Is ageing a disease?
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The trick will be to somehow reactivate your telomeres, which are on the end of your chromosomes. It is theorized that as long as your telomeres are OK your cells will continue to regrow and renew themselves. But when the telomeres stop working, the cells in question don't regrow and healing becomes a serious issue.
Yes indeed, although most believe that we need a multipronged approach. There is telomerase therapy which is doing the rounds. Yet part of the problem in assessing therapies against ageing is that we do not have accurate biomarkers for a person's age. Many believe that a more robust measurement protocol is being developed by Calico, Google's $1bn funded biotech startup who's stated aim is to cure death. That can be used as a precursor to finding "cures." If you have to wait until someone actually dies, the whole assessment cycle takes too long in humans.
Is curing deatha a good thing? We are already planning for an ageing population, at the same time as the birth rate continues to grow in developed countries. So population is expanding at both ends of the age spectrum.
At the rate we consume resources, how much longer will it be before we outgrow planet Earth? 100 years, 200 years? Longer?
At the rate we consume resources, how much longer will it be before we outgrow planet Earth? 100 years, 200 years? Longer?
If you withhold treatment that keeps them alive, is that not the same as letting the train run over them as they are tied to the track? As you stand by the moral lever, would you not want to pull it? If you see someone in desperate need, would you not call the ambulance? That is a intervention to keep them alive.
The natural order throughout history was to die of infectious disease in your mid-thirties, on average. Couple that with huge infant mortality rates and you have the "natural order." Do you prefer the the "natural order" or the "evolved order"? What if we extended life by an extra year...is that a bad thing? Then another year and so on.
The natural order throughout history was to die of infectious disease in your mid-thirties, on average. Couple that with huge infant mortality rates and you have the "natural order." Do you prefer the the "natural order" or the "evolved order"? What if we extended life by an extra year...is that a bad thing? Then another year and so on.
Given the overpopulation of the planet, I fear that the cure for aging will be worse than the disease when taken as a whole. Which is worse? To die of old age or to die of starvation when a burgeoning population suddenly fills the world to overflowing with people and the food production services can't keep up? Or do we start eating Soylent Green? OR do we selectively apply the treatment, thus engendering yet ANOTHER class distinction - we already know the haves and the have-nots. Would we now add to that mix the live and the live-nots? And how would the eligibility decision be made? Who would want the job of telling someone, "No, we've decided you should die."? And how long would that decision-maker live before some angry thug says, "If I can't live, you won't either."?
And there is another consideration. Our brains though capacious are finite in storage and we don't currently have the tech to reconfigure our memory. We've discussed this in another thread. I am who I am because of my memories of life experience. Losing some of them would make me totally different than who I am today. Like that famous exchange in the movie Amadeus, the duke said the concerto had "too many notes - take some out." To which Mozart asked, "Which ones?" So what happens when the brain "fills up?"
I have heard of a couple of cases, possibly apocryphal but I don't think so, in which students hypnotized themselves to have a photographic memory so they could pass tests in college, but because it wasn't natural, they - in essence - overflowed their memory. They became savants in that you could quote a book title, page number, and specify a paragraph, and they would quite it to you. But they became unable to remember things via short-term memory and needed assistance to just get around. Essentially a brain overload.
So, we live for one hundred years? At least some people that old seem to have reasonable memories. Now let's double that. Do we even have room for two hundred years worth of life experiences? What about three hundred years?
In closing, I remember on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show that rag-time pianist Eubie Blake was a guest on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Johnny asked the obvious question, "Looking back over your life, is there anything you would have done differently?" To which that old gentleman answered without a moment's hesitation, <begin old man voice>"If I'd have known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."<end old voice>. The idea of a 100-year old man with that sharp a wit just devastated the audience - and Johnny Carson, too.
I don't think we are ready to have immortality.
And there is another consideration. Our brains though capacious are finite in storage and we don't currently have the tech to reconfigure our memory. We've discussed this in another thread. I am who I am because of my memories of life experience. Losing some of them would make me totally different than who I am today. Like that famous exchange in the movie Amadeus, the duke said the concerto had "too many notes - take some out." To which Mozart asked, "Which ones?" So what happens when the brain "fills up?"
I have heard of a couple of cases, possibly apocryphal but I don't think so, in which students hypnotized themselves to have a photographic memory so they could pass tests in college, but because it wasn't natural, they - in essence - overflowed their memory. They became savants in that you could quote a book title, page number, and specify a paragraph, and they would quite it to you. But they became unable to remember things via short-term memory and needed assistance to just get around. Essentially a brain overload.
So, we live for one hundred years? At least some people that old seem to have reasonable memories. Now let's double that. Do we even have room for two hundred years worth of life experiences? What about three hundred years?
In closing, I remember on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show that rag-time pianist Eubie Blake was a guest on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Johnny asked the obvious question, "Looking back over your life, is there anything you would have done differently?" To which that old gentleman answered without a moment's hesitation, <begin old man voice>"If I'd have known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."<end old voice>. The idea of a 100-year old man with that sharp a wit just devastated the audience - and Johnny Carson, too.
I don't think we are ready to have immortality.
I'm all about life and living.
History is being rewritten daily. And so the evolved order becomes the natural order. But in both situations (evolved and natural) there is a point where life is extinguished.
By all means, do everything necessary to extend life - but have the infrastructure in place to cope with the expansion.
History is being rewritten daily. And so the evolved order becomes the natural order. But in both situations (evolved and natural) there is a point where life is extinguished.
By all means, do everything necessary to extend life - but have the infrastructure in place to cope with the expansion.
Bee, how about we stop all medical science? How about giving up on our attempts to stop disease? Close down hospitals. For essentially, that is what all these attempt to do, improve quality of life and quantity of life.
It sounds like this gentleman would like a few more years.
On a less flippant note, the US has 1/80th of the population density of the UK. There is plenty of room there. Then we build up, then underground. Eventually, we all live as just brains in a vat of fluid, connected to a machine interface living in virtual reality.
The brain filling up thing doesn't hold water. We are designed to forget. Every day, we suffer the biological decay of our synapses. Memories forgotten to history. In fact our whole body is in constant flux. Our liver cells are regenerated, skin, and so on. We are not static but evolving dynamic beings. We retain memories that are important to us, yet why not forge some new ones over the next 500 years?
It sounds like this gentleman would like a few more years.
On a less flippant note, the US has 1/80th of the population density of the UK. There is plenty of room there. Then we build up, then underground. Eventually, we all live as just brains in a vat of fluid, connected to a machine interface living in virtual reality.
The brain filling up thing doesn't hold water. We are designed to forget. Every day, we suffer the biological decay of our synapses. Memories forgotten to history. In fact our whole body is in constant flux. Our liver cells are regenerated, skin, and so on. We are not static but evolving dynamic beings. We retain memories that are important to us, yet why not forge some new ones over the next 500 years?
The point being is that if you extend life and don't stop extending life you end up essentially curing death. The moral implications of letting people die when they are in good health don't warrant thinking about.
Yes, the infrastructure needs to be there. But the population grows only very slowly if you cure death. As technology improves, so does the ability to feed everyone. I want to say the ability to provide shelter too, but we have a terrible housing crisis in the UK. Part of that problem is land is so expensive.
Yes, the infrastructure needs to be there. But the population grows only very slowly if you cure death. As technology improves, so does the ability to feed everyone. I want to say the ability to provide shelter too, but we have a terrible housing crisis in the UK. Part of that problem is land is so expensive.