What's the Best Invented Yet? Your Opinion Counts!

[Noisy Rhysling]

Among all the things that haven't been invented yet, what's the best? Your opinion counts as much as mine.

My favorite on the grand scale is FTL drives. Get us off this rock and spread out among the stars.

On the personal scale extended longevity systems/devices would be cool.

Specific examples from scifi works?

 

[Borg]

Immortality. After that, the rest is just patience.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

Immortality. After that, the rest is just patience.

Is this permanent immortality, no "booster shots every thousand years", no spice? Or is it a "okay, you're immortal" kind of thing?

 

[BillTre]

• Easy to do human (and other organisms) clones and recombinants!
• Personal teleporter.
  
• Consciousness transferal device/process (for example your consciousness: computer storage device <--> brain).
  This could also be a multiplication device (I will call them many-me!).

• Direct interface between brain and digital devices.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

My wife says I shouldn't put the tasp on that list, so I won't.

 

[Borg]

Is this permanent immortality, no "booster shots every thousand years", no spice? Or is it a "okay, you're immortal" kind of thing?

Doesn't matter. Personally, I expect it to eventually be a brain download kind of thing.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

Doesn't matter. Personally, I expect it to eventually be a brain download kind of thing.

The reason I ask is my favorite immortality scenario: You're permanently and irrevocably immortal. This has issues even if you don't wait for the heat death of the Universe. Say you're charging around the galaxy and fly too close to a neutron star. You hit it and are squished down to a single molecule thickness or less.

But you're immortal, so you don't die.

 

[Borg]

I remember a Twilight Zone episode where a guy made a deal with the devil to be immortal. He was later convicted for murder and sentenced to life in prison.

 

[VuIcan]

The reason I ask is my favorite immortality scenario: You're permanently and irrevocably immortal. This has issues even if you don't wait for the heat death of the Universe. Say you're charging around the galaxy and fly too close to a neutron star. You hit it and are squished down to a single molecule thickness or less.

But you're immortal, so you don't die.

He said immortality not invincibility. There is a distinction to be made here. Immortality is the ability to live eternally given the chance, but if I stab you to death you will die. Invincibility on the other hand is a little similar what you're describing, indestructiblity.
If you hit a neutron star and are reduced to a single atom, you are dead. Everything that constitutes "you" is gone. Unless you believe that consciousness is a property of matter- this is a little...

Well if you mean the immortalization of consciousness, that might or might not happen by replicating an identical copy of the human brain onto a computer.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

He said immortality not invincibility. There is a distinction to be made here. Immortality is the ability to live eternally given the chance, but if I stab you to death you will die. Invincibility on the other hand is a little similar what you're describing, indestructiblity.
If you hit a neutron star and are reduced to a single atom, you are dead. Everything that constitutes "you" is gone. Unless you believe that consciousness is a property of matter- this is a little...

Well if you mean the immortalization of consciousness, that might or might not happen by replicating an identical copy of the human brain onto a computer.

That would depend on how the immortality has been achieved, I think. And immortality without invincibility is a complete non-starter for me, I wouldn't consider it "immortality", just longevity.

 

[ISamson]

I think nanotechnology will develop and lead to many small-scale inventions. For example, molecular-sized machines available for the public and society.
Since physics is developing and will continue so in the future, we must come up with some cool inventions, like (as previously said) teleportation and long-distance travel/communication.
Time travel could also be invented in the future.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

I think nanotechnology will develop and lead to many small-scale inventions. For example, molecular-sized machines available for the public and society.
Since physics is developing and will continue so in the future, we must come up with some cool inventions, like (as previously said) teleportation and long-distance travel/communication.
Time travel could also be invented in the future.

Whatif: The nanobots were used to keep us healthy, happy, and sane, and someone got to decide what all those meant?

 

[ISamson]

Whatif: The nanobots were used to keep us healthy, happy, and sane, and someone got to decide what all those meant?

If you are talking about nano-botic medicine, then that would be a useful invention too and very revolutionistic.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

If you are talking about nano-botic medicine, then that would be a useful invention too and very revolutionistic.

Yeah, fixing damaged cells, repairing accident-caused injuries, making us more calm and receptive to messages relayed by the nanobots from Central Control, things like that.

 

[ISamson]

That would make surgery and medicine on a molecular-base level more practical and easier. This is a very needed invention!

 

[VuIcan]

That would depend on how the immortality has been achieved, I think. And immortality without invincibility is a complete non-starter for me, I wouldn't consider it "immortality", just longevity.

Given the axiom of heat death or some other form of an equally destructive event, everything is a matter of longevity. I don't quite understand what you're trying to say .

How is it a non-starter? All you have to do is cure aging and most fatal diseases. Unless you're an indestructible particle with an infinite half-life, invincibility is outside the realm of possibility.

 

[ISamson]

All you have to do is cure aging and most fatal diseases.

True.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

Given the axiom of heat death or some other form of an equally destructive event, everything is a matter of longevity. I don't quite understand what you're trying to say .

How is it a non-starter? All you have to do is cure aging and most fatal diseases. Unless you're an indestructible particle with an infinite half-life, invincibility is outside the realm of possibility.

I'm saying that invincibility, for me, is part and parcel of immortality. If you can be killed you're not immortal, just very likely to live a long life. My definition, of course.

 

[BillTre]

The Highlander had immortals which could be killed.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

They were immortal unless they died.

im·mor·tal·i·ty
ˌi(m)ˌmôrˈtalədē/
noun

1. the ability to live forever; eternal life.
   "eating the fruit gave the gods immortality"
   synonyms: eternal life, everlasting life, deathlessness; More
   

 

[newjerseyrunner]

God powers. Immortality would be part of it, but when we start melding our minds with machines, longevity will not be the only thing we can boost. Speed, power, all of it would grow exponentially. It seems like we are just smart enough to start creating technology, but then we had no real reason to evolve much smarter than that. We think of ourselves as a ten on an intelligence scale where 0 is a bacteria and 10 is the most advanced mind. I think cybernetics will make it so that humans now are closer in intelligence to a fruit fly than what we will become.

 

[Noisy Rhysling]

On thing I've learned is people always predict things that don't happen.