Change The Blueprint

[poliphilo]

The human body is in urgent need of a re-design.

I mean, basically, it's the same monkey body we had when we first traipsed out of the woods and onto the savannahs.

It's built to last about 25 years. After which time it starts going wrong. We've quadrupled our life expectancy, but without upgrading the vehicle. And so we spend three quarters of our life-span in a body that's performing well below its best. How stupid is that?

We accept that an athlete is past it by thirty. How abject!

And it's so fragile. Why settle for skin and bone when you could have titanium?

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

My thing is arthritis. Not crippling, but it don't half slow me down.

Put me on the waiting list for a flying car.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Skin is MUCH nicer and warmer to cuddle up with than titanium.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's the one unanswerable point.

But science is wonderful. Surely someone will eventually come up with cuddly titanium.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Easy enough--if one is clever enough to make a titanium body, then surely one would also be clever enough to wire the brain to think it was feeling flesh.

OTOH, there is something--troubling about flesh, anyway.

There's something to be said for being a ghost.

Uh-oh.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Of course.

But maybe we will develop new modes of sensuality. We will respond to sleekness, coldness, shine.

I just want us to get a move on. Progress is so slow.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Let us hope for reincarnation in the far future, then.

I still wonder if those big-eyed aliens are us from many eons hence, coming back to see the silly protohumans.

If that is the case, then we will have psychic brain-power but incredibly flimsy bodies.

Those big eyes are probably so they can see in the dim light of our dying star.

And no wings.

But: what if we got to reincarnate on other planets?

I wish we could have some input (this all, of course, implies a panel of judges in heaven or limbo, doesn't it?)--I would ask for a planet where we are light as feathers and float around. No cars or airplanes.

I read somewhere that the reason we humans like the look of trees and meadows best (as determined by tests) is because it's in our genes--the earliest humans loved being safe in forests and able to enjoy the grasses as well. So I would like a planet with emerald green grass and emerald green and golden forests, and a deep blue Technicolor sky.

And NO PREDATORS, including me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the big-eyed aliens may well be our children's children.

They've perfected time travel- and so of course they've come back to have a look.

It's good to know that the gene for curiosity isn't going to die out.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Tony, we're hearing breaking news right this minute about smoke coming out of three London train stations. Oh, no.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Initial reports suggest that these incidents may be nothing very much, but we'll see. We've got the TV on.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Yes, it appears to be much less than before.

It is only a matter of time before such incidents come to us as well.

I'm sorry. Such a dreadful thing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

P.S. they're saying these were dummy bombs- detonators but no explosive. What is going on?

[samhain-punk.livejournal.com]

Well, not that this is what you meant, but I have read some articles that had scientists speculating that the human head is getting gradually larger due to the increased use of the C-section. Not that this improves matters.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's interesting.

And hopefully if the head is bigger we'll be able to cram more into it.

[samhain-punk.livejournal.com]

Yes, that would be lovely but Einstein's brain was smaller than average so maybe head size will just be another impediment.

I'm just envisioning children of the future tottering around with gargantuan heads on average human frames, the weight becoming worse with age as the muscles of the neck begin to succumb to the extra burden. (Erm, yes, I do have an over-active imagination. Why do you ask?)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We'll just build new extra-big titanium bodies to support those heads.

The people of the future will be exquisitely proportioned robotic giants!

[samhain-punk.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, a brave new world indeed!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

How right you are. I'd never considered it before, that really we're meant for 25 good years.

I feel really cobbled together at this point. I envy those people in science fiction books who download themselves into computers so that their essence is in bytes and they can roam the universe.

If we could do things over, rewrite our evolution, I'd really like to have wings. Although by now I suspect my feathers would be falling out. Figures.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"I feel really cobbled together at this point"

Me too. I want to be downloaded into a new body. One that will be eternally 25 years old.

OK, it's not doable now, but it will be. I'm sure of it!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I suppose this is the moment to talk about how we'll have new bodies in heaven. But I suspect there's a catch.

I want to be me, not just an unknowing part of God--if I'm part of God, wonderful! But what if I don't know?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I agree.

The point is to know, to understand.

That's been the whole forward drive of evolution- towards a creature that can understand the universe its a part of.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

That's been the whole forward drive of evolution- towards a creature that can understand the universe its a part of.

If--a big if one "believes" in process theology (and it is fun to play with the idea of God evolving through us), then it's just a small leap to think that, in the same way we wish as children to shrink down and be able to go inside our dollhouses, or see the world as ants might, God might want to experience the universe (this one realm at least) as those who inhabit it do.

Then, at the end (as we have said many times here), all our Vital Essence and growth is dumped into the great Energy cauldron, and is absorbed back into God, who uses it to learn.

Simplistic, I know. And probably wrong: more and more I am convinced that God isn't a pinpoint Being (like us), but all of this. And--to leap to Pantentheism--hopefully more than "all this."

I used to think, if God can make the universe, what ELSE (beyond imagining) can God do?

Is this it?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't see how we can be anything else but simplistic- we're simple beings, after all.

Someone said he reckoned that the universe was not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we CAN think.

Theology is an art form, not a science. It paints pictures

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Theology is an art form, not a science. It paints pictures.

Exactly. I like that.

I've read too many books. I expect--demand--an ending which will reveal everything.

You know those star-fields showing multiple galaxies against a black background? When I look at them I think of the corpuscles in our veins, and how if we were small enough our location would seem vast and we could begin to think we were in a universe of corpuscle galaxies.

Maybe we're in a vast body known as God.

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

All too true! Although I have titanium all the way down my right leg, it doesn't really help...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We're getting there.

so far we've progressed to the point where we can reinforce a leg. One day we'll be able to replace the whole shooting match.

I can't get past...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

the revulsion I feel thinking of lying in bed beside my beloved... stroking titanium!

Re: I can't get past...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I was married to an Ice Man.

Same thing.

Re: I can't get past...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

And your tongue would stick?

Re: I can't get past...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you'd be titanium too.....

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I"m thinking here of Data, the android...whatever he was...on Star Trek TNG. His skin wasn't titanium. And does anyone remember the episode where Tasha Yaar asked him if he was 'fully funtional'? No titanium there, I'm sure.

So much of what was once thought of as Science Fiction has come to pass, I always wonder if one of the reasons why is that 'that' caught the eye of some young soon to be inventor. Remember the communicators on the FIRST Star Trek? Today's cell phones are very much like them...

So, if 'they' could make a Data, why does a better model human have to be titanium?

Just a question.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

And does anyone remember the episode where Tasha Yaar asked him if he was 'fully funtional'? No titanium there, I'm sure.

A rather Freudian slip, I meant fully functional.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hehehe....

I remember that episode. Yes indeed I do. I'm not sure it wasn't the very first I saw.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I plucked titanium out of the air- because it sounds good.

But, no, you're probably right. We'll be able to produced something that looks like flesh but is very much tougher and- of course- disease-proof.

There are people out there trying to make humanoid robots. I don't think they're all that far-advanced yet, but I'm sure they'll get to Data eventually.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, Data was Data. But I would think that Data-like 'replacement parts' for humans would work. However, then wouldn't athletic competition have to change? YOu couldn't have unenhanced competing with bionic and have it be fair...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess you'd have to create separate categories.

At present replacement parts are, generally speaking, inferior to the originals- but I don't suppose it'll be long before reality catches up with the comic books and we'll be creating bionic supermen and superwomen.