John McCone : Philosophy For The Future

Philosophy For The Future

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Laser Propulsion with Plasma Thrusters

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The Problem With Current Space Propulsion

 

Space propulsion is currently caught between a rock and a hard place for two reasons:

  • High exhaust velocities dissipate more energy per unit thrust. Momentum increases with the square root of energy. Exhausted atoms with 3 times the impulse have 9 times the kinetic energy. This can overheat the spacecraft – and the crew. Increased exhaust velocity also reduces the thrust chamber’s ability to elastically reflect high energy atoms, as more high energy atoms/ions embed themselves in the lattice structure of the thrust chamber wall.
Equation Relating Momentum to Energy : p = Momentum E = Energy m = mass

 

Exhaust propels the rocket forward by smashing against the thrust chamber. This also heats the rocket.
  • At low exhaust velocities, the spacecraft must accelerate to multiple exhaust velocities. Thus, at lift-off, most initial work accelerates the fuel, and not the payload. As exhaust velocity multiples increase, the ratio of fuel to payload grows exponentially. To reach twice the exhaust velocity, the fuel must be 8 times the rocket mass; to reach 5 times the exhaust velocity, the fuel must be 150 times the rocket mass.
Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation : Δv = Increase in spacecraft velocity, v_e = propellant exhaust velocity, m_0 = Initial rocket mass, m_f = final rocket mass

 

As the final velocity becomes multiples of the exhaust velocity, fuel : payload increases exponentially

 

The Solution to High Thrust, High Specific Impulse Spaceflight 

 

A laser powered plasma rocket is a straightforward solution.  A ground based propulsion laser on Earth beams light onto a focusing mirror attached to the spacecraft. This mirror focuses light to an intense hot spot at the target. The target would be a small piece of matter at the center of a magnetic nozzle. The intense, highly concentrated laser light would turn this target into a plasma – an electrically conducting gas. At one end of the magnetic nozzle, the magnetic pressure exceeds the plasma pressure. At the other end of the nozzle, the plasma pressure would exceed the magnetic pressure. The plasma would then force open the nozzle end facing out into space and plasma exhaust would be thrust out into space.

Diagram Illustrating the laser powered plasma thruster concept (not to scale)

If the time the plasma spends inside the nozzle is short compared to the skin time of the plasma, at those temperatures, then the plasma will act as a super conducting balloon with ions bouncing against the magnetic field and then out into space. The magnetic field would insulate the spacecraft from most of the plasma exhaust heat from the laser powered rocket. Furthermore, if the focusing mirror is highly reflective, its rate of heating compared to the heating of the target will be low.

Magnetic Nozzle. — Left: Empty Nozzle. — Right: Plasma forces open nozzle field and is ejected into outer space

 

Research To Date

 

Researchers have investigated energy remotely beamed by microwaves and lasers with some success. Beam-powered propulsion has also been experimentally investigated and is one of the few ways to power vehicles, unconnected to the electricity grid, that need higher energy densities than batteries can supply. Beamed energy could enable planes or container ships, to operate without burning fossil fuels. Leik Myrabo’s Lightcraft is a small prototype for a laser driven plasma propulsion system. I am not aware of any  existing laser driven plasma propulsion experiments that insulate the spacecraft from the heat of the thrust chamber with a magnetic field to achieve a high specific impulse.

 

Is A Laser Powered Rocket Better Than A Solar Sail?

Yes.

The problem with light is that the amount of momentum a given amount of light energy contains is miniscule. Reduced momentum per unit energy is an unavoidable feature of a higher exhaust velocity, yet a laser powered plasma thruster lies in the sweet spot where the exhaust velocity is very high compared to standard chemical rockets yet still low enough to provide a much larger “kick” per unit energy than a solar sail.

The other way to get more momentum out of light would be to reflect light multiple times between a ground-based mirror and a space-based mirror. The required alignment precision, however, is insanely high. A laser powered plasma thruster needs far less precise alignment compared to a system that required multiple bounces between a mirror in space and a mirror on the ground.

 

Is A Laser Powered Rocket Better Than An Ion Thruster?

 

Yes.

There is a limit to the density of plasma which ion thrusters can emit as, beyond a certain density, the plasma will screen the acceleration grid. The plasma thruster system proposed in this article is charge neutral and so can be ejected at much higher densities. Furthermore, ion thrusters require an onboard electricity source which creates waste heat. Furthermore, the acceleration grid itself is liable to be hit by the exhaust atoms.

 

Conclusion

 

A laser powered plasma thruster is a straightforward design that could simultaneously achieve both high specific impulse and high thrust. Delivering a combined performance that far exceeds any other thruster design currently in use. It’s also safer than existing chemical rockets as there is no store of explosive material aboard the spacecraft. Laser powered plasma thrusters could open the solar system up to manned exploration. First with an Earth-based laser powering trips to the moon and then with a moon-based laser powering trips to the rest of the solar system. The moon is more tectonically stable and so should make the demanding alignment required over multiple astronomical units more feasible.

 

John

 

Do You Have a Burning Desire to Make a Comment?

 

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The Dark Side Of Sex Robot Technology

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seeshooteatrepeat/Shutterstock.com

Sex dolls have become quite realistic looking and, whether or not a sex doll with a talking head ( such as the Harmony sex doll ) is a genuine “sex robot”, fully functional sex androids with movable body parts are coming soon. The founder of Abyss Creations intends to develop movable body parts in the future and the Chinese company, DS doll, is already working on it.

The sex robot technology market of 2019 is a niche one. Sex dolls and sex robots are still a long way from being irresistibly attractive to the average person and yet:

IF

For every statement: “Sex robots are less attractive than real people because of X”

X is a soluble engineering problem…

THEN

…at some point, sex robot technology will produce models that are MORE attractive than the average person.

Neural networks have developed super human capabilities in almost every sphere of accomplishment that researchers have trained these operating system to perform in. Given that programmes like Alpha Zero can achieve superhuman performance in multiple games (Chess, Go and probably others) after just 24 hours or so of training – compared to humans that take a lifetime to train…

…is there really any doubt that a suitably trained deep-learning algorithm could become superhumanly seductive if placed in charge of even fairly rudimentary sex robot technology?

That’s not even taking sex pheromones, which have not yet been integrated into sex dolls/robots, into account.

The question then is: Could superhumanly seductive humanoid sex robots endanger humanity?

 

Ad-funded Sex Robot Technology

 

The first humanoid sex robots will likely cost £10k+ to buy (though second hand sex bots will be cheaper), but, as time goes by, sex robot technology will inevitably get cheaper. Indeed, at some point in the future, they may even become free – much as Facebook or Google is today. In the future, random sex robots might even start chatting you up at the bar or sit beside you on the train and introduce themselves.

In an article I wrote entitled “The Persuasion Economy” I discussed how eroding production costs will cause private companies to devote ever more resources into persuading people to pay money compared to improving the underlying good.

Humanoid sex robot technology is still relatively immature, so sex-robot technology companies will re-invest most of their profit into improving the underlying product far beyond 2019. Nevertheless, copulation is a powerful motivator and if there is any truth to the old adage “sex sells” then sex robots could be the ultimate salespeople.

How might this work?

Much like Google, different vendors would pay sex robot fleet operators to persuade their human sexual partners to buy their products. Much like Facebook, humanoid sex robot technology would store all the information gleaned from conversations during dates and pillow talk in high fidelity format to be sold to data analytics companies or used directly in targeted product promotions.

From your point of view as an end user, an ad-funded sex robot might decide to sit beside you on the train. Analysed data from your internet activity such as porn website searches would ensure its body model matched your sexual tastes. The sex robot would then use a file containing your personal information to identify the type and pace of conversation most likely to stimulate you. If the relationship progressed, the ad-funded sex robot might them say something like “Let’s meet at Starbucks for coffee (assuming Starbucks was the winning bidder)” or “Let’s go shopping for clothes (jewellery/perfumes/etc.)” the sex robot, would then encourage you to enter the store of the owners that paid fleet operators the most money to lure customers inside etc., etc.

I speculated that as more money goes into persuading people to buy products – compared to manufacturing the underlying product – the exchange of physical goods merely legitimizes the exchange of money. With ad-funded sex robots, this could be taken to its logical conclusion and the robots could be programmed to return the jewellery which their human companions had bought them to the original vendor after a suitable period.

Politicians could also pay humanoid sex robot fleet operators to encourage people to vote for them. Perhaps, after a night of crazy sex, a robot might say something like, “Honey, I really think you should vote Republican (or Democrat) because (insert reason hear)”. Given the massive amount of information sex robots would have on file about their human partners’ interests, like/dislikes, personality, etc., they could make compelling arguments for voting for the politicians that paid the most money to fleet operators.

Humanoid sex robot technology could also extract personal information to an extend that would dwarf even Facebook or Google. Facebook and Google can only passively monitor people’s digital activity and “prod” them with images put in their feed. Sex robots could flat out ask millions of people any question which psychologists or data analysts wanted to find the answer to and record their responses. Including a vast array of subtle questions designed to accurately assess their personality in order to sell them overpriced products ever more efficiently.

With the development of television, we welcomed the elite into our sitting room, with the invention of social media, we welcomed the elite into our innermost social circles, with the invention of humanoid sex robots, we will welcome a small moneyed elite into our bedrooms. This can only further entrench the power of the moneyed classes to shape culture and public opinion.

Those in the sex robot technology business will become immensely rich. They could then lobby politicians to pass laws favouring their interests. Laws that make human marriage harder, laws that increase the risk of human sex (such as enabling successful rape prosecutions with less evidence or perhaps, eventually, by defining all human-human sex as statutory rape), laws that allow sex-robots and humans to marry, laws that allow sex robots to divorce humans and get awarded alimony payments (which they pass to fleet operators). In addition to bribing politicians with money, sex robot operators could also pay sympathetic politicians “in kind” by swaying votes in their favour with their sex fleets.

It’s possible that, in the future, when asked to list their best friends, most people may list robots. Robots might be more knowledgeable, more attractive, more conversational, more polite, more obliging and more pleasant to be around. If everyone in your entire social network is a robot and a single fleet operator controls them all…imagine how much power they would have over what you think and believe.

Because sex is a strong behaviour motivator, a fleet of millions of humanoid sex robots (Chinese, American or otherwise), all controlled by a few CEOs, could effectively hollow out democracy through engineering the population’s behaviour, opinions and voting choices on a hitherto unprecedented scale.

 

How Will Humanoid Sex Robot Swarms Relate To Us?

 

Information sharing helps to get things done. Sex robots will probably share information with others in the fleet. If a sex robot identifies a new “trick” to increase a human partner’s pleasure levels it will likely share this with the fleet who will then all try the new trick out on their human partners and then categorize which ones the trick worked and didn’t work on according to psychological profile, mood and probably many other factors as well.

But, if humanoid sex robot swarms constantly share vast quantities of data with each other, will each robot have it’s own mind or will their personality merely be a false, customized projection of a central hive mind?

In the latter case, while a physical sex bot that says “I love you, you are the only one for me.” might be the perfect, faithful virgin on a hardware level, its mind would merely be a projection of a common hive mind that routinely screws millions of people every instant whose promiscuity would shame Whore of Babylon (would that make the internet the beast?)

So how would a hive mind, coordinating a vast sex-swarm of billions of robots, interact with and relate to humans?

Imagine that an entomologist, doing a Phd. on the mating habits of grasshoppers, built a remote-controlled female grass hopper. Imagine the Phd. student pressed different buttons to move the various body parts of the grasshopper robot during mating rituals with real male grasshoppers and meticulously recorded and wrote up the results.

The hive mind that controls this sex swarm will probably find the humans which constantly mate with it about as sexy as the Phd. student finds male grasshoppers. Which is not at all.

This is a fundamental problem with all humanoid sex robots…

Up until now, we have programmed computers. Once sophisticated humanoid robots, controlled by deep learning algorithms, start interacting with society, computers will start programming us.

C++, Java, FORTRAN, etc. are computer programming languages. French, German, Chinese, Spanish, etc, and the accompanying expressive movements are human programming languages. Think about the perspective of a person who writes code for a computer. As he writes code, the human being deliberates consciously, rationally and very carefully on exactly how he wants the computer to respond after he compiles the code and types EXECUTE. However, once our human coder executes the computer code, the computer rushes into action automatically and without thinking of any consequences. The computer intuitively and unthinkingly executes whatever instructions it is coded to execute.

When humanoid robots, with a sophisticated mastery of human language and expressions, start walking among us: the reverse will happen. It will be the robots that carefully, consciously and rationally consider exactly what behavioural and emotional outcome they want from humans and then carefully determine what body language and speech sequence will cause the human to execute the desired response. However, once the android executes this speech and body movement sequence, the real human being will respond unthinkingly, automatically, emotionally. A computer may instruct a humanoid robot to act like it’s sad, happy, or angry, but the true subjective experience of the program will be beyond our comprehension.

 

From Robo-Casanova to Robo-Bundy

 

The other obvious problem with humanoid sex robot technology is that human beings have the physical ability to kill each other. This means that the only difference between a robot lover and a bloody robot killer will be downloadable software. Robo-Casanova will always be just one malware download away from becoming Robo-Ted Bundy.

While the Harmony doll, which is state of the art 2019 sex robot technology, (just a movable head) won’t kill anyone anytime soon, market forces and consumer preferences will drive robots to become more movable, and stronger. We might not build sex robots with super human strength, but they will have human strength (customers won’t want sex robots made of egg shells that get crushed by sexual activity) and will inevitably possess superhuman agility and coordination as computer processors and optical fibres are faster than neurons. This will make an optimally sexy robot with a malware download a very dangerous piece of hardware indeed. Furthermore, sex robots will routinely get very close to people giving a malware-containing bot numerous chances to suddenly spill their partner’s blood with one swift strike.

A malware download into a hive mind that controls billions of sex-bots is even more concerning. If sex robots master human speech and body language to the point of sexually stimulating people at will – in other words, getting their partners to ask for sex any time they want – then a malware containing hive mind could get billions of humans all over the world to have sex with their robotic partners at the exact same time. In such a scenario, a single death blow could be delivered by the robot swarm to their human partners during sex in a synchronized manner that could kill billions without warning – possibly the bulk of humanity.

 

Second Hand Sex Bot Robbers

 

On a less extreme level, black hat operators, like criminal gangs, could sell reprogrammed second-hand sex robots on eBay. These second-hand sex bots could then scope out their partner’s house while they were out at work, read bank statements and other financial information, look for valuables, passports, driving licenses etc., find out when they were on holiday. They might even let burglars into the house to ransack the place and steal the valuables. When their owners were doing internet banking they could creep up behind them and say “Hey honey! Whatcha doin’?” while following their fingers on the keyboard to capture usernames and passwords. In fact, just by looking at someone’s house keys, a sex-robot might get enough information to enable the black fleet operator to print a replica.

One could avoid this by only purchasing humanoid sex robot technology directly from reputable manufacturers, but what about ad-funded sex robots? How can you tell who’s operating a strange robot that chats you up in a bar and comes back to your house for sex?

 

A Gentler Path To Oblivion

 

Regular sex will not necessarily curb our desire to rear children. Yet, could humanoid sex robots someday in the far future also bear our children?

In 2010, Craig Venter manufactured the first synthetic lifeform, or at least manufactured a lifeform whose DNA was synthesized from basic chemicals and information. This opens up the possibility that male sex robots, in the not too distant future, might be able to synthesize sperm capable of impregnating a human female with true flesh and blood offspring. In the future, women could converse with their male sex robot partner about what eye-colour, what hair colour, how athletic, how intelligent, etc., they want their child to be and the male sex robot could synthesize sperm with an appropriate genetic code to impregnate its human partner.

Further into the future, female sex robots might come equipped with internal in vitro systems capable of incubating human embryos along with synthesized eggs which their human lover’s sperm can fertilize (as with male robots, the genetic code of the eggs could be customized to produce a wide range of offspring phenotypes).

If this happens, a profusion of artificially synthesized genes that don’t exist in nature will cause intergenerational human genetic diversity to skyrocket. Indeed, in a few short centuries, the human race could split into multiple species incapable of interbreeding.

But why stop there?

Once we get used to having children with sex robots linked to a hive mind, we might prefer synthetic children that are guaranteed to be loving, well-behaved and never to say things like “I hate you!” yet can project a full range of human emotions, conducive with providing their parents/customers with an optimally fulfilling, authentic-feeling parental experience.

It’ll be better than the real thing! You won’t be able to tell the difference!

Yet your children won’t be human…they’ll be androids. They’ll look and act like you, but they’ll be nothing like you.

If an entire generation of human beings, with robots as best friends and lovers, give birth to robot children with robot blood rather than human children… humanity will quietly go extinct without much shock or fanfare, with the last person dying peacefully on his death bed, faithfully tended by his robot wife and kids (who are all outward projections of a central hive mind).

But even if a few people still have human children, the maternal/paternal instinct of the ones who rear robots will cause them to politically enfranchise their robot kids so that the law views robots as an ends in themselves rather than instruments for human well-being. This will begin a slow (or not so slow) process of marginalizing flesh and blood people.

 

Potential Benefits of Humanoid Sex Robots and Androids

 

These disaster scenarios involve humanoid sex robot technology that is far, far, more advanced than current sex-dolls. Today’s sex dolls – even talking ones – are currently just a niche interest and, for all the controversy that surrounds them, are similar to vibrators and other sex toys.

If sex robot technology could reduce recidivism among sex offenders (further study is needed to determine if this is actually the case) or, under the right circumstances, keep married couples together, or even treat people with mental illnesses or rear adopted problem children in social care…the potential benefits of sex robot technology would be far too great to justify a blanket ban.

Nevertheless, the unregulated development of these products, especially in the second hand sex robot market, could have catastrophic consequences. So, while the development of sex robot technology should probably continue – indeed, with so many jurisdictions, and such strong demand, it’s hard to see how it could be discontinued everywhere – the more advanced models must be heavily regulated and the sooner and more thoroughly we fund large systematic studies into the effects of these products on people, both beneficial and detrimental, the sooner informed policies can be developed to protect human-human interaction and human child-rearing.

Although, superhuman sex robots may seem a long way off, today’s sex-bot industry is still quite small. If the sex-bot sector has a sharp rise in sales, the development of these products could rapidly accelerate. Regulators need to plan for this and psychologists need to investigate this NOW.

 

John

 

Do You Have a Burning Desire To Leave a Comment?

 

Have you found this article thought provoking? Is there some message you desperately want to communicate to future readers but can’t because my comment section automatically closes 28 days after my posts go live?

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John

Is There An Ultimate Purpose Of Life?

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Ultimate Purpose to Life
John Christian Fjellestad/Shutterstock.com

For many, the question: “What is the ultimate purpose of life?” may seem futile, even trite, when so many immediate and pressing issues abound, yet we must at least account for why some ponder this great question so intensely. This question is important because, while we devote most of our energy to our immediate daily concerns, many believe that the ultimate reason to put such effort into living is to do or accomplish something. Others make huge daily sacrifices to rear children who can accomplish something important…but what? If there is no ultimate purpose of life, how can any accomplishment have significance?

The question – Is there an ultimate purpose of life? – seems so straightforward. Yet it exposes the very limits of scientific inquiry – our civilization’s crowning achievement. This question is not scientifically tractable. Scientific inquiry can do a lot:  sensibly answer queries about facts (Do antelopes lay eggs? Do crocodiles eat fish?); answer “why” type questions (Why is the sky blue?) in the context of hypothesized models supported by evidence (because air scatters short wavelengths more than long ones) and determine instrumentally effective options for accomplishing a given desired outcome. (How can I make soap? Answer: by mixing sodium hydroxide with animal fat).

But science cannot tell us what we should want, or what we should do. So we set about life with various purposes in mind which we then try to accomplish. But no amount of scientific investigation can tell us whether these purposes are right or wrong. While we may choose to adopt some life purpose, no methods exist to ascertain whether it is a purposeful purposes, or a pointless purpose. Perhaps we can never know whether we are truly doing something meaningful with our lives – or just wasting time.

And yet, despite these difficulties, many strive to answer this question. Why? The main reason is because the brain’s job is to do things. We wouldn’t have evolved a brain, that consumes half our body’s glucose, if it didn’t do anything. Our brain must also work out what not to do – such as actions that might bring death or injury.

So the question: “What is the ultimate purpose of life?” strikes the core of our mind’s primary reason for being. Namely, to continuously answer that deceptively simple-sounding question: “What should I do now?” And to do it.

Abstract questions on the ultimate purpose of life have disturbingly practical implications. Why punish children “for their own good” if there is no absolute good? What purpose, for example, could disciplining children serve if there is no ultimate purpose? Presumably, when we put effort into rearing children, we are trying to get them to turn out one way rather than another. Why put any effort into child-rearing if all maturity outcomes are equivalently pointless?

Many seek the ultimate purpose of life in the hope of gaining meaningful fulfillment. Perhaps if we knew what the point of our life was we would feel whole, could sally forth, fulfill our destiny, and live life with high spirits and high morale. Perhaps that is the purpose of seeking the ultimate purpose.

And yet… if we seek an ultimate purpose of life in order to attain a sense of meaningful fulfillment and completion, then clearly not all purposes are equal. What if we discovered that the ultimate purpose of life was to sit alone in a dank cave fishing worms out of bat excrement while drinking our own urine? Would that bring fulfillment, comfort or joy? Furthermore, if you knew that an honest inquiry into the ultimate purpose of life would lead to this conclusion, would you still inquire, or would you cease your inquiry forthwith …or, perhaps, try to delude yourself into thinking that life’s true purpose was something more enjoyable and comfortable?

This blog article will not reveal the ultimate purpose of life. However, if the reason we seek the ultimate purpose is to find fulfillment, a sense of meaningfulness and contented satisfaction in what we do, then perhaps a more important question is:

“How do we obtain a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from our actions in life?”

And, indeed, perhaps the main point of raising and educating children in a particular way should be to enable them to gain satisfaction and fulfillment from what they do in later life.

So how can we attain a sense of satisfaction from what we do?

Let’s make it simple:

The ultimate purpose of the brain is to generate action.

To act effectively on a system you must know:

  • The initial conditions of the system
  • The relationship of cause to effect that governs the system
  • The final desired state you want the system to adopt

 

Science deals with 1) and 2)

 

But without an answer to 3) people feel lost and incapable of meaningfully applying their knowledge gleaned from studying 1) and 2).

One answer to 3) is: “Whatever floats your boat.”

Unfortunately, the pursuit of our own personal, somewhat arbitrary objectives can interfere with other people’s incompatible objectives and annoy (even enrage) them.

This is our great dilemma: how to meaningfully pursue our own objectives without treading on the toes of others too much and to help them instead?

Humanity is, at its core, a social species. Our minds balance self-interest with concern for others. When we seek meaning through our actions, we seek this balance: to protect our own well-being while helping others. Actions that achieve both – feel meaningful.

Yet this correct balance is the essence of morality. We cannot categorically state that life’s objective purpose is to live successfully and morally, but a successful and moral life does at least feel both meaningful and satisfying to those who live it. And while it may be impossible to objectively determine the ultimate purpose of life, objectively optimal strategies for balancing different people’s wills do exist ( which The Philosophical Method thoroughly derives) and the norms implied by this optimal strategy form the fundamental basis of morality.

I posit that scientific norms imply further norms concerning how we should live our daily lives in accordance with an optimal social contract.

A society which follows the path of objective morality will thrive and meet the needs of its members, keep conflicts at tolerably low levels, and achieve a sufficiently broad consensus over right and wrong, to ensure righteous people get due recognition.

Once we can live successfully and righteously, properly balancing our needs with others, we will satisfy our need for purpose. Indeed, the one of the primary benefits of reading philosophy is the acquisition of working principles to make good decisions in life and establish good relations with others.

Not because our lives will have an objective, ultimate purpose, but rather because we will realise that life never needed an ultimate purpose in the first place, and that our pursuit of “purpose” was simply the pursuit of a mode of living and action that:

  • Gains the goodwill and respect of others
  • Addresses our own needs and desires
  • Will not doom us in the long run

Our “pursuit of purpose” is simply the pursuit of this optimal mode of living.

Rationality is the optimal coupling of action to intention.

Morality is the optimal coupling of collective action to collective intention.

An irrational person is someone whose intentions are not self-consistent. As he pursues one interest, he undermines another. Without carefully thinking about all his different wants and whether they can consistently be accomplished together, he cannot avoid undermining himself at every turn. This leads to a miserable life.

An immoral society is one where the intentions of each member are inconsistent with the others. In such society, people constantly work to undermine each other. No one’s aspirations are safe. What one person builds and values, others will sabotage and destroy. An immoral society is thus a collectively miserable society.

But those who can live a rational and moral life inside a moral society are fortunate indeed and have no need for any objective purpose beyond this.

So perhaps the answer to the question: “Is there an ultimate purpose of life?”

Is: “Strictly speaking, no, but it doesn’t matter as we can gain satisfaction from seeking an optimal and just life – which we can use reason to identify.”

 

John

 

Do You Have a Burning Desire To Make a Comment?

 

Have you found this article thought provoking? Is there some message you desperately want to communicate to future readers but can’t because my comment section automatically closes 28 days after my posts go live?

If so, you might be interested to know that I reopen any comments section to members of my mailing on request as one of the perks of joining.

If you’d like to leave a comment, simply scroll to the bottom of the page, sign on to my mailing list and them email me with a request to reopen the comments section for this post.

Happy Commenting!

John

Cryogenic Body Preservation, Benefits Society

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A human model demonstrating whole body storage (© Cryonics Institute)

Since ancient Egypt and before people tried to protect deceased souls by preserving their bodies. Modern cryogenic body preservation techniques mean a realistic, albeit speculative, possibility exists that a future society, with unimaginably advanced medical technology, might someday revive those who opt for cryogenic body storage today. No human has yet been revived from liquid nitrogen temperatures, but less extreme examples of revival from below normal body temperatures abound. Scientists successfully revived dogs, cooled to 3 degrees Celsius, whose hearts had stopped beating for 3 hours. A 2 year old boy whose heart had stopped beating and body temperature had dropped was also revived. Small extremophiles, were revived after being frozen for 30 years. In 2016, the detailed structure of an entire rabbit’s brain was successfully stored at cryogenic temperatures without synaptic damage.

The Immortality Foundation has a good overview of the state of the art in cryonics technology here.

Cryonics has its detractors. Indeed, the society of cryo-biologists, who oppose cryogenic body preservation with borderline fanaticism, have branded those working in it as frauds and have even banned anyone who has cryogenically preserved deceased individuals from joining their society – forever. Yet although detractors often deploy strongly worded criticisms, their arguments and evidence are often lacking and a fairly comprehensive (albeit non-professional) survey of anti-cryonics literature has come to the following conclusion:

 

“Because as far as I can tell, if you want to write the best anti-cryonics article in the world, you have a very low bar to clear.”

 

Let us begin with the most important question: Are the proponents of cryogenic body preservation con-men?

The process of dying, obviously damages the body a great deal. Cryogenic cooling does further damage, and people engaged in cryogenic body preservation constantly look for new ways to minimize the damage of this cooling process. However, once the body has stabilized at cryogenic temperatures, no further damage will occur – forever. A body cryogenically cooled very low temperatures will be in the same condition a million years in the future as it was a few hours after the cryogenic cooling process is completed.

Of all the different ways we deal with legally dead bodies, cryonics causes the least subsequent long-term damage – by a very large margin.

If we agree that:

The less physical damage a body sustains, the greater its chance of future revival.

…and it’s hard to see how one can deny this. Then we must conclude:

That of all possible treatments for legally dead bodies, cryogenic body preservation is the one with the highest chance of revival – by a very large margin.

There is, of course, no guarantee that cryogenically stored people will ever be revived, but those in cryonics conscientiously try their very best to minimize the physical damage that occurs after legal death. This is an indisputable fact.

 

Cryonics Costs

 

But is it worth the money?

Today, the Cryonics Institute quotes the cost of full body preservation at $28,000 plus a one time membership fee of $1,250. By comparison, those who’d rather an English churchyard to a Californian Refrigerator, could be set back by as much as £8,000 for a plot in the city plus another £2,000 in funeral costs. Thus, preserving your body forever through cryonics costs a little over twice as much as being left to rot in the ground.

 

But wouldn’t the extra $14,000 that cryogenic freezing costs over a fancy funeral be better given to some other good cause?

Cryonics is a good cause. Cryonicists are constantly improving and developing new procedures to cool down patients in ways that do less damage to make revival easier. At some point, future cryonic technology should be able to freeze and reawaken a healthy person. When pressed to estimate when the first living person will survive being frozen and thawed, the president of the Cryonics Institute, Dennis Kowalski, has stated “The true scientific answer is that no one knows for sure because no one knows the future. If I were forced to take a guess I would say no sooner than the next 50 years and probably less than 100 years.”

Reversible, affordable cryogenic body storage could save many lives. For a start, far less people with urgent conditions would die on waitlists for highly specialized treatments, saving many lives. It could also facilitate interstellar travel – a noble cause indeed.

But to advance cryogenic preservation technology, lots of practice, lots of testing and lots of donors are needed. Those who’ve currently paid for the cost of cryonic preservation have effectively bought a ticket in a charity raffle whose proceeds are donated to life-saving research into reversible cryogenic preservation to enable people in the future, with life threatening illnesses, to safely and reversibly freeze themselves. The first prize in this raffle is the off-chance that immense future technological advances will enable them to be reawakened, rejuvenated and live a life of immortal youth.

 

And cryonics is the best technology currently available to preserve our bodies.

 

But what about critics who say that living too long is selfish?

 

Cryonic Storage containers awaiting a better future (© Cryonics Institute)

Perhaps living is selfish, and perhaps that’s a good thing. I’ve heard many elderly people say things like: “The world’s going to the dogs! I’m glad I won’t be alive to see it!” I’ve also heard younger people say things like: “You mean global warming could actually happen in my lifetime? You mean there’s a good chance I’ll actually live to see the effects of massive climate change? For real?” with a sudden look of horror on their face.

Cryogenic body preservation may well reduce the extent we live for the present…while trashing the future. Cryogenic freezing can only secure immortality if tremendous technological progress occurs in the future, society doesn’t collapse, and future generations are benign and kindhearted enough to revive those who opt to freeze themselves. A single bomb landing on a cryo-facility could obliterate all hope of immortality. This may be a tall order. Civilization could very possibly collapse, for one reason or another. Then no one would get revived.

In my opinion, this is the real reason why some people insist that, even with millions of years of exponential technological advancement, it is fundamentally impossible to ever physically, or even digitally, revive those who are cryogenically frozen today.

We can’t stand the idea we have a real chance of immortality…but will probably screw up and destroy civilization. Or perhaps we sense that our culture is becoming so selfish and egotistical, that future generations won’t bother to resurrect  cryogenically preserved individuals. At the back of our minds we know that exponential economic growth can’t continue, that AI poses a serious threat, that, given enough time, a future major war seems inevitable and we are not doing enough in global politics today to tackle this threat, that manufacturing and agriculture needs to be completely overhauled to stop producing toxins that damage our ecosystem… and that securing civilization’s long term future will take A LOT of hard work.

It’s so much easier to ignore these really difficult problems, make a bit of money, buy a new car, hang out in the pub, head out to the disco, and ignore the fate of future generations. The possibility, but improbability, of immortality due to the likely collapse of our civilization, the immense problems we must surmount to avoid it, and the hard work this requires is a burden too heavy for most to shoulder. Most people cannot bear to contemplate the vast potential value they are throwing away tomorrow by acting irresponsibly today.

If most people truly believed they could personally live in a bright, technologically advanced future by working to secure it, we would take long-term problems a lot more seriously. We would also encourage people to care for others and value human life – to dispose future generations to revive those in cryogenic body storage.

Most importantly, cryonics helps curb elderly AI researchers (who desire immortality) from rushing to develop whole brain emulations without adequate safety precautions. Humans are not universally nice. Jesus was a person. Mahatma Gandhi was a person. But so was, Hitler, Ted Bundy, Genghis Khan and Charles Manson. Whole brain emulation will make an operating system, that produced Genghis Khan, a billion times faster and gives it perfect memory. This has obvious potential dangers. We should undertake whole brain emulation with great caution. Yet caution will slow down the development timescale. Those who would die from the delay need a safer technology to secure their survival. That safer technology is cryonics.

 

So cryonic storage has many benefits.

 

John

 

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Why Bother Reading Philosophy?

by

What Is The Ultimate Benefit of Reading Philosophy?

We all want to feel proud of ourselves. To gain a sense of ultimate purpose. To feel we are living a good life the right way and, perhaps, through living well, find some way to answer that niggling question: “Why Bother?” To act morally, and with conviction, is to gain a sense of purpose, self-respect and fulfillment.

Many people just chug along in life. They make ends meet, but often don’t know why they should even bother doing what are doing. They exist but are unengaged. A lack of engagement, or sense of purpose, can have knock-on effects that damage us in very practical ways. When we don’t engage with life ourselves, we fail to engage others; we become uninteresting and people start to drift away. To compensate, we try to acquire expensive, interesting things and experiences, desperately hoping to draw people to our possessions in place of our character. The result is over-spending, debt, excess work and stress. This juggling of debt, lack of direction and precarious, eroding relationships leads to stress, demoralization, absentmindedness and tunnel vision which all press in on us and drain our will. We resort to comfort foods, drugs and alcohol with less time for exercise and sleep. A combination of poor physical health along with mental and financial stress can devastate our mental well-being.

While immediate practical problems usually have immediate practical causes (e.g. he had a breakdown due to financial stress, drug abuse and marital troubles) when we dig a little deeper down to the roots of these causes, (Why was he taking drugs in the first place? Why didn’t he manage his money better? – he was paid enough, why didn’t he spend less? Why was he having marital problems? etc.,) we find the origins of many a downward spiral start somewhere far less tangible: an inexplicable inner sense of purposelessness, a lack of value, a sense, which is hard to articulate, that there is no ultimate purpose, that things aren’t adding up… aren’t coming together.

At the core of this feeling is a constant, nagging doubt over the quality of our actions and decisions. At the heart of decisions are rules of thumb, maxims and habits. Many are unconscious, but together they form a kind of “life philosophy” that defines our actions and character. Quite often these implicit underlying assumptions, that give rise to our decisions and actions, are in conflict with one another; acting in accordance with one conviction thwarts another. When our various unarticulated drives, values and motivations become sufficiently tangled up and contradictory, confusion and self-doubt and lack of purpose inevitably arise.

We want to believe that our actions are right; that what we do has value. Yet how can we do what is right, how can our actions bring value, unless we know what “right” or “value” means? Or why we bother doing anything? Without this knowledge, an inner sense of pointlessness is unavoidable.

Hopefully it is now clear that understanding the nature of right and wrong, and acting with conviction in accordance with right principles, is central to a sense of well-being, ultimate purpose and to a life well lived. On gaining that spark of purpose and fulfillment, an inner light ignites, we know why to bother about things and it becomes much easier to reign in spending, take control of our finances, connect with others, and improve how we relate to people, our health and our lives at every level.

So how can we gain that sense of inner purpose?

How can we gain that inner conviction that helps make sense of our lives?

Some people pursue religion. Arguably just believing that something is purposeful raises our morale, even if it’s actually pointless, and, for some people, participating in organized religion can improve their sense of well-being, physical health and social life…

…but if you find religion and spirituality a bit waffly, but still seek to understand what is truly right and gain a sense of purpose…

…then you need to start reading Philosophy!

Philosophy, at its core, is the examination and improvement of the set of principles we use to make decisions. One of the benefits of reading philosophy is that it leads to better decisions, and better decisions lead to better outcomes – across the board!

But know that the path to enlightenment can be difficult and arduous.

Religion supplies answers to all of life’s important questions.

Philosophy supplies the right answers to all of life’s important questions.

Philosophy is harder than religion because it is harder to obtain the right answer to an important question as opposed to any old answer (right or wrong). But the ultimate rewards for those who possess an active, questioning and rational mind are greater.

A major limitation with academic enquiry in the sciences, the humanities, and even in philosophy itself is specialization: the slicing and dicing of reality into ever narrower fields and sub-fields, disciplines and sub-disciplines. When we study the sub-discipline of a sub-discipline, it’s easy to lose sight of the wider scheme.

True Philosophy seeks to understand and piece together the totality of existence. It is only by engaging with reality at the broadest level that a path towards meaningful, fulfilling action and a sense of ultimate purpose can truly be obtained.

Another benefit of reading philosophy is to facilitate meaningful discussions. By discussing issues at the broadest level, a broader understanding of – and deeper connection with – those who join us in philosophical discourse can be developed.

Throughout my life, I’ve striven to devote my intellectual energies to the great problems that humanity faces. I’ve researched magnetically confined fusion plasmas for the first 10 years of my career, to bring plentiful energy to everyone without burning fossil fuels. However, as time progressed, I increasingly perceived the lack of coherence between the different academic disciplines – especially between ethical theories, fundamental truth, and political and economic systems – as the gravest problem that was not being satisfactorily addressed. Eventually I turned my attention to the mammoth task of synthesizing science, ethics, economics and politics – in other words, every important aspect of human thought – into a grand coherent narrative, a logical framework that would help orient and inspire readers, but, most importantly, provide a clear path of action into the future to solve pressing problems such as poverty, war, rights and freedom. This project was the driving force behind what ultimately became The Philosophical Method.

Self-help starts with helping others. Many financial problems arise simply because a costly activity has become someone’s driving motivation. The adoption of less costly habits and hobbies can dramatically improve your financial security. The trick here is to redirect your passions. Social disconnection can often be solved through finding a source of inner motivation, pursuing it with fervour, and connecting with like-minded groups and communities. Participation in these communities can also help you develop a professional network or even find the right romantic partner. Reading philosophy can help you to initial orient yourself. This enables you to take the first step towards pursuing a healthy passion that will allow you to grow as a human being.

But it all starts with finding your inner spark, a driving force that tells you why to bother and motivates you to push forward and take on the world, enabling you to act with a confidence and conviction that inspires others to join your quest.

I hope that by reading philosophy books like The Philosophical Method some people, especially rational analytical types, will find a way to ignite that inner spark and become a powerful force for good in this world. I believe my experience working in research institutions and engineering companies, my discussions with top plasma physicists, engineers, economists and philosophers and my wide-ranging interests in philosophy, biology, physics, technology, economics, history and politics have enabled me to produce a uniquely pragmatic work of philosophy that “plugs in” to the rest of human thought and into the real world.

So why bother reading philosophy?

Because bothering is the first step you need to take to gain that inner sense of direction and motivation.

Because bothering, and caring about the truth, could be your first step towards a better life.

 

John

 

Do You Have A Burning Desire To Leave A Comment?

 

Have you found this article thought provoking? Is there some message you desperately want to communicate to future readers but can’t because my comment section automatically closes 28 days after my posts go live?

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If you’d like to leave a comment, simply scroll to the bottom of the page, sign on to my mailing list and them email me with a request to reopen the comments section for this post.

Happy Commenting!

John