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Post by Hachelen on Feb 1, 2007 17:57:44 GMT -5
Originally posted by Jinsei
According to Darth Sidious in Episode III, Darth Plagueis the Wise had "such a mastery of the Force he could create life itself." He could also use this power to sustain his own biological life from the ravages of aging.
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Post by Hachelen on Feb 1, 2007 17:59:28 GMT -5
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Post by Hachelen on Feb 1, 2007 18:00:40 GMT -5
Jinsei said:
Quote: Technological immortality is the name given to the prospect for much longer life spans made possible by scientific advances in a variety of fields: nanotechnology, emergency room procedures, genetics, human physiology, engineering, regenerative medicine, microbiology, and others. Contemporary life spans in the advanced industrial societies are already markedly longer than those of the past because of better nutrition, availability of health care, standard of living and bio-medical scientific advances. Technological immortality predicts further progress for the same reasons over the near term. An important aspect of current scientific thinking about immortality is that some combination of human cloning, cryonics or nanotechnology will play an essential role in extreme life extension. Robert Freitas, a nanorobotics theorist, suggests we may be able to create tiny medical nanorobots that could go through our bloodstreams, find dangerous things like cancer cells and bacteria, and destroy them. [2] Freitas anticipates that gene-therapies and nanotechnology will eventually make the human body effectively self-sustainable and capable of living indefinitely, short of severe trauma. Some suggest we will be able to continually create biological or synthetic replacement parts to replace damaged or dying ones.
Some people believe that such treatments will not be available in their natural lifespan. Cryonics is the practice of preserving organisms (either intact specimens or only their brains) for possible future revival by storing them at cryogenic temperatures where metabolism and decay are almost completely stopped. Ideally this would allow clinically dead people to be brought back in the future after cures to the patients' diseases have been discovered and aging is reversible. Modern Cryonics procedures use a process called vitrification which creates a glass like state rather than freezing as the body is brought to low temperatures. This process reduces the risk of ice crystals damaging the brain structure. Many people who wish to become physically immortal think of cryonics as a backup plan in case the emerging life extension technologies don't develop rapidly enough.
Some believe that biological forms have inherent limitations in their design--primarily, their fragility and inability to immediately morph to fit the environment. A way around that predicament may someday present itself in the ability to "exist" outside of the biological form. Over the long term, the biological nature of humanity may only be temporary; should technology permit, people may circumvent death and evolution, simply by taking artificial forms.
One interesting possibility involves uploading the personality and memories via direct mind-computer interface. Some extropian futurists propose that, thanks to exponentially growing computing power, it will someday be possible to upload human consciousness onto a computer system, and live indefinitely in a virtual environment. This could be accomplished via advanced cybernetics, where computer hardware would initially be installed in the brain to help sort memory or accelerate thought processes. Gradually more and more components would be added until the person's entire brain functions were handled by artificial devices, without any sharp transitions that would lead to some identity issues mentioned below. At this point, the human body would become only an accessory and the mind could be transferred to any sufficiently powerful computer. A person in this state would then be essentially immortal, short of cataclysmic destruction of the entire civilization and their computers. However, some argue that although the computer consciousness would be an exact copy of the original (and thus undetectable to others), the original mind would no longer exist.
Quote: Calorie restriction (CR) with adequate nutrition has been shown to extend the maximum lifespan of almost every species on which it has been tested, including rats, yeast, fruit flies, and nematodes. In rodents, a roughly 50% maximum lifespan extension is seen with a roughly 50% restriction of calories from what would be consumed by freely-feeding animals. Experiments are in progress with primates to test whether calorie restriction can extend the lifespan of long-lived species. Some people believe that these experiments will be successful, and that the results will similarly hold true for humans. A group called the Calorie Restriction Society was formed with the help of Roy Walford in the mid-1990s. These people may have the willpower and determination to restrict their caloric intake in the hope of extending their lives, but they are very few in number. They communicate by e-mail and have been flown to Washington University in St. Louis to be studied by Dr. John Holloszy. There has been some criticism of Calorie restriction.
Quote: Mind uploading is the transfer of the human mind/consciousness to a more durable material vessel (stereotypically but not necessarily a silicon computer). The concept is based on materialism, the philosophy of mind that argues that the human spirit is entirely composed of a very complex system of physical and chemical interactions. With computer power increasing exponentially, and technology in the pipeline to keep up the trend, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that computer hardware will be powerful enough to run a functional model of the human mind by the 2020s. Several developing technologies promise to allow the complete mapping of human brains on a similar timescale. Uploading the human mind to a computer would potentially greatly extend human lifespan due to the ability to construct highly durable computer hardware and due to the potential to copy or transfer the mind to multiple computers.
Quote: Dr. Aubrey de Grey has suggested that it will someday be possible for humans to live thousands of years in a youthful condition. He calls his project to reverse the damage we call aging SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence). He has proposed seven strategies for the "seven deadly sins":
1. Cell loss can be repaired (reversed) just by suitable exercise in the case of muscle. For other tissues it needs various growth factors to stimulate cell division, or in some cases it needs stem cells. 2. Senescent cells, can be removed by activating the immune system against them. Or they can be destroyed by gene therapy to introduce "suicide genes" that only kill senescent cells. 3. Protein cross-linking can largely be reversed by drugs that break the links. But to break some of the cross-links we may need to develop enzymatic methods. 4. Extracellular garbage (like amyloid) can be eliminated by vaccination that gets immune cells to "eat" the garbage. 5. For intracellular junk we need to introduce new enzymes, possibly enzymes from soil bacteria, that can degrade the junk (lipofuscin) that our own natural enzymes cannot degrade. 6. For mitochondrial mutations the plan is not to repair them but to prevent harm from the mutations by putting suitably modified copies of the mitochondrial genes into the cell nucleus by gene therapy. The mitochondrial DNA experiences a high degree of mutagenic damage because most free radicals are generated in the mitochondria and because the DNA repair mechanisms of mitochondrial DNA are significantly inferior to those of nuclear DNA. A copy of the mitochondrial DNA located in the nucleus will be better protected from free radicals, and there will be better DNA repair when damage occurs. All mitochondrial proteins would then be imported into the mitochondria. 7. For cancer (the most lethal consequence of mutations) the strategy is to use gene therapy to delete the genes for telomerase and to eliminate telomerase-independent mechanisms of turning normal cells into "immortal" cancer cells. To compensate for the loss of telomerase in stem cells we would introduce new stem cells every decade or so.
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Post by Hachelen on Feb 1, 2007 18:01:08 GMT -5
Jinsei said: Quote: Biokinesis is the use of kinetic energy to rearrange, or control genes inside of the body. If Biokinesis were mastered, wouldn't it be possible to genetically reprogram yourself? The answer, in theory, is yes. By genetically reprogramming yourself, you could become a possible super human. Anything would be possible. For example, if you were to reprogram the genes in your eyes, you could make them see further and better. You'd also be able to see motions so fast, that they would normally not be possible to see. For super human, the reprogramming process would include things like lack of pain sensing, or something like that. But there would be more to it that that! Yes, way more. It would take months for that type of evolution to take place. All the necessary things to be changed would include eyes, muscles, reflexes, nervous systems, epidemic sections, and vulnerable spots on the body (pressure points) would all have to be changed and equipped to their max. The idea is to become indestructible. Now for the more wanted part of the process. The only reason people die and get old, is because of dead and dying cells in your body. If you reprogrammed yourself to remake the cells that have died, then would you ever get old? And because you never got old, would you ever die? Supposedly, the answer is no. Yes, I'm talking about immortality. It could be achieved through this state, but no one has done it yet. Which leaves doubt that it's possible. But immortality doesn't make you invincible. So you could still die in a car accident or something. There has been a technique that seems to work for minor things. For example, cold doesn't seem cold, harder to loose stamina, things like that. But anyway, here's what to do: Meditate for about half an hour. Once you've reached a meditative state of relaxation, Start letting your psi flow through you. Create a small needle of energy in your body. Make it very thin and sharp. Now visualize your genes flowing through your body in small tubes. Tell the needle in your mind it's purpose and what it is you want to change in your genes. Use will power to send the needle of psi piercing in to the gene stream. It's very important that you use psi to cover the hole made, otherwise, you'll start ot loose the character that made you who you are. Once the needle is in, let it form back in to a small mass of psi and drift in your genes until it dissolves. At this point, you can "wake up" out of the meditation and continue your day as usual. Walk around with the thought "I am (what you wanted to change)" in your head all day. Keep that attitude. After about a week, you will start to see, and feel results. Don't play with this, it is very dangerous and should only be attempted by an experienced psi or ki practitioner. From home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/Wingmakers/Biokinesis.html
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