Hi Martin,

you have a great site, which I came across after reading your recent newsgroup posting about when you read the first few chapters of Genesis. I would possibly only suggest that you include more material on religions other than Christianity. And more material on how you (and possibly others) managed to overcome fear of death, which I believe is the root of all religions. Also, if you're going to rip apart the Bible, try to use the New Testament as most progressive Christians think the Old Testament is, at the very least, `open to interpretation'!

I would quite like to take part in your wager, but it depends on exactly what you're betting. Are you betting that it is possible that highly advanced civilisations could still be suffering from religion, or that it is guaranteed? I certainly agree with all your arguments for why it's possible, but not that it's guaranteed.

As I said, I believe that fear of death is the root of all religions. But it's perfectly possible that an alien civilisation could be immortal. Firstly, there is no real biological or evolutionary necessity for old age, and in most species of animal death from old age is quite rare. Aging is a product of the fact that there's only so many times our DNA can replicate itself properly. But that's due to imperfections in the process and it's possible to devise `pure DNA' and a system by which this degradation doesn't occur. So evolution could either have produced an immortal alien species, or they could have fiddled with their own DNA to make themselves immortal.

Another way to produce immortality is to clone people and then somehow transplant all their memories into the clone. Bingo, new body, same person (presumably you then dispose of the original!). Don't know if this will ever be possible but we learn more about how our memories work every day (yes, I know a person is more than just their memories, but that's another conversation).

Obviously all this stuff has to go hand-in-hand with advanced medicine so death from disease or other stuff is very unlikely. All I'm saying is, it seems perfectly possibly to me that there's an advanced race of aliens somewhere who never die (perhaps they avoid overpopulation by colonising other planets/systems, or by not having children, who knows?). The fear of death in this community would be almost non-existent. Once the need for life after death goes, God goes soon after because logic takes care of the rest. I genuinely believe that even the powerful memeplexes of superstition could be eliminated in such a society. People like having rational explanations for things, they don't like taking things on faith, they just think they have to. Remove most of the obstruction to rational explanation and superstition will tend to be rejected.

Or am I just talking crap?!

Joss Knight (from Oxford) :o)

Thanks for coming by.

First things first, you can't have any of my money. The bet has been taken and I am not going to bet more than one week's income.

Death.

Is it inevitable? That is a good point. I cannot see how immortality could evolve naturally. Any being that has evolved would have developed the mechanisms to a high degree; the mechanisms of sexual or asexual reproduction. Once they have developed they will become the main way of spreading biotic material. Vegetative reproduction is rare in animals, asexual reproduction is also fairly rare, sexual reproduction is the best way to cause rapid evolution and evolution endows it with efficient mechanisms. For instance can you imagine what the typical man's reaction would be if you told him that he was now freed of the need for women because he could clone himself from a cheek swab. Thrilled? I don't think so. We like sex. Most people would go a whole lifetime without asking why we like it, but the more creative thinkers among us spend a lot of time thinking about it.

Death is what happens when life finishes. Nothing more than that. There are many ways for it to happen. Telomeres wearing out on the end of chromosomes may be one way, but there are thousands of others. Staying alive is an uphill struggle. Up to the age of breeding evolution, the most powerful 'force' yet discovered, is on our side. Then it starts to leave us behind. We die of things that evolution doesn't care about. Late acting lethal genes and the progressive decay that evolution can't be bothered to fight. Evolution doesn't care if you die at ninety, it is only vaguely interested in you after you turn fifty. Evolution only cares (seems to, evolution is neither a force nor capable of caring) about people who have an impact on the important things; breeding success, age of first breeding, number of progeny who survive to breeding age themselves. Once you are past fifty your influence on these matters is rather oblique, as is evolution's interest in you. Once you have adult grandchildren your chances of making a serious impact on their future success is very low, as is evolution's concern with your lifespan.

It follows that you are very likely to die soon after because you are on your own. Evolution has geared your body to perform up to that time and after that time it could not care less. People do not die of telomere fraying, or any other curable condition, they die of what you might call cosmic indifference. Everything wears out at once because it does not matter anymore. Your cells, organs and systems don't need to work any longer and so they are no longer maintained. You do not re-grow teeth even though it is a simple matter to grow more than two sets, if evolution thinks you need them. Everything falls apart.

To fight that systemic failure to maintain the body would require an enormous amount of effort. I see no reason to expect anything different in another galaxy and a biology based on different chemistry. But if death were conquered religion would probably have to give way, although I guess that it would have time to evolve to adapt. There would still be accidental death as a possibility, and as life became more precious as death no longer seemed inevitable death would become more unbearable. The opportunity for crime and terrorism would increase. If you had paid a fortune and worked for decades to develop immortality for you and your loved ones the idea that some malicious being might threaten to kill you would have an enormous impact, infinite life becomes of infinite value.

Death may be the main plank of the lure of religious concepts but it is probably not the only one. I can still imagine fundamentalist Christians seeking immortality here on earth while believing in God. Without death religion might not have been built but religious memes can build an arch-like self supporting structure for themselves. Death may be the necessary scaffold, but it might not be the only firm foundation.

(That is a bit more of a sensible use for the internet then arguing about the musical merit of Victoria Beckham and downloading a few pictures of women and dogs in unusual juxtaposition.)

Martin

Martin,

I think you've fallen for one of your own reasoning flaws...! Just because evolution is immensely powerful and has created beings of extreme complexity, it doesn't mean correcting the biological flaws that cause aging is going to be immensely complex. Maybe it's something really really simple. One theory is that inefficient DNA replication is due to all the guff material between genes that screws up the transcription process. Remove the guff material and you've got the same genes, but perfect replication.

My other point about clones you did not assail... Whether the alien dies from old age or accident, if he had a copy of his `mind state' and a clone, and a method of implanting one in the other, then his mind would continue to live. That's a kind of immortality. Stuff of science fiction? Well, so was space travel fifty years ago. This does with the life of infinite value argument.

It seems to me you agree that it's possible (even if you don't agree it's likely) that a race without death could eliminate religion. Therefore, if your argument is that religion will survive in all cases, it founders there. But I still agree that religion may certainly survive in some cases.

Thanks for discussing this with me, I never have anyone to bounce my ideas off. Most people find discussing religion and atheism quite boring...!

Joss

If a perfect replica of me is made with all my memories do you think I would then be happy to die? Would you?

When I am dead I don't care that much for me, my selfplex, that's it, I'm gone. I care about my genetic and memetic heritage though. I want my ideas to continue I want my gene line to continue. But the thought of a clone pretending (presumably very successfully) to the world that he is me when I am dead? No thank you. A strange man kissing my children... or my wife? That would not be immortality that would be a form of auto-cuckoldry. (Take that spell checker! The human mind will always beat the machine, as long as it can make the rules.)

You are right to say that it does not automatically follow that the problems that evolution is not solving must be difficult to solve. But look at what evolution has achieved; just look at a single cell. If you don't think that is a difficult job you make one. I suggest halting the age process will be at least as hard. I don't know for certain, but it seems a reasonable working assumption.

The other problem with age reversal or death defying is the social effects. We have evolved social structures that work with our existing lifespan and pattern. What would have happened if immortality had been developed in the thirties? Who would have told Roosevelt where to get off? Or J Edgar Hoover? Would Churchill still be prime minister? If so what would have happened to brilliant men like Harold Wilson? Or Oswald Mosely (now there IS a thought!) Just imagine if Margaret Thatcher was frozen in her intellectual prime... (Sorry, that was unfair. Too much pain, no! If only you could delete ideas as easily as you can on a computer.) The whole system we have is based on people retiring and dying in a reasonable timescale. Take that away and we will all be in the kind of limbo that Big Ears Windsor is in.

Are you your body or your mind? I think that I am my mind, and if that mind were in another body, it wouldn't make any difference. I hope I would be OK with this `other man' kissing my wife, since he would just be me. It's difficult to comment on this, because it's all speculation, so we should really stick to the facts, which are that we can't think of any really flawless reasons why this kind of immortality won't one day happen.

I refute your claim that just because the people who are governing badly don't die or get old, we won't get rid of them. People may have to make more effort to get involved in a society without young people constantly popping up and raging against the state, but that doesn't mean they won't. Again, let's stick to the fact here which is that there's no convincing argument that a society of immortals wouldn't function. I'm not saying it definitely would function, I'm just denying it definitely wouldn't.

I'm afraid I'm doing what you always do (and I admire you for it) which is to state that it's the other person's job to provide evidence against a postulation, rather than my job to provide evidence for it. I think I'm justified in doing so in this case since to win the wager all I need to do is show that it is possible, however unlikely, that there may be an alien race without any religion.

Please tell me if you're getting bored with this thread. I know you're busy and points can be laboured...!

Joss

I am my mind, my continuing mind, which exists in this collection of brain cells. A copy is not me any more than my niece Rosy is the same as my niece Katie, even though they share 100% of the same genes, the same house, and they did share the same womb. (They nearly didn't share the same birthday, one could have been born on February 29th, one on March 1st, imagine the fun that could cause!) Even if the mind is copied it is not me, to me, although he may think he was, and he may be right. What matters to me is that I am me and I could never be a clone unless the mind was transferred to a new body, and presumably a renewed brain. Only then would I not worry about a strange man in bed with my wife. But then again, there is not that much to worry about, his children would be the same as my children. My head hurts.

The Old Guard

My point was not about not being able to get rid of people governing badly, my point was about there being no room for the gifted newcomer. In politics you can aim to be prime minister and you know that if you are the best among your age cadre there is a fair chance of getting an opportunity to compete for it at some stage. But what if you are brilliant but the prime minister is slightly more brilliant and immortal? It will mean a lot of talented people will be educated for no reason, which may then be seen as a burden on the old immortals who don't see any good reason to allow any young whippersnapper of 130 come along and make waves, wouldn't it be cheaper not to educate the little blighters so much? After all, we're cosy, we have these maids to come in and look after us, what do we need more intellectuals for anyway? If we need books we can just ask Lord Immortal Jeffrey to write some more. If we need movies then The Immortal Lord Winner will oblige. Yes, close those universities, we have no need for such things anymore. Maid! Come and wipe this spittle from my chin!

To clarify, to lose my bet I need proof that there is an intelligent communicating race of aliens out there with no extant religions or very similar superstitions. To pay up I need proof of their existence. Their real existence, not their hypothetical existence. I am too much of a sceptic to risk my money lightly.

Martin

Yup, but you must have missed my point about how presumably this race of people would either very rarely have children, or they're constantly expanding and colonising new planets and systems. Either there aren't any new up-and-coming whippersnappers, or the society is in constant flux with people getting bored and leaving, or others arriving.

However I don't like my previous argument because since this is a wager, you don't need to be convinced that there's a chance a race without religion exists, you need to be convinced that that chance is high enough to risk losing your wager. Exactly how each of us assess risk when making bets is very variable!

I don't agree with your argument, in general (regardless of this immortality thing). I think it's way too full of assumptions, anthropomorphism (assuming the aliens act/react like people), and only weak objective data. But I wouldn't bet against you, because the amount of available data is too small to make the statistics trustworthy enough for someone who rarely bets (i.e. me) to make one. I mean I'd bet you if the stake were nothing! Plus of course the whole wager is in your favour - an alien race turns up and there's evidence of religion, you get your money, and your opponent has to wait for other races to contact to see if he can get his money back. And if a race turns up with no evidence of religion, your opponent has to wait while that race is thoroughly studied and understood before there's evidence there's no religion anywhere in their society. Very dodgy bet!

Joss :o)

In time a society could evolve to cope with immortality, but would it destroy itself first? It is certainly a possibility. The social structures would be all wrong. You cannot just make age discrimination illegal by diktat and expect that to cure the problem. These attitudes go deep, as deep as it is possible to go, they are not social constructs, they are built into the fabric of our being. Sex goes back to single cells. Our social structure is thousands of times older than our oldest continous social culture. Having children, competing for the alpha position, all that stuff is more ingrained in us than such things as diet preference or recent novelties such as bipedalism.

Naturally it is impossible to avoid assumptions about the unknown, assumptions that may be wrong. I have tried at all times to be as open-minded as possible about the detail and to concentrate on the basics, the mathematics of replication. I have not assumed the aliens would have cars or eyes or legs or even carbon chemistry. I have assumed cells, as being the most likely form of exobiology. This is because I have an imagination block in trying to picture any other way to get from inanimate to animate. A cell could develop in different ways, but I have difficulty in seeing how intelligence could develop down the amoebiod route of the ever more complex single cell, if this was possible then that world would be so alien I doubt we could understand it even if we encountered it.

Starting from the single cell and progressing to multi-cellular life is a way we know does work. It may be the only way that would work, I know I struggle to imagine another. It is certainly possible to design other forms of life that are much different, but not to work out how they could evolve directly, unaided. Alternative forms of 'life' can be simulated in computers but they are quite literally computer viruses, they cannot exist without support from more complex structures (computers), just as viruses could not have developed before the cells, particularly bacteria, that they rely on.

It is very easy to say that I lack the imagination to see alternative arrangements. I do. There is nothing stopping inorganic life evolving on this planet, in fact it is probably an ideal place for such a thing to evolve because of the array of different environments this planet offers. There is not the slightest hint.

The wager is basically not about life it is about memes. It is about the impossibility of intelligence without communication. I hold that once communication has been established memes will develop; replicable ideas, contagious ideas. Among these in any community that knows death and/or injustice some form of religion, superstition or sundry self-delusion would develop. Further I suggest that once developed these ideas will be able to develop their own self perpetuating suite of ideas (memeplexes) which will ensure their perpetual survival, even if not their preponderance within that community. That is the bet, it has to be a bet because I cannot know how sound are the various premises. Besides, Willett's Wager has alliteration and therefore has the possibility of becoming an academic meme in its own right. And the stake was limited to a week's income because I cannot afford to stake more and I do not wish to sound more confident about it than I am. There is always the nagging doubt in my mind that I may have overlooked some obvious flaw in reasoning.

Martin