Cyberization, mankinds' future?

[Ritterin Sophia]

What of reproduction?

[Zor]

What of reproduction?

Assuming that no biologicals exist to cyberize, you could grow brains in tanks for cyberization.

Zor

[SWPIGWANG]

I can understand a implementing something like a brain jack or a man-machine interface, but I can't see widespread body replacement cyberization.

There is no need to build a super strong super agile human body. Anything that can be done with an stucked on body can be done with a remote body, and that body don't have to have the all the complexities of keeping a meat brain alive.

Building an largely cyberized body is such a complex problem that I doubt, when everything is done in the end, will provide too much real and useful advantages. Biologically immortality and other enhancment would probably be much easier than wholesale replacement of body parts, which will involve replicating some extremely complicated chemistry and reverse engineering the sheer chaos of evolution. When everything is said and done, it would be an machine more complicated than anything today, while keeping a biological human requires only the most basic of resources. For all the whining about human weakness, we are actually pretty well adopted to our environment, as we last a fairly long time (our machinery usually not so much), have decent self repair capacity, is reasonablely tough and flexible.

The most important factor is that the human brain is made to like human beings, not other forms of life. One might argue that culture is an important factor in this case, but an important part of it probably is genetic and I don't see the whole sistuation as changing very much by itself. We like our warm bodies and soft skin after all. If you consider sexual attraction, people is ranked so much higher that everything else falls into a hole of sheer random noise. People simply would not find cyberized bodies as attractive unless it is almost indisguishable with the real thing, which means serious curtailing of the upper-end abilities as to not become "alien" to the human experience.

The brain wants the body the comes with it. I don't think it will change unless we start fiddling with the brain itself (which in a civilization that has the technology to build a full cyborg, probably not too difficult) and that leads to an entirely different question, though due to the advantages of this, it would probably happen far sooner than cyberization can be perfected.

To say that we well get cyberized because we can is just like we'll all stop having sex because we can use in-vitro fertilisation.

What is desired isn't something thats abhuman, but the perfection of the human form. Hell, we love the human form so much that we apply to our gods, our demons and our machinery. (just look at the mecha fanwhores) A biologically perfect form would simply be valued higher than gears and bolts, and the technological difficulty is no greater.

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In this environment and future ones, the only thing that could divide up races are intelligence. (and perhaps culture) The upper limits of human agility and strength have already been relatively useless other than showing off. There is no need to lift a ton or run a 9 second hundred meter in daily life when simple, cheap and effective machinery can do this better, faster, more efficiently and less irratatingly than the terrible form of the human body at those tasks.

[K. A. Pital]

A civilization that can build a whole cyborg should have pretty advanced knowledge of human biochemistry so that the thing is possible in the first place.

And I think everyone understands that cyborg bodies should imitate human forms with great precision or humans would not find them attractive; this is something even cyborg wankers understand (Shirow Masamune who is constantly accused of cyberwank, has cyborgs totally indistigushable from humans, look and touch-wise).

[Darth Raptor]

A population of ten billion cyborgs, constantly turning over with births and deaths, all in need of manufactured parts and maintenance? Yeah, there goes the industrial production capacity of the entire planet.

Yeah, because if we have that kind of technology, it's downright intuitive that we'll still be dirt-bound.

[Crossroads Inc.]

But if you become a robot... You'd have the strength of FIVE Gorillas!

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Cars.

A century ago, for all intents and purposes, they didn't exist.

Now, today, they're fucking everywhere. From first world to third world. True, not everyone can afford them, but it doesn't change the fact that you can go to *any* large collection of humans anywhere in the world, at random, and hold a reasonable expectation that there'd be some sort of automobile found among them.

If cybernetics takes off, and has even remotely as much impact as automobiles have, why is it so hard to accept that something similar would happen? I'm certain in the 1910's-1920's, people claimed that the industrial capacity for worldwide distribution of these horseless-carriages was a delusional pipe-dream, and that only the elite in society could ever hope of having one.

I'm not saying that everyone in the world would be a cyborg. I'm just trying to draw a parallel here. If cybernetics has the same or similar success rate to automobiles, then 100, 200 or so years in the future, you can expect a majority of people in first-world nations to have some of the top-model conversions, while a good deal of second-world nations would have the 'beater' equivalent of cybernetic conversions, and the 'elite' and dictators of third-world nations would have similar for themselves and their troops.

[His Divine Shadow]

A population of ten billion cyborgs, constantly turning over with births and deaths, all in need of manufactured parts and maintenance? Yeah, there goes the industrial production capacity of the entire planet.

Recycling

[K. A. Pital]

People will pay for bigger boobs and all that bullshit because it will help them (or, they think it will help them) get laid. Cyberization? Not so much.

Why not? If our civilization is able to build a full cyborg without having problems with tissue compatibility and human biochemistry, it can very well build fuckable and beautiful cyborg bodies. In which case humans would want to have them. Badly.

[Tasoth]

The big problem with become a cyborg and keeping your brain is now you need not only a power source to supply juice to your amazing mechanical bits, but you have to have organic bits (proteins, vitamins, salts, fluids, the works) supplied to your organic bits still. That means the world's cyborgs are going to be reliant on either little organic cocktail supply sites or simple cocktail manufacturers unless they devise some way of breaking down available food down for themselves, which is going to take a whole helluva lot of internal space. There's also wear and tear. If your entire body is cybernetic, you're going to be put in the shop every so often for maintenance, pay for shock absorber replacement and other bits that are going to eat your cash reserves up. The human body is a marvelous machine, capable of keeping itself going as long as it's getting the required nutrients it needs. Unless you've got some kinda nanowank to go along with the body, you're not going to have such a high level of self repair.

Then there is also the effects of being wired into what could potentially be a subpar level of sensory input. To go from your organic frame into something that may not have the sharpness of vision the human eye offers or a dull sense of contact would be horrific, at least in my eyes, and frustrating.

[SWPIGWANG]

And I think everyone understands that cyborg bodies should imitate human forms with great precision or humans would not find them attractive; this is something even cyborg wankers understand (Shirow Masamune who is constantly accused of cyberwank, has cyborgs totally indistigushable from humans, look and touch-wise).

And the question returns:

What is the point of cyberization if all you are going to do is make another human? You can't make cyborb look, feel or even act differently from a human. Even simple superhuman abilities may be seen as alien and physical abilities are effectively useless anyways, as the modern lifestyle don't require any more physical ability than whats required to lift a few kilos. Any more and there is dedicated machinery for it anyways. Besides, are you telling me future humans have to do chores like move heavy objects and such when robotics would be able to take care of it easily.

Compared to the technological difficulty of "emulating the entire body", simply tweeking people's bodies to known human limits are far easier. It would probably be easier to grow an perfect organic body and fit a brain in than engineering a perfect, faultless body replacement. Can you imagine the mean-time-between-failure requirements for a human body replacement?

If there is some sort of replacement for the human body, it would likely be incremental add ons to the existing one as opposed to an top down dramatic redesign as the marginal utility of something like that is probably not enough to make it worth it until one gets the engineering resources of seriously high-end civilizations. (something like the TA:Core level or so) One would probably have to contend with serious mind alteration and non-human intelligence drastically altering everything before that happens. I don't think the homo sapian brain will survive to be placed in an cyberized body, as intelligence is hugely important and any incremental or drastical alteration will be pursued due to its use.

Shirow Masamune had compressed the developmental time span to very short amount of time. If development is spanned out in time, than the relative importance of super-human and non-human intelligence would probably grow to overshadow the original human race before cheap and effective cyberization could happen.

[K. A. Pital]

What is the point of cyberization if all you are going to do is make another human?

And who said that cyborg bodies should retain the frailty and short lives of the human biological body? Their main advantages lie in the constant well-being and top physical form, superior "health" if it can be called that way, zero aging and (possibly) increased perceptions and enhanced stimulators, as well as superior durability. The goal is not "making another human". Bringing biological bodies to top condition still does not solve problems of frailty, aging and disease, unless bio-engineering is really advanced to the extent of allowing biological immortality and alike feats.

If there is some sort of replacement for the human body, it would likely be incremental add ons to the existing one as opposed to an top down dramatic redesign

I think this is the way it will go anyway.

[Sarevok]

If you are going for longevity why not geneticaly engineer humans that do not age beyond 30 ? Unlike a cyborg a geneticaly modified human does not need a massive support industry to maintain him.

[Magus]

If you are going for longevity why not geneticaly engineer humans that do not age beyond 30 ? Unlike a cyborg a geneticaly modified human does not need a massive support industry to maintain him.

How does something "not age?" Anything that is subject to time ages. Things will corrode, things will get scratched, things "will" break down after a while. The current argument seems to be "will it be more cost-effective to create a self-repairing biological system or a mechanical system?"

[Darth Raptor]

How does something "not age?" Anything that is subject to time ages. Things will corrode, things will get scratched, things "will" break down after a while. The current argument seems to be "will it be more cost-effective to create a self-repairing biological system or a mechanical system?"

The fact that we keep making babies disproves the notion that we must necessarily grow old and die. Do to the nature of evolution, we're currently genetically programed to do so. There's no physical reason why we can't live forever- provided you have the energy. It's all about repairing accrued damage, which we stop doing after a certain point in our lives.

[Magus]

How does something "not age?" Anything that is subject to time ages. Things will corrode, things will get scratched, things "will" break down after a while. The current argument seems to be "will it be more cost-effective to create a self-repairing biological system or a mechanical system?"

The fact that we keep making babies disproves the notion that we must necessarily grow old and die. Do to the nature of evolution, we're currently genetically programed to do so. There's no physical reason why we can't live forever- provided you have the energy. It's all about repairing accrued damage, which we stop doing after a certain point in our lives.

I was under the impression that certain systems didn't get continually repaired, and that those systems eventually "wear out" no matter how healthy you are. If that's not the case, I'll concede the point.

[Darth Raptor]

I was under the impression that certain systems didn't get continually repaired, and that those systems eventually "wear out" no matter how healthy you are. If that's not the case, I'll concede the point.

No, you're correct. There's just nothing in the laws of physics preventing us from regenerating those tissues (if they can grow, like they do in babies, they can regenerate). Senescence only makes sense in the context of evolution (there'd still be a single, immortal cell).

But that's transhumanism in a nutshell: If we have the knowledge and the equipment, there's no reason why we couldn't "play God" and do a much better job, so to speak. Evolution becomes obsolete when it produces sapience.

[K. A. Pital]

I was under the impression that certain systems didn't get continually repaired, and that those systems eventually "wear out" no matter how healthy you are.

If you find a way to genetically control and program apoptosis and recreation of cellular tissue in multicellular organisms, you can achieve biological immortality for such organisms.

[Magus]

I was under the impression that certain systems didn't get continually repaired, and that those systems eventually "wear out" no matter how healthy you are.

If you find a way to genetically control and program apoptosis and recreation of cellular tissue in multicellular organisms, you can achieve biological immortality for such organisms.

Perhaps, but what if components that never repair themselves don't have a genetic control? Perhaps a better compromise between the two would be to develop nanobot technology to create and replace systems that didn't regulate themselves.

[Broomstick]

What is the point of cyberization if all you are going to do is make another human?

And who said that cyborg bodies should retain the frailty and short lives of the human biological body?

We can't build a pump that operates 24/7 for 75-80 years with no downtime and no replacements - but the human race does it routinely and we call it the human heart. Exceptions are just that, exceptions, not the rule. When it fails completely we try to replace it with another biological human heart, not a mechanical one (although we'd like to have that option)

What was that about biological frailty?

Yes, we have made great strides in replacing human bits. Today's high-end prosthetic limbs are MUCH better than a generation ago but they require a high tech base to produce and maintain. They aren't used outside of high-tech areas of the world because they have power sources that need to be recharged and electronics that need to be programmed, maintained, and periodically replaced. If the power goes out and your legs stop working being a cyborg has much less appeal. Even in the industrialized world, some amputees elect to use less sophisticated prosthetics due to the environment they're in - C-legs, for example, don't do well walking through knee-deep water so if you're fond of, say, duck-hunting they aren't so wonderful.

About the only sensory cybernetics we've really made progress on have been the cochlear implants for deafness. But those who are able to compare them with the real thing say the difference is between a tinny radio (implant) and a live, world-class symphony orchestra (natural normal hearing).

I think the closest thing we have to a true replacement organ is an insulin pump - but they are far from perfect, and require daily maintenance on the part of the user that normal people just don't have to worry about.

I think that for a long time cybernetics will continue to be used for the handicapped, but not so much for the normal people. I don't see something like full body replacement occuring, but rather what we see with eyeglasses and hearing aids and artificial joints - attempts to bring people up to a baseline level operating.

Their main advantages lie in the constant well-being and top physical form, superior "health" if it can be called that way, zero aging and (possibly) increased perceptions and enhanced stimulators, as well as superior durability.

How do you stop the brain from aging?

When will we have a pump as durable as the human heart?

Biology isn't perfect, but neither are nuts and bolts.

It will be a long, long time before the tech exceeds the meat in many areas of daily living. Don't assume future progress will proceed at the same rate as it does currently - historically, it just hasn't been so and technological progresss could slow down. It is even possible to lose technology rather than advance it.

[K. A. Pital]

I think that for a long time cybernetics will continue to be used for the handicapped, but not so much for the normal people.

So do I. I thought the OP implied a Ghost-in-the-Shell level of cybernetic bodies, not our current level. Of course, from where we are now to making cyborg bodies attractive to the general unhandicapped populace is a very long road.

What was that about biological frailty?

Organic compounds are badly resistant to natural damage (heat, cold), cellular tissue is frail and easily crushed. It may be long-lasting because of the advantages offered by biological regeneration, but it is frail.

How do you stop the brain from aging?

You don't. We would have to grasp biological immortality to do that. But at least the body never ages. Note that the OP implies a very high level of cybernetics (Shirow Masamune/GUNNM level, probably).

[Sikon]

By the time of a technological level allowing a fully artificial body, such implies the ability for a full neural interface. Partial artificial replacement like replacing a failing organ may not require such, but a full "cyborg" body needs nerve signals going between the brain and body. Naturally people want to have full senses. All of a person's experience, all of their reality, comes from a data stream of apparently a fraction of a gigabit per second.

In principle, microscopic robots (nanobots) could go to neurons in the optic nerve, spinal cord, and elsewhere, gradually replacing the original neurons. Initially, such could just emulate the original neurons, but, once the process was complete, a person's eyesight, hearing, touch, smell, etc. would no longer need to come from their biological body, making body replacement a practical option even for the healthy.

The preceding implies the ability to connect to such an enormous number of neurons that it would presumably happen not before the development of self-replicating nanobots able to perform neural replacement. Though the term "robots" has been used, there is no aspect of biological cells that couldn't be emulated with sufficiently advanced technology. Perhaps the term "artificial neurons" is better to avoid the stereotypical image of robots. Gradual replacement of all of the brain's original neurons with superior artificial neurons has a lot of potential benefits, but let's focus here on the effect of simply replacing the input/output stream of data.

With radio communication or other means, one effect is that the body possessed at a given time would not always have to be in the same location as the body containing one's brain. For sensory input, there are desirable aspects to having a body made from relatively "soft, squishy, and weak" artificial cells much like the biological body of a man or woman. On the other hand, if one wants to live as long as possible without being vulnerable to ordinary accidents, there are advantages to having one's brain in a stronger body made from more metallic nanobots, perhaps a much larger body. Yet there could be the best of both worlds, having one's brain in the latter body but the ability to have perfect telepresence in the former body, utterly indistinguishable from physical presence.

Imagine being immortal, able to teleport within a distance of thousands of kilometers in an instant, and invulnerable to ordinary accidents. Imagine being able to fly without needing an airplane, to swim without needing to surface to breathe, to never feel sick, and to feel pain only temporarily at a moderate level if an avatar body is injured. Imagine being able to have telepathy with anyone else when desired, to travel between stars, and to create worlds. Imagine a world with no nursing homes, nobody in chronic pain year after year, nobody dying from germs, and nobody who can be permanently killed with much short of nuclear weapons. Imagine negligible deaths from accidents or homicide. Imagine one's ideal body or bodies.

The approximate equivalent of all of the preceding is possible with sufficiently advanced technology. For example, people couldn't physically teleport, but they could have practically perfect telepresence, permitted by the laws of physics. And they might not be literally immortal, but they sure could live long.

Admittedly, this is not expected to happen within the lifespan of anyone alive today, unless a means like life extension, hibernation, or suspended animation allows a person to reach the distant future. But one can see how people with sufficiently advanced technology might prefer not to be tied to the limitations of biological bodies. Indeed, they might one day be "superhuman" from birth.

In regard to economics, a technological level allowing interfacing with an astronomical number of neurons to fully relay senses requires enormous advancement, most likely including self-replicating technology. Indeed, probably economic output would be orders of magnitude higher than today by the time that total body replacement is a practical option.