WHY IMMORTALITY CANNOT BE BORING

       So let me explain it to you this way. And sorry for the condescending sound of it but I really am a pro-life-extension-arrogant-asshole.  

       Your body seems to be a pretty cool thing. It's been given to you at birth. You even have a mind coming with it which is a different thing and which is actually, on the long run, the only part that really matters.

      You have gotten used to identify, during every single of your life, yourself (your mind) with your body to an extent that you have the illusion that the thing, no mater how good or bad it looks like, that you look in a mirror every morning (or even minute of the day if you're a Korean girl, just kidding) is actually an accurate representation of yourself and that it will always be this way.

      Hmmm, but here is thing; One of the main reason why you fear immortality even if you deny it is because you are afraid to be stuck, literally with yourself, for the rest of your endless life but this WON'T have to happen unless you really want to (and most probably you won't, trust me on that, and I'm not even saying cos i look like shit).

When you talk to people about immortality right away they think about stuff of the past. The old school way to picture it. Vampires, life elixirs and all these crap that belong to the world of for some people still cool but pure old-fashion fantasy that aren't very helpful to help you understand the real biomedical, technological and not even science-fictional attributes of what biological (at first) immortality does really mean! 

        Therefore "vampires" and stories of the kind are actually counter-productive in order to study and face ageing because not so many people that I know either want to be a vampire or a zombie for some reason... 

   

        They also imagine, if they really were immortal, their own fucking boring life being endlessly unescapable. 

        Most people would rather pretend to be happy especially publicly, right? 

Who's gonna admit: 

         Here we go, I just wanna die before I turn 80 and not before or later because I don't wanna have to work my ass off on this shitty job for another millennium, because my wife is already getting on my nerves after a decade but we stay together for the kids, because when I come back home every evening I'm too tired to do anything else than watching TV that has nothing else to offer than advertisements and cheap and boring reality programs once in a while, because even my friends don't amuse me anymore at times… and because living this shit forever would just be like hell on earth. 

   

                                      Laura Deming's speech at Ted

                              
               I wouldn't be surprised to see her multi-billionaire in 20 years
                and her company one of the most life-changing of the planet   

   

        Well, I'm not Jesus or any mind fuckers of the kind promising you eternal life with no explanations whatsoever but here's the GOOD NEWS:

          

          Future technology as biotech, nano tech and finally Artificial Intelligence or even mind-uploading won't simply give you the literally incredible  power of eternal life but they will also provide the priceless ability to be whoever you want be and to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to! 

        You'll hopefully still have your own soul and this person that you are will be FREE  and since it will also be much wiser by the exponential improvement of your intelligence there is possibly very little chances that you turn as a wicked or shitty person and get bored to death at any point!

   

       Sure, there will also be a bunch of, still now, unpredictable problems that you'll have to face but your life will be such a blast that you would not want to go back to your previous life in a million years.        

     Most people would readily acknowledge how much luckier they are to live now instead than centuries ago but do they really think about why is it so?! 

         Sure it also have to do with politics and economics but even these stuff at the end of the day are all the little offsprings of technology, science and thoughts. 

    Only the power of the mind, philosophy and scientific advances could take our asses out of the awful hold that religion had on nations and people during the middle-age (just to use a single example)  ! 

          And then obviously we also live better lives for nothing much else than technological developments.

          Just think about something as simple as electricity and what would happen if the whole world stopped having it and you'd get a better picture: It would basically be the end of us...  

       
                                             
                                     "Imagine a world without electricity"    

                      

                   

So what does all of that has to do with immortality?

          Only the fact that the "exponentiality" of technological development is the most powerful thing that has ever happened on earth, maybe the universe and even the multiverse and that if centuries ago people had to be immortal they would have had pretty good reason to get bored to death without internet, countries to travel to, other people than your neighbours to meet or even books to read!

         

          But now things are obviously better and they will not only keep getting better but the pace of betterness (just made it up) will keep accelerating drastically until the point that not only you'd be happy to have as much time as you want for as long as you wish but you might be even a little disappointed for still not having enough time (and time won't really exist though) to do everything that you want to do even by multitasking a 100 folds and swinging between different dimensions and maybe even universes. 

  

        So, sorry about that dude but if your main concern about not wanting eternal life was because it would just turn out to be like hell on earth, apart from the fact that you won't even stick to earth on the first place, boredom is the absolute least thing you could expect from eternity and i can bet you a million years on that!

    

                                                                                                                           forever peace                                

             

  

When our friends and relatives will only be virtual

            Now that I am reading myself again I realize that this is a very chaotic but also quite a fascinating “train of thoughts” so please have a seat, enjoy and try to get to the final destination as it’d be quite worth the trip:

      

         just after washing the Butterfly Effect movie and thinking again about this documentary I saw about time I was thinking:

  Sometime after the singularity we (or the artificial species replacing us) will experience time in a very different way. Since (let's use we, it reassures people) we'll be able to live endlessly (even if it still sounds nuts) and since time is another dimension where we'll be able to move as we wish we won't feel the notion of time anymore and it won't affect us, at least no in the same way it still does.

         For example, after merging completely form biological to artificial or better said, from carbon to silicon, obviously we won't have to sleep unless we want to be switched off for a while, put “on sleeping mode”! 

      

      The very notion of days and nights will have more meaning in the real world since "night" won't be used "to sleep" anymore and if people are still out they will then be at any given moment.

        On the other hand it will lose it's signification in the virtual world, where most of people will spend almost their entire time, just as in Matrix, I know…

         I don't know though if time travel will be possible in the same way we mere humans imagine it but even if it isn't it will virtually be a no brainer. 

        You will be able to go back at any given time (from the beginning of "the virtual world creation") to relive past events. 

       You''ll browse into your real or virtual memories and jump back at any moment to enjoy the scenery again… 

     

          Then, If it's about the real world chances are that you'll just be a viewer and maybe simply having the feeling that you are there doing things virtually that won't affect the real world and change the space-time continuum as it does in “the butterfly effect” when the main character has black-outs while reading his diary that bring him back into is younger self for just enough time to “change things” that will drastically modify his present and make him wake up in a different place while life has turn out very differently for him indeed...      

         So these kind of things obviously won’t happen. But if it is the virtual world that we are talking about then you might also be able to change the whole timeline if the rules/Laws of the program/matrix/world enable it. 

         I think there will be two main categories of "virtual worlds". The first one is the global one where everybody can interact together and that will be an augmented reality where everything will be possible as long as you don't hurt or disturb anyone else. Can you virtually time travel and change THIS world?                                                  Hmm, maybe if you are a hacker… or just “mister anybody”, who knows.

        

           But probably you definitely could depending on which subgroup you are?! 

There will be worlds that only you and you friends or anyone that you (both) wish could access and where everybody else, if there are more people, would be avatars created by the program/matrix or yourself.

         The other kind of "virtual world" will be  the ultimate subgroup from the main global one: It will be "yours". 

         And that's when things get a little more complicated… You will be able to jump back or maybe also forward in time or remain in the so-called present.

        Everything from the "global world" will be part of your "own virtual world" just as "everybody". 

       From the  MM (main matrix) you'll dispose of all the datas of your OM (own matrix) and the most common appearance an behavior of people keeping their avatar as public. So if you want to interact with their Pubatar, PUA or PUB (Public Avatar) you'd be doing it "almost" just as if it really was them, as if you were with their privatar, PIA or PRI (Private avatar).  

       Pubatars are a "second self" generated by the matrix or maybe only less sophisticatedly by your own internal computing system also called “mind”. 

         As an example, your own pubatar will be an uploaded copy of yourself, of your brain into the matrix and downloadable to infinity.

       Now people download music, videos… but in the future if it will result ethical enough and technically possible people might downloads copy of their friends pubatars or of anyone they want for that matter. 

     

        If a complete pubatar takes too much memory or if it’s illegal to download one you might just want a partial one. A simplified version that looks smart enough to make you believe most of the time that it's really he or she. 

      BTW,  If anyone actually read this they might think that I'm joking or anything of the kind or they might really wonder not "if" but "how much" insane I'm turning and I couldn't blame them since I personally think it's the most fucked up idea I probably ever had…       But it's also not a very far-fetched one!  Yes, that's what I said: Not! 

       The main problem here is not only to be "using" your friends (their copy) while they are not even aware of it but mainly because  the pubatar would actually be just as aware of its existence as the person it is representing!

      

          Now or even in 20 years downloading a brain would take quite a lot of computing memory and power but sometime after the singularity even the supermind of an artificial human will be only a fast download away and does that mean that "a new" super-intelligent self would be created almost instantly and would it accept living in an enclosed virtual reality where it can be used and abused by its owner/user for the simple reason that it’s not "the original copy"? I don't think so… 

        But we might find some kind of compromise with a more simple download of the main character traits of a person that your matrix or a part of your brain will reproduce as accurately as possible but in this case you'd just have to be aware that "it's not real", that he or she is not really there even if the pubatar could evolve while being aware of past informations and the new ones you would share along with them.     

       Now people that have imaginary friends can be easily called insane unless they have lived for less than a dozen of years but in the future it will be common practice for your desktop, I mean, your brain, to make imaginary people communicate with yourself. You might even become an expert into letting yourself think that the matrix is full of people that adore you and take your friendship very seriously.        

       

         But anyway, either it is a global computer, the matrix, or your own mind making the trick, hellooo, it will not actually be your friend with you and you'd better be aware of that for the next time you see their privatar or real person! 

        Some people will get confused about what and who's real and for good reasons but his is their problem, not yours! YOU, on the other hand, are not crazy! I repeat: You Are Not Crazy!  

         Now, to fix that, the only ethical way people could be copied into authentic pubatar sharing 100% of their mind capability and memory with their privatar is if they provide absolute freedom to their virtual clone but encourage them to visit this or that friend that has requested to spend time with them. 

        But this is still quite amoral and dangerous for a number of reasons:

  

 First, the clone or one of the clones could claim that it is the original copy, the privatar. 

       Second, if I download a copy of my dad to spend more time with him, I will become more related to the copy and the original will become quite a stranger "even" if all the experiences of the copies can be shared with the originals and vice-versa. 

       My dad then, seeing that the original me has become too unaccessible, might download a copy of me himself and create new bounds with him while letting him live his life the rest of the time.  And then who is whom? 

         One might have 10 or a 100 different copies of themselves, a little chaotic, isn't it? 

        Other example; You fall in love with a girl (boy). 

One day she dumps you but you love her. The good news is that, as most people, she happens to have a pubatar and even if she didn’t she is kind enough to give you a copy of herself with whom you can be in your OM (own matrix) but not on the MM (main matrix)  where only the original , the privatar is publicly allowed and enabled.           Sounds a little paradoxical: A “public privatar” but it just means that this is really yourself and should be identified and respected as so.                                                Even though apparently pubatar should also be respected the same way unless they aren’t authentic copy of oneself.  

          This whole train of thought raises difficult questions to answer right now but it might become part of our daily life soon after computers will successfully pass the turing test so even before the singularity  which is the moment when Artificial Intelligence will be so powerful that it will greatly change its environment, including us, for the best or the worst. 

          At least definitely the best for them, buuuut maybe not for us, oops...

 So, do you want to be able to be with your closed ones even when they have no time for you?  Or even with this guy or girl that doesn’t care about you for not having a clue about how great of a person you are? 

        And do you want them to be absolutely real, the tough option, or “looking real” enough? You might not have any choice for this one and for good reasons. Also, if you’ve been able to choose the real one, don’t expect that your hero or favorite superstar would suddenly become found of you, poor thing, unless you’d go on the bad side and hack their mind what could be a main option in an unethical matrix where “copies”, with full consciousness, would be subjects to legal slavery and abuse but that probably won’t happen, at least not after the singularity, when only a far superior form of intelligence will prosper. I have a lot more to right about TIME though because that was what I first planned to talk about...                                                                         

            

THE PIXELS RACE

What is Nokia thinking about? If it's thinking at all...
First they had the greatest idea of all times: Joining the dark side of the force, windows... Now they make fun of Apple users as if they were zombies    http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2013/06/has_nokia_just_1.html    (and yes we are, i can admit that even though I personally "just" have a macbook pro,  an ipad and an ipod to play with) buuuut what is Microsoft if not one of the biggest and most "my stomach aches, where is the bathroom?" monopoly on the planet?!

       Finally, greatest idea of all time,  they come up with a 41 millions pixels smartphone http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/8/4503382/nokia-lumia-1020-sample-photo-joe-belfiore-flickr  and seriously, what's the point to put golden wheels to your car (or bicycle for the poorest and/or more nature friendly) unless you wanna make it slower?
      Looks fancy and all, sure, but have fun uploading your GIGA pixels pictures where it pleases you and we'd be talking!

Well sure, now speed and space is starting to be not too much of an issue and  maybe it's actually the linear illusion of progress that is making me a sceptic for a change for once doubting the exponential reality growth of the present we live in value (if this one has any),  so maybe 41 MP is NOT ONLY a bullshit marketing argument that "mister everybody" can paradoxically think he understands since promoting a bigger lens and/or sensor wouldn't make him care much even though that's what really matters in a camera.
  And apparently they did a pretty good job if the article's picture had really been taken by the camera promoted. But then why 41 MP would be of any more use than, as usually, making fools of people like us the walking wallets?
   
         I have a 15" retina display which is a little over 5MP and actually it's also quite unnecessary since
A LOT less pixels would have been far enough to make it "retina" (when you can't distinguish pixels at all with your bare eyes from the distance where you are). It's all explained here BTW: http://www.cultofmac.com/168509/why-you-might-be-disappointed-by-the-resolution-of-those-new-retina-display-macs-feature/     
        But now that everybody is on the foolish pixels race the 41MP phone all makes more sense (or even LESS)!!
Soon we'll commonly have 27inch Retina displays with tones and tones of useless pixels packed together but what we'll get in about a decade (beside our body extension, the Google glass http://www.google.com/glass/start/ and its competitors) might be our gigantic "walls" turning into multi displays so if we kept (and we obviously won't) the same technology then a display of a little less than 3 times the diagonal of a 15", so let's say about 41 inch wide, just as your standard HDTV, would be necessary to take full advantage of the 41MP pictures.

Basically, this means that if greedy manufacturers produced RetinaTV display for obvious marketing reasons with the same resolution as the macbook pro 15" retina which also has an absurd resolution of 220p per inch then the 41MP camera would make more sense to be seen from "very" close on such big screens and unless you are ready for big times headaches or are obsessed by details and/or an expert photographer or art critic then this is just totally absurd since at the first place you wouldn't be using your phone to snap the world around you, at least not as your main camera! check this out too: http://gizmodo.com/5926295/your-tv-is-a-retina-display

    And to briefly get back on "walls" that might be used as future displays, probably the technology will be very different involving holograms and other stuff that I'm still not very familiar with...

So, to make a long story short and as you probably already know if you are familiar with new technologies, when you see anything with a big and fancy number of pixels out there hitting the market "mind the gap" because big chances are that the only thing it's gonna hit is your walking wallet (and I own a MBP retina so I can tell)...