We all know that the development of technology is an extension of our organs. The most significant feature of human evolution is the growth of technology. In Chinese, immortality represents eternal life; but we know this is unlikely. On the other hand, the development of technology for the endorsement of humanity is likely to be immortal in the future. Even if humans are extinct, the technology that remains is the immortality of the period.

@Li Ting I can agree with the broad principle. However, technology without beings to be benefited by it, in some way, is of now substantive value. Hence, while homo sapiens may evolve, so that the species becomes extinct, Humanity becomes an immortal principal of Nature if, through our wisdom and technology, we are able to enable our evolved 'progeny species' as the next vector of its onward transmission and evolution. This process then must continue through the many evolved descendant species that will then follow on from each of these and so.. through eternity.

This vision has the power to become an underpinning 'zeitgeist' for a truly global commonwealth of diverse peoples. It has the strength of being a view that is consistent the axiomatic, metaphysical basis,of belief and purpose, which is necessary for an enabling, high-level but simple, moral and ethical philosophy which does little violence to existing systems of belief. This is a requirement so that some mutual accommodation and tolerance, amongst believing communities of one another's point of view, can provide room for initial compromise and developing peaceful and purposeful co-existence and cooperation.. individually, communally, regionally and globally. And may be the way of consigning nation-states, rather than nations and peoples, to the status of historical curiosities where they belong.

Prima facie, real nonsupernatural immortality can’t be achieved because of the entropy of physical systems. However doubling of the lifespan is not so far-fetched nor are the moving of polluting industrial processes into space (as Isaac Asimov advocated) and off-planet colonization, which could solve the resource issues associated with an expanding population. With an extended lifespan there might be less urgency to procreate early but the desire would still be there; many would still regard parenthood as a part of a fulfilling life. Sometimes fiction can be instructive in exploring such possibilities. I recommend Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy in this regard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy

There seems to be a sudden upsurge in concerns with immortality, as if knowledge of death has become a more prevalent anxiety. This is the fourth question on this matter (nothing wrong there).

My take on immortality is 'no' but I can't say I would actually be disinterested if offered it, always, as it were, up for the craic. As I have children, I have no desire for more, nor do I see it as a problem for the rest of humanity as procreation serves particular purposes-variation of the species and geographic overload. We are surely now at a point where we can dispense with both?

@Karl It is ironic that while we subscribe to the 'Laws' of Thermodynamics in almost all cases, it is the local appearance, persistence, reproduction of ordered systems which is the common thread by which we most easily identify the presence of life... along with their regular terminal increases in their entropy shortly after creating and separating off a new generation of self-sustaining and growing systems with low entropy.

It gives rise to the thought... if we consider the cosmos as a system arising from a moment when a disordered initial condition came together into a rapidly increasing state of orderliness (the big bang?) of which the rate of acceleration slowed, as the ordered systems resulting began to give rise to the fruits of its maturity... life forms. As these fruits form (a phase that life in our region might be now entering) and eventually, if conditions are right, those fruits (life) ripen and are caused to disperse the seeds of the systems renewal and further evolution ("the creative force") through the dispersal of the fruits (homo sapiens and descendants?) that contain those seeds (Humanity? .. aka: commitment to a cosmic stewardship of 'life creation'?) and their planting in a manner where a new cycle can begin.

Or in some analogous process, consistent with the 'neo-thermodynamism' I sketched. In any Theory of Everything the role of life as a local perturbing/contrary force to the thermodynamic undercurrent must be explicitly accommodated and described in detail.

At this moment we have no idea what it is that causes life to be life. We have difficulty even identifying what is death in complex life-forms, such as ourselves. The physicists cannot just gloss over living systems as a curious anomaly amid the 'big picture' of inanimate physical systems and continue as if they are not important. That is intellectual cowardice. Though many would label it as arrogance. I cannot for arrogance is always based in an underlying fear of one's own weaknesses or inadequacies. So it comes back to cowardice. I don't expect anyone to be able to do useful work yet in that direction, but I do expect the presence of this inconvenient challenge to be constantly acknowledged in all they do investigate. We must learn to walk before we can run. There is lots of time to do things properly.. but if we don't then we are already dead. Extinct before our 'egg' ever hatched!.

@Robin Edward Jarvis

I am not sure whether your longish response to me is meant to be a criticism, but I don't see it that way 😎. I agree that the existence of life is a significant anomaly that needs to be addressed, but sadly it is all too brief and the interesting question is whether that brevity might be overcome (for intelligence beings, but not necessarily humans or even particular individuals). Again fiction can be helpful. I remember reading a scifi story long ago about some of our distant descendents surviving the end of the universe and being in on the birth of the next cycle. Unfortunately I can't remember the title or author. (Does anyone in this thread know?) Another scifi story that comes close to tackling some of these concerns is Frederick Pohl's, The World at the End of Time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_the_End_of_Time

One day, The Creator of everything, will destroy everything. Bodies will also be destroyed but the Souls go back to the Creator.

Immortality is not in the realms of humans. But the Christian faith assures of a resurrection of the godly in a stipulated time by the creator when they will enjoy immortality. Of course, such immortality will fulfil the procreation purpose in the Genesis account.

Please, please, please.... can we at least try to make our inferences and deductions about the unknown questions in the universe related to objective, or at least clearly stated axiomatic principles, with explanations of what would appear to make them axiomatic.

I posed this 'new' question to clear the discussion of 'religious platforming'.

What we can infer, from what we can learn about how the cosmos came about (i.e. how existence of anything... gods included came about) and what we can determine of how it might develop from where we are placed within it (as we ourselves 'move through' it), is all that we can do to authoritatively inform ourselves of how we fit into it and how we can best live and arrange our lives and communities, and species development.

The discussion is not advanced by claiming axiomatic status for 'divine' revelation. Creative insight, given a set of observations exhibiting seemingly little or even contradictory relationship, is what the higher mammals would seem to have evolved as a key survival capability. In pre-literate days the formalisation of these important insights, from the living of life, was found to be key to transmitting their lessons from generation to generation. It was also a means of communicating them between communities and to 'outsiders' entering them. As these behavioural institutions developed, their origins dimmed 'in the mists of time'.

Probably, as more learning was accumulated in this way, a secure and enduring institutional form was needed. By its nature, knowledge also requires an understanding of what it tells us. One which is sensitive to the circumstances in which it might be called upon to be applied. Inevitably, specialists in providing this 'wisdom' would arise. Usually amongst more elderly people, one might suppose. People with current experience and transmitted knowledge.

In fulfilling a specific social role, one that was perceived to deliver great value to the community value, the personal benefits would have been quickly evident. But so too would have been the downsides, when the incumbent's wisdom failed the community (cf: the fate of the 'bogmen' of NW Europe). Execution of your 'brightest' in the 'one year in seven' a community's harvest fails is not a good survival tactic. It also creates 'succession' problems and 'job applicants' become fewer and fewer and of increasingly dubious credentials. Both society and these early 'institutional post holders' had problems.

This is leading somewhere relevant. Please be patient. It may be a sensitive matter for some of you, so it needs to be developed carefully, at least a little.

The community could see the economic survival, social development and area defence advantages of wisely applied knowledge accumulated from current experiences, earlier generations and even other communities. They could also see that this was a specialised task not everyone could aspire to. Those in the 'posts' available also needed job security, probably loved the social status it brought and all the perks. Their families, close and extended, probably felt the same. An arrangement was inevitable. Is it surprising that similar solutions to the challenge appeared all over the planet. Solutions which, when you look carefully at them, are mostly differentiated by the scale and aspirations of the communites/societies within which they operated.

The bigger the society, the bigger the stakes. For individuals, their families and for the society the are part of. The more diverse and the more geographically spread the society, the greater the need, by both parties, for the abstraction of the authority by which the 'ancient learning' and 'wisdom' is legitimated. And all extensive societies evolved priest-kings. With further scaling, priests and kings were differentiated. In Europe, the first born male inherited the kingship, and the second born got the priesthood. Thus providing a convenient 'Plan B' for kingly succession, and a hotline to divine authority for anything the current king wanted to 'add' to 'divine; knowledge and wisdom.

From the 'evidence' the concept of 'divine revelation' of knowledge, legitimated by the divine revelation of its own legitimacy and authority, is thus not good grounds for anything from any of those sources to claim axiomatic power. Unless, the specific positions can be corroborated through induction and reasoning from available observations. 'Observations' of a 'reality' objectively based upon our best understanding of the evidences before us. Where we admit to that failing, perhaps, with some clearly identified supposing of inferences. Openly identified and reasoned. Not relying upon the authority of ancient scribes' unsubstantiated statements of fact.

Robin,

One answer might be that the opium-puffing near-as-dammit-immortals that we may become will devise suitably 'exciting' hobbies that natural attrition will take care of the problem.

Such as "Let's play colonist and spread to the Oort cloud!"

@James Garry @Karl Pfeifer

I share your fascination with sci-fi as the forum of futurist social philosophy. I read Arcthur C Clarke's "Childhood's End" 10 years after it was first published, when I was scarcely much older. It's message of transcendent evolution has shaped my psyche and piqued an enduring curiosity. It remains acclaimed as his best novel. It was also his first widely published one. It is what sci-fi is. If it does not explore by extension the human condition it quickly descends into pure entertainment for its own sake.

We have quite a few generations to work on and evolve our propulsion and navigational technologies, as well as the purposive direction of our adaptive capacities through speciality driven tailoring of DNA, before we really have to get off this rock and follow the habitable zone outwards until we really do have to cross the Oort Cloud and find another home. Numbers per se are not a problem. If we take our evidence from nature, as we learn what things we need in 'the mix' that provides for species survival through diversity and specialisations amongst and between individuals, then we should have no problem making that happen. Equally, we should also accept that, just as we must each still remain generally adaptable and capable despite individual specialisations, we must constantly do so according to the changes in our cosmic environment. Over that we have no control, until we can move out of their ranges of action. But with that we also gain the capacity to deliberately move into new environments that we may not today recognise as habitable, and to progressively manage our local evolutions to ensure that remains so.

This should be familiar territory for sci-fi aficionados. That is because it is the intellectual familiar and therefore relatively easy. Relative that is to philosophising about how we actually enable these future scenarios at a socio-political, and hence socio-economic, perspective. This not the area of technological capability any longer. This is behavioural understanding. Call it Behavioural Science if you will. I wouldn't be so presumptuous, and its my degree subject. But it is what I have dedicated all of my private efforts towards for more than 4 decades. Unless we are able to understand what is needed in this area and be able to achieve it without, and before, destroying ourselves then the technology to enable any of those futures will never happen. If economics is still 'the dismal science' then this would be the down-side of the work of the futurist. Perhaps that is why they stick to the safe ground.. with technology.

What they fail to understand is that we are not dragged along by technology. It is dragged along by what we want to do with it. We are doing good science, but I doubt if many of the applications it gets applied to are any use to mankind as a whole. They are therefore 'no good'. I would go further and say whatever does not work towards universal individual well-being (that does not translate as 'having a good time') and also positively contributes to RSDE (Resilient, Sustainable, Durable Evolution) then it is at best a nothing and if it identifiably contributes negatively then it is specifically an evil. That is something the present hegemony cannot begin to handle. It is simply not fit for that purpose. It is only fit on terms of its own purpose, which is to sustain itself, just as it is. Dysfunctional as far as most humans are concerned. Functional only for very few.

There is a way forward. It does involve a self-awareness of the need to be continuously adaptive and flexible while adjusting our local arrangements to provide local RSD institutional landscapes. It also requires remaining consistent with the overall direction of the more slowly adapting species wide goals of RSDE from era to era. But this provides the commonality of purpose through which global wide cooperation and development can be achieved from 'bottom-up/grass-roots" elements through those moments when coming together facilitates the power of the 'herd'. It also provides the key to describing and building local social structures, through locally appropriate institutional landscapes, which nonetheless share in adaptable, flexible, resilient, sustainable, durable and evolving technologies wherever human communities place themselves.

If we do not follow this approach then we can never hope to successfully disperse our species out through the Oort Cloud, or even across our Solar System. we shall continue to squabble over the scraps from the tables of our self-appointed and powerfully maintained masters. And they will as ever squabble amongst themselves using us to wield their weapons and suffer their effects.

Robin,

It is a delight to have you in this discussion.

Indeed, we may find that 'we' (homo sap. v1.0) never *can* leave this world, and that truly extropian open-ended futures require such a wholesale recognition (and reworking?) of how we behave, that whatever entities leave the cradle and who never come back, are essentially a new clade.

Dear Robin Edward Jarvis,

Your questions are really great, and I will do my best to find appropriate answers.

Let's begin with the main question:

Does your vision of 'immortality' include procreation?

Yes. It is a point where things get really difficult - if one just limit the population there would be no possibility of development anymore - evolution would be stopped. We would indeed face a state of 'living extinction' or 'living dead'.

But why do we need to decide between the two extremes - the selfish solution where in fact the living individuals steel the live of future generations (when there is no procreation anymore) and the selfless solution where we need to die? Why not combine the best aspects of both: enabling live to be endless and continue having children... of course this would require lots of resources and it is absolutely necessary to become an interstellar species.

We could also consider a lower biological level: What if we make the cells which form us immortal? Well... things will become complicated because nature 'decided' to take the easy way: kill cells which are at the wrong place or are no more needed in their function and replace them by new ones. If we could transform them in a way that every cell is able to adapt to any new condition there is no need (and maybe also no possibility) to kill them - they could even leave our body and begin a live as a single cell. But there the same problem appears as at the large scale when making the humans immortal - if procreation is not limited, there is a huge demand for resources to sustain that. Interestingly there are some strange similarities between the 'low level case' regarding immortality of cells and the 'high level case' regarding immortality of humans - for example if humans leave planet earth, it is quite similar to a cell which leave our body but survive... On the other hand, survival of a higher level of hierarchy is possible without survival of the lower levels: Humanity could survive without the survival of individual humans and individual humans could be made immortal without making every single cell immortal (maybe the opposite is also a valid possibility - immortal cells but mortal people).

Due to the huge demand for resources , it is necessary to reach a technological level which we indeed cannot imagine today. I have to say that immortality combined with the possibility of procreation requires some important technologies which are not developed (it seems that nobody even thought about that) until now. For example, we simply need to find a way to avoid eating our whole planet - If population increases exponentially this would happen relatively quickly. Or if we (even more complicated) make all living species immortal (a completely selfless act) there would be nothing we could eat except dead material. We need to find a way to sustain our live independent of limited resources - simply because live itself should be unlimited.

On the other hand I hope that we will be able to develop and implement such technologies soon - technological development has made some surprising leaps in the past and will for sure do the same in the future - and it has still its 'normal' exponential growth if there are no leaps. Maybe science fiction can guide us a little bit - at least it shows the limits of human imagination.

@Karl Pfeifer,

You may have a look at Georgi Gladyshev's Hierarchical Thermodynamics

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Georgi_Gladyshev/publications

Recently, I found this one:

Article [Thermodynamic theory of evolution and aging]

but I didn't read it in detail until now... but maybe it helps...

Best Regards

Andreas