"So, what's in store in the next 20 years and beyond
Indefinite Lifespans
Total freedom on the space frontier
Total leisure and full-immersion hyper-hedonistic lifetstyles - think Burning Man in Space all the time.
Expansion out into the Galaxy and beyond"

Sounds like a potentially doable concept in the near future, but I have reason to be doubtful.

Rafal Smigrodzki critiques Aubrey de Grey's concept of "Escape Velocity".
http://www.fightaging.org/

"I am warmly supportive of SENS in its general philosophy though I have many objections to various details, as may expected when dealing with ideas on the cutting edge. There is however one general issue related to SENS that keeps bothering me: the escape velocity.
If I understand it correctly, Aubrey, the escape velocity idea postulates that if the speed of average longevity increase from medical progress exceeds the rate of aging of the population, then the members of that population would be in effect immortal (modulo accidents &c).

Now, this may be true when you are talking about a population that doesn't have any age-related mortality to begin with - e.g. a cohort of babies who are born into a world where medicine continually races about 50 years ahead of their aging, eventually making them as likely to die from aging at age fifty as when they were babies, and maintaining this low mortality rate indefinitely (a simple shift of mortality curve without changing its shape).

But for the fifty year old, the situation is not so rosy anymore. At age fifty there is already an uptick in mortality, and as long as the speed of mortality reduction is not substantially higher than the speed of aging, the members of this cohort will indefinitely experience mortality at this (i.e. natural 50's) level, whether at age 70 or 100. Obviously, eventually you will run out of members of this cohort. The problem is even more severe for the 70-year olds, and hopeless for the really old ones - all this even with medical progress substantially faster than today.

This makes me doubt that SENS could lead to radically long survival in humans who are currently in their thirties or later - none of the proposed rejuvenation therapies is likely to kick in before they reach fifty or older, and to give them an average 5000 year span you would need to have much better than escape velocity progress.

Of course, if there are enough fifty-year olds being rejuvenated at escape velocity, some of them will live many hundreds, or even thousands of years - but the odds are, it would be neither you nor me.

This is not to say I am pessimistic about extreme longevity in general - I think that the first immortals are already alive, and most of them are babies, perhaps female, born recently in rich countries. It's just that for us, the old folks, something more than the escape velocity is needed."

Rafal is forgetting the real purpose of SENS: reversing aging rather than simply slowing it down as he assumes. It's true that we need something more than just escape velocity to stay alive in the future, hopefully the nanotechnology revolution will deliver this.

Welcome back, Paul! ;) Don't worry, not everyone has lost hope yet!

One way or another, a change is soon upon us. Whether it be as Smigrodzki or de Grey or Kurzweil or Moravec or Esfandiary or Hughes prophecizes, it makes no difference.

The future is now. Don't get left behind.

ADBastone -

First question - what is SENS?

As for Escape Velocity and all that I tend to agree with you to some extent. I'm 40 years old. Although I have gone to considerable length since I was about 15 to extend my life, I am aging. I am not as nimble, fast, or resilient as I was when I was 20 or even 30. Aging is becoming noticeable. I ache in the winter from old injuries; I feel back pain when I get up in the morning, etc.

However, in many ways I am healthier than many 30-35 years old. Maybe it's genetics, or the lengths I have gone to, but I look about 30 or so. Most people are stunned to discover I'm older; actually everyone is surprised. So chances are I have slowed my aging down to some extent. But you're right, I am aging, albeit possible slower than the average person.

However, we are beginning to understand what aging is - both from a genetic point of view but also hormonal. Does this mean we will extend life indefinitely using basic biological techniques - possible, but unlikely. What this means in concrete terms, is we may figure out how to add 20, 30, perhaps 50 years to a human lifespan. This also means, that for those of us around 40 years old, we might get an extra 20, maybe.

But consider this. The current lifespan of an American male is 76 years old. That means people who were born in 1929. What about people born in 1949, 1959, or 1969? Look at this another way; have you ever watched older movies or TV shows? Have you noticed that people looked older back then? For example, both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were 34-37 years old when they did Star Trek. They looked like they were in their forties at least. So lifespans are ALREADY increasing now. If you do the math (I am a mathematician), then even the most conservative vectors, point to average lifespans for my generation (born in the 1960's) in the late 90's. That means, if nothing else changes much, no accelerating technology, etc, then around 2055-2060, those born between 1960-1970 will be reaching the age in which the average lifespan as tabulated by conservative insurance companies will be 95.

Think about that for one second - 2055. That is 50 years from now! Are you telling me, that in the next 50 years, they will not figure out how to repair cellular damage and genetic decay (i.e. senescence)? They are already making breakthroughs in this regard. Geron Corporation for example, as figured out to immortalize individual cells (i.e. preventing telomorase breakdown).

Secondly, and MOST importantly, within the next 20 years, molecular technology will be in full swing. No offense, but 20 years is REDICULOUSLY conservative. So I'm just playing it safe. Almost everyone, and that includes people like Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle, two of the worlds most knowledgeable experts on molecular technology are predicting much sooner than that.

With molecular nanotech, you get cellular repair. That means, even the most elderly - a 90-year-old guy who looks like a skeleton with skin and missing teeth, will be able to regain full health and the body of a 20 year old. If you don't believe that or don't understand how that is possible, then I SERIOUSLY suggest you do a LOT of catch-up reading on what nanotech is all about. I've been reading, learning, teaching and speculating about nanotech since 1987, and basic indefinite lifespans are par for the course, and not even questioned by almost everyone in the field. If you are up for some serious reading then may I suggest Dr. Robert A. Freitas' tremendous groundbreaking work in Nanomedicine, which can be found here:

http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicin/

Cheers,

Paul

It could be that people are aging slower these days. I see a lot of twenty-somethings looking like the teenagers of twenty years ago, and people in their sixties now look more like fifty-year-olds. If this is the case, the average lifespan may be pushed forward a bit due to the slower rate of aging in today's humans.

SENS is the aging reversal program proposed by Dr. Aubrey de Grey, which adresses what he found as the seven known causes of aging. It stands for Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence.

http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/

I've read up a lot on nanotech (and biotech) progress, and it seems that things aren't progressing fast enough as Kurzweil envisions.

From the "Age of Spiritual Machines".

"It is now 2009. Individuals primarily use portable computers, which have become dramatically lighter and thinner than the notebook computers of ten years earlier. Personal computers are available in a wide range of sizes and shapes, and are commonly embedded in clothing and jewelry such as wristwatches, rings, earrings, and other body ornaments. Computers with a high-resolution visual interface range from rings and pins and credit cards up to the size of a thin book."

Kurzweil's 2009 scenario also involves these computers being networked using "body LANs", continuous speech recognition largely replacing keyboards, computer displays built into eyeglasses, intelligent virtual assistance, intelligent roads (mainly in the major cities), interactive virtual environments and telemedicine. But, at the tail end of 2005, these technologies should have at least started to come into use by a few early adopters. Most of these technologies, alas, still remain at the conceptual stage, and will certainly not be adopted by even cutting-edge individuals in 2009. A shame, because I used to be an avid believer in Kurzweil's Singularity scenario, now I'm not so sure.

Terrific post, Paul! Good to see you back in the saddle again. And ADBatstone! Good to see more posts by you! I'm pressed for time at the moment, but will contribute more either later tonight and/or tomorrow!

Unquestionably, the goal, of course, should be complete control (i.e., ability to completely REVERSE) of the aging process. Full-fledged ability-to-REJUVENATE is the goal, within a life-extension/immortality context that makes ANY sense at all...

And, yes, as G. Harry Stine said over 25 years ago: It's raining soup out there [in outer space]--so let's *grab a bowl*!!...

Good grief. How totally clueless. (I am referring to the Netsukuku bullshit). Did you even bother to really read their documentation, or even do some cursory googling? If you had, you would have realized that it is nonsense, or other folks would kindly have pointed that out (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/10/6/101832/209).

I mean: "The Npv7 structures the entire net as a fractal and, in order to calculate all the needed routes which are necessary to connect a node to all the other nodes, it makes use of a particular algorithm called Quantum Shortest Path Netsukuku (QSPN). A fractal is a mathematical structure which can be compressed up to the infinite, because inside it, every part itself is composed by the same fractal. Thus there is a high compressione of a structure which can be infinitely expanded."

"In a p2p network every node acts as a router, therefore in order to solve the problem of computing and storing the routes for 2^128 nodes, Netsukuku makes use of a new meta-algorithm, which exploits the chaos to avoid cpu consumption and fractals to keep the map of the whole net constantly under the size of 2Kb. "

Doesn't that sound in the least bit like trendy, buzz-word laden gibberish?

I'm no expert in p2p coding, so I was unable to ascertain its validity. However, I saw mention of it in two reputable places and they never spoke of it as dubious. However, I do believe it is possible to create an alternate DNS system using fractal mathematics. Perfect WORKING example of this:

MojorWorlds - http://www.pandromeda.com/

This program can generate extremely rich and complex TO SCALE full sized planets down to 1 meter resolution using files measured in kilobytes (ex: 278kb) for one of my favorite planets.

Since the DNS system operates on a 2^n node system, there is no reason why you can't have a fractal that can be embedded in a 2000 digit number (a 2000 digit number allows for a tremendous number of possibilities) - much more nodes that even the Internet 2 address system. So yes, I think it is possible.

Has anyone here heard of the MPrize?

http://www.mprize.org/

If not, then it's about time you learned!
It's an "X-Prize" for real and credible anti-aging research.
The cash prize is now three million dollars and rising.

"It's all around us, and it's happening without anyone noticing much. It's not some big monolithic light from the sky change that we are archetypically expecting, but a much more subtle and profound change happening that we won't notice until its already happened. These changes are all around us. Humanity is waking up. People are becoming more aware, we are taking all of these tools and technologies for granted."

I dont know where you live but I wish you and your friends all the best. Where I live noone is waking up, noone cares about anything or anyone outside of themselves and their own self interests and the governments of the world are ensuring that if anyone does actually bother trying to wake up they will be put in prison for seditious speech or acts.

And if people do wake up and stand up against the world-destroying governments you think its going to be peaceful so that the hidden p2p nets, indefinate life nanotechs and glorious space-age will come upon us? If people wake up (and they wont) they will be angry and tear everything apart. But while captialism controls our lives (and our future technologies) that will not happen. There is too much too lose by doing anything.

Reality is a harsh mistress, prophesies about a glorious golden-age are just dangerous.

The only thing that is dangerous is people like you who should know better... instead of doing something positive to make the world a better place (starting with yourself), you feel sorry for yourself and spread doom, gloom and hopelessness. That being the case, why do you even bother coming to this site, or reading anything I have to say, if you really feel that way? No, seriously?

"A shame, because I used to be an avid believer in Kurzweil's Singularity scenario, now I'm not so sure."

Actually, you used to waste your time posting unarguemented claims that the whole Singularity thing was nonsense.

You even claimed that exponential progress was non-existent.

When I wrote a Singularity FAQ, you even called on people to (quote) "DON'T LISTEN TO JWBATS".

You spammed my blog with the same nonsense you used to spam all over the web, and I deleted it.

Why the sudden turn-around, mystic monkey guru?

"The only thing that is dangerous is people like you who should know better... instead of doing something positive to make the world a better place (starting with yourself), you feel sorry for yourself and spread doom, gloom and hopelessness. That being the case, why do you even bother coming to this site, or reading anything I have to say, if you really feel that way? No, seriously?"

Why do you put up a discussion forum if you don't wan't to discuss?

I think Realist has some valid points. I see people care around here, about earth and the situation on earth, but they also have to pay rent and get money for food. So sorry if they don't have hours to read up on nano tech. And they probably do what they can.

In addition to that, to me, this whole wanting to live forever and go into space, and escaping the problems here on earth, shows a big ego and a fear of death boosted by not accepting the basic foundation of life, which is that death of the organic body is part of it. I know you think that this is an old archaic thought, but hey, you seem disappointed that we have no more places to colonize... Isn't that an old egoic idea built on the pride of "The White Mans Burden"?
And you then do talk about uploading consciousness, so the body can die (cf. the kurzweil article) and your ego live on. The problem here is that you take for granted that consciousness is created by matter, as an important argument. We don't know that, I think that's a wild metaphysical speculation to take in as a truth serving for the ground argument for your philosophical and futuristic vision.

All this transhumanism seems to me like the early period of The Enlightenment, where people also wrote about how all that new science were going to save us all and make the world a better place... Alot of cool stuff got created, but i wouldn't say that as a whole, everything got better, alot of stuff got worse too. I don't think space will make us happier either. And if you want the species to survive, work on the problems on earth, we don't even know if we can survive in space yet... Of course we won't know before we test it, but we are not there yet. Life as it is now for humans and other planets was created/occured the way it did on earth, because of the conditions here on earth, they won't be there in space. Not that we know of yet at least.

I think Realist has some valid points. I see people care around here, about earth and the situation on eart, but they also have to pay rent and get money fr food. So sorry if they don't have hours to read up on nano tech. And they probably do what they can.

In addition to that, to me, this whole wanting to live forever and go into space, and escaping the problems here on earth, shows a big ego and a fear of death boosted by not accepting the basic foundation og life, which is that death is part of it. I know you think that this is an old archaic thought, but hey, you seem dissappointed that we have no more places to colonize... Isn't that an old egoic idea built on the pride of "The White Mans Burden". If you really want to change Paul, wake up and work on the shit here on earth. I bet there is tons of stuff to do here.

Satori -- I think there is a huge difference between discussion-debate-dialogue and flat-out pessimistic smearing. Your post just above WAS dialogue, and much welcomed.

It goes without saying that the Earth must be re-greened and re-groomed, and that the experience of Death as a stroke of supremely natural luck and supernatural transition will still be around, even in a future age of uploads and Artificial Intelligence. No one here or elsewhere at any transhumanist /futurist/ extropian site (as far as I understand) is advocating any sort of escapism or ego-boosting. What IS being advocated is careful, serious, and imaginative thought and preparation for a future that is equitable to all. Yes, we may be looking forward a few steps here, there is obviously a few strides in between, but with such preparations in place, we just may be able to take a considerable amount of strain off the 'home-planet' Earth, thereby giving Her much-needed space to re-strengthen and re-balance Herself. Our entrance into Outer Space will also be the next phase in the great odyssey of our evolving Consciousness, as it begins to network amongst the stars.

Life, which ostensibly *did* originate in outer space, has over the preceding millions of years given us the intellectual and metaphysical tools to return to the wider Cosmos and continue to seed the grand adventure of Living wherever a fertile oasis may be found. It should be obvious by now that Mother Gaia simply cannot support this many of us for too much longer. And this is but an evolutionary trigger, that will soon enough force us to adapt by getting our butts off-world. Better we set our itinerary ahead of time, right?

In any event, no one is advocating letting the fate of the Earth slide. Only that it may be wise to understand that the Earth will in time be sloughing us off; and even wiser to realize the great hope that shines at the heart of what, in the midst of the transitionary struggle, would seem like a tragic disaster. Either we find strength in that, and live to build a better, more equitable future for the race, or we perish. That is our burden, not as “white men,” but as a common, collective Humanity, having a communal Soul and a singular Body. No matter how far apart our many eyes and limbs may be, from Calcutta to New York, or Andromeda to the Titan Outpost, let us learn to reach out and embrace the Unity that binds us one and all, no matter where or who we are.

Namaste.

Thanks Upwinger for your eloquent response to Satori.

Well// i for one am baffled and loved the post Paul.. I like information on this stuff alot, and it always strikes us uninformed kids about it, to go do some research! I believe anything is possible but i just hope human beings change as well as the technology. Dont want anymore monkeys with Cell phones. Oh and please keep up the work.. its appreciated.

Pressed for time (yet again!!), but a few points:

1. Very good response to ADBatstone, Paul. Nanotech is definitely on a trajectory that should have full-blown assemblers--which means full-blown cell *RE-ASSEMBLERS*. 2020 +/- 5 years, but even this is conservative. Could very well be by 2012.

2. Nanotech mean ultra-cheap solar power, plus less need for watts (per tech function) anyway.

3. Space is bound to open-up. And the late G. Harry Stine is right: It's raining soup out there!! Nanotech + even near-space resources will fulfill Bucky's dream of everyone on the planet being a real-wealth **billionaire**.

Live long & prosper, y'all...

Eudaimonism...

Think eudaimonism---the ethic & systematic pursuit of happiness & self-actualization. Hedonism--even the most sophisticated & subtle--is, if not a bit crass, then at least a bit (philosophically/psychologically) crude.

See David L. Norton, *Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism*, Paul Kurtz, *Exuberance: A Philosophy of Happiness* (Prometheus Books) and just about *anything* by the great New Jersey psychologist, Alan Waterman--in particular, his *Psychology of Individualism* (Praeger Press).

I think eudaimonism is a better psychological and ethical compass & guide for the coming era than hedonism, however sophisticated the latter. (One could--and I *would*--classify hedonism as a subset or subcategory of eudaimonism, anyway...)

I commend these books to y'all.

And Happy Thanksgiving coming-up for all the Americans visiting this site.

Great job, Paul; keep up the good work, and keep all of us posted on the progress of your other project(s)!

ADBatstone, however, may be right that we may or may **not** see much of what Ray (Kurzweil) forecasts by specifically 2009. But, considering the rate of techno-acceleration, I doubt that most if not all the stuff Ray forecasts by 2009 will come to pass later than 2012 (+/- 2 yrs). And by 2015-2020, we will **really** start to see the super-exponentional climb up the Spike (i.e., we will be just **past** the *knee* of the developmental/evolutionary curve, and entering the (mathematically-literally) **hyperbolic** part of the curve. That's why, when I say 'hold on to your hats,' I really mean it (at least metaphorically). By 2015, at the latest, we will be well on our way to accelerating into the (almost) unimagineable. And **that's precisely why we in the transhumanist community--in particular the frwequent contributors to this site--need to become as familiar-with and well-versed-in as possible with a whole panoply of inter-related, transdisciplinary theories, memes, projects, prospects, etc. A reasonably thorough & sound grasp of economic, ethical, psychological and political/jurisprudential priniciples is crucial to the background needed to help shape how all the on-coming techno-evolutionary development *specificall* unfolds.

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order."

author unknown...

Here be dragons!!!

Netsukuku needs root privileges to run. This means that it can do ANYTHING IT WANTS to your computer.
Freenet doesn't need this, neither does Tor. Combined with the highly dubious SF babble on the site, I would advise to AVOID THIS ONE LIKE THE PLAGUE. At least until all the evidence is in.

Thanks for that, Ell. BTW, folks, one of the best discussions of contemporary economic theory is Alan Shipman, *The Market Revolution and Its Limits: A Price for Everything* (Routledge pb, still in print & available).