X-Message-Number: 24771
Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 09:43:10 -0700
From: James Swayze <>
Subject: Kurzweil's Quest For Eternal Youth Sets Group Abuzz

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11564-2004Oct6.html?sub=new

Kurzweil's Quest For Eternal Youth Sets Group Abuzz

By Leslie Walker
Thursday, October 7, 2004; Page E01

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

Inventor Ray Kurzweil takes 250 nutritional supplements a day in his 
quest to live long enough to reap the benefits he expects from 
biotechnology. He says he's trying to reprogram his body, as he would 
his computer........

........At MIT last week, Kurzweil described a future in which he's 
convinced immortality -- or a drastically longer life span -- will be 
possible thanks to emerging technologies. His new book, which will hit 
stores in a few weeks, outlines a special "longevity program" of diet, 
exercise and nutritional supplements aimed at slowing the aging 
process.........

.........At the MIT conference, not everyone seemed enamored with this 
idea. During lunch the next day, Daniel McCurdy, chief executive of 
consulting company ThinkFire Services USA Ltd., said immortality didn't 
strike him as all that appealing:

"I'm already periodically bored, and I'm only 48. Why would you want to 
live forever?"..........

........Kurzweil later conceded that radically extending human life 
could lead to a "deep ennui" if nothing else changed, but he believes we 
will grow smarter and vastly improve our quality of life. Nanobots, if 
we let them swim around our brain capillaries, will boost our 
brainpower, he said, as they chatter with our biological neurons over a 
wireless local network and the Internet, creating a hybrid form of 
super-intelligence..........

........."This scenario will enable us to expand our mental faculties 
through these massively distributed neural implants with no surgery 
required," he added.

Kurzweil said he doesn't think such changes will detract from our 
humanity. "The emergence of artificial intelligence is not an alien 
invasion of intelligent machines coming from over the horizon to compete 
with us," he declared. "Rather, it is emerging from our human 
civilization."........

.........For baby boomers, though, it's a safe bet many will resist the 
idea of tinkering with Mother Nature. That's the thinking of McCurdy, 
who believes part of what makes life a great adventure is knowing it 
will end.

"I would rather continue the adventure by dying and going into a 
different plane," he said, "instead of having nanobots running around my 
brain."[cont.]

****
I don't know what education level this McCurdy has achieved but I'm not 
impressed with either his intellect or knowledge. Again we have the 
tired old excuses for deathism. I'll get bored... what an utterly 
abysmal lack of imagination! Also again with the "other plane of 
existence". 'What other plane, can you prove this exists sir? Even if it 
does would it not be infinite compared to this physical existence of the 
universe so therefore wouldn't it obviously still await you once you'd 
have really exhausted your imagination and truly got bored with life or 
we all finally meet our demise along with the demise of the universe? 
Again what a truly utterly abysmal lack of imagination and add to that 
lack of critical thinking skills, lack of basic logic skills and a total 
absence of useful knowledge. I'll also add that he apparently lacks any 
instinct for survival.

Baby boomers won't want to tinker with Mother Nature? He needs to watch 
"Dr. 90201" or Discovery Channel's "Body Works" or ABC's "Extreme 
Makeover". These are reality shows but even fictional plastic surgery 
makes for good viewing with FX's "Nip/Tuck". Baby Boomers and their 
children are spending over a billion dollars a year tinkering with 
Mother Nature to not only to correct perceived cosmetic slights but also 
disguise the effects of aging. Anti aging organizations should place 
pamphlets in plastic surgeon's offices and adds/articles in media 
concerned with plastic surgery. Growing in wide consumption even in non 
Transhuman circles are a wide variety of so called anti aging compounds 
some by outright charlatan hucksters pitched on late night infomercials 
and not of the level of dedication of organizations more closely 
involved in the Transhuman/Life Extension ilk. Baby Boomers are hitting 
the wall of aging and not liking it one damn bit. They should be and I 
predict will be coming to the ideas of agelessness, life extension and 
even body modification in droves as more media attention is placed on 
these technological possibilities.

Kurzweil is indeed brave to step out so starkly exposed in mainstream 
limelight with so radical of ideas, as seen by the uninitiated, 
especially that they are so adamantly opposed by the biodeathicists on 
the current [but not for long!] President's Council for Bioethics. Not 
that he's been particularly stealthy about his convictions. But 
hopefully soon he'll feel comfortable enough to mention that he's a 
believer in the efficacy of and signed up for cryonic suspension as well.

James

-- 

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