You’ve gone from no culture at all (which I somewhat arbitrarily placed as the equivalent of 50kyrs ago) to the present in only as many years as you are old. A mere 1,000 more years of change, experienced in real time, should be easy in comparison.
Think back to whenever your earliest memories are, and the person you were then. Think of that magnitude of change as being just the beginning.
I already had a reasonably good grasp of some parts of our culture as far back as I remember. I’m also already having trouble really keeping up with the world as it is now—I have trouble remembering that cell phones and laptops are commonplace, for example.
My model of how comprehension of culture works is based on the Critical Period Hypothesis—I suspect that we get one burst of really good ability to pick that kind of concept up, and then have a much lower ability for the rest of our lives.
It does occur to me that the kind of advanced science that would be able to reverse cryo preservation might well be able to recreate that kind of ability, though, now that I’ve thought enough about it to spell it out.
It does occur to me that the kind of advanced science that would be able to reverse cryo preservation might well be able to recreate that kind of ability, though, now that I’ve thought enough about it to spell it out.
I’d put a much higher probability on that kind of ‘advanced science’ than on cryonics working, FWIW. The key ingredients like BDNF are already loosely known, and we already know a lot of drugs (like piracetam) that have effects on BDNF.
You’ve gone from no culture at all (which I somewhat arbitrarily placed as the equivalent of 50kyrs ago) to the present in only as many years as you are old. A mere 1,000 more years of change, experienced in real time, should be easy in comparison.
Think back to whenever your earliest memories are, and the person you were then. Think of that magnitude of change as being just the beginning.
I already had a reasonably good grasp of some parts of our culture as far back as I remember. I’m also already having trouble really keeping up with the world as it is now—I have trouble remembering that cell phones and laptops are commonplace, for example.
My model of how comprehension of culture works is based on the Critical Period Hypothesis—I suspect that we get one burst of really good ability to pick that kind of concept up, and then have a much lower ability for the rest of our lives.
It does occur to me that the kind of advanced science that would be able to reverse cryo preservation might well be able to recreate that kind of ability, though, now that I’ve thought enough about it to spell it out.
I’d put a much higher probability on that kind of ‘advanced science’ than on cryonics working, FWIW. The key ingredients like BDNF are already loosely known, and we already know a lot of drugs (like piracetam) that have effects on BDNF.