By Greg Scoblete — Real Clear Technology

We worry about robots.

Hardly a day goes by where we’re not reminded about how robots are taking our jobs and hollowing out the middle class. The worry is so acute that economists are busy devising new social contracts to cope with a potentially enormous class of obsolete humans.

Continue reading “Our Final Invention: How the Human Race Goes and Gets Itself Killed” »

Procreative sexual activity has been at the heart of the evolutionary process for millions of years. Until recently, the situation was simple: a male and a female had sexual intercourse in order to produce offspring and thus ensure survival. But, in humans, there are certain signs that something profound may be happening, signs which may be pointing to the beginning of Radical Life Extension. I argue that reproduction is a tactic used by natural evolution in order to increase complexity and thus, survival. Reproduction equals aging. But, as we now may have the capability to increase complexity through technology, the reproduction stratagem may be downgraded and thus aging will also decrease.

Here, the term ‘Radical Life Extension’ specifically means the abolition of aging. Without the process of aging, however it is defined, people will not suffer age-related degenerative conditions, and they will not die of old age. Therefore, the terms ‘Radical Life Extension’,’ Indefinite Lifespans’, and ‘cure of age-related diseases’, all convey the same meaning: a life without aging. It is important to emphasize that I consider the process of aging to be directly related to that of reproduction. I argue that the process of reproduction is necessarily implicated in the process of aging (in other words, aging happens because we need to reproduce), as explained in my argument number 3 below.

In this context, I would also like to remark that by ‘reproduction’ I specifically refer to sexual (i.e. genetic) reproduction. Evolution may still continue to use (or begin to use) other forms of reproduction such as memetic reproduction and reproduction of noemes.

The main thrust of my discussion is that we are now beginning to witness the first tentative steps leading away from the significance of procreative sexual intercourse and towards the global emergence of other, sustained, non-procreative sexual preferences.

Continue reading “Sexuality, Evolution and the Abolition of Aging” »

In is now quite clear that aging is not a simple phenomenon and it will not be overcome by using simple approaches. We need to increase the complexity and sophistication of our efforts in order to be in a better position to develop strategies against it. For this reason, I set up the ELPIS Foundation for Indefinite Lifespans (www.elpisfil.org) which is a scientific research organisation aiming to study aging from a complex evolutionary perspective.

The foundation’s research methodology is based mainly upon the ELPIS hypothesis (www.elpistheory.info). The initials stand for ‘Extreme Lifespans through Perpetual –equalising Interventions’. I developed this hypothesis in 2010 whilst trying to examine the reason behind the presence of aging. It was clear that aging is not an essential component of our evolutionary development, and if we find ways to study why nature has developed it, we may then be able to eradicate it. Currently, the chances of us dying from aging are heavily against us. By developing suitable interventions, we may be able to equalise the odds against us dying (i.e. remove aging as a cause of death).

Our method is different from most existing approaches aiming to eliminate aging. We are mainly interested in the ‘connection-approach’ and not so much in the ‘component-approach’. We believe that it is important to study how the different components of the organism are interconnected and regulated, rather than just repair the individual components. It is the ‘why aging happens’ rather than the ‘how it happens’ that interests us most. In order to make this clear let me mention an analogy with poliomyelitis.

Polio
*How it happens? There is inflammation and necrosis leading to damage of motor neurons and, ultimately, muscle weakness and paralysis
* Why it happens? Because the poliovirus causes it

Continue reading “Defying Aging: The ELPIs Foundation for Indefinite Lifespans” »

The Lifeboat community doesn’t need me to tell them that a growing number of scientists are dedicating their time and energy into research that could radically alter the human aging trajectory. As a result we could be on the verge of the end of aging. But from an anthropological and evolutionary perspective, humans have always had the desire to end aging. Most human culture groups on the planet did this by inventing some belief structure incorporating eternal consciousness. In my mind this is a logical consequence of A) realizing you are going to die and B) not knowing how to prevent that tragedy. So from that perspective, I wanted to create a video that contextualized the modern scientific belief in radical life extension with the religious/mythological beliefs of our ancestors.

And if you loved the video, please consider subscribing to The Advanced Apes on YouTube! I’ll be releasing a new video bi-weekly!

Leadership at the next level

By Kenneth Mikkelsen, Mannaz

Continue reading “The paradox of success” »

Originally posted via The Advanced Apes

Through my writings I have tried to communicate ideas related to how unique our intelligence is and how it is continuing to evolve. Intelligence is the most bizarre of biological adaptations. It appears to be an adaptation of infinite reach. Whereas organisms can only be so fast and efficient when it comes to running, swimming, flying, or any other evolved skill; it appears as though the same finite limits are not applicable to intelligence.

What does this mean for our lives in the 21st century?

Continue reading “The Post-Human World” »

Aging destroys fitness. How could aging have evolved? Below is my answer to this question. This is mainstream science from peer-reviewed journals [Ref 1, Ref 2, Ref 3] , but it is my science, and as Richard Feynman warned us*, I’m the last one who can be objective about the merits of this theory. — Josh Mitteldorf

Too fit for its own good

In 1874, a swarm of Rocky Mountain Locusts descended on the American midwest. They covered the sky and shadowed the earth underneath for hundreds of miles. A single cloud was larger than the state of California. Once on the ground, they ate everything that was green, leaving behind a dust bowl. The earth was thick with egg masses, ready to renew the plague the following year.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in her childhood memoir (in the third person)

Continue reading “Aging is bad for fitness. Why has evolution put up with it?” »

“I zoomed in as she approached the steps of the bridge, taking voyeuristic pleasure in seeing her pixelated cleavage fill the screen.

What was it about those electronic dots that had the power to turn people on? There was nothing real in them, but that never stopped millions of people every day, male and female, from deriving sexual gratification by interacting with those points of light.

Continue reading “Sexbots, Ethics, and Transhumans” »

It may be possible one day to use effective biotechnological therapies in order to achieve extreme lifespans. In the meantime, instead of just waiting for these therapies, it may be more fruitful to live a life of constant stimulation, hyper-connection and avoidance of regularity. This is something that everybody can do today, and may have a direct impact upon radical life extension, not only for the individual but also for society.

For some time now I have been advocating the notion that exposure to meaningful information may be one way of achieving radical life extension. By meaningful information I mean anything that requires action, and not just feeding your brain with routine sets of data. Examples of this include being hyper-connected in a digital world, an enriched environment (both in the personal space and in society as a whole), a hormetic lifestyle, behavioural models such as a goal-seeking behaviour, search for excellence, and a bias for action, as well as the pursuit innovation, diversification, creativity and novelty. Most importantly, the avoidance of routine and mediocrity.

This information-rich lifestyle up-regulates the function of the brain and may have an impact upon cell immortalisation. In my latest paper (http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.2734 I provide an explanation of the exact mechanisms. I argue that the relentless exposure to useful information creates new and persisting demands for energy resources in order for this information to be assimilated by the neurons. If this process continues for some time, there will come a point where our biological mechanisms will undergo a phase transition, in effect creating a new biology. Not one based on sex and reproduction but one based on information and somatic survival.

One possible mechanism involves the immortalisation sequences of germ cells. As we know, the DNA in germ cells is essentially immortal because it is somehow able to repair age-related damage effectively. Recent research shows that some of these immortalisation mechanisms do not originate from the germ cells but from the somatic cells! In other words, our bodily cells create biological material such as error-free sequences of DNA and instead of using this themselves for their own survival, they pass it on to the germ cells to assure the survival of the species. This means that the germ-line remains immortal whereas the bodily cells eventually age and die.

Continue reading “Extreme Lifespans via Exposure to Information” »