I'm curious what your thoughts are on transhumanism in regard to maturity. At present, maturity is closely tied to age. If we were to stop the aging process, how do you think maturity would be affected, if at all? Also, is it likely that stopping the aging process would preserve neural plasticity?
Well, it is hard to say really because there are so many possible futures in regards to radical life extension. It is likely that if we start to stop the aging process that the ways in which we do this will fundamentally change the human form. As a result, it is hard to say how maturity will change, but generally I believe that as we continue to evolve in new ways with technology that we will become far more intelligent - which is often culturally associated with higher maturity. Intelligence is plastic and always changing. Our brains are dynamic distributed systems that require complex environments for stimulation. Our brains will always be emergent and always changing. What we will need to do is figure out how our brains degenerate over time and figure out how we can stop this or change this from happening while still keeping "you" "you".If we were to stop the aging process, how do you think maturity would be affected, if at all?
Also, is it likely that stopping the aging process would preserve neural plasticity?
Hmm. I haven't really thought much about this, though there are certainly a lot of instances in science fiction of this. I wonder what "the human experience" would be like in a future with humans embodied in perhaps a variety of forms. Interesting stuff! Good experience with Huffington Post so far?It is likely that if we start to stop the aging process that the ways in which we do this will fundamentally change the human form.
In a theory I'm developing (I hope to publish it academically), the next metasystem transition will be the end of "biological humans" - it will be a new era. The system-level patterns will be predictable but how we as individual agents develop in this system will be harder to know. And yes I've liked writing with them so far. We'll see what happens! I hope to use it as a platform for future exposure and better science writing opportunities.I wonder what "the human experience" would be like in a future with humans embodied in perhaps a variety of forms.
Thanks for the introduction to the grandmother hypothesis I had never heard of it before, but it makes perfect sense. Nice piece Cadell.However, remember that although you probably expect to live into your 70s and 80s, most humans didn't have this luxury. Life expectancy in ancient times was closer to 30, and life expectancy in early 20th century America was only ~45. Improved nutrition, health care, and public sanitation over the past 100 years has gone a long way to improve the human condition.
Is this average from the 20th century of 45 because of infant mortality? If you were to take out the humans that died prior to the age of 18, what would that number look like? My guess is that we've gotten much better at keeping infants and children alive.
Not all due to infant mortality. Communicable diseases in general commonly resulted in death regardless of age. Remember that germ theory was only introduced in the last decade of the 19th century. Before germ theory urban sanitation was generally horrible and ideas of how diseases were caused and spread were simply wrong. Also, there was a poor health care infrastructure and no social security net. Homelessness was high, if you lost your job it could have meant starvation, and if you got any degenerative disease in your 40s and 50s you were likely to die as well. Now that we have handled communicable diseases (by and large), we are turning our attention to getting better at stopping degenerative diseases. This will eventually be solved with the maturity of stem cell therapies.Is this average from the 20th century of 45 because of infant mortality?