this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
0 points (NaN% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26239 readers
1468 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Let's say we left one single very smart guy (not necessarily with the knowledge: they may be able to understand hard stuff when taught it, but not know it already) alone on a copy of the earth. That person is also immortal. Could that person, by themselves, gain back all knowledge, maybe also experimental, or even surpass that is already available to us right now, before the planet gets inevitably engulfed by a sun turning red giant?

top 5 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] swnt@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

While my initial reaction was "Yes", I think that it's rather "No".

There are massive amounts of things to build and stuff to discover. And almost all of it, especially the physics, chemistry etc. stuff needs experimentation. Plenty of people had died or chronically made it difficult to do anything because of scientific experiments (think of Marie Curie or imagine what happens when you try to rediscover nuclear energy).

In our scenario, we say, that the person is immortal, but it could always happen, that they get stuck with certain illnesses or co. which significantly reduces their possible auctions. at some point they may be so limited, that they cannot do certain experiments at all and get stuck there forever.

[–] wolfpack86@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is an interesting take based on the quality of years. But unless the task becomes impossible to, and not just more arduous, the answer should still be yes.

Whether the person enjoys life or not is another question.

[–] swnt@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Whether the person enjoys life or not is another question.

Haha. I think we threw that question out when we assumed immortality.

[–] 6mementomori@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I forgot to say that the immortality I'm talking about also makes it impossible to get challenged by illness and such

[–] swnt@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Ah, okay! Then my worries don't apply. They may run all kinds of dangerous experiments knowing they'd survive.