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abc-5233 t1_ivaer8s wrote

Reply to comment by ChoosenUserName4 in Becoming increasingly pessimistic about LEV + curing aging by Phoenix5869

You are confusing the very concept of the Singularity. The Singularity is the increased complexity of the Universe, given by a side effect of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that Entropy in a closed system always increases.

That is, on average, systems tend to be more disorganized (increased entropy). The side effect of this universal law, is that there are pockets in the Universe where the exact opposite happens. Stars, planets, are places where entropy decreases, as a law of the universe. You can check the book The Romance of Reality for an in-depth explanation of this phenomenon.

The Singularity is the inevitable result of decreased entropy because we are in a pocket of the Universe where we entered a feedback loop of loss of entropy. Complexity has been increasing on Earth since its inception, and it will continue to do so until complexity cannot get any more complex. Starting from being created with most of the elements in the periodic table, to simple strands of DNA, to cells, multicellular life, human brain, technology and information technology. It is like being at the center of a star to be that is accumulating gas via gravity, and will ignite as a star when the critical mass creates fusion.

Focusing on a particular strand of this entropy loss is losing perspective of the whole phenomenon, and therefore, the ability to make predictions. Like trying to predict the path of a single ball in a Galton Board. It is absolutely impossible.

But predicting the overall distribution is super easy, because it is always the same.

The exact path that digital medicine is going to take is impossible to predict. But the fact that it will be complete by the time the Singularity happens is as sure as any other predictable physical phenomenon in the Universe.

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ChoosenUserName4 t1_ivai02u wrote

All this pseudo-philosophical nonsense about entropy isn't going to change the fact that there are major hurdles to be taken before we understand the full complexity of natural systems and have the ability to manipulate it in meaningful ways (escape velocity, immortality). These major hurdles are identification of the right targets / pathways, experimental verification, drug development and testing, and getting the money to finance all of this. None of these steps is currently on a exponential trajectory. Yes, we'll get there, eventually. Everyone in this thread will probably be long dead by then.

Also there's no law saying that there must be pockets of increased complexity to somehow counter balance entropy, that's just a consequence of self organization of molecules, you know the thing that eventually led to life itself.

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abc-5233 t1_ivalary wrote

An honest question: if you think this is pseudo-philosophy, what do you think the Singularity is?

Meaning, do you actually believe there will be a Singularity? And why?

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ChoosenUserName4 t1_ivatb6h wrote

As I've read it (remember it), the singularity is the point where new discoveries are made so quickly that it no longer makes sense to try to predict the future. Yes, I believe we will get there if we don't destroy ourselves before it happens. I don't believe it will happen in the next 10-20 years though.

The only way I see to biological immortality soon is to invent some sort of scanning device that can record an entire human being at the atomic level, and then a machine that can emulate hundreds of millions of copies of that human at the atomic level, preferably sped up by a lot, so that many experiments can be run quickly and in parallel. Not sure if that would be ethical for the simulated human, but that's another question. Of course, the machine should be able to design the experiments and learn from them.

I don't think there's a golden bullet for aging, very much like there doesn't seem to be one for cancer. It's probably a lot of slow processes that are all intertwined with many side effects of upsetting the balance.

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abc-5233 t1_ivayqic wrote

Yes, but the reasoning for the fact that new discoveries will happen in an every increasing lower time span, is described by the Countdown to the Singularity. That is how you get the date 2045. It is not a guess. It is a calculation.

It might be a flawed calculation, for sure. But it is not something that was just guessed out of thin air.

That is why current events usually only distract people from the actual prediction. Because focusing on the small current advances make people lose track of the accuracy of the prediction that was made decades ago.

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