That linked account seems to assume that people who want to live forever expect to “get old” along the way, in the same way they do now, and I don’t think that’s accurate. I wouldn’t want to live even for centuries, let alone forever, in a 90 year old’s body, in world where most of the people I know and love are gone forever. But many of those same 90 year olds will gladly profess to believe, or at least hope, to be reunited with loved ones in death and remain with them forever. But if you offer me the chance to stay in a 25 or 30 year old’s body/level of health, and everyone else I love would get the same, I’d at least like the chance to see what it’s like and (Ian Banks’ Culture-style) get to choose my lifespan, not all at once but each and every day, based on how well it works out. I have no idea if I would actually want to live for TREE(3) years, but I’d much rather have the choice, and not have to make it within the next 50 years.
it’s impossible to literally live forever.
Are you sure? That seems like a question of physics, and the accessible energy reserves and computational capacity of our light cone (the latter of which may be infinite even if the former is not).
Any survey of this type runs into, not just the nuances of the questions and how they’re asked, but how little most people have really thought about the question, or what the different answers would actually imply.
I agree with you, though I don’t think the linked account expects an “eternal old age”; what made you think that? As I see it, it’s actually an argument about the inner experience of humans and how the author thinks we wouldn’t be happy with a very long lifespan. I don’t agree with the author, but I linked the post as anecdotal evidence that some people who are no longer young may reject the idea of a very long lifespan because of a general feeling of life-weariness (to what extent this feeling is connected to the biological phenomenon of aging is to be ascertained).
Are you sure? That seems like a question of physics, and the accessible energy reserves and computational capacity of our light cone (the latter of which may be infinite even if the former is not).
How would computational capacity be infinite in the presence of finite energy?
You’re right, nothing explicitly stated anything about old age, but the study itself has “burials” right up in the headline. IDK if respondents knew those questions were coming when they answered the “lifespan” question, but if they did, I doubt most people automatically assume an increased lifespan meant they’d start being younger than they currently were. That’s all conjecture on my part, but I think it’s similarly plausible as psychological life-weariness as an explanation.
How would computational capacity be infinite in the presence of finite energy?
As I understand it, the theoretical limits on energy efficiency of irreversible computing are a function of ambient temperature (because they involve dumping heat/entropy into the environment). That means if the future universe keeps getting colder as it expands, the amount of computing you can do with a fixed supply of stored energy goes up without bound, as long as you use it slowly enough. That’s basically Dyson’s Eternal Intelligence, though I don’t think anyone knows what the computing architecture would look like. Things like the Omega Point spacetime in a collapsing universe seem more speculative to me but still might be possible.
That linked account seems to assume that people who want to live forever expect to “get old” along the way, in the same way they do now, and I don’t think that’s accurate. I wouldn’t want to live even for centuries, let alone forever, in a 90 year old’s body, in world where most of the people I know and love are gone forever. But many of those same 90 year olds will gladly profess to believe, or at least hope, to be reunited with loved ones in death and remain with them forever. But if you offer me the chance to stay in a 25 or 30 year old’s body/level of health, and everyone else I love would get the same, I’d at least like the chance to see what it’s like and (Ian Banks’ Culture-style) get to choose my lifespan, not all at once but each and every day, based on how well it works out. I have no idea if I would actually want to live for TREE(3) years, but I’d much rather have the choice, and not have to make it within the next 50 years.
Are you sure? That seems like a question of physics, and the accessible energy reserves and computational capacity of our light cone (the latter of which may be infinite even if the former is not).
Any survey of this type runs into, not just the nuances of the questions and how they’re asked, but how little most people have really thought about the question, or what the different answers would actually imply.
I agree with you, though I don’t think the linked account expects an “eternal old age”; what made you think that? As I see it, it’s actually an argument about the inner experience of humans and how the author thinks we wouldn’t be happy with a very long lifespan. I don’t agree with the author, but I linked the post as anecdotal evidence that some people who are no longer young may reject the idea of a very long lifespan because of a general feeling of life-weariness (to what extent this feeling is connected to the biological phenomenon of aging is to be ascertained).
How would computational capacity be infinite in the presence of finite energy?
You’re right, nothing explicitly stated anything about old age, but the study itself has “burials” right up in the headline. IDK if respondents knew those questions were coming when they answered the “lifespan” question, but if they did, I doubt most people automatically assume an increased lifespan meant they’d start being younger than they currently were. That’s all conjecture on my part, but I think it’s similarly plausible as psychological life-weariness as an explanation.
As I understand it, the theoretical limits on energy efficiency of irreversible computing are a function of ambient temperature (because they involve dumping heat/entropy into the environment). That means if the future universe keeps getting colder as it expands, the amount of computing you can do with a fixed supply of stored energy goes up without bound, as long as you use it slowly enough. That’s basically Dyson’s Eternal Intelligence, though I don’t think anyone knows what the computing architecture would look like. Things like the Omega Point spacetime in a collapsing universe seem more speculative to me but still might be possible.