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McCook Daily Gazette / Is immortality achievable?
I sometimes wish I could bring my Uncle Bill, the man who raised me, back from the grave so he could see the amazing world I live in today. He and I did everything together when I was growing up. That was before interstates, of course so on Sundays we would sit on the front porch of our house and count the cars going east and west on the highway in front of us, also guessing the make and model of the car and where it was from.
Later on in the day we would walk the railroad track for a mile or so and then walk it back. We watched television together, went to movies together, played ball together and he never missed a school function or athletic event I participated in. He was the best friend a young boy could have. And although he's been dead for only 40 years, he would marvel at the world today.
When he died, there was no cable or satellite television, no cordless phones, no cell phones and no smart phones. There were no home computers, laptops, iPads or iPods, no email and no Internet. So living in today's world would be pure science-fiction for him. He knew we were born and he knew we would die. He often told me it's what we did between those two end points that made the difference in people.
But that may be changing and the change could be coming faster than most people would have thought. Scientists are working diligently at finding ways for us to live longer; much longer, adding several decades to our lives and they also say it's not beyond the realm of possibility that someday in the not too distant future, we could live forever.
According to the Oct. 11 edition of The Week magazine in their Briefing article, the maximum human life span today is around 125 years but most people fall far short of that because of poor diet, self-destructive habits, disease, or organ failure.
But advances in medicine have already extended the average human life span in the United States and other modern nations from 46 in 1900 to 78 today and science is now making steady progress toward solving the problem of aging itself.
We may be approaching an era in which people can bring their aging bodies to a clinic for maintenance, like a car, and have new organs installed that were grown from stem cells or manufactured by 3-D printers. Gerontologist Aubrey de Gray says, "I'd say we have a 50-50 chance of bringing aging under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so."
And there really isn't any reason why that shouldn't happen. Technology has advanced more rapidly in the past 100 years than it did in the millions of years before that and since technology tends to advance exponentially, things that were once light years away in our imagination are now achievable in our own lifetimes.
Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov has pumped millions of dollars into his "2045 Initiative," vowing to cure death within the next three decades. Ray Kurzwell, Google's director of engineering, predicts that humans will simply merge with computers, uploading our consciousness and memories and becoming immortal super beings in the process.
This push to extend life by several decades and perhaps forever is being made because death is feared more than any other thing by most people and, as one ages, it takes up more and more of a person's thought process. Most people think it would be absolutely wonderful not to ever have to worry about dying but there are other obvious problems that would accompany immortality.
I learned a long time ago that whenever there's a problem, there's also a solution and seeking immortality is no different. Many things would have to change for us to accommodate a planet full of people who no longer died but we've always been good at reacting to problems and solving them in the past and there's no reason to think that won't continue.
These changes aren't going to come along in time to save me but they might save my children and that's all that's important to me anyway. It's a brave new world we're living in with possibilities we've not even dreamed of yet.
And some of you are going to be around to see and experience them.
Source: http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/2022303.html
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
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