Ray Kurzweil interviewed about life-extension and consciousness-uploading in today's Wired News. I'm writing a novel about this stuff, working title "/usr/bin/god" (sure to change, since no one knows how to alphabetize a slash), and this is great background for me.
I think there's some part of our identity and valuable information in our bodies. There's more in our brains, but there's some in our bodies as well. It gets into some technical issues. There's a better way of preserving the brain, which they haven't been able to do with the whole body yet. The vitrification process, which does a better job of preserving structural integrity in the cells, they do with the head but not with the body. At any rate, I'd go for the grade A plan.
One reason I guess it's hard to think about the decision is it's hard to deal with your own mortality. I think your own death is a profound motivator for a lot of behavior, even more than sex. As I mentioned in my talk I think that that meme is very powerful: The idea that life is short and we're only here for a short time. That's a very powerful meme in human thinking and I don't believe that. I don't think we have to die. And the technology and the means of making that a reality is close at hand.
I actually think we have the knowledge right now, today. Not to live forever if knowledge were to stop, but if you combine the knowledge today with the observation that we're actually on the knee of the curve in terms of acceleration of knowledge and these technologies, and that the full blossoming of the biotech revolution will be here within a couple decades, we can remain healthy through that period and then pick up with that technology. In every different aspect of the aging and disease process we have ideas for how to get them under control. I believe we'll do that within a couple of decades…
My diet is low carbohydrate. Not as low as the Atkins diet, but I pretty strictly avoid high-glycemic-index carbs so my carbohydrates are mainly vegetables. I eat fish and other omega-3 fats and a lot of protein. We actually have invented some food products that are low-fat, low-carbohydrate, no sugar, low-calorie, but have the taste appeal of high-carb products, like cake with frosting, and puddings and breads, hot cereal and things like that. They'll be called Ray and Terry's Health Products (after Dr. Terry Grossman, with whom Kurzweil is writing the book A Short Guide to a Long Life). And also a lot of supplement products to implement the kind of things I talked about. I take about 150 supplements a day.
