Let's postulate that at some point n the future, we are able to create immortal human beings. Nanotechnology, drugs, magic, whatever - now everyone lives forever.

I'd like to know what impact that would have on the progression of knowledge. Is it true that new theories only come into general acceptance when the proponents of the old theories die? What happens when no one dies, ever? Will we stagnate? Will we slow but not stop (people get hit by buses all the time)? Will nothing change?

I really don't even know where to begin on this one.

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Hmmh...living quarters may get tight, for one.

__________________
*

No, I mean specifically with regard to innovation. Stop, slow, stay the same, or accelerate?

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Well, I've seen new theories come along that I do accept, so I don't see that humans today are inherently incapable of change.

As for the effects of life extension, it depends on the nature of the life extension. There is no doubt a limit to the brain's memory, so in the long run there are three basic possibilities: Either a person would reach a point where they could learn nothing new, or where they would lose old memories and replace them with new ones, or they would need some way to enhance their brain's capabilities so they could keep learning more.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Hm. I hadn't thought about the maximum data storage of the brain. That's a good point - it kind of changes things, doesn't it?

As for change, I don't think that we're incapable of it, just very resistant to it. If you end up in a situation where people routinely live, say, 1000 years and there are very few new births (a product of demographic shift and of measures which would have to be implemented to prevent overpopulation in an immortal society) change may well slow down due to this resistance. That's a worry, I think.

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Personally I think the progress of knowledge will only accelerate. Progress of knowledge with us mortal depends on some one person to take the combined work of his predecessors, maybe add some work of his own, and fuse it in to some brand new understanding of something. Pick any great scientist in history, if it wasn't for all the other scientists before him, he would still be struggling to light a fire outside his cave. But transferring knowledge from one living being to another is difficult, time consuming (Takes us a minimum of 16 years to get any half-decent amount of knowledge), and inevitably many details get lost in the process. But if one human were to be allowed to carry on his research indefinitely, then eventually all the previous knowledge he will have to rely on will be first-person, which is much more detailed and accessible. No scientists will ever die in the middle of research, and no other scientists will have to spend time piecing together what he did leave behind.

__________________
After you take away everything that is impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. ~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes

I don't think the immortality of the proponent of some particular theory will stop new theories from replacing it. Certainly new theories have come along even when the mortal, but still alive proponent of the old theory was still around. The death of old theories and old scientists doesn't seem strongly linked.

But the other part of your question is, will people continue to be creative if they are no longer mortal. I have heard the idea, most often in science fiction, that our desire to be creative, like our desire to procreate, springs from our desire to have immortality for at least some small part of us. While I know of no real world evidence for this concept, one way or the other, it is an interesting idea.

There was a SF short story I read many years ago, where the world is exactly as you describe, there is a treatment that a human undergoes in their late teens that makes them effectively immortal (you can still be murdered or killed accidentally, but you can't die from natural causes). The treatment has to be given before a certain age (like 20).

But one thing that is discovered, is when people become immortal, they are no longer creative, in either the sciences or the arts. And so a program develops to pick out the potentially most creative children and nuture them as much as possible (the story takes place in a special school for these children). But, at the critical age, the young adult gets to decide if they want a creative, but mortal life (such people are considered almost superstars), or if they want to be one of the ordinary, non-creative immortals.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

While I'm skeptical of the benefits of immortality, as it relates to the OP I think the bag would be mixed. On one hand, one would have plenty of time to plan and follow long-term projects. Thirty-year mission to Neptune? No problem. Four-hundred year interstellar probe to the Hyades? It can wait. It would also allow people to gain previously unimaginable expertise in their profession or study, and enlarge the coffers of knowledge considerably; imagine monographs for every known species of bird, or basin-sized bathymetric maps detailed to the square meter. Lots of goodies out there.

But!--the limits imposed by mortality give a great deal of oomph to the drive to put your cards on the table as quickly as possible, and I feel that would be a big loss. Since it would also theoretically eliminate concerns about future generations, I think it would also make us more self-centered and narrow, creating an "I'll deal with it when it's front of my face" zeitgeist.

__________________
"He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River."

--Anonymous

This is all very interesting - like I say, I have no real set thoughts on the matter. I can see either scenario play out. If it's true that new theories can come about, can convince the proponents of old theories, then there's no real problem. If not...

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Let's say you're a scientist. You do research. Then, due to medical advances you become effectively immortal. Are you going to stop doing research? Why would you if that's the work you love? After several decades you might decide to give another career a go, maybe become an artist, but this tendency would probably be countered by immortal artists who decide to give scientific research a go.

But I think that in the future our ability to perform scientific research will be massively increased through the use of Artificial Intelligence. The process has already begun with AI used in many fields, and I think this will be the main determinant of the rate of research, not cultural changes resulting from extended lifespans.

I don't think so much that scientists and researchers would be the problem. It's the mindset of the (immortal) common person. The layman. Those easily taken by psychics and the like. How receptive are they to change?

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Sounds a bit like the fictional Hutts (those giant slugs) in StarWars.
They live up to a 1000 years, but are actually not even considered fully-grown and responsible adults until they've reached 100
- so they have an entire century just to fool around and learn.

Wouldn't there be a monetary incentive to not be set in one's ways, and to be open to new ideas? Always looking for new ways to innovate, if for no other reason than it would make one money.

Those who are open to the new would prosper, while those who are closed to it would be poorer--a selection pressure.

__________________
If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits

I'd say you have it exactly backward. Concern for future generations is not a universal quality, actually far from one. "I'll deal with it when it's front of my face" is a very common zeitgeist today. OTOH, people who live forever must take a long view out of self-interest alone. If polar caps will melt in 500 years, if an asteroid will hit Earth in 10,000 years, if Sun expands in 5 billion years, it becomes MY problem, and I have to do something about it. This is truly unprecedented.

__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

I'm not so sure. Say you have $10 in a bank account, and live for 1000 years. You don't need new ideas to prosper, just the time you have.

__________________
Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

__________________
If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits

Why not? Fry did it.

I don't see the correlation between the turnover of a population and progress in knowledge. Most human populations, through most of history, have seen high birth and death rates without any significant growth in knowledge. People can live like Polynesians, Amazonian Indians, Innuit, etc. for hundreds of generations and not invent anything like modern science.

Funny, we've gotten vastly wealthier in real terms in a fiat money system than we could have gotten based on the gold standard. Wealth depends on what we know how to do with current resources, not on what we use to keep score.

For example, the early 19th Century financier Nathan Rothschild probably had chests overflowing with gold coins in his possession, like a fictional villain from a Charles Dickens novel. Yet he died in 1836 or thereabouts from a bacterial infection that we can cure today with a course of antibiotics costing probably less than $10 in today's money.

If the lifespan of humans dies become greatly extended, there will almost certainly be a problem with memory. The capacity of human memory is large, but limited; memory is also unreliable over long periods of time. A three-hundred year old person would have completely different memories of her childhood to a fifty-year-old. or a thousand-year-old.

I suggest that some kind of external storage will become necessary. It many be possible to record memories on a database directly, using some kind of neural interface; or you could just keep a diary. Like Lazarus Long, but perhaps in electronic form.

I suggest some sort of MeWiki- you can add to such a database, and amend it over time to take advantage of hindsight- but you can always l