete. (Back to my side question, is it enough to have your accomplishment remembered but not who you were?) I would argue that the mechanisms that are used today to record history (paper, computers, modern language) will also one day become obsolete, and a lot of people’s names will be lost in the process even though the actual accomplishments might remain.
This series is a continuation of my conversations with an atheist friend of mine. These are my edited responses from that conversation. The thirtieth through thirty-third entries deal with death. So stating that we will be able to cheat death at some point and assuming we live long enough to see that happen, would I want to live forever? For me, I think I will eventually get bored, and we all know that forever isn’t really forever. In a very large number of years, the universe will no longer have any useable energy, and we won’t be able to exist (thanks to the second law of thermodynamics). So we will die; even with technology, we cannot cheat death. (I say that with certainty based off of current knowledge, perhaps there is a way around all of this, whether through multiverses or whatever.) But the fact remains, with /nearly/ unlimited time, I’m going to run out of stuff to do, probably. However, the sum of human knowledge doubles every few years (that rate surely is not sustainable), so I could live forever and not run out of things to do (learn). [Speaking of inventing things to do, my friend theorized that perhaps our “reality” is just a program inside a computer and our actual selves are computerized and our consciousness is living out this existence as an experiment for our true selves.] However, the “Big Chill” is what, 1 with 100 zeros behind it years away. I occasionally get bored now, and I’m only 26. Imagine being 10^100 years old though. I suppose the question is, is forever longer enough to get bored with infinity? To end the discussion on death, we are all hard wired to be scared of death. We certainly wouldn’t get very far if no living creature feared death. Evolution and natural selection wouldn’t work; creatures would die before expressing and passing along superior traits. Interestingly, I often consider the various ways I could die in a given situation. I suppose that’s a bit morbid, but I think being aware of possible hazards prevents me from being injured. I definitely want to leave a legacy of sorts (a good one), but being obsessed with leaving an imprint can definitely cloud your judgment (a la G.W. Bush). I want to have accomplished something so that one of the branches of sciences is positively impacted. That is probably a bit grandiose, but I’m not demanding that I get an equation named after me or I receive a Nobel Prize. I just want to have done something very useful. Perhaps I don’t want to leave a legacy as much as I want to be merely remembered. (More on legacy and becoming mechanized in the next few S.C. entries.)
Greetings and Salutations, Welcome to the Tenth (yes the tenth) Annual Christmas Mass E-mail. I hope this finds each and every one of you well. I recently had the statistic re-quoted to me that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something. To add a bit of perspective to that number, if you were to practice an hour every day at your occupation of choice, it would take you almost 30 years to reach this magic number of 10,000. Thirty years to be good at something, what dedication! In thinking about all the time I have spent on all my music and instruments, I am, perhaps, a quarter of the way to it. In a way, it is somewhat depressing that it takes so long to be "good" at something, but in another way, it is very exciting because you will continually get better. I am elated to think that if I keep working, someday I might be four times the musician that I am now. Just think how much better you can be at whatever you want by the time you're reading the 11th annual e-mail. Do it; make it happen. Conversely, I have the terrible tendency (and this year is no exception) to be unable to say no. Given that it takes so long to master the hobbies that I find enjoyable, I frequently ask myself why I’m working on things I have no interest in. By doing something that does not fulfill some part of myself, I am denying myself the mastery of activities in which I find great comfort and pleasure. There are probably very few of us that have put 10,000 hours of time into a favorite hobby or pastime or even perhaps profession, so we all have room to improve on the activities that make us happy. If you are doing something that does not make you happy or improve your quality of life, move on; let it go; say no. And that thing you’ve always been meaning to do, start. You’ll always be 10,000 hours away until you work on that first hour. Three hundred and sixty-six days from now you will still be a year older regardless of if you learn something new or not, so you might as well begin now. Lastly, I want to pull a quote (hopefully not completely out of context) from another Christmas letter from one of my professors. He said, “…the lessons and events of life are seldom the things that we see on the surface; there is almost always something deeper. Such is our life. We see what we choose to see…” (Perhaps after a few thousand more hours I shall be as articulate and profound as he.) I ask you to see what you normally would not see. Take time to pause, reflect, and ponder on the events of your life. They are unique to you, and only you can absorb the lessons that will best reward you. You owe it to yourself to see. Find that deeper meaning, and do not be afraid of what your life lessons might teach you. And that’s it. I finally finish my career at MSU in May. In some ways I am sad to see it go, but I am more excited about what lies ahead (more school in some far away location). I must assume the same for many of you — sad to know that another year has gone by, but excited to begin anew. Once again, congratulations to all of you who have really done something amazing this year, whether it’s finishing a degree, getting married, starting a family, finding a new passion in life or any other accomplishment. But never be satisfied; always strive for more. Always question, learn, grow; otherwise, what’s the point? Enjoy the season, appreciate the little things, and take the time to give yourself some credit for making it as far as you have. Reply to let me know how you’re doing and what you’ve accomplished; wanting to hear from you is half the reason I send this every year. And the requisite bad joke… A woman was shopping at the local supermarket where she selected: A half-gallon of 2% milk A carton of eggs A quart of orange juice A head of lettuce A 2 lb. can of coffee As she was unloading the items on the conveyor belt to check out, an obviously drunk man was standing behind her watching as she placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up the purchases, the drunk calmly stated, “You must be single.” She was a bit startled by this proclamation but was intrigued by the derelict’s intuition, as she was single. She looked at the five items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about the selection that could have tipped off the drunk. Curiosity getting the better of her, she said, “Well, you know what, you’re absolutely right. But how on earth did you know that?” The drunk replied, “Cause you’re ugly.” Best wishes, happy holidays, Battalio http://www.battalio.com/
This series is a continuation of my conversations with an atheist friend of mine. These are my edited responses from that conversation. The thirtieth through thirty-third entries deal with death. More on being mechanized: The main problem I have with becoming mechanized is that for me some things are physical and would lose their meaning if I could just “download” a program to my computerized brain like how they could do in the Matrix and have superhuman speed, reflexes, strength. As an example, how would you feel about being able to download a program to become a master at your instrument of choice? Wouldn’t that remove the fun, the sense of accomplishment, the challenge of actually learning an instrument? Being able to play an instrument or a game, to be really smart or a good artist, any skill or talent becomes meaningless because everyone could download the required algorithms necessary to excel at a certain task. In a sense, some of our individuality, our uniqueness, is removed by becoming mechanized. To become better at something, all we have to do is upgrade a given component – whether it is an arm, leg, brain. They all just become tools. They aren’t really you. Once we are mechanical it doesn't matter what is a higher brain function. Those biological restrictions will be meaningless. So now even though when I'm playing an instrument I don't have to consciously think about what notes I'm going to play when I play them, somewhere, something does make that thought, and it can be programmed and copied. It doesn’t matter what conscious level the thought occurs, it can be copied. Although, I suppose it really matters exactly how our consciousness operates and in what medium that it operates in. I do believe there must be some sense of self that decides what to download and learn. That really is what we are and who we are-the personal decision making mechanism. Going back to just genetics: Just because someone is at a certain age does not mean they must have what we commonly think of as characteristics or infirmities for that age. I think that medicine will not only extend life but extend the quality of life as well (otherwise what is the point of living to be 150?). I think that 100 year olds will be able to behave as those in their 50s today, and those who are 150 will be like 90 year olds. This will make overpopulation a problem, but overpopulation is already a problem. The planet is at 7 billion people. It wasn’t that long ago when the 6 billionth person was born (just a few years). The rate we are already reproducing will cause a population problem rather soon. If the economy will fix itself in a few years, we’ll be able to resume advancement into space. I think our progression into space is inevitable (assuming we don’t kill ourselves off first). Necessity requires we leave this planet at some point. I am of the opinion that as medicine advances so will the rest of science, particularly interplanetary flight. Within the next 100 years, we should be mining the Moon, Mars, and perhaps even further out. We might even have permanent bases there. This is all just speculation on my part, but I don’t think we should worry about the older generations (and our generation at some point) being a burden. We will solve the resource problems we have soon enough (We have to; there is no other option except die, which pessimistically, we might end up doing.).
This series is a continuation of my conversations with an atheist friend of mine. These are my edited responses from that conversation. The thirtieth through thirty-third entries deal with death. It has taken me a while to come to terms with the fact that there is a good chance my existence will simply cease upon my death instead of my soul joining God, but I now take solace in the fact that we may be able to cheat death for at least a while, which leads me to… What do I think about medical technology extending life (perhaps indefinitely)? The people who are dying right now (the 70, 80 and 90 year olds) had a life expectancy of half that when they were young. I do not believe it is unreasonable to assume that we will be able to live double the expectancy of right now (so about 150ish). It always seems as if medical technology is on the cusp of something great but just out of reach. At some point we will get there -assuming we don’t destroy ourselves first, whatever there is. (This makes me mention the fact that when I retire from the profession of meteorology I want to pursue an MD, mostly because I want to work on life extending technologies and/or learn enough about medicine to help extend my own life at least. Just call me selfish.) Either we will find the genes that control aging, figure out how to clone ourselves and insert our consciousness from one body to the next (like the asgard from Stargate), or (as my friend thinks will happen first and within the next few decades) we will be able to place our consciousness inside a computer. We probably have a few more decades of Moore’s law (the law that says computer processing power doubles every 18 months) holding, and by the end of it we will have computers (perhaps quantum ones) that can process a lot faster than our brains can. It will only be a matter of finding a way to put ourselves inside a computer. I feel very uncomfortable with that. I am not sure placing my consciousness inside a computer is really me anymore. I do feel okay with slowly replacing my parts with computer parts until I am eventually completely computer. I don’t know why. If tomorrow I could transfer my consciousness from a purely organic form to a purely mechanized form, I would not feel comfortable doing it, but if over the course of some arbitrary length of time I gradually exchanged pieces of my brain for silicon wafers, I would feel comfortable with that. I’m not so sure I know why that is. A directly related question is what is the actuality of self, not just our feeling of it? Are we actually just a collection of cleverly arranged molecules in our brain or is self the collection of all molecules in our body? I have no idea.
|
