Ray Kurzweil: We're all gonna be FRICKIN' CYBORG IMMORTALS in 20 Years!

[Sabretooth]

LOOK AT THIS LINK. LOOK AT IT.

 

Or alternately, read this.

 

The 61-year-old American, who has predicted new technologies arriving before, says our understanding of genes and computer technology is accelerating at an incredible rate.

 

He says theoretically, at the rate our understanding is increasing, nanotechnologies capable of replacing many of our vital organs could be available in 20 years time.

 

Mr Kurzweil adds that although his claims may seem far-fetched, artificial pancreases and neural implants are already available.

 

Mr Kurzweil calls his theory the Law of Accelerating Returns. Writing in The Sun, Mr Kurzweil said: "I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies' stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.

 

"Ultimately, nanobots will replace blood cells and do their work thousands of times more effectively.

 

"Within 25 years we will be able to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath, or go scuba-diving for four hours without oxygen.

 

"Heart-attack victims – who haven't taken advantage of widely available bionic hearts – will calmly drive to the doctors for a minor operation as their blood bots keep them alive.

 

"Nanotechnology will extend our mental capacities to such an extent we will be able to write books within minutes.

 

"If we want to go into virtual-reality mode, nanobots will shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go. Virtual sex will become commonplace. And in our daily lives, hologram like figures will pop in our brain to explain what is happening.

 

"So we can look forward to a world where humans become cyborgs, with artificial limbs and organs."

 

Now anyone here who's a fan of becoming cyborgs instead of zombies or vampires, will know that Ray Kurzweil is the first person we will grant honorary cyborgship for his predictions, most of which have come true most of the time, mostly.

 

So what's Mr. Kurzweil babbling about today? Immortality? Through Nano-technology? Deus Ex? Neuromancer? CYBERPUNK?!

 

If this actually ends up happening, how will it work? Will you choose to take the great evolutionary leap into immortaldom, or debate its unnaturalness? Will the rich keep the technology to themselves and the cyberpunk future of the world become a reality? Or are we headed for a Brave New World? Do you want me to keep on babbling '50s-TV-show-questions?

 

Then answer me, and speculate aplenty!

[Samuel Dravis]

Ray's been predicting the technological singularity for a long time. I think probably from when he first saw Star Wars. To be honest, I don't believe this will happen in 20 years. We're not even going to be substantially free of dependence on oil in 20 years and doubtless we'll still be driving our beloved clunkers from 2010.

 

Additionally, even if the technology to do everything he says were available just as he says, I can guarantee you two things: it won't be free and it won't be cheap. Everyone would want life-extension technology and they'd be willing to pay out the wazoo for it. There won't be any economic benefit to the corporations holding the patents to make it any cheaper for the little guy who wants in on a piece of the immortality pie. So I'm guessing it will be a bit longer before everyone starts living forever. Too bad for us, eh?

[Trench]

And when it does the world will be mine to control!

I doubt this stuff will ever happen (for reasons that are my own:¬.

And it wouldn't be much safer than modern conditions. Too much room for error. What if the nanobot programming got corrupted? Could mean instant death or insanity.

So lemme guess... Our food goes natural, while we go artificial?

[Q]

Until nanotechnology is developed that can repair cells on the fly, I fail to see how this will render us immortal.

[Arcesious]

Sounds far-fetched, but I wouldn't mind having some immortality.

 

I've always wondered - if I lived past 150 years, what would happen to my brain? How many years can the human brain retain memory? I've always wondered how much memory we can retain in our organic brains. I figure, if I live past 150 and absorb tons of memory and knowledge, when will the point come where my 'consciousness' must be transferred to a machine of much greater memory?

 

If the electrically-retained memory in the human brain is copied to a machine, and your organic brain died, then would 'you' still be alive? You would experience death, but your machine self would live. Still, it isn't a 'smooth' transference. It's like copy-pasting. A clone of yourself who has your memories but isn't really 'you'. It sounds kind of scary. 'you' in the sense of your original self, wouldn't exist anymore.

 

Basic, half-artificial, half organic cybernetics doesn't seem to me to be to big of an ethical issue. It's when you go fully artificial that the question of 'you' being 'alive' seems to be ethically debatable.

[mur'phon]

Why yes, of course I'll join the core once it becommes possible.

 

Not that I think it'll be possible in my life time, but I really don't see the ethical issues of upgrading.

[ForeverNight]

Join the collective!

 

On a serious note. I really don't want to live forever. It would just become a chore after a while, and then if you got it while family or others you're close to didn't? Watching them die would be very depressing.

 

Otherwise, I'm all for cyborg-ism!

[Arcesious]

Well, after further research, I'd say that the maximum lifespan of a human at this point is a little over 130 years. (Oldest human ever was 122) Human brain cells can replace themselves, but eventually, the telomeres won't get any shorter, and the human brain won't have any more memory capacity. We have, estimatedly, about 1.3 to 1.4 petabytes of memory because the adult brain weighs 1.3 to 1.4 kilograms. This correlates to a little over 130 years worth of memory. So if our brains weighed 1.5 kilograms we retain 150 years worth of memory, and so on and so forth.

 

A big reason we can remember so much with only 100 billion brain cells is because our brains can 'compress' memory extremely well.

 

Past that, we'd need to grow our brains bigger and rejuvenate the telemeres, or get some sort cybernetic memory expansion/upgrade/replacement.

[Q]

And yet the average person uses barely 20% of their brain's capacity in their lifetime. Hm...

[Arcesious]

And yet the average person uses barely 20% of their brain's capacity in their lifetime. Hm...

 

You may be right. 130 years may not be accurate considering this. I certainly know that I'm not cramming as much memory and information as I potentially could be every second of my life.

 

I just have to wonder though.... What would happen if you actually did use up all of your memory capacity? Would your brain just 'delete' less important memory to make more room, or would your brain just go kablooey/induce dementia upon itself?

[Q]

That's actually a good question, and one that we may never know the answer to, but cybernetics could get us close. I think that the key to unlocking the brain's full potential may lie in the subconscious.

 

Oh, and resistance is futile.

[Sabretooth]

...we use only 20% of our brain's capacity before jumping the twig? I demand a source on this immediately.

[Totenkopf]

I thought the comment was of the brain's potential, not merely its capacity.

[Wookiee Rrudolf]

We have, estimatedly, about 1.3 to 1.4 petabytes of memory because the adult brain weighs 1.3 to 1.4 kilograms. This correlates to a little over 130 years worth of memory. So if our brains weighed 1.5 kilograms we retain 150 years worth of memory, and so on and so forth.

 

Where did you get this from? It's just a pure speculation. You can't just calculate brain's weight into it's capacity

 

You may be right. 130 years may not be accurate considering this. I certainly know that I'm not cramming as much memory and information as I potentially could be every second of my life.

 

I just have to wonder though.... What would happen if you actually did use up all of your memory capacity? Would your brain just 'delete' less important memory to make more room, or would your brain just go kablooey/induce dementia upon itself?

 

Let me ask you a question. Do you remember everything you've done in your life?.

Human brain sorts the data all the time. It stores what is important and removes what is not. Plain and simple There won't be a 'Error: not enough free space. Please remove unnecessary files' message

[Arcesious]

Where did you get this from? It's just a pure speculation. You can't just calculate brain's weight into it's capacity

 

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090710004858AAhMiER

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_memory_capacity_in_GB_of_human_brain

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_real_storage_of_human_brain_are_there_any_other_livingthing_that_can_have_the_same_capacity_of_human_brain_storage

 

Take your pick of estimates. I've tried to make a conservative, realistic estimate. But even then I'm probably underestimating by several orders of magnitude. It's all speculation.

 

Let me ask you a question. Do you remember everything you've done in your life?.

Human brain sorts the data all the time. It stores what is important and removes what is not. Plain and simple There won't be a 'Error: not enough free space. Please remove unnecessary files' message

 

I doubt that it ever removes anything apart from malfunction. Tons of times, I've 'forgotten' things, but then could later remember them. There are people in the world who can remember in extreme detail every moment of their lives. Although I cannot, potentially, if I learned how to use by brain to its full ability, I probably could.

Tiny little details that I seem to 'forget' always seem to come back in one way or another.

[VarsityPuppet]

Join the collective!

 

On a serious note. I really don't want to live forever. It would just become a chore after a while, and then if you got it while family or others you're close to didn't? Watching them die would be very depressing.

 

Otherwise, I'm all for cyborg-ism!

 

I would actually like to live a long time. Sure, my family and friends would pass away... but I can always make new friends, and it's not like I'd ever forget my family. In fact, I might like them more when they're dead. I get the fond memories without the hassle of dealing with them on a day to day basis. Just being honest here...

 

But really, there's just so much to do out there... I'm sure if one were to do it all, it might take over 150 years. Of course, you could get bored after awhile... or you could find something else to do.

 

To me, t's like a video game of endless immersion... I'd only stop playing if I got bored or ran out of money to pay for a monthly subscription... heh

[Avisto]

WARNING NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

 

Only 20? Exit Mundi disagrees.

 

To me, t's like a video game of endless immersion... I'd only stop playing if I got bored or ran out of money to pay for a monthly subscription... heh

That reminds me..

[VarsityPuppet]

That reminds me..

 

I disagree. Humanity will surely find something frivolous to obsess over...

[Avisto]

I disagree. Humanity will surely find something frivolous to obsess over...

Probably. I wasn't disagreeing with you, though. The only thing that made me remember the article was what you said about life being some kind of video game, and that reminded me of this line from the article:

Show spoiler

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Scientists have noticed for long that our Universe has unmistakable clues that it is artificial. Everything around us, everything you do or see or feel or experience, may be fake! We may be part of a kind of Sims Game, an illusion, set up by some kind of Superhuman intelligence long before the Universe began…

[Samuel Dravis]

Re: the Exit Mundi site:

 

If I was was going to live forever, I'd modify my human trait of getting bored. It doesn't seem like it would serve any purpose to an immortal. I'd probably do that just before I went all godlike and stuff, because I'd still want to live at that point (after all, that was the reason for living forever).

[Q]

...we use only 20% of our brain's capacity before jumping the twig? I demand a source on this immediately.

I learned it in science class, but you and Arc prompted me to look it up. Guess what? It's a ****ing myth.

 

Our wonderful public education system at work.

 

 

Thanks for bringing it to light, but, damn, that's embarassing.

[Wookiee Rrudolf]

I doubt that it ever removes anything apart from malfunction. Tons of times, I've 'forgotten' things, but then could later remember them. There are people in the world who can remember in extreme detail every moment of their lives. Although I cannot, potentially, if I learned how to use by brain to its full ability, I probably could.

Tiny little details that I seem to 'forget' always seem to come back in one way or another.

 

Funny as it may seem but often what we remember is not what we experienced. People don't really remember all the details that they could later recall. Our brains just fill 'empty holes' with possibilities (no, really). Sometimes you can even notice that some peoples' stories get more detailed over time

What is even funnier is that those who remember every small detail are the ones with some brain dysfunction...

So yes, we do forget. We just can't know about this because... we don't remember about what we've forgotten

[Arcesious]

I learned it in science class, but you and Arc prompted me to look it up. Guess what? It's a ****ing myth.

 

Our wonderful public education system at work.

 

 

Thanks for bringing it to light, but, damn, that's embarassing.

 

The 10% - 20% use of brain myth is indeed an urban legend spread by the popular media, unfortunately.

 

I thought you were referring to the memory used up in the brain over one lifetime, and not the percentage of our brain we use in our day to day lives. At any given point in time, you probably don't use all of your brain. But you do use 100% of it overall. Most people don't do everything at once though.

 

While playing a sport, you probably don't think about philosophy. While playing a video game, you proably don't use the parts of your brain linked to muscles much besides for your hands. While sleeping, you probably don't use your sense of smell, etc, etc.

 

So as to avoid any other misconceptions about the brain:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_misconceptions_about_the_brain

http://health.howstuffworks.com/10-brain-myths.htm

[Darth Avlectus]

It was either National geographic, discovery, the learning channel or something like that where I watched this:

 

In 2001 there was a HVAC worker or something here in the U.S.A. and he was going to dig up a line in the ground that was supposed to be dead as it was the neutral or return. Or ground. (Mind you I'm going of of memory from a 2004 documentary!) However, things didn't go as planned--this was a line of 7200V ~50A 3 phase. It was old and malfunctioning. He was the one who got zapped. Badly. He fell into acoma for 1.5-2 years. His arms were so badly fried that they had to amputate them.

 

He made the perfect test subject for cybernetically enhanced prosthetic prototypes. What remained of his nerves, he was able to feel certain probing tests. Apparently this was the basis for the sophisticated electronics and microprocessors for an arm that could crudely mimic that of a regular arm and had the sense of hot, cold, touch, and pain. It ended up working--he could use it just like he used his arm. It was a beta test.

 

He was sad to lose his arms--like losing someone you love. However, when he saw that he had opportunity to make his life normal agian he went for it. He got the standard mechanical prosthetices in the mean time of course. However the activity of his life (starting lawnmowers) ended up breaking them and thus requiring engineers to make better ones. So they did.

 

I can only hope that we are at least well on the way to making (edit: CYBERNETIC) prosthetics. I do not picture for some time that it will be practical. Maybe 100-150 years?

 

But, yes, I'd like to think that if I ever encountered a similar accident that I, too, could have hope for getting myself back close to normal. I work in electrical too--some electronics as well. Maybe not HVAC, but lemme tell ya it ain't no fun getting hit by ballasts, NST's, or even arc welders.

[El Sitherino]

I'm not sure I could deal with you guys for another 130 years, but having robot arms might sweeten the deal.