Living Forever, EV Calculation

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I'm just surprised that nobody has yet invoked the name of Ray Kurzweil

[BagOfCoins]

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I'm just surprised that nobody has yet invoked the name of Ray Kurzweil

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Or that of Aubrey de Grey, for that matter. There are plenty of people who take this question very seriously.

[ALawPoker]

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Lets say that there is a non-zero probability of functionally achieving immortality (or a profoundly drastic increase in health-span. if you prefer) through technological progress within your (current) lifespan. How high would this probability have to be before you would devout the rest of your life to reaching that end?

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As long as we're just dealing with real world speculation, I don't think I'd live life much differently. Staying alive is already pretty good. The more likely it became that this technology could exist in my lifetime, the more likely it becomes that I'll live long enough anyways. A very good chance that it will be here by 2040 also means a good chance it will be here by 2035, etc. I just can't imagine a circumstance where I'd really make many different decisions, since most of my decisions are already geared with living longer as somewhat of a priority. You're increasing the overall equity of being alive; but the difference between living to be 75 or 80 still seems the same to me.

Change it to it's either exactly at 2040 or never at all, X%, and my answer would be different.

[ALawPoker]

Hmm, I wrote that quickly and when I was on my way home I realized that it wasn't a completely accurate answer. I think there definitely is added incentive to live longer (vs. making short-term beneficial decisions) when you introduce the possibility of living forever. But I think we would make our decisions in a roughly similar way... we'd just be more likely to err on long-term health.

[doucy]

Woodside,

Another thread on the same topic:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...age=0&vc=1

Edit: Now I just realized that you posted on that thread, so you probably already knew about it. Oh well.

[wtfsvi]

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Have you considered bankroll?

[/ QUOTE ] Also, you will die eventually. There is no infinite gain.

[Stu Pidasso]

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How high would this probability have to be before you would devout the rest of your life to reaching that end?


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I think there is a factor of deminishing returns on your efforts that has to be considered. Initially a little bit of effort is going to yeild a significant increase in life expectancy. As your life expectancy increase additional effort is going to yeild less and less additional life expectancy. At some point the amount of effort isn't going to be worth the increased expectancy. This is especially true when there are cheaper and easier alternatives.

My advice to you if you really want to increase your life expectancy. Put forth a reasonable amount of effort to take care of yourself. Enjoy life. If it looks like your getting to the end and your not going to make it to the age of immortality, go have yourself frozen.

Stu

[NickMPK]

How would they ever prevent people from dying in car accidents, murders, etc?

I think a world in which people only died in these ways would be much worse, because every death would be unexpected and tragic. Plus, you'd exacerbate the inequality of people's fortunes, with some people getting lucky and living to be 10,000 years old, but some still dying when they were children.

[bruin]

to me, the thought of living forever is actually pretty depressing. to each his own...

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

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to me, the thought of living forever is actually pretty depressing. to each his own...

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I'm actually with you on this one.

"Death is the mother of beauty..."

"Is there no change of death in paradise,
does ripe fruit never fall?"

above excerpts from "Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens.