Who Wants to Live Forever?

If we could achieve immortality, what would happen? How would societies change if people stopped aging? How might we achieve immortality?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Forward Thinking. Hi there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
of the audio podcast that looks at the future and says,
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I
want to achieve it by not dying. I'm Jonathan Strickland,

(00:22):
I'm Lauren back Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. And that
quote from Woody Allen that I paraphrased is sort of
what we're talking about today. We're talking about immortality. M hmm.
Thanks for the backup there, Joe. Yeah, all right. So
we recently had an episode about longevity and uh, and
if you were to extend that logically, then you would

(00:43):
see that beyond longevity, we'd be talking about the possibility
of actually attaining immortality or at least prolonging our lifespan
to the point where, um, we we tend to live indefinitely.
This is a dream that a lot of futurists have, uh,
and there are various ways that they have proposed that
we might actually achieve this dream. Um. But we want

(01:05):
to talk about sort of a couple of those different
ideas and then what would that ultimately mean to humans.
If we were to actually get this ability to live
effectively for as long as we want to, it raises
a lot of questions. I'd say more than raises questions.
I mean getting rid of death, well, not getting rid

(01:28):
of death, because we should make sure to make a
distinction between uh, the sort of natural immortality, meaning making
you immune to dying by old age and stuff like that,
essentially eliminating aging. Yeah, it would be not quite the
same thing as eliminating death completely, because you if you
were never we can never make it so that if
injury or disease were eliminated, that would be an entirely

(01:50):
different thing, right if you were, if you were able
to somehow find a medical cure for say, getting hit
by a bus, then maybe that would lead to effective
immortality in all aspects. But really, you know, there are
going to be cases where, unless we find a way
to make ourselves invulnerable Superman style, uh, death will still
be something that could happen to you. It's just it

(02:12):
won't be something that would happen to you just from
being around the earth too long, unless we're talking about
digital immortality. Yeah, in that case, you might be talking
about the death of a physical body, but not of
the consciousness. But we'll we'll kind of we need to
break all that down and define it first and then
talk about what the the concerns are. Right, what I
started to say about the concerns is that this seems

(02:35):
to me like it would just completely change what it
means to be alive, what it means to be humans.
So much of human civilization, as you know, some kind
of morbid psychologists might say, is based around avoiding thinking
about your impending death, or it's about dealing with the
death of others, or it's about accepting your impending death,

(02:59):
depending upon which culture you're talking about and how they
view mortality. And it could be argued that, um that
we find all of our meaningfulness in life due to
the fact that it won't last forever exactly right. So
if you if you remove that, if life lasts indefinitely,
do you in fact remove meaning or does that just

(03:19):
mean that we have to redefine it? Uh. These are
all good conversations that I want to get into. But
before we get into the philosophical stuff, let's talk about
some of the actual ways that people have said we
might somehow achieve immortality. Now, you mentioned digital immortality, Lauren. Now,
this is an idea that I I personally think is

(03:41):
very science fiction. E um. It's the idea that we're
somehow able to port our consciousness what it is that
makes us us into some sort of electronic mechanical, you know, system.
So essentially the way most people use shorthand as they say,
you upload your brain to a computer. Now, there are

(04:03):
a lot of problems with this, chief among them is
how do you actually get the whatever it is in
our consciousness that makes us who we are out of
our minds and into a machine. Yeah. Right, now, there's
so much that we don't understand about human consciousness in
the brain that it seems like an impossibility. And there
may not be any sort of way to to interconnect

(04:27):
our consciousness with a machine beyond a very surface level.
So in other words, uh, you might be able to
interact with a computer with a brain computer interface. We've
seen those already and they're getting better every year. But
being able to make a computer do what you want
by thinking about it and making a transition from your
body into a computer are huge orders of magnitude apart

(04:50):
from one another. Yeah, and if the language on this
hasn't been clear yet. It's worth making a really fine
distinction on the difference between having a copy of your
brain in a computer and having that be the thing
that is currently your experience. Right, So, even if we
get to a point where we can simulate a human
brain down to the last luron, imagine they could actually

(05:13):
copy it. So somebody could go interact with that computer,
and to them it would be like interacting with you.
The personality would be identical. However, that computer have the
experience of interacting with that person. Well, and even even
if we can't answer that question, we still are bothered
by the question of well, yeah, okay, so we've got
a computer copy, but I'm still in my body, right,

(05:37):
that's it. It's not like it's not like me that
that somehow my own experience of the universe as I
know it continues on. There's just a copy of me.
It's almost as if you were to make a physical
clone of me. If you were to clone me and
there was a second me there, that second me which
might have very similar personality traits and actually might not.

(06:00):
But that's kind of interesting too. But anyway, let's assume
that somehow it's a perfect copy of me. That doesn't
mean that if my clone goes out the door and
talks to someone, I suddenly have that experience of talking
to that person. That's two totally separate experiences of reality.
So I still lose it when I die. I'm gone. Well, however,
I mean, if that clone has all of your experiences

(06:22):
up until the point that you die, if it's made
at your death and then can still go out and
update Twitter and have all of your memories, then to
everyone else, I seem alive. To me, I'm still dead. Well,
but that but how do you How do you know
that if you're, if you're because your consciousness, if you're
continues on. But no, no, no, no, it's not my consciousness,
it's his consciousness. See. That's the problem is that it

(06:44):
becomes his as soon as that becomes a thing. Same
thing with the digital model is that there are two
consciousness is now conscious nigh whatever the plural of consciousness
would be. But there are two of them and so
and that's the problem is that they're distinct from one another.
They both are based on the same thing. But this
is the same problem I have with transporter technology. By

(07:05):
the way, Yeah, it's essentially cloning. It's breaking down a
body and then reconstructing it. So every single time anyone
on Star Trek is using the transporter, and this is
something that Bones himself points out a couple of times.
They die and resurrected, but it's it's a copy of
the person. It's the next generation. Dealt with that in
a very important episode about Riker, but it wasn't every episode,

(07:27):
and an important episode about Riker and how he sits
down in the manliest of ways and every chair he
comes into contact with. Is he his action man, it's not.
It's not his faulty. He also walks through doors sideways
because his shoulders are just far too wide to fit through.
Uh kid, Jonathan breaks He's a nice guy. I met
him a couple of times. I love you Jonathan anyway.

(07:48):
Uh So that but that's a real that's a real
thing though. That's a real thing in science fiction, and
it's a real thing. That people have argued is that
the you could maintain the illusion of immortality that way
to everyone, to any outside observer, it would be as
if you were living forever, but you, the actual entity,
would cease to be upon your death right. That the

(08:09):
so the new you might have the sense of continuity, right,
the new you might continue on and it would be
as if you had actually been transported. It's just that
your consciousness ends, which not acceptable. We're talking, We're getting
into a very metaphysical conversation about what it means to
be conscious and what I mean because I I would

(08:31):
I would argue the counter. I would argue that if
if you can wake up in a new body, but
you're not as all of your memories, you're not waking
up someone else is waking up with all your memories. No,
but if it's all of your memories, it's still you,
but it's not you the person individually, because you both
exist at the same time, Lauren, If you clone yourself
right now and your clone walks outside and does stuff,

(08:51):
you are not going to know what's happening. So your
consciousness is existing independent. It doesn't matter. But that's that's
the whole pay We're trying to avoid death, right. Okay, So,
so digital immortality, we've got a problem with consciousness porting
and all that aside. But how would digital immortality be

(09:13):
different from physical immortality? So digital immortality, let's let's say
that somehow we have reached a point where we actually
can move a person's consciousness from a physical body into
a digital construct. I don't know how we did it,
but somehow we magically found the way. You know, we've
got the USB port. You just transferred your brain over

(09:34):
USB sevn D three and uh it went really quickly.
And then you're seeing from this computer. That's where your
your consciousness has now been transported into a computer, whether
that computer is a giant mainframe, or it's inside a
robotic body, or it's some sort of weird free form
literal cloud computing. Because we've gone so far that nanotechnology

(09:55):
has taken. Okay, I I put in right now for
electronic jellyfish, electronic jellyfish from I'm just gonna say goo
like magic, Google magic, goof for Joe personally, I want
a flame breathing unicorna but that's close enough. A lama
in a unicorn. Our world's apart. But anyway, so, so
all right, we we've reached that point. In this case,

(10:18):
we're talking about a continuing consciousness. But there's you. You
are separated from what was your body, right you are
not now you might be able in this weird science
fiction world, to reconstruct your body in some way so
that you can at least continue the experience of going
through the world as if you were in a human body.

(10:38):
Can change mind to mechanical shark, mechanical shark body, you're
in goo. You can take whatever form you want, all right,
But the point being that, you know, if you could
support your brain so that you could be in a
digital format, you would not be limited to the human
experience anymore. Uh. There are a lot of other questions
that happened, Like what happens if you were to upload

(10:59):
to justness? Is this this is to the same computer?
Then would they merge in some way? What happens if
we were to port the entire human race into some
sort of digital format. What happens with reproduction? Would we
actually be able to create brand new digital life forms
that never once we're inside a human body? Uh? Again,

(11:21):
I think all this is pure science fiction. I don't
see us ever getting there. But these are kind of
those cool science fiction e like ideas that you get
when you're yeah, yeah, yeah, it's are we going to
be the borg? Like would we have a shared consciousness
at that point? Or uh, you know, would it be
would the human race essentially become a giant ant colony,
like every single consciousness actually becomes more like an individual

(11:43):
neuron in a giant hive brain. Um. I honest, again,
I don't think we're ever going to get there, So
it's almost a moot discussion in my mind. But you know,
I could be totally wrong. Well, so it does seem
to me that it's slightly more probable that we will
achieve something like a physical immortality. And again to clarify,

(12:05):
not in vulnerability, but conquering aging because we can actually
zero in on what aging is. Yeah, and uh, and
if we zero in on the genes that govern aging
to a point where we can uh make meaningful decisions
so that we counteract the aging process, we could indefinitely

(12:26):
halt aging. Now, these are all a lot of ifs,
and on the scientific level, I think all of that
is achievable. Um, I don't. I don't think there's anything
fundamentally uh that would be a fundamental barrier to that.
But I do think that in order for that to happen,
there'll be a lot of hurdles to overcome. However, I

(12:47):
do think that between the two major roads, digital immortality
or conquering aging. I think the aging one is the
one that's actually more plausible. It looks it looks more
likely right now. I mean, we already know that the
hey flick limb it um, which is which is the
limited which cells stop dividing and go through a programmed
cell death. Uh, we know what that is. We know

(13:09):
that there's a protein um telomerase that has to do
with with with triggering that and that if you can
remove that limit, then stuff like cancer cells don't have that.
So I mean, you know, we we've already looked at
it and said, hey, that thing, it's just yeah, yeah,
this is an idea where uh well, like like the

(13:30):
idea that you know, you have the the caps on
the end of uh, genetic material, the telomeres, right that
get a little shorter every time the cell divides, and
once they get down to the end, that's pretty much
game over for that cell um. If we were able
to reverse that process or halt that process, then in theory,
we would be able to to hold off death indefinitely.

(13:54):
And we've seen experiments like this in h on the
cellular level, but not anything that's human as far as
we know. I mean, there are some conspiracy theorists out
there who believe that there are folks who are already
in possession of this immortality, but for fear of the
mass of of of the unwashed, charging with pitchforks and

(14:16):
pistols in hand, they have not revealed their immortal status.
Perhaps they even glitter in sunlight. I do not know,
but I don't hold those conspiracy theories in in. I'm
skeptical all of them. Let's say that I'm quite skeptical too,
but I don't think part of that idea is unreasonable,

(14:37):
not necessarily that somebody has actually figured this out. But uh,
let me introduce a little thought experiment. So imagine you
discover the cure to a disease, you know, like polio.
You know you were the discoverer of the polio vaccine.
Do you have a moral duty to share that knowledge

(14:59):
of how to create that vaccine with the rest of
the world. I would say yes, Like you have an obligion,
I would say. I would say ethically, not morally, but yes.
But I just make that distinction between ethics and morality
because I think morality suggests there's a specific belief system
that is usually tied to religious affiliation, But I think

(15:22):
ethically you would certainly be expected to share that. Yeah,
semantic distinctions, you would have an ethical responsibility. Would you
have the same responsibility if what you discovered was the
cure to aging? I and just intuitively don't feel that
you necessarily would. I think that that's a tougher question. Well,

(15:45):
it's certainly if we were to somehow discover with irrefutable
proof that we had found a way too safely stop
the aging process, and we were to just spontane eviously
roll that out throughout the entire human population, there would
clearly be some massive consequences we would have to deal with,

(16:09):
and I honestly think that, uh, we would really have
to think about, discuss consider the consequences of those actions
before rolling that out. So I think that while this
this conversation is largely philosophical, uh, it's it's an important one.
And I think in order for us to ever get

(16:31):
to a future where we do actually roll out some
form of of defeating the whole aging process, we have
to have these conversations now, because if we don't, we're
gonna be dealing with some ugly consequences further down the road. Yeah. Yeah,
it more depends on on a bunch of other ethical
considerations that are brought up if the possibility of of

(16:52):
this longevity becomes real. So for example, like, uh, you know,
there's there's the idea that we talked about this in
another episode of forward Thinking, the idea that there's a
capacity that any particular region has to support life on it,
a particular type of life, right like, and once you
once you exceed that, you've actually gone beyond the capacity

(17:17):
of that area to support that life, then you have
massive die offs. So you're saying, like, imagine we we
keep breeding, but we mostly stop dying, right So in
other words, uh, there's a question is it does it
become unethical to h to reproduce if you are creating

(17:38):
a greater burden on the entire planet to provide the
resources necessary for everyone to continue to survive. Then there's
I mean that that's and is it for the more
ethical to tell people that they can't reproduce? Is is
removing that capacity, you know, violating basic human rights? Right?
Do you therefore make a distinction and say any who

(18:00):
wants to reproduce, that's fine. You don't get the magic
serum that keeps you alive forever, and then what would
what would most people choose? And then on the on
top of that, you've got the question of if it's
a if it's a private company that comes up with
this this approach like they've got gene therapy that will
um conquer aging uh, And it's a private company, and

(18:22):
you know, private companies exist in order to make a profit.
That's the business. That's ultimately what the goal is. Now,
there are different ways of going about it, and you
can do it in ethical ways, you can do it
in unethical ways, but that's really beside the point. The
whole purpose of a business is to make money. That's
why they exist. So if you have a business that

(18:42):
comes up with this plan, um, what happens when how
do you set your price? Like you've got something that
you know lots of people are going to want, Maybe
not everyone. There might be people out there who have
no interest in living forever. They don't they think for
whatever reason that that is not for them. Well, I'd
imagine there's a huge middle category. I'd probably include myself

(19:04):
in this that would probably like to live a good
bit longer than people usually naturally live, but would really
probably not like to live forever, right, right, So well,
and and there's you know, well, first of all, we're
talking about prolonging life indefinitely, but that does not necessarily
mean well, I mean we're talking about a practical forever.

(19:26):
I mean, obviously we're not going to billions of years
until keep death of the Unix. Just a bunch of
us sitting there going, well that was something, wasn't you know?
But but right, so so let's just let's say, uh,
five hundred thousand years. I mean, yeah, that's I'd like
to I'd like to live longer than I probably naturally will,

(19:48):
but I don't want to live five hundred thousand years.
That's fair, And that's a good question. Maybe maybe maybe
you get you get seven eight hundred years into it,
and you go and you know, this is pretty cool.
That's true. You can't really predict. But then maybe seven
hundred hundred years after that, you're like, I'm done at
last five years was a bear? You know, you don't know,
you don't know. But but here's here's the things that

(20:10):
that's a good question. I mean, would you would that
mean if we if we get to a point where
people were able to achieve immortality. Would um, would suicide
be a permissible thing in this society where someone has
felt that they have lived long enough and they do
not wish to continue living if it's if it's something

(20:32):
that requires uh, you know, periodic treatments. I can imagine
a world where if you are able to demonstrate this
This is a weird concept, but if you're able to
demonstrate that you are mentally sound, that you would halt
those treatments and allow the aging process to continue. Can
you imagine that where I'm sorry, you're not You're not
mentally capable, so we have to keep you alive indefinitely.

(20:55):
That's kind of an interesting, but but possible future. This
converse station introduces such a weird instability in the way
I'm viewing humans. I had the question popped into my mind, like,
would be would mental soundness still be the same thing
in this world? I mean, that's how fundamentally I feel
this would alter the human experience. So like, if someone

(21:16):
said that they no longer wish to live, would that
person be viewed as truly crazy? Yeah? Well, I mean
can and can you imagine? I mean, because losses is
a big scary part of our lives right now. Can
you imagine losing someone that you've known for eight hundred years? Yeah, yeah,
I can imagine wanting to know just just just just

(21:38):
how to relationships work at that point, you know how? Right?
I mean that there are a lot of I mean
fundamental questions about what it is to have the human experience.
That's another question is if you were able to do this,
would it mean that you were no longer actually human
at least as the way, not not from a you know,
necessarily from the genetically, but from an experience from what

(22:03):
from what? If a human condition depends upon death, then
by defeating death are we human? And and which which
also gets into the questions of spirituality. I mean, because
most lots of religions um base a lot of their
philosophy on what happens after you die. If you don't die,
then then you know, then what does that mean? What

(22:24):
are you? You know? If God has a plan for us,
what does that mean? If if reincarnation is the road
to um enlightenment, then what does that mean? Right? I
can imagine one way that that might be dealt with
is just purely practically, like if if you want to
talk about heaven and hell, or other versions of afterlife. Um,

(22:44):
you could merely fall back on the fact that, well,
I mean, this isn't going to mean actual immortality, so
maybe it takes you a hundred thousand years to uh
face your judgment or whatever. But I think that will happen.
I think it would widely. It would wide be very
depending upon the various religious faiths out there. Obviously, Yeah,

(23:05):
so there'd be some that would probably uh embrace this,
and there'd be some that might say, you know, this
is not right, uh, And I think I can't imagine
a world where this would really become compulsory. In fact,
I can I can much more imagine a word. Well,
you say, of course, but we're talking about a world
where people don't die. We might as well go ahead

(23:27):
and go so far as to say that might not necessary.
I mean, I can't imagine that compulsory immortality would be sustainable.
I mean that would be that would sort of for
that that would foreclose on humanity too quickly to be
now I can I I can see it, though. I
can see someone like we were saying a minute ago,
like if if you don't want to live forever, what's

(23:47):
wrong with you? You're probably you need to be a
ward of the state. You need to be protected from
yourself because you want to die. And how weird is that?
So let's and let's say that there is some sort
of system in place to to guide reproduction. What happens
when two people reproduces the baby immediately treated so or
even treated before born to not age after a certain amount? Uh,

(24:12):
does the baby get any say in that? It's I mean,
they're they're weird questions, but these are things that actually
pop up. And when you start having this discussion, I
had one pop into my mind. Sure, this is kind
of a weird concern, but it actually it seems very grave.
Imagine you get to the points where where pretty much
everybody has access to this um you can stop aging.

(24:36):
How would that change ideas of punishment? Sure, let's say
that you live in a state which does not have
the death penalty but will give you life in prison
for a horrible crime, and you get convicted of that crime.
What does your life in prison mean? Does that mean
you go to prison for five dred thousand years or
however long you live, or I mean, how how would

(24:59):
that change idea of what punishment is? Also, before you
even get to to what punishment means? How would what
would people still enact in criminal behavior if they were
going to live forever? If your permanent record lasts five
thousand years, are you going to blemish it? Are you
going to be more likely or less? Like, I think
there's always going to be people who are going to
act in in whatever way gives them the greatest advantage,

(25:22):
and regardless of whether it's legal or not. Also, I mean,
if you get to first assuming that we still have
the same sort of emotions that we do now, and
I see no reason to assume otherwise, you're still going
to have interpersonal conflict passion, Oh yeah, lead to like
think about murder in a world where people would otherwise

(25:42):
live forever, How how do you punish that? You know,
when you think not only what not only did this
person have so much, so much more to do, they
had so much more to do indefinitely. Yeah, I mean
that's you know, we had a discussion before we actually
started recording where I propose the idea that if if

(26:02):
this is something that requires periodic treatments so that you
continue to live forever, then what happens would uh would
a prison sentence? That's for life also include the you know,
interruption of those treatments, and in a weird way sort
of amount to a kind of indirect death penel. Right,

(26:23):
instead of instead of directly killing someone, you're allowing them
to die. And that's a very tiny distinction. Personally, I
don't see any real difference between throwing a switch and
allowing someone to die. But from a very from a
legal perspective, there could be a world of difference because
legality and rationality don't necessarily go hand in hand. Plus,
my definition of rationality could be very different from someone else's.

(26:47):
On top of that, you know I mentioned before, you're
talking about the possibility of the private company. Um, this
could lead to a world of haves and have nots.
That is hard to imagine. I mean, you know, I
mean it could act upon the world that is already
of haves and have nots in a way that makes
the distinction or makes that completely even worse than it

(27:11):
is now. Yeah, to the to the absolute extreme where
you have a very very wealthy, tiny percentage of humanity,
maybe less than a fraction of a percent of all
of humanity that can afford this, uh, and then everyone
else can't, so can you imagine the social disruption that

(27:32):
would result in that. I mean, now you will in
just the inherent unfairness well, and that which would lead
to the social But yeah, I mean now, granted, like
I said, they're going to be people I think who
will look at this and say, you know, this really
isn't what I want. I don't want to live forever.
That's not I don't place value in that. And uh,

(27:56):
and for those people it may be that you know
that they will experience it's whatever social disruption there is,
but they won't be taking an active role in it. Uh.
I don't know what percentage of people would long for immortality.
I suspect it's a fairly large one. But that also,
I'm looking at this from a very privileged perspective as well.

(28:16):
My life is pretty amazing and awesome, and so when
I take that into account and I think what I
want to live forever, I'm thinking, well, you know, look
how amazing my life is. I don't want this to
go away. But then I don't live in a condition
where I would be thinking this is what I have
to live through and I have to live through it forever. Yeah,

(28:40):
but then again, you you probably wouldn't assume that people
would like want to die. I mean, I'd say the
desire to stay alive is is a nearly universal and
if you had, if you had an infinite period of time,
then you could grow your wealth and you could better yourself,
and you could but you could get to a position
that you weren't. The question becomes what would would we

(29:02):
do enough to improve the lives of everyone instead of
just the few who would have access to this. I mean,
even if we go into let's let's look at it
as saying we're going to be in an altruistic future
where whatever company or organization comes up with this shares
it fairly uh generously, that's rollout is still going to

(29:23):
be fairly gradual, at least at first, and that alone
is going to cause problems, which is why some people
are suggesting that this could already be happening and therefore
you know it's a secret, because if it weren't a secret,
people with good nuts. Um. But then when you look
at parts of the world that are really uh impoverished,
that have already are lacking for very basic resources, that

(29:46):
are in in areas of high conflict, how do you
extend this to those areas, right, how do you how
do you if or do you not? And if you don't,
are you essentially telling these people you have to die?
I mean, these are weird, tough questions that arise from
this concept. I had another question, sure, do we have

(30:09):
an inherent ethical responsibility to reproduce? I mean that I
think these days you you'd probably say no, right, I
mean no if you don't want to have children, of
course not. But then again, the it starts getting weird
when you think about the idea that, Okay, there's one
generation where imagine everybody has access to this, everybody has

(30:31):
the option to live forever, and they just stopped making babies.
So essentially what you're saying is there's a generation that
is the last. Yeah, suddenly you're part of the last people,
and these people just keep going. It certainly seems very
egocentric to suggest that that the that generation would be
the ultimate one, that would be the last one, and

(30:51):
that that nothing following that would be worth the trade
off of immortality. Right, that's I mean, you know, to
say that is pretty Look, I'm an egocentric guy. I
got an ego a mile ye, I would not be
comfortable saying that I'll still take your immortal juice, thank you. Well,
it's weird, and it certainly wouldn't translate to saying now

(31:14):
that that anybody should have the responsibility to have children.
I mean, that seems absurd to me. But well, there's
certainly a lot of religions that say that. Sure, sure,
that's fine. I mean, I'm just saying I wouldn't personally,
but but that's somehow that seems completely upset by this
living for everything. If your if your plan is to
live forever and never replace yourself, that that does strike

(31:36):
me as odd. I don't expect anyone to replace me,
and I actively work to prevent that because I like
my gig. That's right. You fear being usurped I do.
I do. I undercut my my colleagues at every opportunity. Yeah,
this is not true. I'm not sure, absolutely not right.

(31:57):
So if you saw the emails I wrote in support
of you, you change your tune suet um. But we're
we're having fun with this because if we didn't, we'd
probably go crazy trying to discuss it. Pretty dark topic
it is in many ways, because again, you know, you're
talking about changing one of the fundamental experiences of what

(32:20):
it is to be human. I mean, this is every
human from the very first Homo sapien up until today,
has the knowledge that one day they are not going
to be around anymore. In fact, that's often involved in
in what consciousness is. Right when people try to define it,
one of the things that comes up, as they say,

(32:41):
it's the awareness of your own death. That's that's one
one facet of what people will use to describe consciousness.
Keeping in mind, the consciousness is one of those things
that no one has ever been able to truly define.
Like the best definition I ever see is that we
start to define things about the mind, and whatever has

(33:03):
left is consciousness. So every year that goes by, as
we define more things about the mind, that the concept
of consciousness gets smaller, but it becomes that undefined variable
that we see in other like crazy mathematic equations where
you know, they say, look, this makes the universe makes
sense as long as something happens over here in this

(33:23):
part of the equation that we can't really explain yet,
but hopefully one day we will discover what it is.
The same sort of thing holds true with the mind
and consciousness well, and as we discussed in the very
last podcast we recorded it. It might not be a
thing at all. It might be an emergent property of
neurons in your brain. Sure, I definitely think it's you
know that it's I'm a pragmatist. I think it's based

(33:45):
on physical matter. It's not a thing but an interaction. Yeah, yeah,
I personally don't see it as being some other kind
of energy type experience. But we don't have like an
unfound gland somewhere in there that goes, oh, that's a
consciousness place, right, or that, or that there is some
other element that is not not directly relatable to physical matter.

(34:08):
But that's just one view. I understand. There are people
who have very different views on that, and I totally
respect that because I'm not a neuroscientist or a psychologist
and it's just my own personal perspective. Um So, but
you are a shaman of the future. I am that.
I am that it's a heavy burden. But if you

(34:29):
reference queen lyrics and you know, just keep on keeping on,
I think it's fine. All right. Well, okay, quick quick pole,
quick Pole, You've got the choice. You can take the
immortal pill. Where you are going to live indefinitely. So really,
the only way you die is through severe injury or illness,

(34:51):
or you take your own life, or you can walk
away knowing that you know, if you take care of yourself,
you can live a good long life. But you're an
not going to be living anywhere close to what someone
who would take that pill would experience. Joe, what do
you do? I don't know. I mean, honestly, I guess
my gut reaction is I probably wouldn't. I'd rather take

(35:13):
the not die soon pill, right, that's not an option
you got that you not die ever, or you've got
the if you take care of yourself and you avoid
illness and injury, you'll live a good long while, assuming
all the other variables. I guess I'd say, no, No,
it's just too it's too and it's too scary. I

(35:33):
don't know. Joe walks away from the pill. Lawrence, Oh yeah, no, no,
I take it. Yes, I take I take my pill
and Joe's pill Immortal times too. You become the future vampire,
draining the life force of other isn't roaming the waste

(35:54):
land I will. You'll find me at a parking lot
at Masson Square garden carrying a sword that has no
there can be only one. It'll come down. It'll come
down between me and Lauren, and she'll win because she's
got some lamping experience that I don't have. So but

(36:17):
but until that day, I will still battle for the prize.
What's the future of LARPing? That's another podcast, very good question, guys.
If you want to know what the future of lamping is,
then I suggest you right in and you ask, and
then we will actually answer that question. But to do that,
you've got to send us an email that addresses f
W Thinking at Discovery dot com or go to f

(36:39):
W Thinking dot com. That's where you can find all
the videos, the blogs, podcasts, and links to our social media.
Get in touch with us. Let's know what you like
about the show, let us know what you are excited
about in the future, and ask us some questions that
you really want to answer. We're really excited to hear
from this and we will taught you again. Really sick

(37:00):
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