X-Message-Number: 18994
From: 
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 13:26:25 EDT
Subject: convergence to health

Recently I said that, if civilization endures, we will probably see the end 
of all ordinary disease, including senescence and genetic abnormalities and 
results of trauma such as radiation damage or poisoning, so there should be 
no more "natural" death.

First, I reiterate this. It's really pretty simple. A physician can sew up a 
cut, and he doesn't have to know if it was caused by a knife or a razor or a 
scalpel or a sheet of paper or a sharp fingernail. A mechanic can replace a 
malfunctioning or nonfunctioning carburetor, and he doesn't have to know if 
it was a factory defect or sand in the works or what. Moderately intelligent 
nanobots could spot abnormal organisms or substances or structures, or the 
lack of normal ones, and make suitable corrections at an early stage, without 
knowing anything about how or why they got there or failed to appear. The 
problem could also be noted and the information sent to the people upstairs 
for further study.   

As to diseases of the psyche, or personality disorders, I explicitly said 
that these are in a different category, and that vicious memes could be as 
dangerous as parasitic microorganisms. But I think these possibilities are 
also overplayed. After all, certain generalities and tendencies look very 
strong.

One generality unlikely to change is that more and bigger =  stronger, not 
always or inevitably but usually. Many people are stronger than a few, and 
societies--even libertarian societies--are stronger than individuals. 
Societies and majorities are likely to continue to realize, or in some cases 
come to realize, that maniacs are dangerous and must be guarded against, if 
not cured or eliminated.

Another generality, not yet generally recognized or accepted, is that "girls 
just want to have fun." Everybody's basic motivation is personal satisfaction 
over time, which detractors call the "pleasure principle." The brain is so 
complex that sometimes derivative values have more effective power than basic 
ones, and even mere habits can overcome such basics as the survival instinct. 
That makes the past crazy and the present dangerous, but the future is more 
promising.

"Diversification" is a delusion, except in superficialities. Some people in 
the next century may choose snow-white skin, some coal-black, and some 
sky-blue or grass-green--that's trivial. Some may choose wings and others 
fins, and that's trivial too. Essentially no one will choose stupidity or 
ignorance or disease over intelligence and knowledge and health, any more 
than they will choose death over life. 

Even if some people grow gills and live in the sea, and others distribute 
parts of themselves over continents or star systems, that is unlikely to 
change anything really basic. 

My guess therefore is that, in the important things, the future will bring 
convergence, not divergence. 

Many seemingly plausible objections could be made--for example, that we can't 
understand the motivation of an ant and that future varieties of transhuman 
may not be able to understand each other's motivations, or empathize with 
them. I leave the answer as an exercise for the student.

Certainly it's a long way from here to there, with many a misstep possible. 
Calamities can happen, and the universe itself could turn out to be 
user-unfriendly. In one of Heinlein's stories, a time traveler made brief 
contact with an advanced race, and remembered only their overpowering aura of 
grief or despair. As I have said before, maybe that is the answer to the 
Fermi paradox--that intelligence is ultimately and inherently fatal, because 
it leads to the realization of the fundamental darkness or emptiness.   

But gloomy speculations should never be allowed to get the upper hand. A good 
future seems a probability, and we can improve the odds by our actions and 
attitudes.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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