Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hi there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: of the audio podcast that looks at the future and says,
Speaker 1: I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I
Speaker 1: want to achieve it by not dying. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren back Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. And that
Speaker 1: quote from Woody Allen that I paraphrased is sort of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today. We're talking about immortality. M hmm.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the backup there, Joe. Yeah, all right. So
Speaker 1: we recently had an episode about longevity and uh, and
Speaker 1: if you were to extend that logically, then you would
Speaker 1: see that beyond longevity, we'd be talking about the possibility
Speaker 1: of actually attaining immortality or at least prolonging our lifespan
Speaker 1: to the point where, um, we we tend to live indefinitely.
Speaker 1: This is a dream that a lot of futurists have, uh,
Speaker 1: and there are various ways that they have proposed that
Speaker 1: we might actually achieve this dream. Um. But we want
Speaker 1: to talk about sort of a couple of those different
Speaker 1: ideas and then what would that ultimately mean to humans.
Speaker 1: If we were to actually get this ability to live
Speaker 1: effectively for as long as we want to, it raises
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. I'd say more than raises questions.
Speaker 1: I mean getting rid of death, well, not getting rid
Speaker 1: of death, because we should make sure to make a
Speaker 1: distinction between uh, the sort of natural immortality, meaning making
Speaker 1: you immune to dying by old age and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: essentially eliminating aging. Yeah, it would be not quite the
Speaker 1: same thing as eliminating death completely, because you if you
Speaker 1: were never we can never make it so that if
Speaker 1: injury or disease were eliminated, that would be an entirely
Speaker 1: different thing, right if you were, if you were able
Speaker 1: to somehow find a medical cure for say, getting hit
Speaker 1: by a bus, then maybe that would lead to effective
Speaker 1: immortality in all aspects. But really, you know, there are
Speaker 1: going to be cases where, unless we find a way
Speaker 1: to make ourselves invulnerable Superman style, uh, death will still
Speaker 1: be something that could happen to you. It's just it
Speaker 1: won't be something that would happen to you just from
Speaker 1: being around the earth too long, unless we're talking about
Speaker 1: digital immortality. Yeah, in that case, you might be talking
Speaker 1: about the death of a physical body, but not of
Speaker 1: the consciousness. But we'll we'll kind of we need to
Speaker 1: break all that down and define it first and then
Speaker 1: talk about what the the concerns are. Right, what I
Speaker 1: started to say about the concerns is that this seems
Speaker 1: to me like it would just completely change what it
Speaker 1: means to be alive, what it means to be humans.
Speaker 1: So much of human civilization, as you know, some kind
Speaker 1: of morbid psychologists might say, is based around avoiding thinking
Speaker 1: about your impending death, or it's about dealing with the
Speaker 1: death of others, or it's about accepting your impending death,
Speaker 1: depending upon which culture you're talking about and how they
Speaker 1: view mortality. And it could be argued that, um that
Speaker 1: we find all of our meaningfulness in life due to
Speaker 1: the fact that it won't last forever exactly right. So
Speaker 1: if you if you remove that, if life lasts indefinitely,
Speaker 1: do you in fact remove meaning or does that just
Speaker 1: mean that we have to redefine it? Uh. These are
Speaker 1: all good conversations that I want to get into. But
Speaker 1: before we get into the philosophical stuff, let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the actual ways that people have said we
Speaker 1: might somehow achieve immortality. Now, you mentioned digital immortality, Lauren. Now,
Speaker 1: this is an idea that I I personally think is
Speaker 1: very science fiction. E um. It's the idea that we're
Speaker 1: somehow able to port our consciousness what it is that
Speaker 1: makes us us into some sort of electronic mechanical, you know, system.
Speaker 1: So essentially the way most people use shorthand as they say,
Speaker 1: you upload your brain to a computer. Now, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of problems with this, chief among them is
Speaker 1: how do you actually get the whatever it is in
Speaker 1: our consciousness that makes us who we are out of
Speaker 1: our minds and into a machine. Yeah. Right, now, there's
Speaker 1: so much that we don't understand about human consciousness in
Speaker 1: the brain that it seems like an impossibility. And there
Speaker 1: may not be any sort of way to to interconnect
Speaker 1: our consciousness with a machine beyond a very surface level.
Speaker 1: So in other words, uh, you might be able to
Speaker 1: interact with a computer with a brain computer interface. We've
Speaker 1: seen those already and they're getting better every year. But
Speaker 1: being able to make a computer do what you want
Speaker 1: by thinking about it and making a transition from your
Speaker 1: body into a computer are huge orders of magnitude apart
Speaker 1: from one another. Yeah, and if the language on this
Speaker 1: hasn't been clear yet. It's worth making a really fine
Speaker 1: distinction on the difference between having a copy of your
Speaker 1: brain in a computer and having that be the thing
Speaker 1: that is currently your experience. Right, So, even if we
Speaker 1: get to a point where we can simulate a human
Speaker 1: brain down to the last luron, imagine they could actually
Speaker 1: copy it. So somebody could go interact with that computer,
Speaker 1: and to them it would be like interacting with you.
Speaker 1: The personality would be identical. However, that computer have the
Speaker 1: experience of interacting with that person. Well, and even even
Speaker 1: if we can't answer that question, we still are bothered
Speaker 1: by the question of well, yeah, okay, so we've got
Speaker 1: a computer copy, but I'm still in my body, right,
Speaker 1: that's it. It's not like it's not like me that
Speaker 1: that somehow my own experience of the universe as I
Speaker 1: know it continues on. There's just a copy of me.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if you were to make a physical
Speaker 1: clone of me. If you were to clone me and
Speaker 1: there was a second me there, that second me which
Speaker 1: might have very similar personality traits and actually might not.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of interesting too. But anyway, let's assume
Speaker 1: that somehow it's a perfect copy of me. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that if my clone goes out the door and
Speaker 1: talks to someone, I suddenly have that experience of talking
Speaker 1: to that person. That's two totally separate experiences of reality.
Speaker 1: So I still lose it when I die. I'm gone. Well, however,
Speaker 1: I mean, if that clone has all of your experiences
Speaker 1: up until the point that you die, if it's made
Speaker 1: at your death and then can still go out and
Speaker 1: update Twitter and have all of your memories, then to
Speaker 1: everyone else, I seem alive. To me, I'm still dead. Well,
Speaker 1: but that but how do you How do you know
Speaker 1: that if you're, if you're because your consciousness, if you're
Speaker 1: continues on. But no, no, no, no, it's not my consciousness,
Speaker 1: it's his consciousness. See. That's the problem is that it
Speaker 1: becomes his as soon as that becomes a thing. Same
Speaker 1: thing with the digital model is that there are two
Speaker 1: consciousness is now conscious nigh whatever the plural of consciousness
Speaker 1: would be. But there are two of them and so
Speaker 1: and that's the problem is that they're distinct from one another.
Speaker 1: They both are based on the same thing. But this
Speaker 1: is the same problem I have with transporter technology. By
Speaker 1: the way, Yeah, it's essentially cloning. It's breaking down a
Speaker 1: body and then reconstructing it. So every single time anyone
Speaker 1: on Star Trek is using the transporter, and this is
Speaker 1: something that Bones himself points out a couple of times.
Speaker 1: They die and resurrected, but it's it's a copy of
Speaker 1: the person. It's the next generation. Dealt with that in
Speaker 1: a very important episode about Riker, but it wasn't every episode,
Speaker 1: and an important episode about Riker and how he sits
Speaker 1: down in the manliest of ways and every chair he
Speaker 1: comes into contact with. Is he his action man, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not his faulty. He also walks through doors sideways
Speaker 1: because his shoulders are just far too wide to fit through.
Speaker 1: Uh kid, Jonathan breaks He's a nice guy. I met
Speaker 1: him a couple of times. I love you Jonathan anyway.
Speaker 1: Uh So that but that's a real that's a real
Speaker 1: thing though. That's a real thing in science fiction, and
Speaker 1: it's a real thing. That people have argued is that
Speaker 1: the you could maintain the illusion of immortality that way
Speaker 1: to everyone, to any outside observer, it would be as
Speaker 1: if you were living forever, but you, the actual entity,
Speaker 1: would cease to be upon your death right. That the
Speaker 1: so the new you might have the sense of continuity, right,
Speaker 1: the new you might continue on and it would be
Speaker 1: as if you had actually been transported. It's just that
Speaker 1: your consciousness ends, which not acceptable. We're talking, We're getting
Speaker 1: into a very metaphysical conversation about what it means to
Speaker 1: be conscious and what I mean because I I would
Speaker 1: I would argue the counter. I would argue that if
Speaker 1: if you can wake up in a new body, but
Speaker 1: you're not as all of your memories, you're not waking
Speaker 1: up someone else is waking up with all your memories. No,
Speaker 1: but if it's all of your memories, it's still you,
Speaker 1: but it's not you the person individually, because you both
Speaker 1: exist at the same time, Lauren, If you clone yourself
Speaker 1: right now and your clone walks outside and does stuff,
Speaker 1: you are not going to know what's happening. So your
Speaker 1: consciousness is existing independent. It doesn't matter. But that's that's
Speaker 1: the whole pay We're trying to avoid death, right. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: so digital immortality, we've got a problem with consciousness porting
Speaker 1: and all that aside. But how would digital immortality be
Speaker 1: different from physical immortality? So digital immortality, let's let's say
Speaker 1: that somehow we have reached a point where we actually
Speaker 1: can move a person's consciousness from a physical body into
Speaker 1: a digital construct. I don't know how we did it,
Speaker 1: but somehow we magically found the way. You know, we've
Speaker 1: got the USB port. You just transferred your brain over
Speaker 1: USB sevn D three and uh it went really quickly.
Speaker 1: And then you're seeing from this computer. That's where your
Speaker 1: your consciousness has now been transported into a computer, whether
Speaker 1: that computer is a giant mainframe, or it's inside a
Speaker 1: robotic body, or it's some sort of weird free form
Speaker 1: literal cloud computing. Because we've gone so far that nanotechnology
Speaker 1: has taken. Okay, I I put in right now for
Speaker 1: electronic jellyfish, electronic jellyfish from I'm just gonna say goo
Speaker 1: like magic, Google magic, goof for Joe personally, I want
Speaker 1: a flame breathing unicorna but that's close enough. A lama
Speaker 1: in a unicorn. Our world's apart. But anyway, so, so
Speaker 1: all right, we we've reached that point. In this case,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a continuing consciousness. But there's you. You
Speaker 1: are separated from what was your body, right you are
Speaker 1: not now you might be able in this weird science
Speaker 1: fiction world, to reconstruct your body in some way so
Speaker 1: that you can at least continue the experience of going
Speaker 1: through the world as if you were in a human body.
Speaker 1: Can change mind to mechanical shark, mechanical shark body, you're
Speaker 1: in goo. You can take whatever form you want, all right,
Speaker 1: But the point being that, you know, if you could
Speaker 1: support your brain so that you could be in a
Speaker 1: digital format, you would not be limited to the human
Speaker 1: experience anymore. Uh. There are a lot of other questions
Speaker 1: that happened, Like what happens if you were to upload
Speaker 1: to justness? Is this this is to the same computer?
Speaker 1: Then would they merge in some way? What happens if
Speaker 1: we were to port the entire human race into some
Speaker 1: sort of digital format. What happens with reproduction? Would we
Speaker 1: actually be able to create brand new digital life forms
Speaker 1: that never once we're inside a human body? Uh? Again,
Speaker 1: I think all this is pure science fiction. I don't
Speaker 1: see us ever getting there. But these are kind of
Speaker 1: those cool science fiction e like ideas that you get
Speaker 1: when you're yeah, yeah, yeah, it's are we going to
Speaker 1: be the borg? Like would we have a shared consciousness
Speaker 1: at that point? Or uh, you know, would it be
Speaker 1: would the human race essentially become a giant ant colony,
Speaker 1: like every single consciousness actually becomes more like an individual
Speaker 1: neuron in a giant hive brain. Um. I honest, again,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're ever going to get there, So
Speaker 1: it's almost a moot discussion in my mind. But you know,
Speaker 1: I could be totally wrong. Well, so it does seem
Speaker 1: to me that it's slightly more probable that we will
Speaker 1: achieve something like a physical immortality. And again to clarify,
Speaker 1: not in vulnerability, but conquering aging because we can actually
Speaker 1: zero in on what aging is. Yeah, and uh, and
Speaker 1: if we zero in on the genes that govern aging
Speaker 1: to a point where we can uh make meaningful decisions
Speaker 1: so that we counteract the aging process, we could indefinitely
Speaker 1: halt aging. Now, these are all a lot of ifs,
Speaker 1: and on the scientific level, I think all of that
Speaker 1: is achievable. Um, I don't. I don't think there's anything
Speaker 1: fundamentally uh that would be a fundamental barrier to that.
Speaker 1: But I do think that in order for that to happen,
Speaker 1: there'll be a lot of hurdles to overcome. However, I
Speaker 1: do think that between the two major roads, digital immortality
Speaker 1: or conquering aging. I think the aging one is the
Speaker 1: one that's actually more plausible. It looks it looks more
Speaker 1: likely right now. I mean, we already know that the
Speaker 1: hey flick limb it um, which is which is the
Speaker 1: limited which cells stop dividing and go through a programmed
Speaker 1: cell death. Uh, we know what that is. We know
Speaker 1: that there's a protein um telomerase that has to do
Speaker 1: with with with triggering that and that if you can
Speaker 1: remove that limit, then stuff like cancer cells don't have that.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, we we've already looked at
Speaker 1: it and said, hey, that thing, it's just yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is an idea where uh well, like like the
Speaker 1: idea that you know, you have the the caps on
Speaker 1: the end of uh, genetic material, the telomeres, right that
Speaker 1: get a little shorter every time the cell divides, and
Speaker 1: once they get down to the end, that's pretty much
Speaker 1: game over for that cell um. If we were able
Speaker 1: to reverse that process or halt that process, then in theory,
Speaker 1: we would be able to to hold off death indefinitely.
Speaker 1: And we've seen experiments like this in h on the
Speaker 1: cellular level, but not anything that's human as far as
Speaker 1: we know. I mean, there are some conspiracy theorists out
Speaker 1: there who believe that there are folks who are already
Speaker 1: in possession of this immortality, but for fear of the
Speaker 1: mass of of of the unwashed, charging with pitchforks and
Speaker 1: pistols in hand, they have not revealed their immortal status.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they even glitter in sunlight. I do not know,
Speaker 1: but I don't hold those conspiracy theories in in. I'm
Speaker 1: skeptical all of them. Let's say that I'm quite skeptical too,
Speaker 1: but I don't think part of that idea is unreasonable,
Speaker 1: not necessarily that somebody has actually figured this out. But uh,
Speaker 1: let me introduce a little thought experiment. So imagine you
Speaker 1: discover the cure to a disease, you know, like polio.
Speaker 1: You know you were the discoverer of the polio vaccine.
Speaker 1: Do you have a moral duty to share that knowledge
Speaker 1: of how to create that vaccine with the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. I would say yes, Like you have an obligion,
Speaker 1: I would say. I would say ethically, not morally, but yes.
Speaker 1: But I just make that distinction between ethics and morality
Speaker 1: because I think morality suggests there's a specific belief system
Speaker 1: that is usually tied to religious affiliation, But I think
Speaker 1: ethically you would certainly be expected to share that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: semantic distinctions, you would have an ethical responsibility. Would you
Speaker 1: have the same responsibility if what you discovered was the
Speaker 1: cure to aging? I and just intuitively don't feel that
Speaker 1: you necessarily would. I think that that's a tougher question. Well,
Speaker 1: it's certainly if we were to somehow discover with irrefutable
Speaker 1: proof that we had found a way too safely stop
Speaker 1: the aging process, and we were to just spontane eviously
Speaker 1: roll that out throughout the entire human population, there would
Speaker 1: clearly be some massive consequences we would have to deal with,
Speaker 1: and I honestly think that, uh, we would really have
Speaker 1: to think about, discuss consider the consequences of those actions
Speaker 1: before rolling that out. So I think that while this
Speaker 1: this conversation is largely philosophical, uh, it's it's an important one.
Speaker 1: And I think in order for us to ever get
Speaker 1: to a future where we do actually roll out some
Speaker 1: form of of defeating the whole aging process, we have
Speaker 1: to have these conversations now, because if we don't, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be dealing with some ugly consequences further down the road. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it more depends on on a bunch of other ethical
Speaker 1: considerations that are brought up if the possibility of of
Speaker 1: this longevity becomes real. So for example, like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's the idea that we talked about this in
Speaker 1: another episode of forward Thinking, the idea that there's a
Speaker 1: capacity that any particular region has to support life on it,
Speaker 1: a particular type of life, right like, and once you
Speaker 1: once you exceed that, you've actually gone beyond the capacity
Speaker 1: of that area to support that life, then you have
Speaker 1: massive die offs. So you're saying, like, imagine we we
Speaker 1: keep breeding, but we mostly stop dying, right So in
Speaker 1: other words, uh, there's a question is it does it
Speaker 1: become unethical to h to reproduce if you are creating
Speaker 1: a greater burden on the entire planet to provide the
Speaker 1: resources necessary for everyone to continue to survive. Then there's
Speaker 1: I mean that that's and is it for the more
Speaker 1: ethical to tell people that they can't reproduce? Is is
Speaker 1: removing that capacity, you know, violating basic human rights? Right?
Speaker 1: Do you therefore make a distinction and say any who
Speaker 1: wants to reproduce, that's fine. You don't get the magic
Speaker 1: serum that keeps you alive forever, and then what would
Speaker 1: what would most people choose? And then on the on
Speaker 1: top of that, you've got the question of if it's
Speaker 1: a if it's a private company that comes up with
Speaker 1: this this approach like they've got gene therapy that will
Speaker 1: um conquer aging uh, And it's a private company, and
Speaker 1: you know, private companies exist in order to make a profit.
Speaker 1: That's the business. That's ultimately what the goal is. Now,
Speaker 1: there are different ways of going about it, and you
Speaker 1: can do it in ethical ways, you can do it
Speaker 1: in unethical ways, but that's really beside the point. The
Speaker 1: whole purpose of a business is to make money. That's
Speaker 1: why they exist. So if you have a business that
Speaker 1: comes up with this plan, um, what happens when how
Speaker 1: do you set your price? Like you've got something that
Speaker 1: you know lots of people are going to want, Maybe
Speaker 1: not everyone. There might be people out there who have
Speaker 1: no interest in living forever. They don't they think for
Speaker 1: whatever reason that that is not for them. Well, I'd
Speaker 1: imagine there's a huge middle category. I'd probably include myself
Speaker 1: in this that would probably like to live a good
Speaker 1: bit longer than people usually naturally live, but would really
Speaker 1: probably not like to live forever, right, right, So well,
Speaker 1: and and there's you know, well, first of all, we're
Speaker 1: talking about prolonging life indefinitely, but that does not necessarily
Speaker 1: mean well, I mean we're talking about a practical forever.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we're not going to billions of years
Speaker 1: until keep death of the Unix. Just a bunch of
Speaker 1: us sitting there going, well that was something, wasn't you know?
Speaker 1: But but right, so so let's just let's say, uh,
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand years. I mean, yeah, that's I'd like
Speaker 1: to I'd like to live longer than I probably naturally will,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to live five hundred thousand years.
Speaker 1: That's fair, And that's a good question. Maybe maybe maybe
Speaker 1: you get you get seven eight hundred years into it,
Speaker 1: and you go and you know, this is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That's true. You can't really predict. But then maybe seven
Speaker 1: hundred hundred years after that, you're like, I'm done at
Speaker 1: last five years was a bear? You know, you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't know. But but here's here's the things that
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I mean, would you would that
Speaker 1: mean if we if we get to a point where
Speaker 1: people were able to achieve immortality. Would um, would suicide
Speaker 1: be a permissible thing in this society where someone has
Speaker 1: felt that they have lived long enough and they do
Speaker 1: not wish to continue living if it's if it's something
Speaker 1: that requires uh, you know, periodic treatments. I can imagine
Speaker 1: a world where if you are able to demonstrate this
Speaker 1: This is a weird concept, but if you're able to
Speaker 1: demonstrate that you are mentally sound, that you would halt
Speaker 1: those treatments and allow the aging process to continue. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine that where I'm sorry, you're not You're not
Speaker 1: mentally capable, so we have to keep you alive indefinitely.
Speaker 1: That's kind of an interesting, but but possible future. This
Speaker 1: converse station introduces such a weird instability in the way
Speaker 1: I'm viewing humans. I had the question popped into my mind, like,
Speaker 1: would be would mental soundness still be the same thing
Speaker 1: in this world? I mean, that's how fundamentally I feel
Speaker 1: this would alter the human experience. So like, if someone
Speaker 1: said that they no longer wish to live, would that
Speaker 1: person be viewed as truly crazy? Yeah? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: can and can you imagine? I mean, because losses is
Speaker 1: a big scary part of our lives right now. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine losing someone that you've known for eight hundred years? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can imagine wanting to know just just just just
Speaker 1: how to relationships work at that point, you know how? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean that there are a lot of I mean
Speaker 1: fundamental questions about what it is to have the human experience.
Speaker 1: That's another question is if you were able to do this,
Speaker 1: would it mean that you were no longer actually human
Speaker 1: at least as the way, not not from a you know,
Speaker 1: necessarily from the genetically, but from an experience from what
Speaker 1: from what? If a human condition depends upon death, then
Speaker 1: by defeating death are we human? And and which which
Speaker 1: also gets into the questions of spirituality. I mean, because
Speaker 1: most lots of religions um base a lot of their
Speaker 1: philosophy on what happens after you die. If you don't die,
Speaker 1: then then you know, then what does that mean? What
Speaker 1: are you? You know? If God has a plan for us,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? If if reincarnation is the road
Speaker 1: to um enlightenment, then what does that mean? Right? I
Speaker 1: can imagine one way that that might be dealt with
Speaker 1: is just purely practically, like if if you want to
Speaker 1: talk about heaven and hell, or other versions of afterlife. Um,
Speaker 1: you could merely fall back on the fact that, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, this isn't going to mean actual immortality, so
Speaker 1: maybe it takes you a hundred thousand years to uh
Speaker 1: face your judgment or whatever. But I think that will happen.
Speaker 1: I think it would widely. It would wide be very
Speaker 1: depending upon the various religious faiths out there. Obviously, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there'd be some that would probably uh embrace this,
Speaker 1: and there'd be some that might say, you know, this
Speaker 1: is not right, uh, And I think I can't imagine
Speaker 1: a world where this would really become compulsory. In fact,
Speaker 1: I can I can much more imagine a word. Well,
Speaker 1: you say, of course, but we're talking about a world
Speaker 1: where people don't die. We might as well go ahead
Speaker 1: and go so far as to say that might not necessary.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine that compulsory immortality would be sustainable.
Speaker 1: I mean that would be that would sort of for
Speaker 1: that that would foreclose on humanity too quickly to be
Speaker 1: now I can I I can see it, though. I
Speaker 1: can see someone like we were saying a minute ago,
Speaker 1: like if if you don't want to live forever, what's
Speaker 1: wrong with you? You're probably you need to be a
Speaker 1: ward of the state. You need to be protected from
Speaker 1: yourself because you want to die. And how weird is that?
Speaker 1: So let's and let's say that there is some sort
Speaker 1: of system in place to to guide reproduction. What happens
Speaker 1: when two people reproduces the baby immediately treated so or
Speaker 1: even treated before born to not age after a certain amount? Uh,
Speaker 1: does the baby get any say in that? It's I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're weird questions, but these are things that actually
Speaker 1: pop up. And when you start having this discussion, I
Speaker 1: had one pop into my mind. Sure, this is kind
Speaker 1: of a weird concern, but it actually it seems very grave.
Speaker 1: Imagine you get to the points where where pretty much
Speaker 1: everybody has access to this um you can stop aging.
Speaker 1: How would that change ideas of punishment? Sure, let's say
Speaker 1: that you live in a state which does not have
Speaker 1: the death penalty but will give you life in prison
Speaker 1: for a horrible crime, and you get convicted of that crime.
Speaker 1: What does your life in prison mean? Does that mean
Speaker 1: you go to prison for five dred thousand years or
Speaker 1: however long you live, or I mean, how how would
Speaker 1: that change idea of what punishment is? Also, before you
Speaker 1: even get to to what punishment means? How would what
Speaker 1: would people still enact in criminal behavior if they were
Speaker 1: going to live forever? If your permanent record lasts five
Speaker 1: thousand years, are you going to blemish it? Are you
Speaker 1: going to be more likely or less? Like, I think
Speaker 1: there's always going to be people who are going to
Speaker 1: act in in whatever way gives them the greatest advantage,
Speaker 1: and regardless of whether it's legal or not. Also, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you get to first assuming that we still have
Speaker 1: the same sort of emotions that we do now, and
Speaker 1: I see no reason to assume otherwise, you're still going
Speaker 1: to have interpersonal conflict passion, Oh yeah, lead to like
Speaker 1: think about murder in a world where people would otherwise
Speaker 1: live forever, How how do you punish that? You know,
Speaker 1: when you think not only what not only did this
Speaker 1: person have so much, so much more to do, they
Speaker 1: had so much more to do indefinitely. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's you know, we had a discussion before we actually
Speaker 1: started recording where I propose the idea that if if
Speaker 1: this is something that requires periodic treatments so that you
Speaker 1: continue to live forever, then what happens would uh would
Speaker 1: a prison sentence? That's for life also include the you know,
Speaker 1: interruption of those treatments, and in a weird way sort
Speaker 1: of amount to a kind of indirect death penel. Right,
Speaker 1: instead of instead of directly killing someone, you're allowing them
Speaker 1: to die. And that's a very tiny distinction. Personally, I
Speaker 1: don't see any real difference between throwing a switch and
Speaker 1: allowing someone to die. But from a very from a
Speaker 1: legal perspective, there could be a world of difference because
Speaker 1: legality and rationality don't necessarily go hand in hand. Plus,
Speaker 1: my definition of rationality could be very different from someone else's.
Speaker 1: On top of that, you know I mentioned before, you're
Speaker 1: talking about the possibility of the private company. Um, this
Speaker 1: could lead to a world of haves and have nots.
Speaker 1: That is hard to imagine. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean it could act upon the world that is already
Speaker 1: of haves and have nots in a way that makes
Speaker 1: the distinction or makes that completely even worse than it
Speaker 1: is now. Yeah, to the to the absolute extreme where
Speaker 1: you have a very very wealthy, tiny percentage of humanity,
Speaker 1: maybe less than a fraction of a percent of all
Speaker 1: of humanity that can afford this, uh, and then everyone
Speaker 1: else can't, so can you imagine the social disruption that
Speaker 1: would result in that. I mean, now you will in
Speaker 1: just the inherent unfairness well, and that which would lead
Speaker 1: to the social But yeah, I mean now, granted, like
Speaker 1: I said, they're going to be people I think who
Speaker 1: will look at this and say, you know, this really
Speaker 1: isn't what I want. I don't want to live forever.
Speaker 1: That's not I don't place value in that. And uh,
Speaker 1: and for those people it may be that you know
Speaker 1: that they will experience it's whatever social disruption there is,
Speaker 1: but they won't be taking an active role in it. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know what percentage of people would long for immortality.
Speaker 1: I suspect it's a fairly large one. But that also,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this from a very privileged perspective as well.
Speaker 1: My life is pretty amazing and awesome, and so when
Speaker 1: I take that into account and I think what I
Speaker 1: want to live forever, I'm thinking, well, you know, look
Speaker 1: how amazing my life is. I don't want this to
Speaker 1: go away. But then I don't live in a condition
Speaker 1: where I would be thinking this is what I have
Speaker 1: to live through and I have to live through it forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then again, you you probably wouldn't assume that people
Speaker 1: would like want to die. I mean, I'd say the
Speaker 1: desire to stay alive is is a nearly universal and
Speaker 1: if you had, if you had an infinite period of time,
Speaker 1: then you could grow your wealth and you could better yourself,
Speaker 1: and you could but you could get to a position
Speaker 1: that you weren't. The question becomes what would would we
Speaker 1: do enough to improve the lives of everyone instead of
Speaker 1: just the few who would have access to this. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if we go into let's let's look at it
Speaker 1: as saying we're going to be in an altruistic future
Speaker 1: where whatever company or organization comes up with this shares
Speaker 1: it fairly uh generously, that's rollout is still going to
Speaker 1: be fairly gradual, at least at first, and that alone
Speaker 1: is going to cause problems, which is why some people
Speaker 1: are suggesting that this could already be happening and therefore
Speaker 1: you know it's a secret, because if it weren't a secret,
Speaker 1: people with good nuts. Um. But then when you look
Speaker 1: at parts of the world that are really uh impoverished,
Speaker 1: that have already are lacking for very basic resources, that
Speaker 1: are in in areas of high conflict, how do you
Speaker 1: extend this to those areas, right, how do you how
Speaker 1: do you if or do you not? And if you don't,
Speaker 1: are you essentially telling these people you have to die?
Speaker 1: I mean, these are weird, tough questions that arise from
Speaker 1: this concept. I had another question, sure, do we have
Speaker 1: an inherent ethical responsibility to reproduce? I mean that I
Speaker 1: think these days you you'd probably say no, right, I
Speaker 1: mean no if you don't want to have children, of
Speaker 1: course not. But then again, the it starts getting weird
Speaker 1: when you think about the idea that, Okay, there's one
Speaker 1: generation where imagine everybody has access to this, everybody has
Speaker 1: the option to live forever, and they just stopped making babies.
Speaker 1: So essentially what you're saying is there's a generation that
Speaker 1: is the last. Yeah, suddenly you're part of the last people,
Speaker 1: and these people just keep going. It certainly seems very
Speaker 1: egocentric to suggest that that the that generation would be
Speaker 1: the ultimate one, that would be the last one, and
Speaker 1: that that nothing following that would be worth the trade
Speaker 1: off of immortality. Right, that's I mean, you know, to
Speaker 1: say that is pretty Look, I'm an egocentric guy. I
Speaker 1: got an ego a mile ye, I would not be
Speaker 1: comfortable saying that I'll still take your immortal juice, thank you. Well,
Speaker 1: it's weird, and it certainly wouldn't translate to saying now
Speaker 1: that that anybody should have the responsibility to have children.
Speaker 1: I mean, that seems absurd to me. But well, there's
Speaker 1: certainly a lot of religions that say that. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: that's fine. I mean, I'm just saying I wouldn't personally,
Speaker 1: but but that's somehow that seems completely upset by this
Speaker 1: living for everything. If your if your plan is to
Speaker 1: live forever and never replace yourself, that that does strike
Speaker 1: me as odd. I don't expect anyone to replace me,
Speaker 1: and I actively work to prevent that because I like
Speaker 1: my gig. That's right. You fear being usurped I do.
Speaker 1: I do. I undercut my my colleagues at every opportunity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not true. I'm not sure, absolutely not right.
Speaker 1: So if you saw the emails I wrote in support
Speaker 1: of you, you change your tune suet um. But we're
Speaker 1: we're having fun with this because if we didn't, we'd
Speaker 1: probably go crazy trying to discuss it. Pretty dark topic
Speaker 1: it is in many ways, because again, you know, you're
Speaker 1: talking about changing one of the fundamental experiences of what
Speaker 1: it is to be human. I mean, this is every
Speaker 1: human from the very first Homo sapien up until today,
Speaker 1: has the knowledge that one day they are not going
Speaker 1: to be around anymore. In fact, that's often involved in
Speaker 1: in what consciousness is. Right when people try to define it,
Speaker 1: one of the things that comes up, as they say,
Speaker 1: it's the awareness of your own death. That's that's one
Speaker 1: one facet of what people will use to describe consciousness.
Speaker 1: Keeping in mind, the consciousness is one of those things
Speaker 1: that no one has ever been able to truly define.
Speaker 1: Like the best definition I ever see is that we
Speaker 1: start to define things about the mind, and whatever has
Speaker 1: left is consciousness. So every year that goes by, as
Speaker 1: we define more things about the mind, that the concept
Speaker 1: of consciousness gets smaller, but it becomes that undefined variable
Speaker 1: that we see in other like crazy mathematic equations where
Speaker 1: you know, they say, look, this makes the universe makes
Speaker 1: sense as long as something happens over here in this
Speaker 1: part of the equation that we can't really explain yet,
Speaker 1: but hopefully one day we will discover what it is.
Speaker 1: The same sort of thing holds true with the mind
Speaker 1: and consciousness well, and as we discussed in the very
Speaker 1: last podcast we recorded it. It might not be a
Speaker 1: thing at all. It might be an emergent property of
Speaker 1: neurons in your brain. Sure, I definitely think it's you
Speaker 1: know that it's I'm a pragmatist. I think it's based
Speaker 1: on physical matter. It's not a thing but an interaction. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I personally don't see it as being some other kind
Speaker 1: of energy type experience. But we don't have like an
Speaker 1: unfound gland somewhere in there that goes, oh, that's a
Speaker 1: consciousness place, right, or that, or that there is some
Speaker 1: other element that is not not directly relatable to physical matter.
Speaker 1: But that's just one view. I understand. There are people
Speaker 1: who have very different views on that, and I totally
Speaker 1: respect that because I'm not a neuroscientist or a psychologist
Speaker 1: and it's just my own personal perspective. Um So, but
Speaker 1: you are a shaman of the future. I am that.
Speaker 1: I am that it's a heavy burden. But if you
Speaker 1: reference queen lyrics and you know, just keep on keeping on,
Speaker 1: I think it's fine. All right. Well, okay, quick quick pole,
Speaker 1: quick Pole, You've got the choice. You can take the
Speaker 1: immortal pill. Where you are going to live indefinitely. So really,
Speaker 1: the only way you die is through severe injury or illness,
Speaker 1: or you take your own life, or you can walk
Speaker 1: away knowing that you know, if you take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: you can live a good long life. But you're an
Speaker 1: not going to be living anywhere close to what someone
Speaker 1: who would take that pill would experience. Joe, what do
Speaker 1: you do? I don't know. I mean, honestly, I guess
Speaker 1: my gut reaction is I probably wouldn't. I'd rather take
Speaker 1: the not die soon pill, right, that's not an option
Speaker 1: you got that you not die ever, or you've got
Speaker 1: the if you take care of yourself and you avoid
Speaker 1: illness and injury, you'll live a good long while, assuming
Speaker 1: all the other variables. I guess I'd say, no, No,
Speaker 1: it's just too it's too and it's too scary. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Joe walks away from the pill. Lawrence, Oh yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I take it. Yes, I take I take my pill
Speaker 1: and Joe's pill Immortal times too. You become the future vampire,
Speaker 1: draining the life force of other isn't roaming the waste
Speaker 1: land I will. You'll find me at a parking lot
Speaker 1: at Masson Square garden carrying a sword that has no
Speaker 1: there can be only one. It'll come down. It'll come
Speaker 1: down between me and Lauren, and she'll win because she's
Speaker 1: got some lamping experience that I don't have. So but
Speaker 1: but until that day, I will still battle for the prize.
Speaker 1: What's the future of LARPing? That's another podcast, very good question, guys.
Speaker 1: If you want to know what the future of lamping is,
Speaker 1: then I suggest you right in and you ask, and
Speaker 1: then we will actually answer that question. But to do that,
Speaker 1: you've got to send us an email that addresses f
Speaker 1: W Thinking at Discovery dot com or go to f
Speaker 1: W Thinking dot com. That's where you can find all
Speaker 1: the videos, the blogs, podcasts, and links to our social media.
Speaker 1: Get in touch with us. Let's know what you like
Speaker 1: about the show, let us know what you are excited
Speaker 1: about in the future, and ask us some questions that
Speaker 1: you really want to answer. We're really excited to hear
Speaker 1: from this and we will taught you again. Really sick
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Speaker 1: visit forward thinking dot com brought to you by Toyota.
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