Could one really really smart person eventually recreate all technological advancements granted immortality? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by 6mementomori@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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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?

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[-] swnt@feddit.de 14 points 1 year ago

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 5 points 1 year ago

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 6 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 -3 points 1 year ago

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 2 points 1 year ago

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

this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023

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