Looking at the Path To Immortality

 Life Extension  

Reporting for CNN, "Supersize Me" film maker Morgan Spurlock recently looked at the futurist possibilities of immortality including the medical advancements and virtual reality developments that might make it possible.

Afew months ago, Morgan Spurlock entered the brave new world of extreme life extension, embarking on a life-prolonging regimen and trying everything from genome hacking, to creating an avatar and uploading his consciousness in preparation for the technological Singularity.

Spurlock’s quest to live forever includes visits with radical futurist Ray Kurzweil, Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and Cambrian Genomics in San Francisco.

"I'd like to live until tomorrow, and I feel that tomorrow I will feel the same way."

He also attends a party where he speaks with Max More, Natasha Vita-More, Zoltan Istvan, and other thought leaders in the immortality game.  Spurlock also visits Dr. Terry Grossman's clinic for a battery of tests on his health, including measuring his telomeres, which were judged to be short.

Related articles Ray Kurzweil at Global Directions 2013  The Transhumanist Wager  Our Post-Human Future

Spurlock gets some of his stem cells collected, and talks with organ engineering pioneer, Anthony Atala at Wake Forest University about 3D printing replacement organs.

Talking with Kurzweil, Spulock covers the topics of circumventing death and the technology of health and medicine growth into information technology.  This means, according to Kurzweil, that the area will experience the same radical exponential growth as the rest of the computer industry.  Kurzweil suggests that the next 15 years will be the health and medical bridge to the nanotech revolution that will really prolong lives.

When asked about his longevity plans, Kurzweil responds, "Well, I'd like to live until tomorrow, and I feel that tomorrow I will feel the same way."

Image Source: CNN

Spurlock talks with Jaron Lanier for balance to the techno-optimism of Kurzweil and company.  He enquires if virtual reality offers the possibility for digital immortality.  The footage from Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab is very interesting to say the least.  He then creates a virtual hologram, or avatar, of himself at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies.  After a few months, Spurlock interviews his hologram.  The system combines the holographic image with a conversational artificial intelligence and voice recognition. It is unclear if the conversation was planned and scripted or not.  (More details of this project are upcoming.)

CNN’s popular original series "Morgan Spurlock Inside Man," produced and hosted by Oscar®-nominated documentary filmmaker Spurlock, immerses the host in topical subjects while offering an intimate look at diverse aspects of the human condition. Topics have included “Celebrity,” (the job of satisfying the public's constant appetite for the famous), “Income Disparity” (the 1% vs. the 99%), “The Future” (where Morgan went on an epic quest to live forever), and more.




SOURCE  CNN

By 33rd Square

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