One Man's Brain Washing Comment is the Pot Calling the Kettle Black

The following is my reply to a poster regarding his formulaic comments on the subject of fighting aging and ending death that he made in response to the article found here called: We Die Too Soon; Wise Methuselahs Could Save the World

The poster had the usual things to say, "we die for the benefit of future generations, so evolution can continue and improve", a gross misunderstanding of evolutionary theory in itself, and a host of other clap trap that apologizes for aging and death failed sentiments that always try to excuse both as good things. They are anything BUT good things! Here is an excerpt of Dr. Panda's comments:

comment:

We Die Too Soon

by Markandeswar Panda

[Comment posted:34:09]

When science has nearly accepted evolution and is not interested in any other theories on the emergence of life from non-life, its proponents, the scientists must rely upon this force and forget the rest. Death is inevitable for the propagation of new DNA or RNA based life forms No matter what we do can relieve us from the pains of old age and the peaceful death.

For the believers of prophetic religions it is eternal heaven or hell. For the philosophical believers of eastern religions, it is life, samsAra, and karma. ... [blah blah blah... yadda yadda...]

Please find the rest of Dr. Panda's comments here at the bottom of the page of comments.

For Dr. Markandeswar Panda, Ph.D.(BU);Ph.D.(UCSC)

I am sorry, and with all due respect, I feel you suffer from your own particular brand of brain washing that exceeds that we must do what nature (evolution) or god or karma has dictated. These sentiments could not be further from the truth.

What IS "natural" for human beings is to modify our selves and our environment for the maximum benefit of our lives. Of course this must be done carefully and with an eye to balance and that our needs are not inadvertently negated by mistaken imbalances caused in nature.

IF there indeed IS a god or gods then what right have they to deny us the maximum of improvement even if it means treading on their so called territory? But the truth is there are no such beings and indeed cannot be. Likewise there are no eternal souls that Karma or reincarnation may act upon. Non corporeal entities violate the laws of physics and information theory.

For there to be any information sufficient enough to entail the complete life and essence of a human being would require several teraflops of information storage space! Where is such a huge amount of information storage space to be found in the ethereal? Where is that to be found in energy when energy alone, without matter to form it or guide it, has no capability to hold information? Yes, radio waves and light pulses, etc. do transmit information but they do so only after having it imparted to them by the modulation of a device made of matter. To read the information again requires a demodulator also made of matter. For there to be the simplest of information, a simple binary bit -- a mere on/off statement, there would need to be some differentiation between one chunk of energy -- of these supposed non corporeal beings, souls, gods, etc. -- and another chunk... some dirtiness if you will. This is not possible when all chunks, so to speak, of any said energy must be identical to all other amounts of same. No sample of pure energy in and of itself could ever hold and regurgitate or act upon even the simplest of true/false or 0-1 binary statements.

All that we are is that which is recorded in the 'meat' (matter) of the connectivity of our neurons in our brains and the weights and potentials applied within their workings. This was clearly learned when Phineas Gage lost his personality and goodly nature when a tamping rod went through his frontal lobe when an explosion accident occurred while working on a length of railroad tracks. Why oh why are we more than one hundred years hence from Gage's accident still believing in spirits and ghosts? His accident proved that there could not be a non corporeal aspect to human essence because by the very description of such, being non corporeal, without form, it could not be acted upon by that which does have form. Souls should not be affected by mere accident. Or does god hold liable and consign to hell a man unlucky enough to merely have inadvertent brain damage by no fault of his own? It is a ludicrous situation to even ponder.

We should and we will do everything we can to conquer aging and indeed even make inroads into smiting death itself. Would anyone not figure that it would be long ago so conquered by say a non terrestrial civilization perhaps a million or even ten thousand only, years ahead of we in technology? Or even ourselves a few thousand years from now?

Well of course we expect such things of the constant march of science and technology. Why should it take so long then when while we here discuss our own future possibilities, nowadays tech and science are right now exponentially climbing the ramparts?! We ARE fast approaching a technological Singularity, named for the event horizon of black holes where beyond which we can not retrieve information, yet, in that in our soon to be future development is happening so fast we soon will be incapable predicting even the broad strokes of where it may lead... indeed if we in our present forms can understand at all the levels of technology we will soon collectively reach. I heartily recommend the book "The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" by Ray Kurzweil.

Human evolution naturally encompasses changing our environment and ourselves. we have already done this. We have altered natural selection merely by the advent of civilization and wealth procurement. We are on the verge of the safe and prudent ability to alter and perfect, repair mistakes in our own genome. Evolution is now and soon to be more so largely in our own hands from here on out. I for one rejoice in the possibilities.

Lament not the death of death and the same for its siblings disease and aging. Given the savings of knowledge and of verve by keeping our learned alive long enough to really make a difference with the knowledge and wisdom they gained over a hundred and more years of life, will without a doubt find all the necessary early answers needed to ease our transition to a truly mature and worthy species for the universe. We can do it, we have the technology... all we need is the will.

Onward!

FutureQ