Yet to read the entire article; but am reminded of Peter F Hamilton's take on this, in his extended 'Commonwealth' universe, & the psychological after effects seem more or less brushed under the complexity of the larger plot. Memories are indexed in internal nacelles under the epidermal layer & contextually referenced depending on the situation. Almost like your personal GoogleAI avatar. There are examples of variants with characters experimenting with distributed ever lasting physical clones that share a common memory repository (like an intranet of sorts).
I believe I would prefer to 'move on' to the newer physical experiences & memories, only retaining contact with a few really close people from the 'past'. Now, to read the full article. - Sharat On 29 Dec 2014 21:56, "Udhay Shankar N" <[email protected]> wrote: > So I'm going to do something unusual. My usual habit with stuff I find > interesting is to post it wholesale to silk, both for myself to find > later and for the minds here to process and comment on. Here' I'm > posting only the latter half of some speculation by Charles Stross, a > more-than-usually-insightful one ( a large claim) - and a fascinating > take on a not-uncommon SF trope. > > I recommend you read the entire thing. And I am eager for your thoughts on > this. > > Udhay > > http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/11/symptoms-of-ageing.html > > Let us suppose that in the next couple of decades we develop a cure > for the worst problems associated with senescence. We figure out how > to reverse the cumulative damage to mitochondrial DNA, to reset the > telomere end caps of stem cells without issuing carte blanche to every > hopeful cancer in our bodies, to unravel the cumulative damage of > prion proteins, to tame the cumulative inflammation that causes > atherosclerosis, to fix the underlying mechanism behind metabolic > syndrome (the cause of hypertension and type II diabetes). > > We now have a generation of 70 year olds who in 20 years time will be > physiologically in their 40s, not their 90s. At worst, they're no > longer in the steep decline of late old age: at best, they're ageing > backwards to their first flush of adult fitness. > > You're one of them. You're 25-60 years old now. You're going to be > 55-90 years old by then. Unlike today's senior citizens, you don't > ache whenever you get out of bed, you're physically fit, you don't > have cancer or heart disease or diabetes or Alzheimer's, you aren't > deaf or blind or suffering from anosmia or peripheral neuropathy or > other sensory impairments, and you're physically able to enjoy your > sex life. Big win all round. > > But your cognitive functioning is burdened by decades of memories to > integrate, canalized by prior experiences, dominated by the complexity > of long-term planning at the expense of real-time responsiveness. > Every time you look around you are struck by intricate, esoteric > cross-references to that which has gone before. Every politician, > celebrity, actor, blogger, pop star, author ... you've seen someone > like them previously, you know what they're going to say before they > open their mouth. Every new policy or strategy has failure modes you > recognize: "that won't work" is your usual response to change, not > because you're a curmudgeonly pessimist but because you've been there > before. > > Maybe you're going to make extensive use of lifeloggers or external > prosthetic memory assistance devices—think of your own personal > google, refreshing your memory whenever you ask the right question—or > maybe you're going to float forward in time through a haze of > forgetting, deliberately shedding old context to make room for fresh. > Some folks try for rolling amnesia with a 40-70 year horizon behind > them. You gradually lose contact with such people because they just > don't want to know you any more. Others try to hang on to every > experience, wallowing in the lush, intricate texture of an extended > lifespan until their ability to respond is so impaired that they > appear catatonic. > > Which are you going to be? And how will you cope with a century of > memories contained in the undecaying flesh of indefinitely protracted > adulthood? > > > -- > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > >
