ACM Comm 2013 11 Why Not Immortality (Notes)

"Technologies for Caring for People with Dementia" CACM November 2013

Why Not Immortality? by Marshall Van Alstyne, p.29-31

Why Not Immortality?

"A question of biology, technology, and society."
Immortality, and cheating Death, is possible and a good thing.
Mutant OS must be immortal.

People

1. Ray Kurzweil
2. Steve Jobs
3. Oliver Sacks
4. Carl Bergstrom
5. Thomas Jefferson

Ideas

1. Living cells accumulate damage and garbage.
   1. When they split one cell holds all the garbage and one is brand new.
2. Why has immortality not evolved?
   1. "Biological systems fail because at some point it's cheaper to make new ones." Bergstrom
   2. Death is the outcome from nature's cost-benefit analysis.
3. Software lasts for ages, never rots, never suffers fatigue, never spoils. I, myself, have worked with software dating from the mid 1960's.
4. Software is static. Unchanging. Fails with any significant environmental change.
5. Death and rebirth bring renewal. Adaptation also brings renewal.
6. When to renew?
7. Immortality is expensive. But cheap to the creature wishing immortality.

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