Why The Lack of Majority Transhuman Future Settings?

[prinCZess]

I must say, I disagree with you all but we're getting into matters of speculation that I'm not sure any of us are qualified to speak on.

...What manner of foppery is this?
This is the internet, and we're all random people on it. We are literally the single most qualified source of speculation and debate on the matter of the current theory of international state diplomatic and warfare activity! It's not like people dedicate entire lifetimes to the study and research of questions like this. If we don't provide the answers, no one else will!

Applies to transhumanism as well, for that matter...

 

[JagerIV]

The major issue is that if your doing speculative fiction, its generally better to do one thing and everything else is more or less ceteribus paribus. Like altered Carbon deals with 1 particular transhumanist element/technology in the series. Phyco Pass deals with a different transhumanist element.

It takes a lot of time to explore even one concept, let alone a large variety of them.

Like, take the idea of living a long time: the exact details of how that is achieved matter a great deal. For example, growing new organs to replaced damaged one is a radically different method with very different expenses than a cheap injection.

The current trend however seems to be more twards replacement rather than repair: both in equipment and in a lot of the major medical advancements: if say a liver is infected/contaminated, it might be more reasonable to replace it rather than trying to flush it out past a certain point (especially if unreparable damage/unflushable toxins will tend to accumulate over time, so you reach a point where you have to replace, not repair).

There's an assumption we can get our bodies to last for hundreds of years, when many of our machines struggle to last more than a couple decades.

 

[Deleted member]

It's something of wishful thinking when we know with a great deal of certainty that it would require violating a fundamental thermodynamic constraint of animal life to easily live past 110 - 120 yrs.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Replacement rather than repair?

So we would actually need new organs, both cybernetic and lab-grown instead of just some sort of thing to repair our telomeres?

 

[JagerIV]

Replacement rather than repair?

So we would actually need new organs, both cybernetic and lab-grown instead of just some sort of thing to repair our telomeres?

Definately for some types of "aging". Were early enough that we don't really have a good sense of the ratio, but a lot of aging is just simple wear and tear, rather than telomere replication (which may have it own issues even if we could repair them: some theory's for example suggest they may partially be a defense against cancer).

For example, walking from my understanding accumulates steady damage to the bones and such. Rest and certain healty activities can limit the rate of damage and allow some repair, but complete repair gets increasingly difficult as it is damaged.

Lungs will have some degree of build up of particle matters and toxins in them over time (the whole smoking long term damage, bla bla). Liver and the digestive tract will accumulate wear and damage and toxins over time. Blood will gain contaminants and clogs. Your lenses in your eyes will be bent, slip, or otherwise degrade from use and exposure to light.

Telomere's are an element of aging, as each replication of the cell damages it slightly, the telomere's are there so that the damage is (mostly) limited to expendable parts of the cell.

And most of the above deals with organ level damage: the cells of course also accumulate damage. Impacts, vibration, heat, radiation. These can hit the individual cell biology or the DNA of it, corrupting it.

Living is a very stressful activity for much of the body. There's a reason most cells don't really live longer than 10 or so years.

 

[Deleted member]

The reason I bring up thermodynamics is that there seems to be a strong correlation between lifespan and energy intensity of animal life. The more energy intensive lifestyle an animal lives, the shorter it lives. So there is a fundamental thermodynamic constraint on animal life which is systematic to everything living on this planet. The how and why of breaking that has barely ben approached, which means I think the best we can do in the short term is make human lifespans 110 - 125 years as a matter of course. Which, in good health and mental fitness, I would be perfectly happy with, myself.

 

[Vyor]

It's something of wishful thinking when we know with a great deal of certainty that it would require violating a fundamental thermodynamic constraint of animal life to easily live past 110 - 120 yrs.

This is 100% untrue.

 

[Marduk]

The reason I bring up thermodynamics is that there seems to be a strong correlation between lifespan and energy intensity of animal life. The more energy intensive lifestyle an animal lives, the shorter it lives. So there is a fundamental thermodynamic constraint on animal life which is systematic to everything living on this planet. The how and why of breaking that has barely ben approached, which means I think the best we can do in the short term is make human lifespans 110 - 125 years as a matter of course. Which, in good health and mental fitness, I would be perfectly happy with, myself.

This is a very simplistic approximation that is a catch-all for many biological and non-biological variables. For example, staying within the mammalian life to discount some other variables, famously inactive sloths live 30-40 years in captivity, slightly less in the wild.
It's pretty similar to many bears, with which they are biologically related.
And then there are, say, elephants, with lifespans similar to upper end for humans. Pretty long one by any standard...
Compare that to the giraffe, another very large herbivore mammal with similar "life style" to elephants - but they hardly even reach 30!
Among mammals, the record lifespan owners are some species of whales, getting somewhere into 2 century range, details aren't too clear due to the rarity and timescale involved.
Outside of mammals, there is quite a bunch of reptiles that beat the 200 year mark, and the absolute verified record among large, reasonably complex animals is a nearly 400 year old shark, though it's metabolism is fairly slow by shark standards at least.
So, metabolism is a major factor... But as these examples show, far from the only one.

And then there is this particular outlier that's of scientific interest:

Turritopsis dohrnii - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The capability of biological immortality with no maximum lifespan makes T. dohrnii an important target of basic biological, aging and pharmaceutical research.

With human aging, there are the artificial interventions of medical science to throw into the mix, making significant changes possible One thing is to keep the brain functioning reasonably well, which many theorize could, barring issues like dementia appearing, which many don't live nearly long enough to appear and which can be controlled to a degree already. The other area is to keep the brain's "support system" functioning, failure of which is the cause of vast majority of old age deaths. That's a lot of opportunities for improvement, including with more heavy handed interventions like organ replacement. One thing to note that only once advancements in this area happen, it will become even possible to study the aging of brains in 150 or 200 year humans, and see how that goes and what are the possibilities for improvement there.

 

[Deleted member]

@Vyor , @Marduk , all right, gentlemen, I acknowledge it was a gross simplification based in a subject I am comfortable with, and thank you very much for the educated discourse, Marduk.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

If you have the money and are willing to accept a really shit tier quality of life, we could probably actually keep someone "alive" pretty much indefinitely. Sure, you would basically be a brain stuck in a bed and unable to do much of anything but we could pretty much keep you alive until your brain just shuts down.

Clone your blood, oxygenate it, and have you undergo 24/7 blood transfusions. The oxygenated blood is pumped in (probably in multiple locations to work around blockages) and then pulled back out at the end of its journey to be disposed of. So long as the veins are intact enough to contain the blood, that will solve most of the problem.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

If you have the money and are willing to accept a really shit tier quality of life, we could probably actually keep someone "alive" pretty much indefinitely. Sure, you would basically be a brain stuck in a bed and unable to do much of anything but we could pretty much keep you alive until your brain just shuts down.

Clone your blood, oxygenate it, and have you undergo 24/7 blood transfusions. The oxygenated blood is pumped in (probably in multiple locations to work around blockages) and then pulled back out at the end of its journey to be disposed of. So long as the veins are intact enough to contain the blood, that will solve most of the problem.

Honestly, that’s less transhumanism or significantly improving the human body and more merely delaying the inevitable whilst barely really functioning as with life support and really decrepit old people stuck in beds

Though, by Isaac Arthur’s definition, we were already on the road to Transhumanism when we started using medicinal herbs as temporary body improvements

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Honestly, that’s less transhumanism or significantly improving the human body and more merely delaying the inevitable whilst barely really functioning as with life support and really decrepit old people stuck in beds

Though, by Isaac Arthur’s definition, we were already on the road to Transhumanism when we started using medicinal herbs as temporary body improvements

We are transhuman today. The smartphone made us that way. Seriously, that tiny little thing redefined what it means to be human.

Although the real fun is going to come over the next twenty to thirty years as the Baby Boomers refuse to accept getting old and pour their fortune into life extension. Foamed titanium bone replacement laced with cloned bone marrow is probably going to be the first big one and that is going to be huge.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

We are transhuman today. The smartphone made us that way. Seriously, that tiny little thing redefined what it means to be human.

Although the real fun is going to come over the next twenty to thirty years as the Baby Boomers refuse to accept getting old and pour their fortune into life extension. Foamed titanium bone replacement laced with cloned bone marrow is probably going to be the first big one and that is going to be huge.

Titanium bone? No fears of blood poisoning? Cloned bone marrow.....won’t need an entire clone right? Like that Mark Wahlberg movue

Also, speaking of Baby Boomers, given how so many people refuse to have kids young and it gets more dangerous or unhealthy to have kids at ages past say 25(I think)

I await either corrections for this fertility problem for women and the creation of artificial wombs

Also, to detect genetic defects LONG beforehand and correct them.....ohmygod Gundam Seed and Gattaca are gonna happen in the future

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Titanium bone? No fears of blood poisoning? Cloned bone marrow.....won’t need an entire clone right? Like that Mark Wahlberg movue

Cloned bone marrow is a bit of a misnomer. Cultured stemcells encouraged to grow into bone marrow is more accurate.

Also, speaking of Baby Boomers, given how so many people refuse to have kids young and it gets more dangerous or unhealthy to have kids at ages past say 25(I think)

I await either corrections for this fertility problem for women and the creation of artificial wombs

Also, to detect genetic defects LONG beforehand and correct them.....ohmygod Gundam Seed and Gattaca are gonna happen in the future

Artificial wombs would be a huge thing, but that is probably going to be the result of millenial money when the single unmarried women start hitting their forties and want to have kids.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Artificial wombs would be a huge thing, but that is probably going to be the result of millenial money when the single unmarried women start hitting their forties and want to have kids.

Hopefully these ladies who actually want to have kids actually really take care of them without any baggage.

I see lots of visits to the sperm bank for the sperm of celebrities

 

[Marduk]

If you have the money and are willing to accept a really shit tier quality of life, we could probably actually keep someone "alive" pretty much indefinitely. Sure, you would basically be a brain stuck in a bed and unable to do much of anything but we could pretty much keep you alive until your brain just shuts down.

Clone your blood, oxygenate it, and have you undergo 24/7 blood transfusions. The oxygenated blood is pumped in (probably in multiple locations to work around blockages) and then pulled back out at the end of its journey to be disposed of. So long as the veins are intact enough to contain the blood, that will solve most of the problem.

I'm not sure this is actually possible long term with current technology, particularly for a person needing this sort of life support due to effects of aging. From what scraps of medical knowledge i have, i think issues of nutrition, plentiful intrusive medical procedures ongoing all the time, and weak immune system would eventually result in raging infections spreading uncontrollably and destroying everything as doctors struggle to deliver increasingly strong antibiotics to where they are needed, eventually something nasty spreads to the brain and causes brain death.

If one somehow got around those problems and developed even rudimentary replacements for basic functions (similar to 40k dreadnought suits), then some rich people would be beating natural lifespan records from that point. Generally long term transdermal (skin crossing) interfacing of any sort is a pain in the ass grade infection risk more or less, an easy and reliable way to deal with that is also a prerequisite for any major developement in transdermal cybernetics.

 

[Doomsought]

A big part of it is costume and effects budget. There are only so many people that can make a transhuman character look good on screen, and head hunting has a budget of its own in addition to paying those talented people for their time.

 

[Scottty]

Reading through the responses here, I think the discussion is blurring between worlds we would like to read stories about, and worlds we would actually want to live in.

Put simply, for a story to be good, it generally needs characters that the reader can relate to, dealing with problems or challenges that have meaning to us. A story about a group of people exploring an alien planet, for example. It might be more realistic for the exploration to be done by autonomous robots, but that's not as interesting.

 

[Deleted member]

I think @Emperor Tippy is quite right. Is Cyberpunk 2077 transhumanism? I would say so, and probably a far more likely real world outcome (with certain allowances) than an immortal utopia, generously assuming society doesn’t collapse first. We see lots of transhumanism, it just tends to be dystopic.