Are we canonically dead?

[mrfusion51]

So this question has been bugging me for a while, but are we  technically dead in this universe? I myself was born in 2001 (31 AT) and would be 98 years by the time Ruth Duorkin dies (129 AT). 

The main question is this:could anyone in the information age survive at the very least up to the technoapocalypse? And let me just list a few scenarios that includes myself:

Could I in this century go full borg to prevent death by old age?

Could I get a ai or a algorithm to make a invention to prevent me from dying?

Could I in this century prevent death by uploading my consciousness?

Okay, that's it.

[Drashner1]

Hi There - Welcome to OA

This general question - could a RL person or someone from our point in history - survive into Y11k - has come up before.

After some considerable discussion, the conclusion we reached was basically 'No'.

Partly this is a matter of the setting premises - medical technology doesn't advance that fast in the setting, the Technocalypse and Great Expulsion killed billions making it statistically highly unlikely that a person from our time could survive even if they could live long enough to reach that point in the timeline, etc.

The other part of this is editorial - the consensus of the both most members and 'the management' was that allowing this kind of thing would be opening a can of worms we wouldn't really like.

That all said, the member who last started a discussion on this issue was able to come up with an idea in this area that got as close as we figured we could allow to someone from the present day living to Y11k - see HERE.

Hope this helps and again - Welcome to OA!

Todd

[Achaz the Transavant]

Who knows? we may all be somewhere in a Bottleworld where some of the EG is actually from the real OA, hopefully to be eventually released in the Civilized Galaxy instead of being deleted.

[Drashner1]

Coming at this from another direction - After my earlier post, I was reminded that there is also this story, which includes characters who at least believe they come from very near our time...

Todd

[Rynn]

Welcome to the forums

Could I in this century go full borg to prevent death by old age?

What do you mean by "full borg"? Cyborg is a walking term in OA that refers more to a lifestyle/subculture than any particular set of technologies:
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45c5389352fa1

Replacement organs and prosthetic organs certainly existed in the latter part of the setting's 21st century. These would increase your life expectancy, but would not make you immortal.

Could I get a ai or a algorithm to make a invention to prevent me from dying?

Medical and healthy lifestyle technologies were constantly being invented in the 21st century and beyond. But they were more effective taken earlier. In the middle of the 22nd century life expectancy for newborns was now 200. To explain this simply: imagine there are a variety of therapies which, if taken regularly, half the rate at which you age. If the baseline life expectancy is 80 then someone who starts the therapies at 40 will live for another 40*2 = 80 years, meaning they'll live until 120. A newborn taking the treatments will live 80*2 = 160 years.

Could I in this century prevent death by uploading my consciousness?

You could not, and even when the hardware was invented that could scan a brain with sufficient resolution the software to emulate the brain was not good enough. There were many rather horrid errors due to this, like early uploads developing dementia like symptoms over time

https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/48bda472970cb

[Aurelio]

I recently read in the EG like that rejuvenation was lost after the Technocalypse and only reinvented during the First Federation era in 2900 AD. In the meantime of 300 years, basically every baseline who survived the Technocalypse would have died from aging.

So yeah, I think from what the setting "as it is now" tells, nobody who is currently alive could have made it to the 13th millenium.

Could I in this century go full borg to prevent death by old age?

Could I get a ai or a algorithm to make a invention to prevent me from dying?

Could I in this century prevent death by uploading my consciousness?

Maybe, let's try.

[Achaz the Transavant]

On the subject, what's the earliest period a preserved (including effective brain preservation and uploading) modosophont still living or existing in cold storage in 10601 AT could theorically be from?

[Rynn]

On the subject, what's the earliest period a preserved (including effective brain preservation and uploading) modosophont still living or existing in cold storage in 10601 AT could theorically be from?

Theoretically around 400a.t. This was the period when uploading was first attempted, but it wasn't successful because of errors in the emulation software (mostly due to lack of knowledge). The minds that were ran slowly succumb to a variety of neurodegenerative diseases which is what led to a ban on uploading at the time. The data for each person scanned was kept however. It's unlikely any would have survived the technocalypse, but possible.

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48bda472970cb

[Drashner1]

I recently read in the EG like that rejuvenation was lost after the Technocalypse and only reinvented during the First Federation era in 2900 AD. In the meantime of 300 years, basically every baseline who survived the Technocalypse would have died from aging.

Yup - and this was seen as a great horror/tragedy by the people of the Federation and afterward - which led to them using genetic engineering to create people with natural lifespans of around 400 years (or 800 for Superiors). The idea is that if civilization falls for some reason this is a built in safeguard against people dying for long enough to (hopefully) get things back on their feet sufficiently to re-introduce life extension tech. Given the amount of redundancy that Terragens probably build into anything they consider important, things getting so bad that people had to fall back on their natural lifespans would likely mean things had really and hugely gone of the rails.

Todd

[Worldtree]

We do have this article

Jonathan 'Trip' Daniels
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/57ab393bcf972

who right now is technically 10,000 years old
i'm in favor of updating this person's birth by a few hundred years at least