Comments on: Is there a biological limit to longevity?

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:53:15 +0000

check out http://www.sens.org and help with defeating the disease we currently call aging

By: Robert M

Robert M — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 20:04:59 +0000

So in your thinking, our ancestors should have stayed on the trees, eating bananas? If so, what are you doing here, using written language, computers and the Internet, futuristic artifacts created by those who left the tree, seeking newer and newer boundaries, creating things that were off limit once?

By: Robert M

Robert M — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 20:00:14 +0000

It’s nitpicking because, acquiring an indefinite lifespan buys enough time to figure out the rest. If you think an indefinite lifespan is possible (rejuvenation or whatever technique) than you must be optimistic enough to think that science won’t just stop after achieving it. Accidents can be protected against; and while thermal cooling of the entire universe may be impossible to avoid in ~10Bn years, maybe life experience can be accelerated, where you feel you lived one year in one second, and if you ask me, a few thousand years sound fine for me anyway. Also, with post-singularity things like alterable mental faculties, maybe you’ll have a different experience of time, life and a lot of things. For all these reasons, indefinite life vs. immortality is a false dichotomy at the moment. so don’t worry about others confusing these two.

By: Chrispium

Chrispium — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:54:13 +0000

Like we have offshore banking we need offshore research and development, outside the grasp and control of crazy religionists and their vote following politicians.

By: yawni

yawni — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 07:48:20 +0000

I’m considering the prospect of birthing my own clone who I am hopeful will be generous enough to share stem cells and such with me for purposes of rejuvination, reconstruction, etc., for so long as this extends longevity, if at all, then might be receptive to downloading (uploading?) my persona into any remote and unused portion of her brain to share, like an apartment, or loft, until the legal and medical impediments to a full body transplant are ironed out and I can, again, afford “my own place”.

Oh, did I fail to mention the social, religious and political obstructions needing to be dealt with here?

In reality what we all need is the desire and mindset to declare war on death.

The greatest obstacle to a realization of less limited longevity is our own inhibition and antiquated belief that something other than ourselves is in control of our destiny…

“Live forever or die trying”

By: Chrispium

Chrispium — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 23:56:18 +0000

Not the transhuman goal. At least not as I understand it.

By: pemicool

pemicool — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 23:02:06 +0000

I think too many people confuse indefinite lifespan with immortality. I’m not a specialist on this subject but my opinion is that immortality is impossible to reach while indefinite lifespan isn’t. Even if medicine and biotechnology prolongs our lifespan considerably; even if treatments become increasingly efficient accidents and natural catastrophes will still exist and will still pose a threat to human life.

Everytime I hear folks talking about immortality while mentioning cloning I think «what the **** are you saying! Even if you could make dozens of clones after you it wouldn’t mean you’d become immortal! It would only mean your genetic program would be replicated, like a delayed twin in time. For me immortality requires a continum of the “self” – the subject who experiences life in a continuous uninterrupted process, except for sleeping of course.

By the way: if by immortality one means becoming digitally immortal by means of a digital replication of the entire contents of one’s brain (the transhuman movement goal?) then don’t count on me. For the present the only “immortality” that pleases me is the complete and indefinite rejuvenation and enhencement of our human body.

By: melis256

melis256 — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:31:44 +0000

Well that is only in the beginning when the tech is expensive but also fairly unreliable. Today, everyone has a cellphone of some sort and in the future the refinement and cost distribution time will get shorter and shorter as development speed increases.
-
All of the three scenarios are very plausible to occur but will most likely happen in overlapping succession over the next 30 years;
Todays tech→ }B → }N → }A.

By: Eli

Eli — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:23:27 +0000

Except the universe, weird. Thank you Aubrey for fighting this battle for us. We shall all owe you a immense debt if we end up extending our stay on this glorious Earth.

By: rob falgiano

rob falgiano — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:08:05 +0000

I feel there are several keys to longevity. Exercise for sure. I swim regularly and aggressively. Drinking a ton of water. Protein-based diet with room for fun stuff like great belgian beers. Living a joyful, generous life, as I believe mental state is directly reflected in body health. Developing spiritual awareness and connectivity.

By: rob falgiano

rob falgiano — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:03:02 +0000

If biological immortality becomes achievable it will not be uniformly enjoyed. The human race will basically split into immortals and mortals. The wealthiest will represent the bulk of the immortals.

I’m not sure which is more likely – the scenario I described above or the integration of technology into the body that leads to a form of immortality. Or Ray’s version of digitizing the brain and copying it over to the digital immortal realm, and basically abandoning the fragile human body.

Either way, what it means to be human is going to be greatly changed, challenged, debated as we go forward. And it’s gaining on us.

By: random

random — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 00:49:25 +0000

Think about it. Our germ-line cells have not aged since the beginning of life and this is true considering that children are not born old. It is known that the cell is potentially immortal. The trick is to get the rest of the body (somatic cells) behaving in the same manner. I think in the future it will be possible to let an AI analyze your genome to optimize it towards full “agelessness”.

By: Matt Reagan

Matt Reagan — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:59:19 +0000

You’re a genius, Aubrey. I think you’d make more progress getting funding from these Neanderthals by telling them you’re trying to cure age-related diseases and getting them all sentimental about their grandmas.

By: trakk

trakk — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:48:46 +0000

There is a limit to everything in the universe.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 15:47:11 +0000

@Turk: Transcending biology can be interpreted different ways and is not an exclusive term. Transcending biology in the way you propose, by surviving by transcending to a non-organic, engineered substrate is definitely transcending biology. But transcending biology can also be interpreted as defying our pre-programmed destiny of biological death by tweaking and manipulating the biological substrate. In that sense we are transcending our biological fate, if not our actually biological substrate itself.

I don’t really like the word transcendence though. It smacks too much of some kind of abrupt rapture.

I think its a transition more than an abrupt transcendence. We get adept at manipulating our biology, both genome and phenotype, and we also transition to an engineered, non-naturally evolved substrate that better fits our goals as beings that want to continue to survive and advance creatively and intellectually.

By: Cari Tompkins

Cari Tompkins — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:46:11 +0000

When I was younger, I thought that by now they would have found a way to inmortality. Now that I am closer to the final exit, recently I had to face the facts and realized that life is a program like that of a computer. When an egg joins a sperm, the program begins. We are born, grow, get older, and finally die. The secret of im\nmortality lies in breaking the code to the program. The problem is that biologists are mainly the ones working on it. If biologists would team up with computer programmers, maybe they would succeed. There are also big entities who don’t want to cure diseases or people to be inmortal. What would happen to the medical industry?

By: james

james — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:22:32 +0000

Fascinating. Maybe we can replace our brains, which are becoming obsolete, with neural nets or simply ‘upload to the system’?

By: Wolf Sage

Wolf Sage — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 04:32:14 +0000

FaustianOne, Thank you!

By: Wolf Sage

Wolf Sage — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 04:30:05 +0000

Dan, Thank you!

By: Bri

Bri — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 23:33:03 +0000

Ray said it best in his book. Every day you are replacing your atoms. Some parts regenerate more quickly. The problem is errors. Extraneous macros opic control could correct that, or that is to say, looking in from the outside, errors could be fixed by sufficient technology. That tech is around the corner. How long we live for is another matter, or if you want to live in the current expression of humanity. Soon you won’t need your body, but what does it mean to be human?

By: Kyle Rybski

Kyle Rybski — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:47:29 +0000

I don’t understand, either. Why would the degeneration of the brain be exempt from the effects of eliminating the degeneration inflicted by aging?

By: FaustianOne

FaustianOne — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:04:32 +0000

Fact #1: more than 50% of humans are ready to pay up to 5% of their wealth to get disease free as long as they want (see: medical insurance)
Fact #2: there are more than 1,200 billionaires in the world
See what that person needs to do? Just contact some of these billionaires and promise them that the one who put funds in that discovery will be the first to benefit from it …

By: silentrage

silentrage — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:23:06 +0000

Someone tell me if this logic is sound.
If we observe no squaring effect, then it’s likely that aging is completely about wear and tear, which means it’s only a matter of time until we can repair the damage faster than it can accumulate.
On the other hand, if we observe a significant squaring effect, regardless of improvements in medicine and maintenance, then it’s likely that aging is completely genetically programmed, which means it’s only a matter of time until we figure out the genes responsible.

In reality, it’s probably a mixture of the 2, and some other things like epigenetics, but however you look at it, it seems to be only a matter of time.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 05:40:40 +0000

Venture Capitalists. If they had ” made a groundbreaking discovery that enabled humans to live full, healthy, sensitive, and disease free for as long as they want, and the said discovery is authentic,would pass peer review, and can be implemented in less than 1 year” they would very easilty get $36M from VCs.

By: Wolf Sage

Wolf Sage — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:08:07 +0000

If someone made a groundbreaking discovery that enabled humans to live full, healthy, sensitive, and disease free for as long as they want, and the said discovery is authentic,would pass peer review, and can be implemented in less than 1 year, where could that person get $36,000,000 to build the organization, staff, equipment, and facilities needed to offer the the service to humans who want to extend their lifetimes? I would be grateful for all very serious, honest, and authentic guidance on this matter.

By: Chrispium

Chrispium — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 01:56:17 +0000

@GatorALLin
Here’s a link to http://www.fightaging.org/
Site contains tonnes of good advice on anti-aging and research. It also has quite a good list of links to yet other sites on the issue of living indefinite lives.

The editor is very good at avoiding hype and keeping it scientific. His articles always has source listed.

When I first got interested in anti-aging the first sites I found wanted to hock commodities to me and often the reason for this or that product was based in more or less pseudoscience. It was only much later I learned to rely on PubMed and other reputable science sites that I found the Fightaging website.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 01:04:48 +0000

I’m trying to understand your reasoning — are you saying extra long lives must produce insanity? Why would you think so? The average life span used to measure in the 30s, now it’s more than double that, but we aren’t all (clinically) insane, are we? Why do you expect it to be different if you live to a few hundred years?

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 19:26:10 +0000

Don’t worry about over-population GatorALLin. Earlier this week there was an article in this newsletter about using graphene filters for desalinization by reverse osmosis. Long before the world gets too crowded, all the empty deserts will be able to bloom and be inhabited.

By: Khannea Suntzu

Khannea Suntzu — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:54:58 +0000

I can’t envision it otherwise that “fairly soon” (decades probably) average serendipitous progress alone should make living indefinite a fairly “affordable” proposal. Shortly after we’ll even see “living indefinite” enriched with rejuvenation, and physical dignity. Maybe even fun.

What I do dread is the envelope of sustainability of the human sentience. Human minds function in sanity envelopes bordered with mere decades. Extend the mind beyond those decades, and some pretty severe forms of insanity ensue, either causally disfunctional (the mind breaks) or adaptive (the mind keeps functioning because of its inherent evolved pathology). This is terrifying, because if we develop means to deal with that, we automatically step into completely alien realms of mind.

A human (-derived) mind that blissfully persists two centuries (and stays functional while doing so) is a pretty terrifyingly alien mind.

Can’t wait to become one. But it won’t be a pretty ride getting there.

By: IC

IC — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:52:12 +0000

While the singularity hypothesis predicts rapid changes in society, I don’t think that medical science should be ruled out in procuring those changes. The growing field of regenerative medicine, while mired in the culture or preventative care, will lead to advancements that could prolong biological life indefinitely; albeit at a cost.

By: GatorALLin

GatorALLin — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:29:04 +0000

…. also would love to hear some ideas/comments on what people are doing to extend their max lifespan… or at least try to be alive when we can extend the average lifespan by more than a year in the next 12 months… (ha, live forever if your lucky to be alive at that point in the technology/singularity curve). Anyone here take redwine pills or do some low calorie diet? I am a fan of these btw. http://www.longevinexadvantage.com/

here is one of the better quick overview ted.com videos about where to start on better health if your already too busy the other 23..5 hours of each day. http://ed.ted.com/on/Mot8KdLT

By: GatorALLin

GatorALLin — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:23:04 +0000

I often see some comments related to future population concerns if we got everyone to extend their lifespan… before that happens here, thought this new ted.com video on what the stats were of future population (hint: it maxes out at 10 billion) and worth a view if you have not already seen this one or fell in love with ted.com videos and sharing of ideas http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html

By: Melanie

Melanie — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:14:00 +0000

While Dr Grey’s paradigm shift regarding the purpose of medicine to transcend biology is fundamental in our species shift towards physical immortality, its premise is founded on the assumption of biological limitation. The shifts in shape of survival graphs from elongation to the apparently limiting rectangle and back to elongation in and of itself suggests that culturally limiting factors are in play. The human species believes that we have to die and society has created elaborate financial, medical, behavioral and belief systems that support death. As we dismantle the belief in the inevitability of death, the survival graph will shift back to elongation. Technology and medicine will have a part to play, but desire drives need which creates advancement. Those of us who truely see the future of humanity as physically immortal, unlimited and free of death need to be discussing the bigger picture of not just how we get there but what happens when we do. To end death we need to end the death wish, individually and societally.

By: Turk

Turk — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:45:22 +0000

Ugh, my iPad doesnt like letting me edit sentences….

Mechanical “intervention” on behalf of biology can be considered, for it’s intents and purposes, medicinal.

Speaking of edits … Can we get an edit feature for these comments? Haha

By: Turk

Turk — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:38:45 +0000

I thought concepts like the Singularity were about transcending biology…making biological decay, sickness, and disease less relevant to the survival of the brain and “personality”. Medicine in its current form seems to be about preserving, not transcending, biology.

Treating mechanical “intervention” on behalf of biology can be considered,, for its intents and purpose, medicinal. To me, THAT is transcending biology.