X-Message-Number: 19139 From: "Lee Corbin" <> Subject: Re: Can we become immortal? Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 04:52:10 -0700 Thomas Donaldson writes > As I explained, the argument depends on a constant rate of decrease > in the probability of death. ANYTHING which produces that, or > ANY SET OF METHODS (with time a larger and larger set) which produces > that decrease will produce immortality in a subset of the population. This is literally correct, but might give someone the impression that vanishingly few persons actually live forever. I enjoy the mathematical fact that (1 - 1/2) * (1 - 1/4) * (1 - 1/8) * (1 - 1/16) ... is approximately .288288, and that this product converges despite what one might think at first. In Forever For All, Mike Perry wrote "Let us say that by the year 2100 aging and diseases are cured... [and] the chance that you will die in the following century is only 1 percent, meaning you have a 99 percent chance of still being alive in 2100. Then more advances occur...and progress continues, halving your chance of dying in each successive century. Wheat, we then ask, is your chance, starting in 2100, of never dying at all? "This can be estimated [calculated]... Thus the chance of surviving...if we continue in this manner after fourteen centuries the chance of survival falls to .98013, but with little further change no matter how far we go." Mike is doing .99 * .995 * .9975 * ... and observes that this also converges (like he says, to about point nine-eight). In Message #19127, Tim Freeman arrives at the same conclusion by explicitly considering the probability that a given backup will survive. Thomas continues > The main thing to concentrate on is that of whether or > not future technology can bring that probability down > constantly or more than constantly. As for the happy > point, we have no evidence we cannot. The sad point is > that our probability of death will still remain nonzero... > Best wishes and long long life for all, Yes, that is the point! Lee Corbin Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19139