Transhumanism and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

[AlexJonesClips]

Why do you think the scientists are going to give you the good chips? Surely, they will get the fast augmentations, and you will be given the slow ones. That's how the elite work, surely.

[Mahoivlich]

Life is dependent of available resources. Extended life is already creating problems, add another 100 years and you will have war and mass death; the inverse of the intended effect. Who will benefit from these discoveries? That is real moral and ethical question because if we all get it, and we do not have the ability to colonize and terraform other planets it is just another death sentence. Adding the 2nd law into the argument is straw manski.

[GStolyarovII]

@Mahoivlich Longer life will not lead to a drain on resources – but to more resources created by human minds. For an explanation of this, see my video “Eliminating Death – Part 4 – The Overpopulation Argument”. Also, Julian Simon’s book, “The Ultimate Resource” contains an excellent elaboration of this point. I also recommend watching the video of Sonia Arrison’s talk, “How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything”.

[Mahoivlich]

@GStolyarovII We can tighten up and reduce waste but all people have needs and wants. The Earth has finite resources......we need to get out into space, if not only for more resources. I will check out your other vid. If everyone lived on 2 dollars a day yes you could stretch the resources much further but we want our western easy lives and will bleed ourselves and others to keep it as we have for the last 400 years on this continent.

[GStolyarovII]

@Mahoivlich I agree, by the way, with the desirability of harvesting resources from outer space and from other worlds. This will be vital in humanity’s ongoing improvement and quest for indefinite continuation. But I think it is precisely the sophistication and prosperity of the most advanced lifestyles and pursuits of our time that can get us there. We need our basic needs met, and then some, before we can easily contemplate grand expansions.

[GStolyarovII]

@Mahoivlich The richer, healthier, and happier humans become, the easier it will be for them to launch space expeditions and colonize other worlds. This, in turn, would further enhance our wealth, health, and happiness in a virtuous cycle.

[zoveia]

@Mahoivlich about the resources argument, there is a word called, "recycling" wich we can extend the resources need. and another called "nanomanufacturing" wich we can create everything... is it still science fiction? yes, but just for now... And in my view about this scenario, we will no longer need water, food, we will just need our consciousness and we will create a "matix" scenario, wich will be like earth, but much more interesting

[zoveia]

@Mahoivlich It doesn't matter how much problem we could create, actually, i don't think that being a robot, gives too much work. BUt, we prefer to live with problems, instead of just die at all... We can't colonize another planets now.. but if you could say to a person in 1900 about man in moon, they will just dismiss your words... WE transformed medicine in economy, immortality, will be a market too.. Gorvernment will provide for people the avatar for free!

[YesIamJames]

Woh! There is a lot more to the heat-death hypothesis than simply "this is what the 2nd laws says therefor this is going to happen." We have VERY good reason to believe the universe is finite in size and unless energy is being fed in to this universe from another one then we most certainly can treat it as a closed system. We're screwed a lot earlier than that though 100 trillion years will be the end of the Stelliferous era meaning no new stars will form.

[GStolyarovII]

@YesIamJames My view is that, since the universe is not a thing, it cannot have the finite properties of a thing – such as size. Furthermore, I hold that the universe (i.e., existence) has always existed – which renders a “heat death” even less plausible. See my response to biznor3 for further elaboration.

[YesIamJames]

@GStolyarovII I'll check it out later. The only viable alternative to heat death I see is a big crunch scenario, either way I don't see us surviving.

As an atheist I also see existence being eternal being viable, I've got a few hypothesis of my own. I really like Lee Smolin's fecund universes theory combined with M-theory. I've also coined a fractal multiverse theory which utilizes imaginary and complex time to over come the first cause issue.

[GStolyarovII]

@YesIamJames As for the end of star formation, I do not think we can have enough evidence from our current vantage point to suggest that such a ubiquitous process would cease altogether in the distant future.

[YesIamJames]

@GStolyarovII We know the life cycle of stars and we know they fuse H to He. We know that most red giants fuse Helium to produce heavier elements and roughly the limits of stellar fusion. There is a limit to how long this can sustain because eventually all of these light elements will have fused.

You've made me think though... Maybe heavy element fission stars are possible. If not it's a great concept for sci-fi.

[GStolyarovII]

@YesIamJames Apologies for the delayed response – but I was intrigued by your posts. The Wikipedia entry “Ultimate fate of the universe” is an interesting series of brief summaries of some of the theories that have been posited. While some of them suggest an ultimate end to the possibility of supporting life, others hold out hope. For example, the chain-reaction multiverse theory offers a scenario that could continue indefinitely.

[YesIamJames]

@GStolyarovII Thanks. I'll read up about the wikipedia entry later, just had a look, seemed pretty interesting.

[biznor3]

The way I see it, the only way we could live forever is if the universe (all that exists) was infinitely large. Then it would have an infinite amount of order, meaning that our lives would never have to end. Otherwise, it would have to be a closed system (albeit a very, very big one), which would make it susceptible to heat death. A closed system must inevitably run out of usable energy eventually.

[GStolyarovII]

@biznor3 My view is that, since the universe is not a unitary thing, it cannot have, qua universe, any of the attributes of a thing – such as spatial constraints or a finite volume. Therefore, it is possible for one (as long as one remains in existence) to move away any distance from the Earth and not run into any kind of barrier. While doing so, one could encounter any number of other entities and never run out of entities to encounter.

[GStolyarovII]

@biznor3 I indeed do not consider the universe to be a closed system. Even at any given moment, there could be an inexhaustible number of things that is in existence. Furthermore, I hold that the universe has not been and could not have been created – but rather that it has always existed. This avoids the logical impossibility of ex nihilo creation. If the universe always existed, then it follows that if “heat death” were possible, it would have already occurred.

[nekopheliac]

@8:40 you are absolutely correct. Take the 2nd Law out of a small closed system and it quickly falls apart. The argument against evolution has always been: "ha Ha! What about the 2nd Law?! What about entropy!? If systems are always degrading(becoming more chaotic) then how do they evolve?" It is so beyond simple-mindedness that it literally takes years to unwind that mental knot those people have been caught in. Their mind's are bound by this inaccurate/misleading preconception.

[jbrowsingj]

Surely this is not a real critique of indefinite life extension.

[GStolyarovII]

@jbrowsingj I have encountered it on several occasions before as a critique. This time, it was posed to me as a question, with the critique implicit in the question. But I agree that it is quite flawed as a critique, even on its surface.

[AkivaII]

Is the Second Law of Thermodynamics tautological? I am not sure if that is a poor choice of words, but I would like to know.

[GStolyarovII]

@AkivaII I do think the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is substantive in that it does describe actual physical phenomena and some limitations of what can be done with physical systems. As an example, it would predict that a perpetual-motion machine (completely self-powered) is not possible; any machine would eventually break down unless it has outside inputs of energy. One could imagine a world in which this were not so – but ours is not such a world.

[GStolyarovII]

@GStolyarovII But I also think the 2nd Law is often taken outside of its proper scope to posit unverifiable predictions about the far future.