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The odds of a pleasant
immortality? 0 or 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 or a bit higher, but not as high as 1 (certain) or 1 (certain, claimed by religious faiths for those who believe in the 'right' God, or Gods, in the 'right' way, though some say that's based on faith and are unwilling to use the word 'certain') and 0 or near 0 for those who don't, although some of the religious believe most will miss out on the pleasant immortality, and will suffer forever in an unpleasant or torturous immortality). Most believe that to have a chance near or at 1, you must believe in the 'right' God in the 'right' way. Even many disbelievers believe that religion (in Pascal's Wager style) is the only way to have any hope for a pleasant immortality, however ille- gitimate or futile that hope is perceived to be. I shall endeavor to locate some informa- tion on that, hope, by non-Muslims, non- Christians, non-Hindus, non-Buddhists, non-(insert all other religions here), and whether or not it's justified, in the coming days. - - - Pleasant Immortality? http://tinyurl.com/4446j3 - - - - - - Immortality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality - - - Excerpts [with inserts, not part of original article, added in brackets]: ... Mind uploading is the concept of transference of consciousness from a human brain to an alternative media providing the same function- ality. Assuming the process to be possible and repeatable, this would provide immortality to the consciousness, as predicted by futurists such as Ray Kurzweil. [insert -- immortality so long as the ability to continue was physically possible, and so long as the physical existence wasn't eliminated, and that is by no means certain regarding the particular space-time continuum we exist in or regarding the physical reality of the partic- ular planet we happen to live on (or near) at the present time. -- end insert] ... Technological immortality Technological immortality is the prospect for much longer life spans made possible by scienti- fic advances in a variety of fields: nanotechnol- ogy, emergency room procedures, genetics, bio- logical engineering, regenerative medicine, microbiology, and others. ... Mind-to-computer uploading 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 cyber- netics, 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 it is impossible to truly move one's consciousness from one body to another; it could be duplicated, but the orig- inal would still exist, creating two independent consciousnesses. Uploading is still only a hypo- thesis and has no scientific backing or proof that it is possible. Quantum immortality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_immortality Quantum immortality is the name for the specu- lation that the Everett many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that a conscious being cannot cease to be. The idea is highly con- troversial. Biological immortality Biological immortality is an absence of aging. ... Biologically immortal organisms can still die by being physically destroyed. Cyborgization Transforming a human into a cyborg can include brain implants or extracting a human mind and placing it in a robotic life-support system. Even replacing biological organs with robotic ones could increase life span (ie pace makers) and depending on the definition many technological upgrades to the body, like genetic modifications or the addition of nanobots would qualify an individual as a cyborg. Such modifications would make one impervious to aging and disease and theoretically immortal unless killed or destroyed. Mystical and religious pursuits of physical immortality [see article for details] Religious traditions [see article for details] Fiction Immortal beings and species abound in fiction, especially fantasy fiction. - - - The following book, regarding the possi- bility of extending life-spans to as far as possible, projects that science may, at some point, offer humans the possibility of having such a long life that even -if- it had to end, it would have been such a lengthy endeavor that it could be thought of as removing the high risk of a short- term existence. Immortality, not really sure what that is referring to in the title, as no matter how long the 'enhanced' human would live, the risks of death would remain (unless some type of multiple incorporations or restorative incorpation of the previously singularly defined human was arrived at), and the non-immortality of our particular space-time continuum appears to be an insoluble problem. However, with life spans dramatically expanded, with brain power the likes of which never have been seen, perhaps even that problem could eventually be solved. All this assumes, of course, that science will continue to advance and that humans won't become extinct -or- revert back to a primitive state of existence prior to hav- ing the opportunity to create the following: Immortality:: How Science Is Extending Your Life Span--and Changing The World http://tinyurl.com/56sz5a - - - Albert Einstein: "Immortality? There are two kinds. The first lives in the imagination of the people, and is thus an illusion. There is a relative immortality which may conserve the memory of an indi- vidual for some generations. But there is only one true immortality, on a cosmic scale, and that is the im- mortality of the cosmos itself. There is no other." - - - end excerpt - - - Einstein, recognizing the possibilities of naturalistic infinity, nevertheless viewed the individual desire/hope for immortality as reflecting an "illusion". Not sure if Einstein's view represented o a mathematical concordance with the possibility being so low as to be practically impossible, or o viewed any and all hope for immortality, even a naturalistic hope, as an illusion that could best be explained by both gen- etic and memetic influences (the concept of memes, not present in Einstein's day, but certainly, he knew that a person's environment and upbringing and culture heavily impacts his perception of reality), or o if he simply rejected any theory that existence could be part of a continuum or part of a naturalistic multiple dimen- sion or part of multiple time-space con- tinuums, or o if his comment was simply a rejection of religious propositions regarding immortality. - - - Interesting article on some of the history of the philosophy of immortality, and how that was tied into religious views for a long period in western thought, with the 'soul' generally used as a lever- age point for all immortality philosophy in days gone by: - - - Dictionary of the History of Ideas Death and Immortality http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-76 - - - Excerpt: ... William James noted that on this subject there are two kinds of people, "those whom we find indulging to their hearts' content in the prospects of immortality, and... those who experience the greatest difficulty in making such a notion seem real to themselves at all. These latter persons are tied to their senses... and feel a sort of intellectual loyalty to what they call hard facts" (The Will to Believe [1897], p. 40). But today, even among the first kind, we find rather a hope of immortality than a firm belief in it. Several causes of the erosion of the immortalist's position have been suggested, among them the general decline of religious beliefs, the refutation of "proofs" of immortality by materialist philosophers, and scien- tific data showing the dependence of mental phenom- ena on the brain. Another reason could well be that many may not really care about it. If this is so, it would signify a radical change in attitudes not only toward death but also toward life. ... - - - end excerpt - - - Comment: The above does not address naturalistic immortality, and I suspect that the notion that "many may not really care about it" does not reflect the truth of the matter, that being that most humans continue to object to death (unless the pain of living has become intolerable) and to desire a pleasant immortality, however unlikely that may be. I do concede, however, that many disbelievers have given up on hope, and can't help but wonder if that's a reaction to having been taught, from a very young age in most instances, that disbelief (in God) and lack of hope go hand-in-hand, or from being taught that the only way to get immor- tality is to believe in the 'right' god in the 'right' way. - - -
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