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Logos01 comments on Mike Darwin on Kurzweil, Techno-Optimism, and Delusional Stances on Cryonics - Less Wrong
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I find that Mike Darwin's position is somewhat painfully ignorant of the current climate in medical research towards antiagathics. Unlike the days of Natasha Vita-Moore or even the previous generation, those of us either in our twenties or in our early thirties can exceedingly reasonably expect to see medical treatments widely available during the early onset of our own senescence which are meant to combat senescence in general.
For example, the SENS project to screen senescent white blood cells is recieving real funding. SENS itself is no longer a laughing stock to the mainstream research community. Research is actively underway to locate the genetic trigger of the caloric-restriction effect in order to produce a class of pharmaceuticals to replicate it.
The only question is whether this will ramp up sufficiently to make "escape velocity" before mind-uploading becomes viable, or after. Whether mind-uploading becomes viable during my personal (as a 30 year-old adult male US citizen) expected remaining longevity is no longer a question.
Interesting. I would have given viable uploading within the next 70 years no more than about a 50% chance, even assuming no major socioeconomic collapse. Is there something I could read that makes the case for why uploading is such a good bet?
I do not project a mere 100 years of biological life for myself. Current estimates of expected longevity do not take into account antagapic advancements.
Got it. Just so I understand what probability you're putting on uploading -- how long a biological lifespan are you expecting?
I have no decent estimate (and let me say that all of my projections ignore the probabilities of total societal collapse from various existential risks. That isn't to say I don't believe there are any such risks, just that I find them non-useful in projecting the timeline for various advances). Let me simply say that I agree with De Grey that the first millenarian is very likely alive today, though he or she is also very likely younger than I am.
I cannot conceive of a worldline resultant from the here-and-now that would not include the datapoint that within fifty years from today, antiagapics research had extended human lifespans by at least another fifty years. So even if we aren't at "escape velocity" -- I strongly believe that it will be medically possible for a centenarian at the time I will be a centenarian to live to see another century of life.
Well, antiagapics, tissue-cloning, prosthetics, and so-on. We might also see sideloading long before uploading. (I define sideloading in this conversation as the gradual transition from biological to technological substrate. I.e.; the substituting-one-neuron-at-a-time version of uploading.)
So I can sort of see how you might assign a high probability to this sort of thing. I'm puzzled by claims that one can't conceive of other end results. You can't conceive of for example some parts of the aging process just turning out to be much more complicated than we anticipated?
At this point, almost all the work we've done improving lifespan has been improving the average lifespan. We've done very little in improving the maximum lifespan. The oldest person in the world died at age 122 in 1997. That's not much beyond historical oldest people.
(For some reasons to be a bit more pessimistic, see this earlier Less Wrong thread.)
I can understand assigning this a high probability. But I'm puzzled by strong claims like not being able to conceive of a world-line.
They already have. But at least they are now being researched whereas in the past they did not. We also already know of several potential viable antiagapic techniques, and simply need to determine their safety and delivery systems.
Yes. But up until two or so years ago no one in any mainstream capacity was doing any antiagapic research at all. That has changed. SENS is no longer a 'joke'. The caloric restriction gene activation project is also unlike any previous research done. There has been a change in the climate of medical science regarding the topic of senescence; it is no longer considered 'nutty' to find legitimate ways to reduce it.
So all statistics about how things have been up until now are irrelevant in making predictions about the future -- as the pieces in play have changed fundamentally.
... Enter statistics about how things have been. :-)
From the here-and-now. I.e.; where there has already been successful antiagapic work, it is being taken seriously, and biomedical prosthetics are getting more sophisticated over time over and above the norm, and organ-level cloning has a viable route to practical application, etc., etc..
For these things to together not result in the above-described projection being valid would require that several different underlying principles of the world as I understand it be false. And while I can stipulate counterfactuals for purposes of discussion, I cannot legitimately conceive of things I believe to be inviolate truth being false.
For example; can you conceive of having never actually used a computer being the actual truth in the naive-reality sense? (Don't conjecturally imagine it; attempt to see if you could legitimately integrate that with your current status as having used such a machine.)
Anti-aging research is always going on. How much interest mainstream science takes in it seems to be something close to a random walk.
For example, look at Alexis Carrel who won a Nobel Prize in 1912 and became more well known among both scientists and the general public not for his work that earned him that prize but for his apparently successful attempt to culture the cells of a chicken's heart for an indefinite amount of time. Many scientists attempted (unsuccessfully) to duplicate Carrel's work, even as many scientists visited his culture, and took for granted that his culture was real and there was some subtle difference. (It later turned out that it was likely due to accidental cell replenishment occurring in the culture feeding.)
A more modern example is the work with reservatrol which started being taken seriously in 2004.
Scientists have been working in the mainstream for this sort of thing for sometime. For more examples and a general history of related research, see David Stipp's "The Youth Pill"
So given this history, I'm more inclined to trust historical statistics.
I'm not aware of much successful anti-aging work. Do you have specific examples in mind? Caloric restriction and variations thereof seems in most species to increase the average lifespan but not increase the maximal lifespan.
I agree that prosthetics and cloned organs are likely to help a lot. To some extent, prosthetics are already doing this. Lack of mobility or difficulty moving can easily lead to problems. In that regard, artificial knees and hips have extended the lifespan in the elderly and substantially increased quality of life for many people. As we speak, artificial hearts are rapidly becoming usable for all sorts of people with severe heart problems while pacemakers and VADs are already standards.
Could you expand on what these premises are? I'd be interested in seeing this chain of logic stated explicitly.
... not in any serious context, it wasn't. Given that most medical advances take roughly twenty years to get from the early "theoretical" stage to widespread adoption, looking at what was going on twenty years ago and earlier will demonstrate that there was quite certainly a widespread belief that all "anti-aging" research was non-existent, aside from palliative care for the senescent. Old age was considered unavoidable.
And is still being researched as to its actual mechanisms -- but is widely considered to be a legitimate antiagapic, likely working on the "caloric restriction" effect. One that is not currently in use in humans, but may well be.
THIS is confirmation of my position, you realize. It, in combination with the other items I discussed and the active research now going on at SENS towards that effect, also abolishes the relevance of any statistics currently measuring longevity for purposes of making predictions. Not a single one of those statistics can possibly take into account medical advances that aren't yet in effect.
"The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Verge of an Anti-Aging Revolution", you mean? I find it somewhat difficult to accept the idea that you would believe this text is an argument against the notion that anti-agapics is a field that is getting mainstream attention and has possible successful routes to that effect... especially since you yourself mentioned the most promising example from it. One that is in current research and has never been applied to people.
Umm... I'm not familiar with that claim, and it contradicts evidence I have seen that indicates exactly the opposite.
1) That humans are material organisms.
2) That organisms follow the laws of biology.
3) That there is no supernatural force dictating human events.
Etc., etc.. That's really the only way I could see human lifespan extension becoming viable within fifty years, to the point that at least another fifty years' worth of lifespan extension would be available to persons in my then-state. (I.e.; replacing worn out organs with younger versions or prosthetic replacements; deriving pharmaceuticals for the caloric-restriction effect, SENS counter-damage approaches achieving viability, etc., etc..)
Not my point. I'm not arguing that there isn't mainstream attention. My point is that there has been mainstream attention before now and that that hasn't gotten very far. So the outside view is something to the effect that every few decades scientists become much more interested in life-extension, it doesn't go very far, and then they go do other things.
If all your premises are essentially timeless then one needs to ask if one would have expected this to happen in the past. If for example in 1950, 1900 or 1850, scientists decided to put in a maximal amount of effort into extending human lifespan, do you think they would be as likely to be successful as you think scientists now would be? Maybe you can make that argument for 1950, but I'd be surprised if you'd make that claim about 1900 or 1850. This means that your statement has to include at least one premise involving the level of current medical and scientific knowledge that didn't apply then.
Edited to add:
Yeah, I seem to be wrong here. According to this survey for rodents there's more increase on the average than the maximal but there's a large increase in the maximal age as well.
Defining swans as white only works until you visit Australia.