Interesting question! Off the top of my head I would say that one way that humans can interact with their future environments is by influencing their current environment. For example what humans do (or do not do) about global warming today or at least in the immediate future will have major consequences on what the far future will look like (and hence the interactions of our future selves). The same could be said about other environmental challenges (water availability, pollution, etc.).

I agree that our interactions with the environment are seeking mainly short term profit – and these actions will make very difficult the life of the next generations. The answer enlarges the domain of the third type of Life 2.0: work which influences the life of the next generations. This third type is the most problematic from the viewpont of interaction: it is mainly action (of the living person to the next generations) and the reaction is almost zero: the future generations can do very little for (or against) their dead ancestors in terms of interaction. So, it is not really “life” to live in someones’s memories as long as the bidirectional interactions are not possible. This situation would change in the case of an intellect mounted to an immortal (artificial) or disposable soma (body).

The best substitute for a human body is a human body that is exactly the same as the old one.

A human is not a thing - like a CD - that can be played upon any CD player. We are not things, but ways of being that are just as much driven by our environments and our bodies as by the volition of pure will. Our bodies are like subtle musical instruments that it it has taken us a lifetime to learn how to play.

When we lose part of our bodies - part of ourselves dies - a part of the melody.

It is like the grief of losing someone you love. What dies, is the part that could see and be in the the world another way - through the music of another persons soul - we grieve for ourselves - we are diminished by the loss of things we love.

Also, what lies hidden in the way that you have framed the question is the idea of the continuity of the soul or personality. If what is important is the preservation of what is best of the human character - there is probably no better way of doing it than the way we do it naturally.

If what is important is continuity then the question should be changed to - In what ways can we change the environment and our habits in order to achieve the potential of what our bodies have to offer in terms of longevity and - according to the Fractal Catalytic Model, that is a very very long time indeed!

I think that you would enjoy the attached article.

Hi, Chris,

Indeed, I enjoyed reading your essay about the Immortal Generation. Definitely it bears strong literary and rhetorical features – and it could serve also as a basis for an interesting debate.

We are not CD-s to be played on some device. Correct. But I would not conclude that we are not things because we can not be “played” on a CD-player. Yes, we are things (driven by our environment, bodies and will) – as things are the musical instruments used in your next semblance. But we are things evolving on a higher scale of complexity than the things that we can elaborate with our actual technology (including nanoT, 3D-printing and gene-T). We are living things. To go down to the basics of life, we would need a third quantum revolution and a command on chaos theory. And to emulate an intellect, the quality of information has to be assessed (see a parallell thread, where we have changed some immortal ideas with Doug Elias :))

In an other idea, you say:

“If what is important is the preservation of what is best of the human character - there is probably no better way of doing it than the way we do it naturally.”

Well, Uxermaatre Setepenre Meriamun Ramses fathered 162 children to his 5 principal and countless secondary wifes (through natural processes – that happened more the 3 millennia ago) – but Ramses was immortalized through other channels. Not to mention a French of the XIX. c, who died young after he had conceived some 20 children as an explorer, later gun-runner, fellmonger, deserter, etc in Africa. But he became immortal as a symbolistic poet – maybe the first and the best…(IMHO)

So, immortality can be achieved through various channels – but the results are not the same.

I have mentioned before 4 trivial ways to achieve this goal – all of them have some drawbacks. (That is why I opened this thread).

1) Children will carry on our genes, but tremendeous work has to be done to convince them to carry some of the memes also (I know what I’m talking about, believe me!). This is where Ramses and Rimbaud failed. (could that be a kind of their children’s self-defence?)

2) The biological immortality can (will) be achieved by gene-technology – but it would be quite boring to live forever. Other drawbacks are mentioned in your essay.

3) The outstanding artistic, scientific or other oeuvres can carry on some memes (sometimes for centuries, even millennia) – but this kind of Immortality is cut from the author’s life as the posteriority can not interact with the author.

4) To mount a human intellect in an IT system would be quite a technological challenge. We are not (yet) able to do that, mainly because we do not understand completely the human intellect (or even a dog’s intellect). Could you give a definition of soul – in an IT context? On the other hand, we should not do that nowadays (creating senting machines), because we are enough people on the surface of the planet (I’m talking about the number of the people, not about the mean intelligence).

Some sort of immortality will be necessary only when the terraforming expeditions has to be prepared.

You mentioned in your essay the evolutionary cul-de-sac of the cheetah’s – and mentioned the possibility that our mind’s evolution can drive us in a similar dead-end. I understand this kind of concern - seeing the reactions of millions of people to the selfish initiatives of some political and religious leaders. And I agree with your oppinion that consciousness is unique and consequently leads it’s bearer in a lonely condition. Further, I agree with your rhetorical intro describing the indolent stars which are shoveling layers of time on the dreams and deeds of these conscious beeings formed by an extraordinary concurrence of events which ignited the evolution of life on this planet.

But Chris,

Consciousness is a powerful weapon - against enthropy. With this weapon one could fight against the layers of time shoveled on our endeavours by the distant stars: immortality is not in contradiction with the (known) laws of physics, biology and Nature. By good fortune, we are not yet able to achieve complete immortality nowadays: our political and religious leaders would do anything to decide WHO would become immortal (beyond them. And their families. And lovers. Uncles, aunts, nephews, etc.). Consciousness is a powerful weapon – and we (humans) did not bought enough symbolistic arms of smugglers like Arthur Rimbaud. The vast majority of people is seeking directives and objectives from their leaders and – when possible - watching TV: consciousness may hurt and leads to isolation. This deficit in consciousness may lead to the evolutionary coul-de-sac which can endanger our species. The cure than is simple: think and communicate! (the sequence of the actions is observable)