Poll of the Day > do you think a brain could be immortal, with proper care?

(+) Yeah! (+)

if we could clone new bodies and do brain transfers, would the brain live forever, as long as you got a new body every 70 years or so? do brains age?

Alzheimers can hit anyone.
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shadowsword87 posted...

Alzheimers can hit anyone.

This. Brains definitely age, just like anything else organic. A lot of elderly people are "gone" mentally years before they physically die. It's sad but true.

No. I think it's only logical that, of the billions of neurons in the brain, some of them die every day even when maintaining the healthiest lifestyle you can.
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Wow, theres a lot of organic bias in this topic
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shadowsword87 posted...

Alzheimers can hit anyone.

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Could, just not now.
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brains shrink as we age
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It's a good question.

Really the whole human body can't be immortal because of aging.

In theory memories can be downloaded and stored, and eventually we can make an electronic brain, or even just have a program that accesses a brain. We are not really that far from the technology needed.

This has some....drastic consequences, since once your brain can be stored electronically, a digital world would be as real as ours. Not only would everyone be immortal, they would have full 100% access to all memories, and we would have infinite space in which to live and explore etc. Anything imagined could be created, and the rules that apply, would be up to us as well.

This may sound like science fiction, but, just think about what we have today, and how it would appear to people 50 years ago. The wireless internet + google can answer almost any question and provide almost all the info humans have accumulated to anyone, anywhere at this point. We can talk with each other from anywhere in the world, and take a picture of anything, anywhere and share it instantly with everyone.

It's possible that those of us over 40 might not live to see the world drastically change, to a point it's almost unrecognizable, but those who are under 20? Unless they die from something besides old age, they will probably not die at all, as within 80 years or so, I think any human being can be immortal.
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rogerskg1979 posted...

Brains definitely age, just like anything else organic.

This, tbh. It's not like anything in the body lasts forever, except maybe the bones if you take care of.
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wolfy42 posted...

In theory memories can be downloaded and stored, and eventually we can make an electronic brain, or even just have a program that accesses a brain. We are not really that far from the technology needed.

This has some....drastic consequences, since once your brain can be stored electronically, a digital world would be as real as ours. Not only would everyone be immortal, they would have full 100% access to all memories, and we would have infinite space in which to live and explore etc. Anything imagined could be created, and the rules that apply, would be up to us as well.

This may sound like science fiction, but, just think about what we have today, and how it would appear to people 50 years ago. The wireless internet + google can answer almost any question and provide almost all the info humans have accumulated to anyone, anywhere at this point. We can talk with each other from anywhere in the world, and take a picture of anything, anywhere and share it instantly with everyone.

It's possible that those of us over 40 might not live to see the world drastically change, to a point it's almost unrecognizable, but those who are under 20? Unless they die from something besides old age, they will probably not die at all, as within 80 years or so, I think any human being can be immortal.

Shit I'll be cutting it close. I'm 37 already

well i tried that new vegas game and that seemed to be the case, yeah
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Zeus posted...

rogerskg1979 posted...

Brains definitely age, just like anything else organic.

This, tbh. It's not like anything in the body lasts forever, except maybe the bones if you take care of.

Bones are effected by aging too. Bones become less dense and therefore weaker and more prone to breakage as we age. You can minimize it somewhat by eating enough calcium and taking care of yourself, but you can't prevent it completely. You can't prevent aging no matter what you do.

rogerskg1979 posted...

You can't prevent aging no matter what you do.

Not yet, but it's less impossible than you might think. Most of the symptoms of aging are due to the fact that as our cells divide, our telomeres degrade until eventually the telomeres are so degraded that the cell cannot divide any further.

Notably, there are animals that are functionally ageless or have got around some of the limitations that humans run into. The aptly-named Immortal Jellyfish can continually return to its polyp (adolescent) form and basically never dies of old age, just by disease or predation. Similarly, some forms of invertebrates have enzymes that allow their telomeres to regenerate after cell division.

This is an area of ongoing research and the idea of not aging is now considered a realistic possibility, albeit one that's well out of our reach at present.
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All things are impermanent
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check mate atheists
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Well that's one way I could live forever. The other is to just upload my cognition to the matrix.
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An immortal population wouldn't be a good thing regardless. New people/babies are born, but nobody ever dies. The world would very quickly become overpopulated.

rogerskg1979 posted...

An immortal population wouldn't be a good thing regardless. New people/babies are born, but nobody ever dies. The world would very quickly become overpopulated.

Society can change and reproduce less. In dnd elves live for 1000 years and usually only have like 1 or 2 kids in that time.

Zeus posted...

rogerskg1979 posted...

Brains definitely age, just like anything else organic.

This, tbh. It's not like anything in the body lasts forever, except maybe the bones if you take care of.

And even then, bones don't really last forever. They're constantly being broken down and rebuilt, just like any other structure in the body. They're just particularly good at regenerating.

Cancer cells can outlive most humans (provided they're kept in nutrients) thanks to a ribonucleoprotein called telomerase. Cancer labs around the world use a cell line known as the HeLa line in their scientific research; it's named after Henrietta Lacks, whose cervical cancer cells are still thriving and dividing even today although she died in 1951.

Firewerx posted...

Cancer cells can outlive most humans (provided they're kept in nutrients) thanks to a ribonucleoprotein called telomerase. Cancer labs around the world use a cell line known as the HeLa line in their scientific research; it's named after Henrietta Lacks, whose cervical cancer cells are still thriving and dividing even today although she died in 1951.

Which were taken without consent.
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FrndNhbrHdCEman posted...

Firewerx posted...

Cancer cells can outlive most humans (provided they're kept in nutrients) thanks to a ribonucleoprotein called telomerase. Cancer labs around the world use a cell line known as the HeLa line in their scientific research; it's named after Henrietta Lacks, whose cervical cancer cells are still thriving and dividing even today although she died in 1951.

Which were taken without consent.

Well, yes.

Cancer biology is spooky. Not only do cancer cells appear to be potentially immortal, but they give off chemical signals that make the host body grow new blood vessels to feed them (a process called angiogenesis).

entropy is the great enemy.

you pour a puzzle out of a table and there is this statistical possibility that it could fall onto the table perfectly assembled. you can also say with confidence that it wont because there is a near infinite number of other ways it can fall out of the box. it is theoretically possible, but it is something that will never happen.

all systems tend toward disorder. it is the law of entropy that everything breaks down, and this is probably the most immutably provable concept in existence. the weeds will take over your lawn, and eventually rot themselves. your body will grow old and tired and break down, and so will your mind. every system in the entire universe is subject to this law without exception.

there is only one force in the universe that can fight entropy, and that is energy. it takes effort and while you can use energy to fight entropy, entropy always wins out in the end. that doesnt mean we shouldnt still fight it.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they do not go gentle into that good night.

tldr: no, i dont think so, but i also believe that we should be doing our damndest to make it so
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there's a difference between biological aging and "temporal" aging. even with biological immortality you would still "age". for the brain itself, though, I'm not sure how much of either affect it, but there'd probably be problems to overcome on both sides before you could have brains that last indefinitely.
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Troll_Police_ posted...

all systems tend toward disorder. it is the law of entropy that everything breaks down, and this is probably the most immutably provable concept in existence. the weeds will take over your lawn, and eventually rot themselves. your body will grow old and tired and break down, and so will your mind. every system in the entire universe is subject to this law without exception.

there is only one force in the universe that can fight entropy, and that is energy. it takes effort and while you can use energy to fight entropy, entropy always wins out in the end. that doesnt mean we shouldnt still fight it.

not sure you're really explaining this right...

it is the law of entropy that everything breaks down, and this is probably the most immutably provable concept in existence.

I don't think it's "the most immutably provable concept". a priori concepts can be "immutably provable", but not a posteriori concepts (ones that require observation to know about). it's strong enough to be a law of physics, but that's it.

the weeds will take over your lawn, and eventually rot themselves.

we don't have the life/death cycle because of entropy, that's more related to natural selection. as long as the sun shines, earth has unending low entropy. that's how life is here in the first place.

there is only one force in the universe that can fight entropy, and that is energy.

no, high entropy is still energy, it's just not usable energy. low entropy is usable energy (you could call it "order").
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Sahuagin posted...

not sure you're really explaining this right...

i am sure

Sahuagin posted...

I don't think it's "the most immutably provable concept". a priori concepts can be "immutably provable", but not a posteriori concepts (ones that require observation to know about). it's strong enough to be a law of physics, but that's it.

k, you can not think that all you want. youd be wrong, but you can think it

Sahuagin posted...

we don't have the life/death cycle because of entropy, that's more related to natural selection. as long as the sun shines, earth has unending low entropy. that's how life is here in the first place.

we have a life/death cycle because all systems, including the systems that keep you living, tend towards entropy.

and yeah, we dont have unending low entropy. even the sun is gonna go out eventually homie. literally nothing is unending, and that is literally the case because entropy ALWAYS wins in the end.

if you managed to preserve a human brain and keep it ticking for thousands or even millions of years, eventually the energy sources that allow you to do so are going to run out. its all gonna run out. there is no immortality in this universe. it is utterly impossible.
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Troll_Police_ posted...

we have a life/death cycle because all systems, including the systems that keep you living, tend towards entropy.

only closed systems necessarily tend towards entropy. earth is an open system, and so is your body. that's how life is possible in the first place. the way you're describing it, life would not even be possible to get off the ground.

Troll_Police_ posted...

k, you can not think that all you want. youd be wrong, but you can think it

we only know of entropy/the second law through observation. it's almost certainly unavoidable, but saying that it's "immutably provable" just shows you don't understand the words you're using. only a priori concepts are "immutably provable". in other words, if we do discover a way around the 2nd law, it would be a big deal, but it wouldn't have been strictly impossible, just thought absurdly unlikely.

Sahuagin posted...

as long as the sun shines,

Troll_Police_ posted...

even the sun is gonna go out

no kidding, hence the qualifier
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Sahuagin posted...

only closed systems necessarily tend towards entropy. earth is an open system, and so is your body. that's how life is possible in the first place. the way you're describing it, life would not even be possible to get off the ground.

youre just a touch dense so let me break it down for you

the WHOLE universe tends towards entropy. energy can fight it, but as a part of the universe, it decays over time. period. no ifs, no ands, no buts. the way im describing it, life is inevitably limited to the energy available to create and sustain it, and that energy is equally reliant on what is needed to sustain it.

it all falls apart homie. gonna have to come to terms with that. look at this conversation right now. you are trying to break down the laws and logic that govern this universe. meanwhile i am having to expend an inordinate amount of energy fighting against it. that is how you fight entropy, but no matter how much energy i expend, fighting entropy is always a losing battle.
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Troll_Police_ posted...

the WHOLE universe tends towards entropy.

yes

energy can fight it, but as a part of the universe, it decays over time.

only once the sun stops shining. until then, the earth remains an "anti-entropy-zone".

Troll_Police_ posted...

i am having to expend an inordinate amount of energy

really? just to type a post or two?
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Once brains can be stored electronically, space is no longer a problem. Both because you can live and interact digitally, and because you could use mechanical bodies at that point. No need for air even, water, or other normal biological requirements. We could populate the moon, mars and other planets, and quickly and easily create ships that could travel to other solar systems and populate them as well.

Other technology is important, endless energy sources really already exist, but there are other advances we really need as well. Still to make humanity immortal and unending, to populate the universe etc, really just requires the technology and knowledge to be able to simulate brains electronically and transfer/save memories etc.

Once we do that, the universe is ours, at least as long as there are not others out there that have done the same thing, and even then, we could all probably live together pretty well if we exist in electronic format primarily.

Main problem would be, would we even keep physical bodies around after awhile? With infinite digital space at our fingertips, we might lose any motivation to actually explore or expand, and then just live in this solar system until the sun goes eventually.
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Sahuagin posted...

only once the sun stops shining. until then, the earth remains an "anti-entropy-zone".

immortality
i(m)mrtald/
noun
noun: immortality

the ability to live forever; eternal life.

considering the sun WILL stop shining, as will every other star in the universe, there is no possibility for immortality.

and yes, we remain "anti entropy" because you fight entropy with energy, which we have a relatively abundant, but ultimately limited, supply of. thats sort of been my point this entire time. here we are back at my original post.
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Sometimes I wonder if there is a way to reverse entropy. And or to keep stars alive forever. Maybe will will discover it with 50th century science or something

Yes (even assuming you restrict yourself to a human's organic brain), but said proper care would be something beyond our current abilities.

Even when you are young, your brain's neurons are dying. They are also dividing. Cells divide to increase their number. Cells also die.

The first step would be removing the division limit obviously, but after that you need to maintain a state where the neurons are dying and dividing in a manner that maintains equilibrium in addition to being conducive to continued learning and activity, and of course while also avoiding problems from cropping up.
.
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Troll_Police_ posted...

considering the sun WILL stop shining, as will every other star in the universe, there is no possibility for immortality.

If we're talking about immortality, it stands to reason that finding a way to reverse the heat death of the universe would be a part of developing that. Really, if we start getting individual minds lasting long enough to potentially outlive the sun, that's not that far-fetched. We've seen what a handful of gifted human brains can accomplish in a few decades, who's to say they couldn't rewrite thermodynamics with a hundred million times longer than that?
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Troll_Police_ posted...

Sahuagin posted...

only once the sun stops shining. until then, the earth remains an "anti-entropy-zone".

immortality
i(m)mrtald/
noun
noun: immortality

the ability to live forever; eternal life.

considering the sun WILL stop shining, as will every other star in the universe, there is no possibility for immortality.

and yes, we remain "anti entropy" because you fight entropy with energy, which we have a relatively abundant, but ultimately limited, supply of. thats sort of been my point this entire time. here we are back at my original post.

Depending on what kind of futuristic maybes you allow for, you could simply seed a new big bang, wait a while, then transfer yourself between universes via interdimensional technology of some sort to the new one before the old one is too far out of entropy to support the resources necessary to power the jump.

Regardless, if you can maintain life that long, its unlikely you will remember much past a certain amount of time.
.
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Sephiroth C Ryu posted...

Troll_Police_ posted...

Sahuagin posted...

only once the sun stops shining. until then, the earth remains an "anti-entropy-zone".

immortality
i(m)mrtald/
noun
noun: immortality

the ability to live forever; eternal life.

considering the sun WILL stop shining, as will every other star in the universe, there is no possibility for immortality.

and yes, we remain "anti entropy" because you fight entropy with energy, which we have a relatively abundant, but ultimately limited, supply of. thats sort of been my point this entire time. here we are back at my original post.

Depending on what kind of futuristic maybes you allow for, you could simply seed a new big bang, wait a while, then transfer yourself between universes via interdimensional technology of some sort to the new one before the old one is too far out of entropy to support the resources necessary to power the jump.

Regardless, if you can maintain life that long, its unlikely you will remember much past a certain amount of time.
.

pretty much zeno's paradox which states that it is possible to complete an infinite process. youre only delaying the inevitable here.
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Troll_Police_ posted...

the ability to live forever; eternal life.

that's more like supernatural immortality. and of course supernatural immortality and the laws of physics don't agree. there is nevertheless biological immortality, which exists, and is closer to what the OP is asking about. I'm not sure but since neurons don't divide, the brain may already be partly biologically immortal; at least maybe more so than other parts.

considering the sun WILL stop shining, as will every other star in the universe, there is no possibility for immortality.

if you just came here to say "you can't literally live forever because of the heat death of the universe", then ok thanks for that obvious statement.

and yes, we remain "anti entropy" because you fight entropy with energy, which we have a relatively abundant, but ultimately limited, supply of.

not "energy", low entropy. as in, a state where there is lots of energy in once place, and no energy in another place, rather than just having tons of energy everywhere. the amount of energy isn't all you need, having it partitioned between two places (a high energy place and a low energy place) is what you need.

thats sort of been my point this entire time. here we are back at my original post.

except for all the wrong things you've said, I guess
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Zikten posted...

if we could clone new bodies and do brain transfers, would the brain live forever, as long as you got a new body every 70 years or so? do brains age?

We can do those things.
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Sahuagin posted...

there is nevertheless biological immortality, which exists, and is closer to what the OP is asking about.

that has never been implicitly stated or implied.

Sahuagin posted...

if you just came here to say "you can't literally live forever because of the heat death of the universe", then ok thanks for that obvious statement.

yeah, the heat death of the universe is totally common knowledge. fuck man, i cant go one day without bumping into 500 fucking people who want to contemplate the inevitable end of existence as we know it.

Sahuagin posted...

except for all the wrong things you've said, I guess

lol, sorry to shit all over you this entire time homie. i totally get why youd be mad. i try not to be this way, but you sort of bring it upon yourself.
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