We could in theory have "immortality" right now. And I'm surprised people like Kimg Jong Il don't think of it.
All you need is a blood dialisys machine along with a machine that puts oxygen into the blood coupled with blood donations and brain hermetically sealed within a machine could in theory continue to exist with the proper nutrition and hormones dropped in.
However, existence as such a creature wouldn't be desirable since you have no way to communicate or interact or even see the outside world.
Of course eventually direct neural interfaces will make such problems a moot point but that might be a while...
As for you saying a Strong AI would be clueless as we are would prove the fact that said being is therefore not truly super intelligent.
But what does that matter... The point that if we can offload human intelligence into a "blackbox" of sorts then we simply scale it up. Imagine a world with a trillion engineers or even a million "Einsteins".
That is the holy grail. So what if it can't figure out the meaning of the universe or what came before the big bang... If I can solve the problem of shortages that is inherent in our society and figure out a way to expand and colonize the rest of the galaxy then deep understanding of the universe is not needed.
As they say the reason the dinosaurs died out is because they didn't have a space program. The universe is infinitely big and without death there is is plenty of time to figure out those problem. Of course solving the most short term problems is what is challenging to us right now.
I can see what you're saying. Unfortunately, the brain is still going to die on its own, since it suffers the effects of aging like the rest of the body. Further, there's the problem of providing it with blood. The blood vessels that are in the brain already suffer the same problems as the rest of the circulatory system. Embolism can occur within those blood vessels; this occurs when some debris or residue breaks loose inside a blood vessel, and causes a blockage. Embolism is more likely if the subject is motionless, which is exactly the case with such a "brain in a jar". And aneurysm can also occur, which is basically a rupture of a weak bit in a vein or artery; if the vessel is old, or weak, it's possible to suffer an aneurysm just from the flow and pressure of blood inside it. Replacing blood vessels inside the brain with artificial ones poses huge problems: it's an invasive procedure, which means brain damage; there is no material right now that can adequately do the job; and flesh rejects artificial material (e.g. metal, polymer, etc).
I think eventually nanomachines can help with blood vessel malfunction. But this isn't important right now. The most common failures occur within the heart and the large vessels in the torso. If replacement solutions aren't found for these quickly - and believe me, it's possible - there isn't much hope for any of us.
All you need is a blood dialisys machine along with a machine that puts oxygen into the blood coupled with blood donations and brain hermetically sealed within a machine could in theory continue to exist with the proper nutrition and hormones dropped in.
However, existence as such a creature wouldn't be desirable since you have no way to communicate or interact or even see the outside world.
Of course eventually direct neural interfaces will make such problems a moot point but that might be a while...
As for you saying a Strong AI would be clueless as we are would prove the fact that said being is therefore not truly super intelligent.
But what does that matter... The point that if we can offload human intelligence into a "blackbox" of sorts then we simply scale it up. Imagine a world with a trillion engineers or even a million "Einsteins".
That is the holy grail. So what if it can't figure out the meaning of the universe or what came before the big bang... If I can solve the problem of shortages that is inherent in our society and figure out a way to expand and colonize the rest of the galaxy then deep understanding of the universe is not needed.
As they say the reason the dinosaurs died out is because they didn't have a space program. The universe is infinitely big and without death there is is plenty of time to figure out those problem. Of course solving the most short term problems is what is challenging to us right now.
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I think eventually nanomachines can help with blood vessel malfunction. But this isn't important right now. The most common failures occur within the heart and the large vessels in the torso. If replacement solutions aren't found for these quickly - and believe me, it's possible - there isn't much hope for any of us.
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