life extension – Page 23 – The Rational Argumentator

Immortality: Bio or Techno? – Article by Franco Cortese

June 6, 2013 Franco Cortese Comments 2 comments

Franco Cortese

June 5, 2013

Recommend this page.

******************************

This essay is the eleventh and final chapter in Franco Cortese’s forthcoming e-book, I Shall Not Go Quietly Into That Good Night!: My Quest to Cure Death, published by the Center for Transhumanity. The first ten chapters were previously published on The Rational Argumentator under the following titles:

– Chapter 1: “The Moral Imperative and Technical Feasibility of Defeating Death”
– Chapter 2: “Immortality: Material or Ethereal? Nanotech Does Both!”

– Chapter 3: “Concepts for Functional Replication of Biological Neurons”

– Chapter 4: “Gradual Neuron Replacement for the Preservation of Subjective-Continuity”

– Chapter 5: “Wireless Synapses, Artificial Plasticity, and Neuromodulation”

– Chapter 6: “Mind as Interference with Itself: A New Approach to Immediate Subjective-Continuity”

– Chapter 7: “Neuronal ‘Scanning’ and NRU Integration”

– Chapter 8: “Squishy Machines: Bio-Cybernetic Neuron Hybrids”

– Chapter 9: “Choosing the Right Scale for Brain Emulation”

– Chapter 10: “Maintaining the Operational Continuity of Replicated Neurons”

***

I Was a Techno-Immortalist Before I Came of Age

From the preceding chapters in this series, one can see that I recapitulated many notions and conclusions found in normative Whole-Brain Emulation. I realized that functional divergence between a candidate functional-equivalent and its original, through the process of virtual or artificial replication of environmental stimuli so as to coordinate their inputs, provides an experimental methodology for empirically validating the sufficiency and efficacy of different approaches. (Note, however, that such tests could not be performed to determine which NRU-designs or replication-approaches would preserve subjective-continuity, if the premises entertained during later periods of my project—that subjective-continuity may require a sufficient degree of operational “sameness”, and not just a sufficient degree of functional “sameness”—are correct.) I realized that we would only need to replicate in intensive detail and rigor those parts of our brain manifesting our personalities and higher cognitive faculties (i.e., the neocortex), and could get away with replicating at lower functional resolution the parts of the nervous system dealing with perception, actuation, and feedback between perception and actuation.

I read Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation and imported the use of nanotechnology to facilitate both functional-replication (i.e., the technologies and techniques needed to replicate the functional and/or operational modalities of existing biological neurons) and the intensive, precise, and accurate scanning necessitated thereby. This was essentially Ray Kurzweil’s and Robert Freitas’s approach to the technological infrastructure needed for mind-uploading, as I discovered in 2010 via The Singularity is Near.

My project also bears stark similarities with Dmitry Itskov’s Project Avatar. My work on conceptual requirements for transplanting the biological brain into a fully cybernetic body — taking advantage of the technological and methodological infrastructures already in development for use in the separate disciplines of robotics, prosthetics, Brain-Computer Interfaces and sensory-substitution to facilitate the operations of the body — is a prefigurement of his Phase 1. My later work in approaches to functional replication of neurons for the purpose of gradual substrate replacement/transfer and integration also parallel his later phases, in which the brain is gradually replaced with an equivalent computational emulation.

The main difference between the extant Techno-Immortalist approaches, however, is my later inquiries into neglected potential bases for (a) our sense of experiential subjectivity (the feeling of being, what I’ve called immediate subjective-continuity)—and thus the entailed requirements for mental substrates aiming to maintain or attain such immediate subjectivity—and (b) our sense of temporal subjective-continuity (the feeling of being the same person through a process of gradual substrate-replacement—which I take pains to remind the reader already exists in the biological brain via the natural biological process of molecular turnover, which I called metabolic replacement throughout the course of the project), and, likewise, requirements for mental substrates aiming to maintain temporal subjective-continuity through a gradual substrate-replacement/transfer procedure.

In this final chapter, I summarize the main approaches to subjective-continuity thus far considered, including possible physical bases for its current existence and the entailed requirements for NRU designs (that is, for Techno-Immortalist approaches to indefinite-longevity) that maintain such physical bases of subjective-continuity. I will then explore why “Substrate-Independent Minds” is a useful and important term, and try to dispel one particularly common and easy-to-make misconception resulting from it.

Why Should We Worry about Subjective–Continuity?

This concern marks perhaps the most telling difference between my project and normative Whole-Brain Emulation. Instead of stopping at the presumption that functional equivalence correlates with immediate subjective-continuity and temporal subjective-continuity, I explored several features of neural operation that looked like candidates for providing a basis of both types of subjective-continuity, by looking for those systemic properties and aspects that the biological brain possesses and other physical systems don’t. The physical system underlying the human mind (i.e., the brain) possesses experiential subjectivity; my premise was that we should look for properties not shared by other physical systems to find a possible basis for the property of immediate subjective-continuity. I’m not claiming that any of the aspects and properties considered definitely constitute such a basis; they were merely the avenues I explored throughout my 4-year quest to conquer involuntary death. I do claim, however, that we are forced to conclude that some aspect shared by the individual components (e.g., neurons) of the brain and not shared by other types of physical systems forms such a basis (which doesn’t preclude the possibility of immediate subjective-continuity being a spectrum or gradient rather than a definitive “thing” or process with non-variable parameters), or else that immediate subjective continuity is a normal property of all physical systems, from atoms to rocks.

A phenomenological proof of the non-equivalence of function and subjectivity or subjective-experientiality is the physical irreducibility of qualia – that we could understand in intricate detail the underlying physics of the brain and sense-organs, and nowhere derive or infer the nature of the qualia such underlying physics embodies. To experimentally verify which approaches to replication preserve both functionality and subjectivity would necessitate a science of qualia. This could be conceivably attempted through making measured changes to the operation or inter-component relations of a subject’s mind (or sense organs)—or by integrating new sense organs or neural networks—and recording the resultant changes to his experientiality—that is, to what exactly he feels. Though such recordings would be limited to his descriptive ability, we might be able to make some progress—e.g., he could detect the generation of a new color, and communicate that it is indeed a color that doesn’t match the ones normally available to him, while still failing to communicate to others what the color is like experientially or phenomenologically (i.e., what it is like in terms of qualia). This gets cruder the deeper we delve, however. While we have unchanging names for some “quales” (i.e., green, sweetness, hot, and cold), when it gets into the qualia corresponding with our perception of our own “thoughts” (which will designate all non-normatively perceptual experiential modalities available to the mind—thus, this would include wordless “daydreaming” and exclude autonomic functions like digestion or respiration), we have both far less precision (i.e., fewer words to describe) and less accuracy (i.e., too many words for one thing, which the subject may confuse; the lack of a quantitative definition for words relating to emotions and mental modalities/faculties seems to ensure that errors may be carried forward and increase with each iteration, making precise correlation of operational/structural changes with changes to qualia or experientiality increasingly harder and more unlikely).

Thus whereas the normative movements of Whole-Brain Emulation and Substrate-Independent Minds stopped at functional replication, I explored approaches to functional replication that preserved experientiality (i.e., a subjective sense of anything) and that maintained subjective-continuity (the experiential correlate of feeling like being yourself) through the process of gradual substrate-transfer.

I do not mean to undermine in any way Whole-Brain Emulation and the movement towards Substrate-Independent Minds promoted by such people as Randal Koene via, formerly, his minduploading.org website and, more recently, his Carbon Copies project, Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom through their WBE Roadmap, and various other projects on connectomes. These projects are untellably important, but conceptions of subjective-continuity (not pertaining to its relation to functional equivalence) are beyond their scope.

Whether or not subjective-continuity is possible through a gradual-substrate-replacement/transfer procedure is not under question. That we achieve and maintain subjective-continuity despite our constituent molecules being replaced within a period of 7 years, through what I’ve called “metabolic replacement” but what would more normatively be called “molecular-turnover” in molecular biology, is not under question either. What is under question is (a) what properties biological nervous systems possess that could both provide a potential physical basis for subjective-continuity and that other physical systems do not possess, and (b) what the design requirements are for approaches to gradual substrate replacement/transfer that preserve such postulated sources of subjective-continuity.

Graduality

This was the first postulated basis for preserving temporal subjective-continuity. Our bodily systems’ constituent molecules are all replaced within a span of 7 years, which provides empirical verification for the existence of temporal subjective-continuity through gradual substrate replacement. This is not, however, an actual physical basis for immediate subjective-continuity, like the later avenues of enquiry. It is rather a way to avoid causing externally induced subjective-discontinuity, rather than maintaining the existing biological bases for subjective-discontinuity. We are most likely to avoid negating subjective-continuity through a substrate-replacement procedure if we try to maintain the existing degree of graduality (the molecular-turnover or “metabolic-replacement” rate) that exists in biological neurons.

The reasoning behind concerns of graduality also serves to illustrate a common misconception created by the term “Substrate-Independent Minds”. This term should denote the premise that mind can be instantiated on different types of substrate, in the way that a given computer program can run of different types of computational hardware. It stems from the scientific-materialist (a.k.a metaphysical-naturalist) claim that mind is an emergent process not reducible to its isolated material constituents, while still being instantiated thereby. The first (legitimate) interpretation is a refutation against all claims of metaphysical vitalism or substance dualism. The term should not denote the claim that since mind because is software, we can thus send our minds (say, encoded in a wireless signal) from one substrate to another without subjective-discontinuity. This second meaning would incur the emergent effect of a non-gradual substrate-replacement procedure (that is, the wholesale reconstruction of a duplicate mind without any gradual integration procedure). In such a case one stops all causal interaction between components of the brain—in effect putting it on pause. The brain is now static. This is even different than being in an inoperative state, where at least the components (i.e., neurons) still undergo minor operational fluctuations and are still “on” in an important sense (see “Immediate Subjective-Continuity” below), which is not the case here. Beaming between substrates necessitates that all causal interaction—and thus procedural continuity—between software-components is halted during the interval of time in which the information is encoded, sent wirelessly, and subsequently decoded. It would be reinstantiated upon arrival in the new substrate, yes, but not without being put on pause in the interim. The phrase “Substrate-Independent Minds” is an important and valuable one and should be indeed be championed with righteous vehemence—but only in regard to its first meaning (that mind can be instantiated on various different substrates) and not its second, illegitimate meaning (that we ourselves can switch between mental substrates, without any sort of gradual-integration procedure, and still retain subjective-continuity).

Later lines of thought in this regard consisted of positing several sources of subjective-continuity and then conceptualizing various different approaches or varieties of NRU-design that would maintain these aspects through the gradual-replacement procedure.

Immediate Subjective-Continuity

This line of thought explored whether certain physical properties of biological neurons provide the basis for subjective-continuity, and whether current computational paradigms would need to possess such properties in order to serve as a viable substrate-for-mind—that is, one that maintains subjective-continuity. The biological brain has massive parallelism—that is, separate components are instantiated concurrently in time and space. They actually exist and operate at the same time. By contrast, current paradigms of computation, with a few exceptions, are predominantly serial. They instantiate a given component or process one at a time and jump between components or processes so as to integrate these separate instances and create the illusion of continuity. If such computational paradigms were used to emulate the mind, then only one component (e.g., neuron or ion-channel, depending on the chosen model-scale) would be instantiated at a given time. This line of thought postulates that computers emulating the mind may need to be massively parallel in the same way that as the biological brain is in order to preserve immediate subjective-continuity.

Procedural Continuity

Much like the preceding line of thought, this postulates that a possible basis for temporal subjective-continuity is the resting membrane potential of neurons. While in an inoperative state—i.e., not being impinged by incoming action-potentials, or not being stimulated—it (a) isn’t definitively off, but rather produces a baseline voltage that assures that there is no break (or region of discontinuity) in its operation, and (b) still undergoes minor fluctuations from the baseline value within a small deviation-range, thus showing that causal interaction amongst the components emergently instantiating that resting membrane potential (namely ion-pumps) never halts. Logic gates on the other hand do not produce a continuous voltage when in an inoperative state. This line of thought claims that computational elements used to emulate the mind should exhibit the generation of such a continuous inoperative-state signal (e.g., voltage) in order to maintain subjective-continuity. The claim’s stronger version holds that the continuous inoperative-state signal produced by such computational elements undergo minor fluctuations (i.e., state-transitions) allowed within the range of the larger inoperative-state signal, which maintains causal interaction among lower-level components and thus exhibits the postulated basis for subjective-continuity—namely procedural continuity.

Operational Isomorphism

This line of thought claims that a possible source for subjective-continuity is the baseline components comprising the emergent system instantiating mind. In physicality this isn’t a problem because the higher-scale components (e.g., single neurons, sub-neuron components like ion-channels and ion-pumps, and individual protein complexes forming the sub-components of an ion-channel or pump) are instantiated by the lower-level components. Those lower-level components are more similar in terms of the rules determining behavior and state-changes. At the molecular scale, the features determining state-changes (intra-molecular forces, atomic valences, etc.) are the same. This changes as we go up the scale—most notably at the scale of high-level neural regions/systems. In a software model, however, we have a choice as to what scale we use as our model-scale. This postulated source of subjective-continuity would entail that we choose as our model-scale one in which the components of that scale have a high degree of this property (operational isomorphism—or similarity) and that we not choosing a scale at which the components have a lesser degree of this property.

Operational Continuity

This line of thought explored the possibility that we might introduce operational discontinuity by modeling (i.e., computationally instantiating) not the software instantiated by the physical components of the neuron, but instead those physical components themselves—which for illustrative purposes can be considered as the difference between instantiating software and instantiating physics of the logic gates giving rise to the software. Though the software would necessarily be instantiated as a vicarious result of computationally instantiating its biophysical foundation rather than the software directly, we may be introducing additional operational steps and thus adding an unnecessary dimension of discontinuity that needlessly jeopardizes the likelihood of subjective-continuity.

These concerns are wholly divorced from functionalist concerns. If we disregarded these potential sources of subjective-continuity, we could still functionally-replicate a mind in all empirically-verifiable measures yet nonetheless fail to create minds possessing experiential subjectivity. Moreover, the verification experiments discussed in Part 2 do provide a falsifiable methodology for determining which approaches best satisfy the requirements of functional equivalence. They do not, however, provide a method of determining which postulated sources of subjective-continuity are true—simply because we have no falsifiable measures to determine either immediate or temporal subjective-discontinuity, other than functionality. If functional equivalence failed, it would tell us that subjective-continuity failed to be maintained. If functional-equivalence was achieved, however, it doesn’t necessitate that subjective-continuity was maintained.

Bio or Cyber? Does It Matter?

Biological approaches to indefinite-longevity, such as Aubrey de Grey’s SENS and Michael Rose’s Evolutionary Selection for Longevity, among others, have both comparative advantages and drawbacks. The chances of introducing subjective-discontinuity are virtually nonexistent compared to non-biological (which I will refer to as Techno-Immortalist) approaches. This makes them at once more appealing. However, it remains to be seen whether the advantages of the techno-immortalist approach supersede their comparative dangers in regard to their potential to introduce subjective-discontinuity. If such dangers can be obviated, however, it has certain potentials which Bio-Immortalist projects lack—or which are at least comparatively harder to facilitate using biological approaches.

Perhaps foremost among these potentials is the ability to actively modulate and modify the operations of individual neurons, which, if integrated across scales (that is, the concerted modulation/modification of whole emergent neural networks and regions via operational control over their constituent individual neurons), would allow us to take control over our own experiential and functional modalities (i.e., our mental modes of experience and general abilities/skills), thus increasing our degree of self-determination and the control we exert over the circumstances and determining conditions of our own being. Self-determination is the sole central and incessant essence of man; it is his means of self-overcoming—of self-dissent in a striving towards self-realization—and the ability to increase the extent of such self-control, self-mastery, and self-actualization is indeed a comparative advantage of techno-immortalist approaches.

To modulate and modify biological neurons, on the other hand, necessitates either high-precision genetic engineering, or likely the use of nanotech (i.e., NEMS), because whereas the proposed NRUs already have the ability to controllably vary their operations, biological neurons necessitate an external technological infrastructure for facilitating such active modulation and modification.

Biological approaches to increased longevity also appear to necessitate less technological infrastructure in terms of basic functionality. Techno-immortalist approaches require precise scanning technologies and techniques that neither damage nor distort (i.e., affect to the point of operational and/or functional divergence from their normal in situ state of affairs) the features and properties they are measuring. However, there is a useful distinction to be made between biological approaches to increased longevity, and biological approaches to indefinite longevity. Aubrey de Grey’s notion of Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) serves to illustrate this distinction. With SENS and most biological approaches, he points out that although remediating certain biological causes of aging will extend our lives, by that time different causes of aging that were superseded (i.e., prevented from making a significant impact on aging) by the higher-impact causes of aging may begin to make a non-negligible impact. Aubrey’s proposed solution is LEV: if we can develop remedies for these approaches within the amount of time gained by the remediation of the first set of causes, then we can stay on the leading edge and continue to prolong our lives. This is in contrast to other biological approaches, like Eric Drexler’s conception of nanotechnological cell-maintenance and cell-repair systems, which by virtue of being able to fix any source of molecular damage or disarray vicariously, not via eliminating the source but via iterative repair and/or replacement of the causes or “symptoms” of the source, will continue to work on any new molecular causes of damage without any new upgrades or innovations to their underlying technological and methodological infrastructures.

These would be more appropriately deemed an indefinite-biological-longevity technology, in contrast to biological-longevity technologies. Techno-immortalist approaches are by and large exclusively of the indefinite-longevity-extension variety, and so have an advantage over certain biological approaches to increased longevity, but such advantages do not apply to biological approaches to indefinite longevity.

A final advantage of techno-immortalist approaches is the independence of external environments it provides us. It also makes death by accident far less likely both by enabling us to have more durable bodies and by providing independence from external environments, which means that certain extremes of temperature, pressure, impact-velocity, atmosphere, etc., will not immediately entail our death.

I do not want to discredit any approaches to immortality discussed in this essay, nor any I haven’t mentioned. Every striving and attempt at immortality is virtuous and righteous, and this sentiment will only become more and apparent, culminating on the day when humanity looks back, and wonders how we could have spent so very much money and effort on the Space Race to the Moon with no perceivable scientific, resource, or monetary gain (though there were some nationalistic and militaristic considerations in terms of America not being superseded on either account by Russia), yet took so long to make a concerted global effort to first demand and then implement well-funded attempts to finally defeat death—that inchoate progenitor of 100,000 unprecedented cataclysms a day. It’s true—the world ends 100,000 times a day, to be lighted upon not once more for all of eternity. Every day. What have you done to stop it?

So What?

Indeed, so what? What does this all mean? After all, I never actually built any systems, or did any physical experimentation. I did, however, do a significant amount of conceptual development and thinking on both the practical consequences (i.e., required technologies and techniques, different implementations contingent upon different premises and possibilities, etc.) and the larger social and philosophical repercussions of immortality prior to finding out about other approaches. And I planned on doing physical experimentation and building physical systems; but I thought that working on it in my youth, until such a time as to be in the position to test and implement these ideas more formally via academia or private industry, would be better for the long-term success of the endeavor.

As noted in Chapter 1, this reifies the naturality and intuitive simplicity of indefinite longevity’s ardent desirability and fervent feasibility, along a large variety of approaches ranging from biotechnology to nanotechnology to computational emulation. It also reifies the naturality and desirability of Transhumanism. I saw one of the virtues of this vision as its potential to make us freer, to increase our degree of self-determination, as giving us the ability to look and feel however we want, and the ability to be—and more importantly to become—anything we so desire. Man is marked most starkly by his urge and effort to make his own self—to formulate the best version of himself he can, and then to actualize it. We are always reaching toward our better selves—striving forward in a fit of unbound becoming toward our newest and thus truest selves; we always have been, and with any courage we always will.

Transhumanism is but the modern embodiment of our ancient striving towards increased self-determination and self-realization—of all we’ve ever been and done. It is the current best contemporary exemplification of what has always been the very best in us—the improvement of self and world. Indeed, the ‘trans’ and the ‘human’ in Transhumanism can only signify each other, for to be human is to strive to become more than human—or to become more so human, depending on which perspective you take.

So come along and long for more with me; the best is e’er yet to be!

Franco Cortese is an editor for Transhumanity.net, as well as one of its most frequent contributors. He has also published articles and essays on Immortal Life and The Rational Argumentator. He contributed 4 essays and 7 debate responses to the digital anthology Human Destiny is to Eliminate Death: Essays, Rants and Arguments About Immortality.

Franco is an Advisor for Lifeboat Foundation (on its Futurists Board and its Life Extension Board) and contributes regularly to its blog.

Bibliography

Koene, R. (2011). What is carboncopies.org? Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://www.carboncopies.org/

Rose, M. (October 28 2004). Biological Immortality. In B. Klein, The Scientific Conquest of Death (pp. 17-28). Immortality Institute.

Sandberg, A., & Bostrom, N. (2008). Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap, Technical Report #2008-3. Retrieved February 28, 2013 http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf

Sandberg, A., & Bostrom, Koene, R. (2011). The Society of Neural Prosthetics and Whole Brain Emulation Science. Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://www.minduploading.org/

de Grey, ADNJ (2004). Escape Velocity: Why the Prospect of Extreme Human Life Extension Matters Now. PLoS Biol 2(6): e187. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020187

Mitochondrially Targeted Antioxidant SS-31 Reverses Some Measures of Aging in Muscle – Article by Reason

May 26, 2013 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Reason

May 26, 2013

Recommend this page.

******************************

Originally published on the Fight Aging! website.

Antioxidants of the sort you can buy at the store and consume are pretty much useless: the evidence shows us that they do nothing for health, and may even work to block some beneficial mechanisms. Targeting antioxidant compounds to the mitochondria in our cells is a whole different story, however. Mitochondria are swarming bacteria-like entities that produce the chemical energy stores used to power cellular processes. This involves chemical reactions that necessarily generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a byproduct, and these tend to react with and damage protein machinery in the cell. The machinery that gets damaged the most is that inside the mitochondria, of course, right at ground zero for ROS production. There are some natural antioxidants present in mitochondria, but adding more appears to make a substantial difference to the proportion of ROS that are soaked up versus let loose to cause harm.

If mitochondria were only trivially relevant to health and longevity, this wouldn’t be a terribly interesting topic, and I wouldn’t be talking about it. The evidence strongly favors mitochondrial damage as an important contribution to degenerative aging, however. Most damage in cells is repaired pretty quickly, and mitochondria are regularly destroyed and replaced by a process of division – again, like bacteria. Some rare forms of mitochondrial damage persist, however, eluding quality-control mechanisms and spreading through the mitochondrial population in a cell. This causes cells to fall into a malfunctioning state in which they export massive quantities of ROS out into surrounding tissue and the body at large. As you age, ever more of your cells suffer this fate.

In recent years a number of research groups have been working on ways to deliver antioxidants to the mitochondria, some of which are more relevant to future therapies than others. For example gene therapies to boost levels of natural mitochondrial antioxidants like catalase are unlikely to arrive in the clinic any time soon, but they serve to demonstrate significance by extending healthy life in mice. A Russian research group has been working with plastinquinone compounds that can be ingested and then localize to the mitochondria, and have shown numerous benefits to result in animal studies of the SkQ series of drug candidates.

US-based researchers have been working on a different set of mitochondrially targeted antioxidant compounds, with a focus on burn treatment. However, they recently published a paper claiming reversal of some age-related changes in muscle tissue in mice using their drug candidate SS-31. Note that this is injected, unlike SkQ compounds:

Mitochondrial targeted peptide rapidly improves mitochondrial energetics and skeletal muscle performance in aged mice

Quote:

Mitochondrial dysfunction plays a key pathogenic role in aging skeletal muscle resulting in significant healthcare costs in the developed world. However, there is no pharmacologic treatment to rapidly reverse mitochondrial deficits in the elderly. Here we demonstrate that a single treatment with the mitochondrial targeted peptide SS-31 restores in vivo mitochondrial energetics to young levels in aged mice after only one hour.

Young (5 month old) and old (27 month old) mice were injected intraperitoneally with either saline or 3 mg/kg of SS-31. Skeletal muscle mitochondrial energetics were measured in vivo one hour after injection using a unique combination of optical and 31 P magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Age-related declines in resting and maximal mitochondrial ATP production, coupling of oxidative phosphorylation (P/O), and cell energy state (PCr/ATP) were rapidly reversed after SS-31 treatment, while SS-31 had no observable effect on young muscle.

These effects of SS-31 on mitochondrial energetics in aged muscle were also associated with a more reduced glutathione redox status and lower mitochondrial [ROS] emission. Skeletal muscle of aged mice was more fatigue resistant in situ one hour after SS-31 treatment and eight days of SS-31 treatment led to increased whole animal endurance capacity. These data demonstrate that SS-31 represents a new strategy for reversing age-related deficits in skeletal muscle with potential for translation into human use.

So what is SS-31? If look at the publication history for these authors you’ll find a burn-treatment-focused open-access paper that goes into a little more detail and a 2008 review paper that covers the pharmacology of the SS compounds:

Quote:

The SS peptides, so called because they were designed by Hazel H. Sezto and Peter W. Schiler, are small cell-permeable peptides of less than ten amino acid residues that specifically target to inner mitochondrial membrane and possess mitoprotective properties. There have been a series of SS peptides synthesized and characterized, but for our study, we decided to use SS-31 peptide (H-D-Arg-Dimethyl Tyr-Lys-Phe-NH2) for its well-documented efficacy.

Studies with isolated mitochondrial preparations and cell cultures show that these SS peptides can scavenge ROS, reduce mitochondrial ROS production, and inhibit mitochondrial permeability transition. They are very potent in preventing apoptosis and necrosis induced by oxidative stress or inhibition of the mitochondrial electron transport chain. These peptides have demonstrated excellent efficacy in animal models of ischemia-reperfusion, neurodegeneration, and renal fibrosis, and they are remarkably free of toxicity.

Given the existence of a range of different types of mitochondrial antioxidant and research groups working on them, it seems that we should expect to see therapies emerge into the clinic over the next decade. As ever, the regulatory regime will ensure that they are only approved for use in treatment of specific named diseases and injuries such as burns, however. It’s still impossible to obtain approval for a therapy to treat aging in otherwise healthy individuals in the US, as the FDA doesn’t recognize degenerative aging as a disease. The greatest use of these compounds will therefore occur via medical tourism and in a growing black market for easily synthesized compounds of this sort.

In fact, any dedicated and sufficiently knowledgeable individual could already set up a home chemistry lab, download the relevant papers, and synthesize SkQ or SS compounds. That we don’t see this happening is, I think, more of a measure of the present immaturity of the global medical tourism market than anything else. It lacks an ecosystem of marketplaces and review organizations that would allow chemists to safely participate in and profit from regulatory arbitrage of the sort that is ubiquitous in recreational chemistry.

Reason is the founder of The Longevity Meme (now Fight Aging!). He saw the need for The Longevity Meme in late 2000, after spending a number of years searching for the most useful contribution he could make to the future of healthy life extension. When not advancing the Longevity Meme or Fight Aging!, Reason works as a technologist in a variety of industries.

This work is reproduced here in accord with a Creative Commons Attribution license. It was originally published on FightAging.org.

Squishy Machines: Bio-Cybernetic Neuron Hybrids – Article by Franco Cortese

May 26, 2013 Franco Cortese Comments 0 Comment

Franco Cortese

May 25, 2013

Recommend this page.

******************************

This essay is the eighth chapter in Franco Cortese’s forthcoming e-book, I Shall Not Go Quietly Into That Good Night!: My Quest to Cure Death, published by the Center for Transhumanity. The first seven chapters were previously published on The Rational Argumentator under the following titles:

– Chapter 1: “The Moral Imperative and Technical Feasibility of Defeating Death”
– Chapter 2: “Immortality: Material or Ethereal? Nanotech Does Both!”

– Chapter 3: “Concepts for Functional Replication of Biological Neurons”

– Chapter 4: “Gradual Neuron Replacement for the Preservation of Subjective-Continuity”

– Chapter 5: “Wireless Synapses, Artificial Plasticity, and Neuromodulation”

– Chapter 6: “Mind as Interference with Itself: A New Approach to Immediate Subjective-Continuity”

– Chapter 7: “Neuronal ‘Scanning’ and NRU Integration”

***

By 2009 I felt the major classes of physicalist-functionalist replication approaches to be largely developed, producing now only potential minor variations in approach and procedure. These developments consisted of contingency plans in the case that some aspect of neuronal operation couldn’t be replicated with alternate, non-biological physical systems and processes, based around the goal of maintaining those biological (or otherwise organic) systems and processes artificially and of integrating them with the processes that could be reproduced artificially.

2009 also saw further developments in the computational approach, where I conceptualized a new sub-division in the larger class of the informational-functionalist (i.e., computational, which encompasses both simulation and emulation) replication approach, which is detailed in the next chapter.

Developments in the Physicalist Approach

During this time I explored mainly varieties of the cybernetic-physical functionalist approach. This involved the use of replicatory units that preserve certain biological aspects of the neuron while replacing certain others with functionalist replacements, and other NRUs that preserved alternate biological aspects of the neuron while replacing different aspects with functional replacements. The reasoning behind this approach was twofold. The first was that there was a chance, no matter how small, that we might fail to sufficiently replicate some relevant aspect(s) of the neuron either computationally or physically by failing to understand the underlying principles of that particular sub-process/aspect. The second was to have an approach that would work in the event that there was some material aspect that couldn’t be sufficiently replicated via non-biological physically embodied systems (i.e., the normative physical-functionalist approach).

However, these varieties were conceived of in case we couldn’t replicate certain components successfully (i.e., without functional divergence). The chances of preserving subjective-continuity in such circumstances are increased by the number of varieties we have for this class of model (i.e., different arrangements of mechanical replacement components and biological components), because we don’t know which we would fail to functionally replicate.

This class of physical-functionalist model can be usefully considered as electromechanical-biological hybrids, wherein the receptors (i.e., transporter proteins) on the post-synaptic membrane are integrated with the artificial membrane and in coexistence with artificial ion-channels, or wherein the biological membrane is retained while the receptor and ion-channels are replaced with functional equivalents instead. The biological components would be extracted from the existing biological neurons and reintegrated with the artificial membrane. Otherwise they would have to be synthesized via electromechanical systems, such as, but not limited to, the use of chemical stores of amino-acids released in specific sequences to facilitate in vivo protein folding and synthesis, which would then be transported to and integrated with the artificial membrane. This is better than providing stores of pre-synthesized proteins, due to more complexities in storing synthesized proteins without decay or functional degradation over storage-time, and in restoring them from their “stored”, inactive state to a functionally-active state when they were ready for use.

During this time I also explored the possibility of using the neuron’s existing protein-synthesis systems to facilitate the construction and gradual integration of the artificial sections with the existing lipid bilayer membrane. Work in synthetic biology allows us to use viral gene vectors to replace a given cell’s constituent genome—and consequently allowing us to make it manufacture various non-organic substances in replacement of the substances created via its normative protein-synthesis. We could use such techniques to replace the existing protein-synthesis instructions with ones that manufacture and integrate the molecular materials constituting the artificial membrane sections and artificial ion-channels and ion-pumps. Indeed, it may even be a functional necessity to gradually replace a given neuron’s protein-synthesis machinery with protein-synthesis-based machinery for the replacement, integration and maintenance of the non-biological sections’ material, because otherwise those parts of the neuron would still be trying to rebuild each section of lipid bilayer membrane we iteratively remove and replace. This could be problematic, and so for successful gradual replacement of single neurons, a means of gradually switching off and/or replacing portions of the cell’s protein-synthesis systems may be required.

Franco is an Advisor for Lifeboat Foundation (on its Futurists Board and its Life Extension Board) and contributes regularly to its blog.

How Can I Live Forever?: What Does and Does Not Preserve the Self – Video by G. Stolyarov II

May 24, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

When we seek indefinite life, what is it that we are fundamentally seeking to preserve? Mr. Stolyarov discusses what is necessary for the preservation of “I-ness” – an individual’s direct vantage point: the thoughts and sensations of a person as that person experiences them directly.

Once you are finished with this video, you can take a quiz and earn the “I-ness” Awareness Open Badge.

Reference

– “How Can I Live Forever?: What Does and Does Not Preserve the Self” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II

Thoughts on Zoltan Istvan’s “The Transhumanist Wager” – A Review – Video by G. Stolyarov II

May 21, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Zoltan Istvan’s new novel The Transhumanist Wager has been compared to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. But to what extent are the books alike, and in what respects? In this review, Mr. Stolyarov compares and contrasts the two novels and explores the question of how best to achieve radical life extension and general technological progress for the improvement of the human condition.

References

– The Transhumanist Wager Official Page
– “Thoughts on Zoltan Istvan’s ‘The Transhumanist Wager’: A Review” – Article by G. Stolyarov II
– Guilio Prisco’s Review of The Transhumanist Wager
– “Larry Page wants to ‘set aside a part of the world’ for unregulated experimentation” – Nathan Ingraham – The Verge – May 15, 2013
– Zoltan Istvan’s Reddit AMA

Thoughts on Zoltan Istvan’s “The Transhumanist Wager”: A Review – Article by G. Stolyarov II

May 19, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment

G. Stolyarov II

May 18, 2013

Recommend this page.

******************************

Zoltan Istvan’s new novel The Transhumanist Wager has been compared to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. (See, for instance, Giulio Prisco’s review.) But to what extent are the books alike, and in what respects? To be sure, the story and the writing style are gripping, the characters are vivid, and the universe created by Istvan gave me an experience highly reminiscent of my reading of Atlas Shrugged more than a decade ago. Even this alone allows me to highly recommend The Transhumanist Wager as a work of literary art – a philosophical thriller. Moreover, the didactic purpose of the novel, its interplay of clearly identified good and evil forces, and its culmination in an extensive speech where the protagonist elaborates on his philosophical principles (as well as its punctuation by multiple smaller speeches throughout) provide clear parallels to Atlas Shrugged.

Giulio Prisco calls the philosophy of The Transhumanist Wager’s protagonist, Jethro Knights, “an extreme, militant version of the radically libertarian formulation of transhumanism”. However, this is the area where I perceive the most significant departure from the parallels to Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism (which she did not like to be called “libertarian”, though it was in essence) has the principle of individual rights and the rejection of the initiation of force at its ethical core. Galt’s Gulch in Atlas Shrugged was formed by a withdrawal of the great thinkers and creators from the world of those who exploited and enslaved them. However, there was no active conquest of that world by Rand’s heroes; rather, without the men of the mind, the power structures of the world simply fell apart on their own accord.

Jethro Knights creates his own seasteading nation, Transhumania, a fascinating haven for innovation and a refuge for transhumanist scientists oppressed by their governments and targeted by religious fundamentalist terrorism. The concept of an autonomous bastion of innovation is timely and promising; it was echoed by the recent statements from Larry Page of Google in favor of setting aside a part of the world to allow for unbridled experimentation. Transhumania, due to its technological superiority, spectacularly beats back a hostile invasion by the combined navies of the world. It is when the Transhumanians go on the offensive that the parallels to Galt’s Gulch cease. Instead of letting the non-transhumanist world crumble or embrace transhumanism on its own accord, Jethro Knights conquers it, destroys all of its political, religious, and cultural centerpieces, and establishes a worldwide dictatorship – including some highly non-libertarian elements, such as compulsory education, restrictions on reproduction, and an espousal of the view that even some human beings who have not initiated force may not have an inviolate right to their lives, but are rather judged on their “usefulness” – however defined (perhaps, in the case of Transhumania, usefulness in advancing the transhumanist vision as understood by Jethro Knights). Jethro Knights permits a certain degree of freedom – enough to sustain technological progress, high standards of living, and due process in the resolution of everyday disputes – but, ultimately, all of the liberties in Transhumania are contingent on their compatibility with Jethro’s own philosophy; they are not recognized as absolute rights even for those who disagree. John Galt would have been gentler. He would have simply withdrawn his support from those who would not deal with him as honest creators of value, but he would have left them to their own devices otherwise, unless they initiated force against him and against other rational creators of value.

The outcome of The Transhumanist Wager is complicated by the fact that Jethro’s militancy is the direct response to the horrific acts of terrorism committed by religious fundamentalists at the behest of Reverend Belinas, who also has considerable behind-the-scenes influence on the US government in the novel. Clearly, the anti-transhumanists were the initiators of force for the majority of the novel, and, so long as they perpetrated acts of violence against pro-technology scientists and philosophers, they were valid targets for retaliation and neutralization – just like all terrorists and murderers are. For the majority of the book, I was, without question, on Jethro’s side when it came to his practice, though not always his theory – but it was upon reading about the offensive phase of his war that I came to differ in both, especially since Transhumania had the technological capacity to surgically eliminate only those who directly attacked it or masterminded such attacks, thereafter leaving the rest of the world powerless to destroy Transhumania, but also free to come to recognize the merits of radical life extension and general technological progress on its own in a less jarring, perhaps more gradual process. An alternative scenario to the novel’s ending could have been a series of political upheavals in the old nations of the world, where the leaders who had targeted transhumanist scientists were recognized to be thoroughly wasteful and destructive, and were replaced by neutral or techno-progressive politicians who, partly for pragmatic reasons and partly arising out of their own attraction to technology, decided to trade with Transhumania instead of waging war on it.

Jethro’s concept of the “omnipotender” is a vision of the individual seeking as much power as he can get, ultimately aiming to achieve power over the entire universe. It is not clear whether power in this vision means simply the ability to achieve one’s objectives, or control in a hierarchical sense, which necessarily involves the subordination of other intelligent beings. I support power in the sense of the taming of the wilderness and the empowerment of the self for the sake of life’s betterment, but not in the sense of depriving others of a similar prerogative. Ayn Rand’s vision of the proper rationally egoistic outlook is extremely clear on the point that one must neither sacrifice oneself to others nor sacrifice others to oneself. Istvan’s numerous critical references to altruism and collectivism clearly express his agreement with the first half of that maxim – but what about the second? Jethro’s statements that he would be ready to sacrifice the lives of even those closest to him in order to achieve his transhumanist vision certainly suggest that the character of Jethro might not give others the same sphere of inviolate action that he would seek for himself. Of course, Jethro also dismisses as a contrived hypothetical the suggestion that such sacrifice would be necessary (at least, in Jethro’s view, for the time being), and I agree. Yet a more satisfying response would have been not that he is ready to make such a sacrifice, but that the sacrifice itself is absolutely not required for individual advancement by the laws of reality, and therefore it is nonsensical to even acknowledge its possibility. Jethro gave his archenemy, Belinas, far too much of a philosophical concession by even picking sides in the false dichotomy between self-sacrifice to others and the subjugation of others to oneself.

Perhaps the best way to view The Transhumanist Wager is as a cautionary tale of what might happen if the enemies of technological progress and radical life extension begin to forcefully clamp down on the scientists who try to make these breakthroughs happen. A climate of violence and terror, rather than civil discourse and an embrace of life-enhancing progress, will breed societal interactions that follow entirely different rules, and produce entirely different incentives, from those which allow a civilized society to smoothly function and advance. I hope that we, at least in the Western world, can avoid a scenario where those different rules and incentives take hold.

I am a transhumanist, but I am also a humanist, in the sense that I see the advancement of humanity and the improvement of the human condition as the desired aims of technological progress. In this sense, I am fond of the reference to the goal of transhumanists as the achievement of a “humanity plus”. Transhumanism is and ought to be, fundamentally, a continuation of the melioristic drive of the 18^th-century Enlightenment, ridding man of the limitations and terrible sufferings which have historically been considered part of necessary “human nature” but which are, in reality, the outcome of the contingent material shortcomings with which our species happened to be burdened from its inception. Will it be possible to entice and persuade enough people to embrace the transhumanist vision voluntarily? I certainly hope so, since even a sizable minority of individuals would suffice to drive forward the technological advances which the rest of humanity would embrace for other, non-philosophical reasons.

In the absence of a full-fledged embrace of this humanistic vision of transhumanism, at the very least I hope that it would be possible to “sneak around” the common objections and restrictions and achieve a technological fait accompli through the dissemination of philosophically neutral tools, such as the Internet and mobile devices, that enhance individual opportunities and alter the balance of power between individuals and institutions. In this possible future, some of the old “cultural baggage” – as Jethro would refer to it – would most likely remain – including religions, which are among the hardest cultural elements for people to give up. However, this “baggage” itself would gradually evolve in its essential outlook and impact upon the world, much like Western Christianity today is far gentler than the Christianity of the 3^rd, 11^th, or 17^th centuries. Perhaps, instead of fighting transhumanism, some representatives of old cultural labels will attempt to preserve their own relevance amidst transhuman-oriented developments. This will require reinterpreting doctrines, and will certainly engender fierce debate within many religious, political, and societal circles. However, there may yet be hope that the progressive wings of each of these old institutions and ideologies (“progressive” in the sense of being open to progress, not to be mistaken for any current partisan affiliation) will do the equivalent work to that entailed in a transhumanist revolution, except in a gradual, peaceful, seamless manner.

Yet, on the other hand, the immense urgency of achieving life extension is, without question, a sentiment I strongly identify with. Jethro’s experience, early in the novel, of stepping on a defective mine has autobiographical parallels to Istvan’s own experience in Vietnam. A brush with death certainly highlights the fragility of life and the urgency of pursuing its continuation. Pausing to contemplate that, were it not for a stroke of luck at some prior moment, one could be dead now – and all of the vivid and precious experiences one is having could one day be snuffed out, with not even a memory remaining – certainly motivates one to think about what the most direct, the most effective means of averting such a horrific outcome would be. Will a gradual, humane, humanistic transition to a world of indefinite life extension work out in time for us? What can we do to make it happen sooner? Can we do it within the framework of the principles of libertarianism in addition to those of transhumanism? Which approaches are the most promising at present, and which, on the other hand, could be counterproductive? How do we attempt to enlist the help of the “mainstream” world while avoiding or overcoming its opposition? For me, reading The Transhumanist Wager provided further impetus to keep asking these important, open, and as of yet unresolved questions – in the hopes that someday the ambition to achieve indefinite life extension in our lifetimes will give rise to a clear ultra-effective strategy that can put this most precious of all goals in sight.

The Moral Imperative and Technical Feasibility of Defeating Death – Article by Franco Cortese

May 6, 2013 Franco Cortese Comments 2 comments

Franco Cortese

May 5, 2013

Recommend this page.

******************************

Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enameling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

~ W. B. Yeats

“The original is unfaithful to the translation.“

~ Jorge Luis Borges

“Whatever can be repaired gradually without destroying the original whole is, like the vestal fire, potentially eternal.“

~ Francis Bacon, A History of Life and Death, 1638

I became both Immortalist and Transhumanist long before I knew such designations existed. In 2006, at age 14, I conceived of both the extreme desirability and technical feasibility of ending death, without any knowledge of the proposals for immortality already extant. I thought I was the only one in the world who saw both the utter, belligerent waste of death, and our ability to technologically defeat it. I was dumbfounded that humanity wasn’t attacking the problem like any other preventable source of widespread suffering. I saw that the end of death was not only desirable but a moral imperative.

***

If we have the power to make it happen, or have even a chance at doing so, yet fail to even try for reasons of inertia, incredulity, or indifference, then we are condemning massive amounts of real people to unnecessary death by our inaction. I felt a moral obligation to work on conceptual development of the various pragmatic aspects required to physically realize indefinite longevity until I was old enough to physically put these developments into practice – i.e., do experiments and design physical systems. I worked on my grand project, as I thought of it, from August 2006 until May 2010, at which time I discovered multiple other approaches to indefinite longevity being actively developed (initially through Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near), and even multiple antecedents of my own approach, I felt less of an imperative to continue active conceptual development on these procedures. I was happy to find the existing Immortalist movement, of course; I stopped not out of resentment for having been anteceded, but rather out of newfound assurance that the defeat of death didn’t lay solely in my hands.

I had worked for 4 years on conceptual designs and approaches to indefinite life extension – designs that I was planning on building and experimentally verifying in my young adulthood, whether through normative medical research and academia or through a privately funded venture, thinking that I would have more of a success than if I came to the world as a teenager with these ideas, as they were. By 2010, 4 years into the project, I discovered that others were seeking the defeat of death through technological intervention as well, and that many of the specific ideas I had come up with were already out and in the world.

My original approach involved transplanting the organic brain into a full cybernetic body. Over the next few months I collected research on experiments in organic brain transplantation done with salamanders, dogs, and monkeys , on maintaining the brain’s homeostatic and regulatory mechanisms outside the body and on a host of prosthetic and robotic technologies which I saw as developmentally converging to allow the creation of a fully cybernetic body. I soon realized that this approach was problematic; while the brain typically dies as a consequence of its homeostatic and regulatory mechanisms (i.e. heart and lungs failing), it would still fall prey to cell death if it remained organic, even if such regulatory mechanisms were maintained technologically.

This obstacle led to my conceiving the essential gestalt of uploading – the gradual replacement of neurons with functional equivalents that preserve each original neuron’s relative location and connection – three months later. Although my original approach was prosthetic (i.e., physically embodied functional equivalents of neurons), I eventually saw computational models as being preferable for their comparatively higher speed and ease of modification and/or modulation.

I discovered that Brain-Emulation and Connectomics (or Mind-Uploading more informally) was an existing discipline not long after conceiving of the idea, but at the time thought that various aspects required for gradual replacement (and thus for real immortality, and not the creation of an immortal double, were undeveloped in regard to how the computational models would communicate and maintain functional equilibrium with the existing biological neurons. If we seek to replace biological neurons with artificial equivalents, once we have a simulation of a given neuron in a computer outside the body, how is that simulated neuron to communicate with the biological neurons still inside that biological body, and vice versa? My solution was the use of initially MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) but later NEMS (nano-electro-mechanical-systems) to detect biophysical properties via sensors and translate them into computational inputs, and likewise to translate computational output into biophysical properties via electrical actuators and the programmed release of chemical stores (essentially stored quantities of indexed chemicals to be released upon command). While the computational hardware could hypothetically be located outside the body, communicating wirelessly to corresponding in-vivo sensors and actuators, I saw the replacement of neurons with enclosed in-vivo computational hardware in direct operative connection with its corresponding sensors and actuators as preferable. I didn’t realize until 2010 that this approach—the use of NEMS to computationally model the neurons, to integrate (i.e., construct and place) the artificial neurons and translate to biophysical signals into computational signals and vice versa—was already suggested by Kurzweil and conceptually developed more formally by Robert Freitas, and when I did, I felt that I didn’t really have much to present that hadn’t already been conceived and developed.

However, since then I’ve come to realize some significant distinctions between my approach and Brain-Emulation, and that besides being an interesting story that helps validate the naturality of Immortalism’s premises (that indefinite longevity is a physically realizable state, and thus technologically realizable – and what can be considered the “strong Immortalist” claim: that providing people the choice of indefinite longevity if it were realizable is a moral imperative), I had several novel notions and conceptions which might prove useful to the larger community working and thinking on these topics.

While this project began as a means of indefinite longevity, it took on Transhumanist concerns within days of its conception. A cybernetic body not only frees one from the strictures of death, but also from the limitations of a static body designed for a static environment. Freed from our flesh, we could comfortably bear any extremes of Earth or beyond; interchange our bodily designs with the nonchalance of attire; and continuously, on a daily basis, take charge of what it means for us to be. I envisioned extreme phenotypic diversity as undermining racism and prejudices, an explosion of intelligence and happiness consequent of finally taking the stuff of our being into our own hands, the newfound availability of heretofore unrealized modalities of being, experience, thought, morality, and abilities realized through the technological extension and enhancement of the mind.

By 2007, I was calling this philosophy “Enhancism”, which I designated as the thesis that enhancement is the principal underlying both human nature and evolutionary nature. Regardless of what constitutes an “enhancement”, the fact that we strive to reach idealized objectives and grow toward what we envision as better versions of our selves and our world exemplifies enhancement as the underlying driver and primal force that makes up Mind, Man, and Humanity. The objective or “optimization target” isn’t important – what is important is the act of designating an objective as better, and then striving in a fit of fiery thrusts toward it.

I never saw this imperative of improving ourselves using all available means as a move away from humanity, but rather as a natural extension and continuation of what has always best designated us as human. I realized that self-directed modification of both body and mind were not only both possible and desirable, but a natural extension of what humanity has been doing since long before the very concept of “humanity” existed. I had arrived at the essential premises and conclusions of both Immortalism and Transhumanism without exposure to existing forms of either. Indeed, this was even before I started reading science fiction!

I think this observation undermines what I feel to be a common misconception of outside of Transhumanist circles – that Transhumanism and Immortalism are fringe movements for statistical outliers with idiosyncratic interests. I think that this rather adds credence to rebuttal that Transhumanism and Immortalism exemplify the modern embodiment of all we’ve ever been; that they are not founded upon grandiose and overly contingent axioms, but rather on the respective premises that life is good and so should be extended for as long as possible and that we are more likely to create a better world and better selves than we are to find them already given.

If the underlying logic behind Immortalism and Transhumanism can be independently arrived at by a 14-year-old without any knowledge of historical or extant forms of either, then how removed from the human concerns of the majority can they really be? If they relied on a host of contingent hopes and deviant memetic baggage – if their claims or conclusions were overly complicated in any way – how could they be arrived at so readily and fluidly by an adolescent?

I also unwittingly recapitulated many specific Transhumanist objectives throughout the course of my “grand project”, as I had thought of it at the time. My approach of gradually replacing the neurons in the brain with functional equivalents would necessitate control over the processes exhibited by the replacements. This would allow us to actively and consciously control the variables and metrics determining neuronal behavior, not only modifying ourselves through the integration of additional NRUs (neuron-replication-units) or NRU-networks, but also through active modification and real-time modulation of the NRUs that would by then underlie our existing mental and experiential modalities, having replaced our existing biological neurons.

Within the first year of the project, I had conceived of using these new capabilities to make ourselves smarter (an unwitting recapitulation of intelligence-amplification), of making ourselves more ethical (an unwitting recapitulation of moral engineering, explored by such thinkers as James Hughes, Julian Savulescu and Asher Seidel, among others), and of actively making ourselves happier, or rather of eliminating those normative biological aspects that bias us needlessly towards unhappiness (an unwitting variant of David Pearce’s hedonistic imperative), and the exchange of real-time perception and memory deeper and of higher fidelity than sensory memories, essentially extending to thoughts, emotions, and indeed all experiential modalities available to us.

One could imagine my surprise upon finding Transhumanism and Immortalism as existing disciplines and movements; I felt as though I had borne a son and gone away for a day only to return and find him grown up – and that I was never his biological father to begin with.

The fact that both Transhumanist (i.e., enhancement, self-modification and self-modulation) and Immortalist concerns and conceptions developed concurrently throughout my work also reifies their having a shared gestalt. While they are not mutually inclusive (you can be one without being the other), they do share some strong similarities. They both eschew biological and naturalistic limitations, exalt autonomy and the provision of rights, and spring from a legitimate glorification of life and self.

The last point I would like to make here is one that I think helps subvert the superficial claim that Transhumanist or Immortalist objectives are essentially selfish concerns. At 14 I had no personal stake in trying to end death as fast as possible; both ending death and increasing our ability to better determine who we are and what we can do were from day one for the world and for broader humanity – particularly for those who didn’t have the majority of the rest of their lives to live: the 100,000 people who succumb to bitter finitude each day. I think most other Transhumanist and Immortalist thinkers would agree that any positive future involves broad access to both longevity treatments and to the latest means of improving and realizing ourselves.

None of these naïve misinterpretations are real concerns to Transhumanist and Immortalist communities, except in regards to the degree with which they prevent people from digging deep enough to discover their stark insubstantiality. While they may be so off-base as to make their fallaciousness readily obvious to members of either community, and thus a seeming non-issue, I think the way in which they engender public misconceptions about Transhumanism and Immortalism validates our need to dispel them. Transhumanism is the only humanism; it exemplifies the very heart of what makes us human. The “trans” and the “human” in Transhumanism can only signify each other, for to be human is to strive to become more than human. I’ve thought this from the beginning, and this is a direction that my thinking – while having developed significantly since the practical work described here – is still oriented toward.

I wonder how many others there are out there like me, yet to approach the world with their vast extrapersonal visions of self-directed self-realization, yet to find the daring to throw their raucous good works in the face of this world that deserves better than to simply die quietly and unquestioningly, without revolt; others who, like me, saw that to try and change the world for the better is the very namesake of Man; who’ve crafted star-spangled dreams as large and as belligerently righteous as ending death and taking definite control of our ever-indefinite and indefinitive selves.

To every riled child who has ever had a vision larger than himself but that he has been too afraid to reveal, who has ever dreamt of bounding past the boundaries of present and toward the real prize, who has ever felt a dire need to make Man more than he is: I call thee out of the whorlworks and into the world! Come, show us what you’ve done!

What follows in my subsequent essays is first a broad overview of my work in this area from 2006 to 2010 (at which time I had discovered enough Immortalist antecedents to stop actively working on conceptual varieties of techno-immortality), first in terms of my methodology for achieving indefinite longevity (i.e., my work in uploading or brain-emulation proper), and then in terms of the enhancement and modification side, focusing on similarities and differences between my vision and those developed in Transhumanism and Immortalism.

While this essay is largely personal and introductory, I think the fact of my independently arriving at many of the conceptual premises and conclusions of Transhumanism and Immortalism, and under different terms, also reifies the more substantial claim that Transhumanism isn’t as far-out as is normatively presumed—or perhaps rather that the “human” isn’t as right-here as is commonly supposed. For that curious creature of clamorous self-determination called Man is most familiar with unfamiliarity, and most at home in alien dendritic jungles, for having gone so far out as to come back around again.

While in 2010 I thought most of my ideas in regards to practical approaches to immortality as already conceived, I now see some differences between my approach and other conceptions of brain-emulation. One is the conceptual development of physical/prosthetic approaches to neuron replication and replacement (i.e., prosthetics on the cellular scale) in addition to strictly computational approaches. Another is several novel approaches to preserving both immediate subjective-continuity (that is, the ability to have subjective experience, sometimes called sentience – as opposed to sapience, which denotes our higher cognitive capacities like abstract thinking, thus humans have sentience and sapience while most non-mammals are thought to lack sapience but possess sentience) and temporal subjective-continuity (the property of feeling like the same subjective person as you did yesterday, or a week ago, or 10 years ago – despite the fact that all of the molecules constituting your brain are gone, having been replaced with identical molecules through metabolism – via molecular turnover rather than full-cell replacement – over the course of a seven-year period) through a gradual (neuron) replacement procedure that are to my knowledge yet to be explored by the wider techno-immortalist community and brain-emulation discipline, respectively.

Franco is an Advisor for Lifeboat Foundation (on its Futurists Board and its Life Extension Board) and contributes regularly to its blog.

Bibliography

(June 2012). International Journal of Machine Consciousness, 4 (1).

Browne, M. W. (2011). From science fiction to science: ‘the whole body transplant’. Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/05/science/essay-from-science-fiction-to-science-the-whole-body-transplant.html

Demikhov, V. P. & (1962).Experimental transplantation of vital organs. Basil Haigh, transl. New York: Consultant’s Bureau Enterprises, Inc.

Grabianowski (2007). How Brain-computer Interfaces Work. Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/brain-computer-interface.htm

Hickey, L. P. (2011). The brain in a vat argument. Internet encyclopedia of philosophy, 2011. Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://www.iep.utm.edu/brainvat/

Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity is Near. Penguin Books, p. 63-67.

Martins, N. R., Erlhagen, W. & Freitas Jr., R. A. (2012). Non-destructive whole-brain monitoring using nanorobots: Neural electrical data rate requirements. International Journal of Machine Consciousness, 2011 .Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://www.nanomedicine.com/Papers/NanoroboticBrainMonitoring2012.pdf (URL).

Narayan, A. (2004). Computational Methods for NEMS.Retrieved February 28, 2013 from http://nanohub.org/resources/407.

Pietsch, P. & Schneider, C. W. (1969). Brain transplantation in salamanders: an approach to memory transfer . Brain Research, Aug;14 (3), 705-715. PMID: 5822440

Stoney, W. S. (1962). Evolution of cardiopulmonary bypass. Experimental transplantation of vital organs. Circulation, 2009 (119), 2844-53.

Vagaš, M. (2012). To view the current state of robotic technologies. Advanced Materials Research. Circulation, 2012 , 436-464, 1711.

What is MEMS Technology? (2011). Retrieved February 28, 2013 from https://www.memsnet.org/about/what-is.html

Life Extension and Risk Aversion – Video by G. Stolyarov II

May 1, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Mr. Stolyarov explains that living longer renders people more hesitant to risk their lives, for the simple reason that they have many more years to lose than their less technologically endowed ancestors.

References
– “Life Extension and Risk Aversion” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “Life expectancy variation over time” – Wikipedia
– Life Expectancy Graphs – University of Oregon
– History of Life Expectancy – WorldLifeExpectancy.com
– “Steven Pinker” – Wikipedia
– “The Better Angels of Our Nature” – Wikipedia
– “FBI Statistics Show Major Reduction in Violent Crime Rates” – WanttoKnow.info
– “List of motor vehicle deaths in U.S. by year” – Wikipedia
– “Prevalence of tobacco consumption” – Wikipedia
– “Human error accounts for 90% of road accidents” – Olivia Olarte – AlertDriving.com
– “Autonomous car” – Wikipedia
– “Iterative Learning versus the Student-Debt Trap” – Essay and Video by G. Stolyarov II

Life Extension and Risk Aversion – Article by G. Stolyarov II

April 29, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 3 comments

G. Stolyarov II

April 28, 2013

Recommend this page.

******************************

A major benefit of longer lifespans is the cultivation of a wide array of virtues. Prudence and forethought are among the salutary attributes that the lengthening of human life expectancies – hopefully to the point of eliminating any fixed upper bound – would bring about.

Living longer renders people more hesitant to risk their lives, for the simple reason that they have many more years to lose than their less technologically endowed ancestors.

This is not science fiction or mere speculation; we see it already. In the Western world, average life expectancies increased from the twenties and thirties in the Middle Ages to the early thirties circa 1800 to the late forties circa 1900 to the late seventies and early eighties in our time. As Steven Pinker writes in his magnum opus, The Better Angels of Our Nature, the overall trend in the Western world (in spite of temporary spikes of conflict, such as the World Wars) has been toward greater peace and increased reluctance of individuals to throw their lives away in armed struggles for geopolitical gain. Long-term declines in crime rates, automobile fatalities, and even smoking have accompanied (and contributed to) rises in life expectancy. Economic growth and improvements in the technologies of production help as well. If a person has not only life but material comfort to lose, this amplifies the reluctance to undertake physical risks even further.

Yet, with today’s finite lifespans, most individuals still find a non-negligible degree of life-threatening risk in their day-to-day endeavors to be an unavoidable necessity. Most people in the United States need to drive automobiles to get to work – in spite of the risk of sharing the road with incompetent, intoxicated, or intimidating other drivers. Over 30,000 people perish every year in the United States alone as a result of that decision. While the probability for any given individual of dying in an automobile accident is around 11 in 100,000 (0.011%) per year, this is still unacceptably high. How would a person with several centuries, several millennia, or all time ahead of him feel about this probability? Over a very long time, the probability of not encountering such a relatively rare event asymptotically approaches zero. For instance, at today’s rate of US automobile fatalities, a person living 10000 years would have a probability of (1 – 0.00011)^10000 = 0.3329 – a mere 33.29% likelihood – of not dying in an automobile accident! If you knew that a problem in this world had a two-thirds probability of killing you eventually, would you not want to do something about it?

Of course, the probabilities of tragic events are not fixed or immutable. They can be greatly affected by individual choices – our first line of defense against life-threatening risks. Well-known risk-management strategies for reducing the likelihood of any damaging event include (1) avoidance (not pursuing the activity that could cause the loss – e.g., not driving on a rugged mountain road – but this is not an option in many cases), (2) loss prevention (undertaking measures, such as driving defensively, that allow one to engage in the activity while lowering the likelihood of catastrophic failure), and (3) loss reduction (undertaking measures, such as wearing seat belts or driving in safer vehicles, that would lower the amount of harm in the event of a damaging incident). Individual choices, of course, cannot prevent all harms. The more fundamental defense against life-threatening accidents is technology. Driving itself could be made safer by replacing human operators, whose poor decisions cause over 90% of all accidents, with autonomous vehicles – early versions of which are currently being tested by multiple companies worldwide and have not caused a single accident to date when not manually driven.

Today, forward-thinking technology companies such as Google are driving the autonomous-vehicle revolution ahead. There is, unfortunately, no large clamor by the public for these life-saving cars yet. However, as life expectancies lengthen, that clamor will surely be heard. When we live for centuries and then for millennia, we will view as barbarous the age when people were expected to take frightening risks with their irreplaceable existences, just to make it to the office every morning. We will see the attempt to manually operate a vehicle as a foolish and reckless gamble with one’s life – unless one is a professional stunt driver who would earn millions in whatever future currency will then exist.

But living longer will accomplish more than just a changed perspective toward the risks presently within our awareness. Because of our expanded scope of personal interest, we will begin to be increasingly aware of catastrophes that occur at much longer intervals than human lifespans have occupied to date. The impacts of major earthquakes and volcano eruptions, recurring ice ages, meteor strikes, and continental drift will begin to become everyday concerns, with far more individuals devoting their time, money, and attention to developing technological solutions to these hitherto larger-than-human-scale catastrophes. With even more radically lengthened lifespans, humans will be motivated to direct their efforts, including the full thrust of scientific research, toward overcoming the demise of entire solar systems. In the meantime, there would be less tolerance for any pollution that could undermine life expectancies or the long-term sustainability of a technological infrastructure (which, of course, would be necessary for life-extension treatments to continue keeping senescence at bay). Thus, a society of radical life extension will embrace market-generated environmentally friendly technologies, including cleaner energy sources, reuse of raw materials (for instance, as base matter for 3D printing and nanoscale fabrication), and efficient targeting of resources toward their intended purposes (e.g., avoidance of wasted water in sprinkler systems or wasted paper in the office).

When life is long and good, humans move up on the hierarchy of needs. Not starving today ceases to be a worry, as does not getting murdered tomorrow. The true creativity of human faculties can then be directed toward addressing the grand, far more interesting and technologically demanding, challenges of our existence on this Earth.

Some might worry that increased aversion to physical risk would dampen human creativity and discourage people from undertaking the kinds of ambitious and audacious projects that are needed for technological breakthroughs to emerge and spread. However, aversion to physical risk does not entail aversion to other kinds of risk – social, economic, or political. Indeed, social rejection or financial ruin are not nearly as damaging to a person with millennia ahead of him as they are to a person with just a few decades of life left. A person who tries to run an innovative business and fails can spend a few decades earning back the capital needed to start again. Today, few entrepreneurs have that second chance. Most do not even have a first chance, as the initial capital needed for a groundbreaking enterprise is often colossal. Promising ideas and a meritorious character do not guarantee one a wealthy birth, and thus even the best innovators must often start with borrowed funds – a situation that gives them little room to explore the possibilities and amplifies their ruin if they fail. The long-lived entrepreneurs in a world of indefinite life extension would tend to earn their own money upfront and gradually go into business for themselves as they obtain the personal resources to do so. This kind of steady, sustainable entry into a line of work allows for a multitude of iterations and experiments that maximize the probability of a breakthrough.

Alongside the direct benefits of living longer and the indirect benefits of the virtues cultivated thereby, indefinite life extension will also produce less stressful lives for most. The less probability there is of dying or becoming seriously injured or ill, the easier one can breathe as one pursues day-to-day endeavors of self-improvement, enjoyment, and productive work. The less likely a failure is to rob one of opportunities forever, the more likely humans will be to pursue the method of iterative learning and to discover new insights and improved techniques through a beneficent trial-and-error process, whose worst downsides will have been curtailed through technology and ethics. Life extension will lead us to avoid and eliminate the risks that should not exist, while enabling us to safely pursue the risks that could benefit us if approached properly.

Liberty Through Long Life – Video by G. Stolyarov II

April 24, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

To maximize their hopes of personally experiencing an amount of personal freedom even approaching that of the libertarian ideal, all libertarians should support radical life extension.

References
– “Liberty Through Long Life” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II –
– Resources on Indefinite Life Extension (RILE) –
– “Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms” – Video Series – G. Stolyarov II –
– “Massive open online course” – Wikipedia
– Mozilla’s Open Badges
– “Open Badges and Proficiency-Based Education: A Path to a New Age of Enlightenment” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “Deep Space Industries” – Wikipedia
– “Planetary Resources” – Wikipedia
– The Seasteading Institute
– “Seasteading’s Potential and Challenges: An Overview” — Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “Seasteading’s Potential and Challenges: An Overview” — Video by G. Stolyarov II
– “Bitcoin” – Wikipedia
– “Benjamin Franklin and the Early Scientific Vision – 1780” – Foundation for Infinite Survival
– “Revisiting the proto-transhumanists: Diderot and Condorcet” – George Dvorsky – Sentient Developments
– “Marquis de Condorcet, Enlightenment proto-transhumanist” – George Dvorsky – IEET
– SENS Research Foundation
– “Ray Kurzweil” – Wikipedia

The Rational Argumentator

A Journal for Western Man – Championing Reason, Rights, and Progress Since 2002

Browsed by
Tag: life extension

Immortality: Bio or Techno? – Article by Franco Cortese

June 6, 2013 Franco Cortese Comments 2 comments

Mitochondrially Targeted Antioxidant SS-31 Reverses Some Measures of Aging in Muscle – Article by Reason

May 26, 2013 Reason Comments 0 Comment

Squishy Machines: Bio-Cybernetic Neuron Hybrids – Article by Franco Cortese

May 26, 2013 Franco Cortese Comments 0 Comment

How Can I Live Forever?: What Does and Does Not Preserve the Self – Video by G. Stolyarov II

May 24, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Thoughts on Zoltan Istvan’s “The Transhumanist Wager” – A Review – Video by G. Stolyarov II

May 21, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Thoughts on Zoltan Istvan’s “The Transhumanist Wager”: A Review – Article by G. Stolyarov II

May 19, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 1 comment

The Moral Imperative and Technical Feasibility of Defeating Death – Article by Franco Cortese

May 6, 2013 Franco Cortese Comments 2 comments

Life Extension and Risk Aversion – Video by G. Stolyarov II

May 1, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment

Life Extension and Risk Aversion – Article by G. Stolyarov II

April 29, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 3 comments

Liberty Through Long Life – Video by G. Stolyarov II

April 24, 2013 Gennady Stolyarov II Comments 0 Comment