# On immortality



## Anthony G Williams (Sep 5, 2009)

The concept of human immortality has always had huge appeal. Somehow, we never seem to accept the fact that it is necessary for us to die. This is perhaps most marked in our modern society, in which medical science has done so much to counter the causes of premature death. As a result, death has become something of a taboo subject, which most people are reluctant to face up to. This is well illustrated in the UK by the current confusion and controversy over the "right to die" of the terminally ill.

Lacking the ability to prolong physical life, some people have sought immortality symbolically, in making their mark on history through building territorial or business empires or producing works of art, literature or architecture. Most people probably see their children as providing some stake in the future, some continuity of their genes if not themselves. But it's immortality of the physical self which is seen as the holy grail; as Woody Allen put it: 

_I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying._

Medical science is doing its best to oblige, with vast sums being spent on research into the causes of ageing; there's an entire scientific community devoted to finding ways to prolong life. Few people seem to question whether this is a sensible activity, although there are plenty of warnings in SF about the consequences should they succeed. The world's population is currently around 6.4 billion and is rising steadily; projections of future growth take the total to around 9 billion by the middle of this century, at which point the estimates more or less level off, with the population in the 22nd century being within the 8 to 10 billion band. In comparison, estimates of the maximum supportable population of this planet, taking into account all of the natural resources available and assuming a minimum standard of living (adequate food, housing, fresh water etc), put the sustainable capacity as between 2 and 4 billion. This is without taking into account the possible long-term consequences of climate change, which on current projections seem likely to reduce the area of productive agricultural land due to a combination of continental drought and the flooding of coastal areas. This is not a favourable scenario in which to come up with a method of prolonging individual life.

However, let us assume for the sake of argument that these problems are overcome in some way and we end up with a sustainable population. This doesn't remove the difficulties cause by a major extension of life expectancy. If the population is to remain sustainable it needs to be constant – which means that babies can be born only at the rate at which people die. The more successful medical science is in preventing ageing, the fewer children can be born. There will be an awful lot of frustrated parents out there. The whole shape of society would change, with children becoming a rare and precious commodity. Perhaps as a result the anti-ageing treatments would be reserved for the fortunate few – the rich, or those in political power – which would create a different set of tensions. 

Even for those who might benefit from an indefinitely extended life, the consequences are not all rosy. For a start, the concept of retirement would disappear – most people would have to work for as long as they lived. Current pension arrangements are failing to keep up with the gradual increase in lifespan as it is; they would collapse completely if this were extended significantly, let alone indefinitely. People would only be able to retire if they accumulated so many savings that, when invested, they earned enough interest to keep up with inflation plus provide a liveable income on top. If future economies are anything like those of our current society, only a small percentage of the population would be likely to achieve that, and it would take most of them a very long time. 

Clearly, indefinite life would have major implications for employment. Not only would the new immortals be faced with an eternity of work; they would become "job blockers", preventing younger people from gaining promotions or even from obtaining jobs at all. Sheer tedium seems likely to become the normal state of living.

When people discuss the benefits of extended life, they often talk enthusiastically about how they would at last have the time to learn skills they've always wanted to have: playing a musical instrument, learning a foreign language or becoming an artist. Frankly, I believe this is wishful thinking. Our lives are already long enough for people to do all of those things if they really want to. If they don't, it's because they're not sufficiently interested to put in the effort required, and that's not likely to change with a longer life. In fact, such abilities are best learned young, while the brain is still flexible enough to pick up new skills easily. For instance, if you want to learn to speak a foreign language without an accent, you normally have to do it before the age of twelve. As we get older and our personalities develop, out brains gradually get used to running in certain ruts; opinions become formed, skill-sets determined, creativity tends to diminish. As the saying goes, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks". 

This particular consequence of ageing has been the subject of many epigrams. Here's a couple I like:

_I used to dread getting older because I thought I would not be able to do all the things I wanted to do, but now that I am older I find out I don't want to do them._ (Nancy Astor)

_You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea._  (Pearl S. Buck)

This mental fossilisation was well imagined in Larry Niven's short story "The Ethics of Madness", in which a man who has received immortality treatment is pursued in his spaceship for centuries by an automated weapon:

_He was totally a man of habits now. He had not had an original thought in centuries. The ship's clock governed his life in every detail, taking him to the autodoc or the kitchen or the gym or the steam room or the bedroom or the bathroom. You'd have thought that he was an ancient robot following a circular tape, no longer able to respond to outside stimuli._

A way of avoiding the practical problems of physical immortality is to achieve a form of virtual survival. One version of this remains a strong selling point of religions; they have adopted the concept of the "soul" (or similar) which can survive after death. Even better, they try to tie their followers to them by promising a wonderful afterlife only to those who obey their laws (and therefore their religious leaders). This has proved compellingly attractive (for the religious leaders as well as their followers). The fact that there are many religions competing for customers, all offering different versions of religious law and blissful afterlife (of which only one, at the most, could be valid), doesn't seem to dampen enthusiasm.

More recently, futurologists and SF authors have explored the possibility of a different form of virtual survival – by having one's personality uploaded into a computer. This would be no simple matter as the human brain is vastly more complex than any computer yet devised or on the horizon, but let's assume that it becomes possible to create such a computer and to find a way of exactly duplicating all of the neural connections and electrochemical conditions which make up an individual's personality. What would result? Only a copy of ourselves, a kind of twin sibling, whose personality would immediately begin to diverge from our own. For _ourselves_ to be "uploaded" would require the identification of a unique and fundamental aspect of our mind which was our true self, separate from the brain and capable of being transferred from one brain to another but not capable of being copied (otherwise it wouldn't be unique). In other words, a "soul". There is no evidence that this exists, and this notion puts such virtual immortality into the same camp as religious afterlife.

However, let's assume that such a personality transfer is possible. What would it be like? The idea of living a virtual life for ever has a certain appeal (especially if one is coming to the end of one's physical life) but all would not necessarily be rosy. Apart from concerns about the consequences of software bugs and viruses, what would it be like to be divorced from physical reality, to know that you didn't actually exist outside of an electronic box? I suspect that there would be a strong tendency for people cut loose from their roots, from their lifelong perspective of who they were, from any concept of purpose or reason, to slide gradually into insanity. After all, they'd have forever to think about it…

All in all, this hankering after eternal life looks like a worse idea the more I consider it. Our physical and mental development is constructed around the idea of seasons in life – of passing through stages from childhood through adolescence to adulthood, maturity and old age, before we shuffle off this mortal coil. Apart from the practical problems I've discussed, a major extension to the length of our lives may do nothing to improve the overall quality of our existence; and immortality of any kind (physical or virtual) would, I suspect, eventually turn out to be appalling.

(An extract from my SFF blog)


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## Boneman (Sep 5, 2009)

Hmm, thought-inducing material. 

Of course, if there was an afterlife and it was paradise, and we knew it, we'd commit suicide and move to it immediately. Or would we? The mixture of religious and scientific beliefs will never come to an agreement, will they? Supposing reincarnation actually is immortality? And when you reach the uppermost level, you become pure energy? 

Since, as you say there's not a jot of proof (I can prove there's an afterlife, but I have to kill you to do so) of anything next, the idea of immortality in human form might seem attractive to some. But that boredom when you've done everything, and I mean *everything*, that there is to do, taste, learn, experience must be mirrored by some of the views of the afterlife where you exist forever... Can you kill yourself in the afterlife? Hmm...

Unfortunately for those amongst us (or no longer amongst us) who decide to freeze themselves to await the technology that will unfreeze them in the future, so they can live 'forever' they should look up apoptosis. There's a link here, and the first line could be the opening of a SF/Fantasy book: Apoptosis 

Unfortunately, as soon as cells no longer receive positive signals they commit suicide, so the silly bleeders who spend a fortune to freeze themselves cannot wake up, as all their cells have committed suicide. Maybe fat cells escape... If they were revived they'd be dead... if you see what I mean. 

Who wants to live forever?


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## The Judge (Sep 5, 2009)

Thought provoking and rational.  And a good way to ruin the prospect of a sunny day contemplating nothing much in particular!  

Perhaps the image of eternal life is like the dream of winning the lottery.  One sees only the good things that would happen, closing one's mind to the other inevitable consequences which would be less pleasant.  And who, really, would have the strength of mind to refuse the lottery win if it were offered...?

J


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## Dozmonic (Sep 5, 2009)

Good read. I think it was a Harry Harrison book (probably a Stainless Steel Rat one) where a scientist had to clone himself and transfer his mind into another body, or something along those lines. I was only little when I read it, but I remember him viewing it as though he were killing himself because although a consciousness just like his would continue to exist, he had to terminate that one that was in the present there and then.

The only possibility a computer upload would have that I can see is that it would mimic perfectly the connections of our brain and the workings thereof, creating another likeness of ourselves. Having a duplicate of my consciousness would be of no assurance to me knowing that the consciousness I currently had would cease, it would still be death ;-)

However, were we able to find what defined that consciousness and being, the soul, and somehow transfer that... that would be mindblowing in the extreme and for all the good it could do with the minds we could save, it could be even more terrible in the hands of terrorists.

As regards increasing our current life spans, there are two options that would need to be explored. First would be expansion. We will consume the planet's resources to such a point that we would fail and the planet would continue, so expansion to other planets would become a necessity. The other option would be to slow our rate of birth. Zecharia Sitchin believes that the ancient gods came to earth from another planet in the solar system and that they had - by our standards - extraorindarily long lives. However, it also meant that they conceived far less than we did and their growth took a great deal longer. I don't see this being an option any would choose to implement or even research, but it does generally seem in nature that those creatures that live longer reproduce slower.

Enjoyed this post ;-)


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## Ursa major (Sep 5, 2009)

Anthony G Williams said:


> There will be an awful lot of frustrated parents out there.


They are more likely to be frustrated than to be parents, I would have thought. 




Anthony G Williams said:


> The whole shape of society would change, with children becoming a rare and precious commodity.


Precious, perhaps, to their parents, but an obstacle to everyone else who wants a child. (Of the trio of things a detective looks for when solving a murder - means, opportunity and motive - the last is going to be a lot more difficult to pin down.) Seems like you might get a whole society where the _Stranger on a Train_ scenario is short-circuited.




Anthony G Williams said:


> Perhaps as a result the anti-ageing treatments would be reserved for the fortunate few – the rich, or those in political power – which would create a different set of tensions.


This seems to be a more likely scenario. The problem of heirs might rear its head: one can only be an heir if "your" immortal ancestor is deimmortalised.


All in all, it seems murder will be alive and well () in a society with a significant number of targe ... er ... immortals.



Boneman said:


> ...they should look up apoptosis. There's a link here, and the first line could be the opening of a SF/Fantasy book: Apoptosis


 
Apoptosis plays quite an important part in my WiP2; but I'd better not say any more....


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## ChrisQ (Sep 7, 2009)

You would have to take into consideration accidents too. What type of immortality are we talking here? Immediate regeneration, or just indefinite lifespans. I would think, people would be much more willing to take risks, especially after longer periods of time. Things like skydiving, cliff jumping and the like would become more popular and thus a higher rate of accidental deaths would occur.

If we're talking something like immediate regeneration, one problem that might be interesting to consider would be how something like that would effect the body. Lets say one fell off a cliff, bones breaks and muscles rip. Would they self-repair before a muscle or bone was in the correct position?

Interesting and thought provoking post.


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## Interference (Sep 7, 2009)

1: Death is more painful for the living than for those who die.

2: Though life is incredibly, annoyingly short, it's also inefficient.  Of the total life span, only a small fraction is of any value for most people, at most a third (and I'm not talking about sleeping time, here, which can be immensly instructional).

From birth to about 20, very few people contribute very much to the world.  From 20 to 65, most people are labouring for material progress and in the service of others who are labouring for greater material progress.  From 65 to death, it's gardening and bowls or golf.  In all of those years, your most productive time is between your mid-twenties (when you know as much as you need to get started on living) until you go utterly ga-ga, but since for 40-odd years you only have weekends and occasional evenings to actually do anything, you're actually only looking at 4,200 useful days out of a possible 14,600.  Between 40 and death is a flexible span, but it is usually less than 40 years so there's precious little opportunity to make up for lost time, anyway.  But now take away the increasing number of days that will be given over to just staying alive and the days when you just haven't got the energy to do anything or to argue a point or to take a research trip and the days when you have to fight for benefits and pensions because your income has dropped but your expenses haven't, and the days you need to spend at friends' and family members' funerals and children's and grand children's weddings and the mornings-after that hit you harder than they did when you were a youngster, and the fact is there's no time in a normal life span to make any worthwhile contribution to life and the Universe at all.

So what happens if your life span increases?  The middle block of working-for-others years will get bigger, the tail-end will get shorter and if you're lucky you'll have time to think of some clever death-bed words to utter and make sure there's someone near enough to hear them when the time comes.

The greatest stumbling block to all human progress is Work, not longevity.



ChrisQ said:


> Lets say one fell off a cliff, bones breaks and muscles rip. Would they self-repair before a muscle or bone was in the correct position?
> 
> Interesting and thought provoking post.



Actually, Chris, there are anecdotes about Reiki practitioners who have practiced healing on themselves after an accident and made life a little more tricky for the doctors as a consequence.  One story I heard was of someone who lost a finger and healed the trauma so well that the hospital was unable to re-attach the finger.

A word of caution, folks 



Ursa major said:


> All in all, it seems murder will be alive and well () in a society with a significant number of targe ... er ... immortals.



Which bodes well for murder mystery writers


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## Interference (Sep 7, 2009)

So sorry, guys, I hit Quote instead of Edit -- again ...


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## Moonbat (Sep 7, 2009)

> 1: Death is more painful for the living than for those who die.
> 
> 2: Though life is incredibly, annoyingly short, it's also inefficient. Of the total life span, only a small fraction is of any value for most people, at most a third (and I'm not talking about sleeping time, here, which can be immensly instructional).


 
1. It depends on the death, and the naivety of those left alive. We all know we're going to die, so why is it painful when someone that you expect to die dies?. Because people refuse to accept that life will end, and that the end of life is just as magnificent as the beginning.

2. You are making a lot of assumptions about people's lives here. When you say contribute to the world what sort of contribution do you mean. Because bringing joy to parents comes quite naturally to the very young, and bringing distress to them come easily to the adolescent. Anyone working and being taxed on thier income is contributing to the world and to the running of thier society, isn't that a worth while contribution?

I think that all the stages of man (or woman) are increasing in length. The twenties used to the be the time for starting a family, now it is the time for partying. And the thirties have beocme the time to raise a family. Which has pushed the life begins at forty, on towards fifty. Longer life means more time to do things, but more time to make more mistakes.


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## mygoditsraining (Sep 7, 2009)

Interference said:


> Actually, Chris, there are anecdotes about Reiki practitioners who have practiced healing on themselves after an accident and made life a little more tricky for the doctors as a consequence.  One story I heard was of someone who lost a finger and healed the trauma so well that the hospital was unable to re-attach the finger.
> 
> A word of caution, folks



I beg to differ.  There are anecdotes about people's injuries that have been attributed to the use of reiki, but there is no evidence to say that yes, the healign energy of their body has channelled into the wound.  

In the same manner all alternative therapies, reiki has never been proven more efficacious than placebo, or indeed any other modern take on the use of snake oil as a cure-all healing balm.

While not really thread related, I feel it's important to wave a flag over something that seems to illustrate subjective validation more than it does the power of our hidden _chi_; where ailments and injuries that get better on their own are attributed to faith healing. A follow-on phenomena is the willing (and sometimes unconscious) exaggeration or outright faking of an improvement from the patient to validate the efforts of the faith healer.

A word of caution, folks.


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## Ursa major (Sep 7, 2009)

Moonbat said:


> 1. It depends on the death, and the naivety of those left alive. We all know we're going to die, so why is it painful when someone that you expect to die dies?. Because people refuse to accept that life will end, and that the end of life is just as magnificent as the beginning.


 
Sorry to roam off thread, but I had to respond to this statement.

I think, Moonbat, that you must have a very narrow view of what is involved in someone's death. From personal experience (as a close relative of a person who has died, that is), I can say catagorically that the end of life is not necessarily magnificent and is surrounded by decisions (taken by the relatives) whose major attribute is "what is the least awful outcome"**. The instant of passing is the smallest part of it.



And to return to the thread topic:


Interference said:


> Which bodes well for murder mystery writers


Exactly. 



** - Doubts about the choices made may well persist long after the deceased has passed away.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Sep 7, 2009)

I honestly have to agree with Anthony completely on this. Although the idea of immortality might SOUND good to people-if nothing else, just wait to see what happens, right?

BUT....do you REALLY want to live long enough to see your country crumble to ashes? Or to face the possibility of a tyrannous reign? Live through a potential apocalypse?

Immortality as a fiction is fine. As a reality, however....not such a good idea.


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## Interference (Sep 7, 2009)

Moonbat said:


> 1. It depends on the death, and the naivety of those left alive. We all know we're going to die, so why is it painful when someone that you expect to die dies?. Because people refuse to accept that life will end, and that the end of life is just as magnificent as the beginning.




Because we miss people.  We're human.



Moonbat said:


> 2. You are making a lot of assumptions about people's lives here.



Of course I am.  It's called "generalisation.  Take what works for you and ignore the rest.


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## matt-browne-sfw (Sep 15, 2009)

The universe is dying. The second law of thermodynamics is relentless. Therefore humans won't become immortal, but they might live as long as the universe offers energy sources to tap into.


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## ManTimeForgot (Sep 22, 2009)

matt-browne-sfw said:


> The universe is dying. The second law of thermodynamics is relentless. Therefore humans won't become immortal, but they might live as long as the universe offers energy sources to tap into.



That presumes that we don't find another universe to tap into at some point...  Speculating on what is possible over several billion years seems a bit like hubris from where I am coming from.

MTF


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## dustinzgirl (Sep 22, 2009)

I'd take eternal youth or eternal health over immortality any day.

Imagine having cancer for 2000 years. Or the plague.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 23, 2009)

Now, bearing in mind , this is just an intellectual exercise right





> Woody via Anthony:
> 
> I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying.


Yep sounds good to me.




> Boneman:
> 
> Who wants to live forever?


 
Imortality, I could live with it.



> Manarion:
> I honestly have to agree with Anthony completely on this. Although the idea of immortality might SOUND good to people-if nothing else, just wait to see what happens, right?
> 
> BUT....do you REALLY want to live long enough to see your country crumble to ashes? Or to face the possibility of a tyrannous reign? Live through a potential apocalypse?
> ...


 
I'm not sure you'll need to be immortal to see these things happen.

There is the point that in being immortal and therefore, by definition, realising that there was no such thing as life after death, that the human race might come to be a more caring and loving society. If loosing your life meant loosing everything, then you might hope that people took more care of themselves and others (Fat chance).


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## Zina (Sep 23, 2009)

> I'm not sure you'll need to be immortal to see these things happen.
> 
> There is the point that in being immortal and therefore, by definition, realising that there was no such thing as life after death, that the human race might come to be a more caring and loving society. If loosing your life meant loosing everything, then you might hope that people took more care of themselves and others (Fat chance).


 
Is it not a question of one reaping what one sows? Do unto others as you would have others do unto you has always been my maxim and long may it continue. 

Immortality is indeed a pipe dream, and one I do not care to subscribe to. Preferring to respect and enjoy the company of others around me without hankering after a  
nonsensical notion.

If your wish is really for the human race to become a more caring and loving society, why portray yourself as such a harbinger of doom?

Let your love shine through.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 23, 2009)

Zina: It's a dirty job....


Ooops.


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## Pentagathus (Sep 23, 2009)

The idea of immortality seems pretty horrible to me. I don't have a problem with death, but I would of course prefer a long life first.


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## Interference (Sep 23, 2009)

Immortality: Before deciding what that means, it might be important to decide what Living means, or at the very least what our lives are.  It may very well turn out we are all already immortal.  Certainly, we can say our component parts can never be lost forever, but must in the end become something else.  That alone might be enough to qualify us to be considered Immortal.

Is consciousness one of those components?  Does consciousness morph into another form?  Or does it die with the brain?  In which case, is the immortality we seek an immortality of our souls?  I understand that most Religions maintain that the soul carries on into an after-life, so is that not already our immortality?

And if not, then surely immortality of consciousness would only seem desirable if the consciousness itself is worth holding onto, because, in most cases, its important features are regularly passed on between generations through genes and through teaching, anyway.  So, once more, the data suggest we are already immortal.

We live out our lives, doing our separate things, holding our separate beliefs, contributing our separate contributions, so in a sense, as long as the product of our lives succeeds us, we are immortal.

As features of a universe, we have already achieved immortality.  As modes of consciousness within a society, we will live forever, even if only in the minds of the species who learn about us after we've gone.

Or something ...


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 23, 2009)

ManTimeForgot said:


> Speculating on what is possible over several billion years seems a bit like hubris from where I am coming from.


Indeed...I was amused to read a recent piece by an astronomer warning that that in a billion years or so, the Sun would expand enough to make life on Earth impossible. He sounded quite alarmed. I laughed. At the present rate, humanity will be doing well to last for the next thousand years. Let alone a thousand thousand thousand...


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 23, 2009)

OK, this is where you all become convinced I'm a complete nutter and do your best to track me down so I can be safely put away for my own (and everybody else's) good.

I have a theory - bear with me.

First of all I don't believe in re-incarnation or previous lives or anything else other than you live, you die, you rot, and that's it. (and pretty soon too)

In the last few years I have been having rather strange dreams. (steady)

These dreams have me reliving a whole life. Sometime with snippets of my current consciousness, sometimes a completely different existence. The point is that in the dreams I start from an early age and continue into fairly old age. Sometimes I die in these dreams and sometimes I don't. In others something wakes me half way through the dream. In any case in these dreams I experience 50-60 years. Let me make this clear I wake up live a day fall asleep wake sleep wake sleep for years.

I also suffer from sleep apnea (so Mrs TEiN tells me) which I understand can lead to a high CO2 concentration in the blood which I also understand can lead to confusion and has been found by some studies to increase in transcendental meditation.

So here's the theory.

At the last gasping breath of somebody dying (say in their sleep) the CO2 levels increase and the brain starts to enter confused and meditation like state. In this state just as in my dreams the brain slows/speeds (could argue either way) it's conception of time and during those last fatal moments the brain squeezes in lifetimes of experiences both mundane and fantastic. It effectively might *appear* that in that period between between your last heartbeat and your brain actually ceasing to function, you live forever.

Now this brings us to the tricky part - If you die violently where your brain is not able to go through this process then that's it - No eternal like experiences for you.


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## paranoid marvin (Sep 23, 2009)

Life is so precious *because* it is so short. It 's what makes us human , and if I live for 85 years or so I will be content.


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## Interference (Sep 23, 2009)

The brain is a real tease, isn't it?


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## dustinzgirl (Sep 23, 2009)

What if you were immortal, but not disease/illness proof?


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## Interference (Sep 23, 2009)

Ah, I feel a Poe Moment coming on  ...

Imagine walking eternity as the carrier of every nasty ailment known to humanity.  Is that what _Masque Of The Red Death_ was about?


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## Granfalloon (Sep 24, 2009)

Okay, here's another few quotes by Woody Allen:

"Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down."

"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe, when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

But here is my favorite quote of all time, and I wish the b*gg*r who'd said it had lived longer. 

"Life is what happens while we're making other plans." 

- John Winston Lennon

By the way, why is this thread in the "Lounge"? Shouldn't it be in... Hmm... Where could we put it? 

The Twilight Zone! 

Interesting stuff about those dreams TIEN. Brought back the memory of a movie that's quite old now. It was called "Flatliners".


* Almost forgot: One thing has not been pointed out. People can live as long as science allows, but science isn't looking into ways for women to avoid menopause (That I know of). There's still only a limited time in which to make babies (at least the natural way! - and there's not many who'd want to miss out on that.)


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 24, 2009)

Granfalloon said:


> Almost forgot: One thing has not been pointed out. People can live as long as science allows, but science isn't looking into ways for women to avoid menopause (That I know of). There's still only a limited time in which to make babies (at least the natural way! - and there's not many who'd want to miss out on that.)


 Errm....how about all these 60+ year old mothers we're seeing now, then? It seems to me that extending the age at which women can bear children is making faster progress than increasing life expectancy.


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## Granfalloon (Sep 24, 2009)

> Errm....how about all these 60+ year old mothers we're seeing now, then? It seems to me that extending the age at which women can bear children is making faster progress than increasing life expectancy.



Okay, no problem. But I did say (That I know of). So, I now have two questions. 

1. What is the source of the information you are getting about 60+ mothers?

2. What percentage of the female population can actually do this?*
(Is it expensive? Is it limited in other ways?)


* On Wiki there is a list of only 15 women who have done this. The percentage calculation would result in a number that is so small it would have at least 9 zeros after the decimal point. (the current world population is nearly 7,000,000,000.)


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## ubik (Sep 25, 2009)

I would not even wish eternal life on my worst enemy! Life is short, and it's meant to be enjoyed. There's nothing enjoyable about living forever, the value of life would become worthless.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 25, 2009)

I can assure everyone that you don't think that way when you've a few centuries under your belt.


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 25, 2009)

Since the procedures to enable post-menopausal women to bear children have only recently been developed and are not yet widely available, it is hardly surprising that such cases are currently rare. However, that is irrelevant to my point, which is that these procedures *have* been developed, and *are* available. Which is more than can be said for life extension programmes.


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## Granfalloon (Sep 25, 2009)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> OK, this is where you all become convinced I'm a complete nutter and do your best to track me down so I can be safely put away for my own (and everybody else's) good.
> 
> I have a theory - bear with me.
> 
> ...




Sorry, I just couldn't leave this alone. It's very rich with material. Also, I noticed that I got the acronym wrong the first time, so I apologize (It's TEIN, not TIEN). 

I once had a philosophy teacher who posed an interesting question: When you dream, or even think, where is that process taking place? Most people say the brain, of course. He said okay, If we cut open the brain, do we "see" these dreams or thoughts? Well, no. They could be described as fairly minute electro-chemical transactions taking place by biologists, and doctors and the like. But how is it that these "electro-chemical transactions" are represented as pictures in our minds? The same way a computer does it, you might say. Fine, but _who_ is watching these pictures, and interpreting these thoughts? Is there another set of electro-chemical receptors that represents the receiver in your head? Yes, This is known as the "synapse". 
Here's an amazing fact: "The adult human brain is estimated to contain from 10 to the power of 14, to 5 × 10 to the power of 14 (100-500 trillion) synapses.[citation needed] Each mm3 of cerebral cortex contains roughly a billion of them." - Wiki

A great deal of the literature that exists concerning these processes are more concerned with the everyday (I will call it) survival mechanisms. They are the motor functions, and the sensory nerve signals that tells our brain about our interaction with the physical world or what may be going on within our physical body.

This articles implies that our brains already know what we are going to see -a split second before we see it. It says that is the difference between the human vision system and the "cam-corder".

HowStuffWorks "How does the brain create an uninterrupted view of the world?"

I can't find a great deal of information about studies on the process of "imagination" or dreams.  But here is some interesting info about "REM" sleep, and the stages that lead to it. 

Stages of sleep - WebMD

By the way TEIN, you should know that if you have sleep apnea, the "end" may indeed be nigh for you if you don't treat it. Sleep apnea is a condition wherein the brain "forgets" to tell the body muscles to breathe, as I'm sure you know, since you discussed the increased levels of carbon dioxide involved. What I don't know is whether you realize that the rest of your body is also being deprived of oxygen during those lapses in breathing, and this can cause damage to every organ in your body. The mask may be uncomfortable, and you may not be able to fall asleep with it on. This is common. Try finding a doctor who will get you some good drugs  that don't leave you all groggy in the morning. They do exist.

As for your theory about the "last moments", I don't see why a violent death should matter since what you are talking about is experiencing "lifetimes" in a second or less. It is well known that we may have thousands of dreams per second during REM sleep. 

What do I believe? I believe that this life is less real than the next one, but like Boneman said, I'd have to kill you to prove it to you. 

One last thing - The statistic on the oldest woman to have a natural childbirth was 57 years of age. The majority of women who've had babies after 50 did so by way of artificial insemination, including all of those who were over 60. So my original argument is still correct. They are not researching to find a way around menopause. What I also found is that because of the rise in women pursuing active careers, they are waiting longer to have children. So while I agree the population is increasing and it probably isn't a good idea to spend money and effort toward prolonging our lives, I maintain that the birth rates aren't increasing because of prolonged living.


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## Granfalloon (Sep 25, 2009)

> All in all, this hankering after eternal life looks like a worse idea the more I consider it. Our physical and mental development is constructed around the idea of seasons in life – of passing through stages from childhood through adolescence to adulthood, maturity and old age, before we shuffle off this mortal coil. Apart from the practical problems I've discussed, a major extension to the length of our lives may do nothing to improve the overall quality of our existence; and immortality of any kind (physical or virtual) would, I suspect, eventually turn out to be appalling.





> However, that is irrelevant to my point, which is that these procedures have been developed, and are available. Which is more than can be said for life extension programmes.



I'm not sure how to reconcile your points at this point.  On the one hand, you are saying that "life extension" should not be pursued, and then you say that they are not being pursued. So why all the fuss? I guess what you were saying is that it is being considered by some. Okay, who? Tell us more about the people who are suggesting the notion of life extension, then maybe we can understand _why _they think it should be pursued.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 25, 2009)

Grenfalloon:

Yes I know all about it - but the dreams are great  




(SLAP - Yes, I'm doing something about it - thanks for the concern though)

I once heard that there were more 'synaptic' connections in the human brain than atoms in the universe)


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 26, 2009)

Granfalloon said:


> I'm not sure how to reconcile your points at this point.  On the one hand, you are saying that "life extension" should not be pursued, and then you say that they are not being pursued. So why all the fuss? I guess what you were saying is that it is being considered by some. Okay, who? Tell us more about the people who are suggesting the notion of life extension, then maybe we can understand _why _they think it should be pursued.


 I did not say that it isn't being pursued - quite the opposite - I just said that it isn't available. No inconsistency there.

If you haven't found any info in this, it's because you haven't looked. I put "gerontology research" into google and came up with this immediately: Gerontology Research Group Index Page, as of [1997 - 2007]
There are lots of other such sites.


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## Granfalloon (Sep 27, 2009)

Anthony G Williams said:


> I did not say that it isn't being pursued - quite the opposite - I just said that it isn't available. No inconsistency there.
> 
> If you haven't found any info in this, it's because you haven't looked. I put "gerontology research" into google and came up with this immediately: Gerontology Research Group Index Page, as of [1997 - 2007]
> There are lots of other such sites.



I certainly did look, just not with the same "keywords" you used. I scoured the site you provided, and I could not find a single prevailing reason for the research. It seems as if they don't care _why _they are researching. It's as if it were out of pure curiosity. And I can't say that I like the idea of the grant money - people's tax money - going to pay for this. 

So, I sent an e-mail to the link titled "LA-GRG Co-Founder". The text of my e-mail follows:



> 'I have searched your web site, and I find no substantial answer to the question - Why should we live longer?
> 
> You say a lot about what, and how you are doing things, but not why. Could you please include in your "Mission statement", or your "Vision statement" the benefit not only to the individual who might experience a longer life, but to the entire human race in general? I don't mean to be pessimistic. I just want to know what benefit you see being gained from the result of your efforts. Will a person of extreme age necessarily contribute more to the world simply because they are older?  Perhaps we should be more concerned about the quality of every life on the planet before we consider prolonging the age of a privileged few.'


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## Granfalloon (Sep 27, 2009)

Anthony G Williams said:


> I did not say that it isn't being pursued - quite the opposite - I just said that it isn't available. No inconsistency there.
> 
> If you haven't found any info in this, it's because you haven't looked. I put "gerontology research" into google and came up with this immediately: Gerontology Research Group Index Page, as of [1997 - 2007]
> There are lots of other such sites.



I certainly did look, just not with the same "keywords" you used. Besides that point, this is what I said regarding looking for information: 





> I can't find a great deal of information about studies on the process of "imagination" or dreams. But here is some interesting info about "REM" sleep, and the stages that lead to it.



I scoured the site you provided, and I could not find a single prevailing reason for the research. It seems as if they don't care _why _they are researching. It's as if it were out of pure curiosity. 

So, I sent an e-mail to the link titled "LA-GRG Co-Founder". The text of my e-mail follows:



> 'I have searched your web site, and I find no substantial answer to the question - Why should we live longer?
> 
> You say a lot about what, and how you are doing things, but not why. Could you please include in your "Mission statement", or your "Vision statement" the benefit not only to the individual who might experience a longer life, but to the entire human race in general? I don't mean to be pessimistic. I just want to know what benefit you see being gained from the result of your efforts. Will a person of extreme age necessarily contribute more to the world simply because they are older?  Perhaps we should be more concerned about the quality of every life on the planet before we consider prolonging the age of a privileged few.'


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 28, 2009)

Granfalloon said:


> I scoured the site you provided, and I could not find a single prevailing reason for the research. It seems as if they don't care _why _they are researching. It's as if it were out of pure curiosity.
> 
> So, I sent an e-mail to the link titled "LA-GRG Co-Founder". The text of my e-mail follows:
> _'I have searched your web site, and I find no substantial answer to the question - Why should we live longer?
> ...


​ROFL! Let me know if you get an answer!

There's also this site: Longevity Science: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Longevity & Aging and this article: centenarians and longevity


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 28, 2009)

Think positive. If you play, you're bound to win the lottery at sometime, maybe even more than once.


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 28, 2009)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Think positive. If you play, you're bound to win the lottery at sometime, maybe even more than once.


 
Let's see now, if you play twice a week that's 100 times a year (using round numbers) so with the odds against winning at 14 million to one, that makes a total of 140,000 years. In fact, you could reasonably expect to win after only 70,000 years. So you'd certainly need immortality to stand much chance...but after 70,000 years you would have spent seven million pounds at a pound a time, so it had better be a big jackpot!


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## Ursa major (Sep 28, 2009)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Think positive. If you play, you're bound to win the lottery at sometime, maybe even more than once.


 
I hadn't realised that the short time we all had left was going to be quite that long.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 28, 2009)

Anthony G Williams said:


> Let's see now, if you play twice a week that's 100 times a year (using round numbers) so with the odds against winning at 14 million to one, that makes a total of 140,000 years. In fact, you could reasonably expect to win after only 70,000 years. So you'd certainly need immortality to stand much chance...but after 70,000 years you would have spent seven million pounds at a pound a time, so it had better be a big jackpot!


 
Ah but if you increase your chances every week, by having more than one ticket say 1000, then it would only be every seventy years. Seven million profit every seventy years should be enough to keep the wolves from the door. Plus this was't meant to be an intelectual exercise just an example how you could keep the boredom levels down. Opportunities for long term investment reailisations are by deffinition available. So making money shouldn't be a problem. Though see below>



Ursa major said:


> I hadn't realised that the short time we all had left was going to be quite that long.


 
Worry not Ursa. As I said above, merely an intellectual exercise.

The fact we all have so little time left is perhaps the best reason to cease research in this area. It will prove to be a total waste of time at *the end.*


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## Boneman (Sep 28, 2009)

Notwithstanding the debate on whether there is something afterlife or not... just supposing there is, and you die in your sleep, how do you know you're dead? You'd assume everything that was happening was a continuation of your dream, wouldn't you? And how do we know we haven't already died and all this is a self-determined dream? I remember coming out of the original Matrix film feeling decidely uneasy... 



> by TEIN
> _The fact we all have so little time left is perhaps the best reason to cease research in this area. It will prove to be a total waste of time at *the end.* _




Betcha the answer to your research comes just as you're slipping away into darkness - "Wait, wait, I have the answer. It's.............."


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 29, 2009)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Ah but if you increase your chances every week, by having more than one ticket say 1000, then it would only be every seventy years. Seven million profit every seventy years should be enough to keep the wolves from the door.


If you invested £1000 each time, twice a week, that's £100,000 pa. That means that you stand a reasonable chance of winning the jackpot after 70 years, but you've spent £7 million which could otherwise have been invested....and the current average size of the jackpot is only £2 million, so you'd face a £5 million loss.

Anyway, you wouldn't win every seventy years on average: the odds are 14 million to one, so you would win *on average* £2 million every 140 years after spending £14 million. It's just that in any 140 year period, you would stand a 50:50 chance of winning by half-way through.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Sep 29, 2009)

Ah  but you could reasonably expect to pick up a few 5+1 etc. prizes on the way - Fair point about the prize being only 2M though.

As for investing why bother - Just rob a gold depository every now and then - the sentence isn't going to be a problem and the state can feed you for twenty years while it gains interest. You'll meet a different class of people. win -win.


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## Ursa major (Sep 29, 2009)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> As for investing why bother - Just rob a gold depository every now and then - the sentence isn't going to be a problem and the state can feed you for twenty years while it gains interest. You'll meet a different class of people. win -win.


 
You wouldn't want to do something for which you might receive a life sentence, though, would you...?


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## Anthony G Williams (Sep 29, 2009)

An interesting issue: what what the punishment be in a world of immortals?

The logical - and economical - answer would be to leave all but the most dangerous free, but shorten their life expectancy by withdrawing the drugs or whatever method is used for life extension.

That reminds me of a spoof SF novel I read long ago called *Sexmax* (the title kind of sticks in the mind), concerning a future society which entirely revolved around sex (no, not this one!). Among many other things, people all received plastic surgery to make them beautiful and the men were all surgically enhanced. The standard punishment for men was "shortening"...


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## Ursa major (Sep 29, 2009)

Anthony G Williams said:


> The standard punishment for men was "shortening"...


 
I expect that when they went to Appeal, they had to be careful with their wording when asking for a shorter sentence....


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## Granfalloon (Oct 25, 2009)

Well, someone is certainly long on jokes around here. 

Anthony, I wanted to get back to you with the LA-GRG Co-Founder's reply. As might be expected, the reply follows: 



> I don't have time for a full response, but I'd like to point out:
> 
> 1. Who said that "life extension" was for just "a privileged few"? Gertrude Baines was a MAID and lived to 115, I don't think she would have reached that age without our modern system of caring for aged/elderly residents.
> 
> ...



I followed with a reply that included: :Okay, so what did Gertrude Baines (the maid) contribute to society as the result of living longer, that Albert Einstein did not? 

The reply I got back after that is not worth repeating as he regressed into insults and saying that I was "just like all  of the people who complain that we shouldn't have gone to the moon because we could have spent that money on the poor." I did make the point to him, however, that only if we also educate the poor, do we solve that problem, so that they can provide for themselves (i.e. "Teach a man to fish", etc.)  

I doubt that people's views can be changed so easily when they tend to hold onto their ideas so tightly. Besides, he's got a grant. What does he care as long as he gets paid?


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## Anthony G Williams (Oct 25, 2009)

Thanks for that. I don't agree with his comparisons with manned space exploration. I think that most people would accept this is a good thing to do, provided that we can afford it (which is doubtful). I am questioning whether significant life extension (and especially immortality) is something we should be doing even if we (technically and financially) could do so. 

I might add: what did Einstein contribute in the latter part of his life anyway? All of his great innovations were made as a young man - as is often the case, the mind tends to be more flexible then.


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## J-WO (Oct 26, 2009)

Ursa major said:


> I expect that when they went to Appeal, they had to be careful with their wording when asking for a shorter sentence....



You'd never make it stand up in court.


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## matt-browne-sfw (Oct 31, 2009)

ManTimeForgot said:


> That presumes that we don't find another universe to tap into at some point...  Speculating on what is possible over several billion years seems a bit like hubris from where I am coming from.
> 
> MTF



Well, if we find the means to travel the multiverse, the story is different. But will humans minds be welcome in other universes? And what about the multiverse version of Fermi's paradox? Where's everyone? Where are the time travelers from the dying universes escaping entropy? Well, SETI will keep listening ;-)


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## TheDustyZebra (Nov 29, 2009)

I'm reminded of a couple of old radio shows I heard when I was a kid. 

The first I was thinking of, while reading the earlier posts in this thread, was (I think) an episode of Inner Sanctum. It took place in a future where couples had to apply for a child permit, and if they were approved they received a card, either pink or blue, which they would use to redeem their child--I believe that babies were "tubed" and they would have to go and get the baby from where it was made, rather than having one the old-fashioned way. A baby was only allowed when someone died, so as to maintain zero population growth. This couple in the story received their card, and it was yellow. This meant that they had been chosen to receive a thawed person from the cryogenics bank, instead of a baby. These were people who had been frozen in the hope of a cure being found for whatever ailed them, many years in the past, and they were allowed to return on a limited basis in this way. So this couple picks up their unfrozen person, who turns out to be an old man. He comes to live with them, and it doesn't take much for him to figure out that he's not exactly wanted. He also figures out that he doesn't much like this world of the future, and I think he didn't even know he was going to be frozen back when it happened, so he starts trying to find a way to commit suicide so that they can reapply and get a baby next time. The only problem is that the world has become suicide-proofed (one reason for the high population, it's very hard to die) and he tries and tries. I won't put in a spoiler, but mostly because I can't remember how it ended anyway! It was a fascinating tale of what could happen with longevity becoming common and death far less common.

The other one I was reminded of in one of the last posts, probably with all due intention by Ursa Major:


> You wouldn't want to do something for which you might receive a life sentence, though, would you...?


 
Was that another Inner Sanctum, or something similar? I believe it was called "Elixir #4", about a man who invented an immortality potion. I think it was his son-in-law, maybe, who murdered him and drank the potion, only to end up being caught for the murder and sentenced to life in prison....


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## Boneman (Nov 29, 2009)

Yeah, I have a sneaky feeling I recall that book, DustyZebra, although it may have been in a previous life... but the worst of the worst of books was called 'Anton York - Immortal' and it was so awful it has become a classic. In the end (this isn't a spoiler, nothing can spoil the book, it was spoilt the moment it appeared) Anton York goes up a mountain and gets struck by lightning, deliberately, because he has nothing to live for, having been there, seen it, done it. I must admit I was severely tempted, when I finished the book...


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## Window Bar (Dec 3, 2009)

Anthony G Williams said:


> The standard punishment for men was "shortening"...



Yeah, well, I was framed!


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## dreamhunter (Dec 3, 2009)

Boneman said:


> Can you *kill yourself in the afterlife*? Hmm...
> 
> Unfortunately, as soon as cells no longer receive positive signals they commit suicide, so the *silly bleeders who spend a fortune to freeze themselves* cannot wake up, as all *their cells have committed suicide*.


But if someone could kill himself in his afterlife, he'd need a second afterlife, wouldnt he?

But if they've frozen themselves completely, their cells would freeze too, so they cant commit suicide yet, until they unfreeze. He he he.


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## J-WO (Dec 3, 2009)

dreamhunter said:


> But if someone could kill himself in his afterlife, he'd need a second afterlife, wouldnt he?
> 
> But if they've frozen themselves completely, their cells would freeze too, so they cant commit suicide yet, until they unfreeze. He he he.



Darn bureaucracy, even in death it won't let up!


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## Anthony G Williams (Aug 1, 2010)

This is a follow-up to my original post on the subject of the potential problems with the enthusiasm for immortality, which is stored as an article on my website here: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/OnImmortality.htm . I was reminded of this when reading reviews in the _New Scientist_ (10 July) of a couple of US-published books on this subject: *Long For This World: The strange science of immortality* by Jonathan Weiner, and *The Youth Pill: Scientists at the brink of an anti-aging revolution* by David Stipp.  

The reviewer of both books, S. Jay Olshansky, says of Weiner's book that it is "a brilliant exposé of the fascinating science that has emerged in the search for everlasting life, and the quacks, drunks and geniuses participating in one of the greatest shows on Earth". Weiner focuses on the more extreme wing of the anti-aging enthusiasts, the ones who wish to extend the lives of individual humans indefinitely. I had quite a lot to say about this in my article, and it is telling that Olshansky says of one of its most prominent proponents that "having no children himself, he sees no need for future immortals to have them either". As if…

Stipp's book concentrates on the less ambitious goal of producing a longevity pill which will extend the human lifespan by a limited but measurable amount. This is the realm of serious scientists conducting careful, evidence-based research. Success would still not be without problems, though, as I have mentioned; the impact on employment and retirement being among the obvious ones.

Other recent articles in the _New Scientist_ (one in the same 10 July issue) have discussed progress with identifying genetic differences between those who live to be 100 and those who don't. Scientists at Boston University have identified 150 elements in the genome which are far more common in centenarians than in those who die earlier, but their work only looked at people of white European descent and needs corroborating anyway. Even if this results in a useful outcome, such genetic indicators would clearly be only part of the story, since lifespan is also affected by environmental factors such as accident, disease, poverty and the abuse of drugs, alcohol and food. 

All considered, it seems likely that science will begin to come up with some answers to life extension in the foreseeable future. All the more reason for society to start debating the kind of issues which I raise in my article, rather than be taken by surprise by them.

(An extract from my SFF blog)


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## fruit (Aug 20, 2010)

its true to be the possible over the billion years


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## clovis-man (Aug 21, 2010)

I don't want to be too superficial in this interesting discussion, but I have to make the observation that Kage Baker has made a substantial contribution to the immortality dilemma with her "Company" series of novels and stories. The characters wrestle with their endless lives in some interesting and touching ways.

Ironically, Kage Baker, herself, died early this year after a short battle with cancer.


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