The Immortals' Club Options

[Greeneyes]

Let's just say I'm not planning on dying. And I didn't just start making predictions yesterday

If I can make it to 110, I reckon I'll have at least a 50:50 chance of making ot to 1000

There was an interesting article in New Scientist this week, and I'd quite like to hear people's opinions on the matter. It is as the title suggests: a group of people of are planning on living forever. Just to sum it up, there are two ideas of how this will work, one by a man called Ray Kurzweil, and another by Aubrey de Grey.

De Grey's method is a theoretical one that concentrates on solving the biological problems that case ageing, which has apparently been broken down into 7 categories, which he believes will be solved (for mice at least) within 10 years.

Kurzweil's method is, in my opinion, a little more interesting. Instead of curing the problems of ageing, his idea is to use a 'bridge' method, which is like hanging on for as long as you can. Basically, it's a case of using the best method for life enhancement available at the time, before switching to something better when it becomes available. The first bridge is just keeping healthy (Kurzweil doesn't drink, smoke, or even have caffeine, and takes about 150 dietary supplements a day). The next bridge is technology to detect early the onset of things such as cancer. The third foreseeable bridge is, as the article puts it, 'a little more far fetched'.

Kurzweil imagines a personalised army of nanoscale robots that would replace his digestive system, extracting the optimum amount of nutrition from the food he eats and delivering it directly to every organ and tissue in his body.

Borg, anyone? Ahem.

Anyway, I was just wondering what people thought of these ideas, particularly Kurzweil's. Do you think they are realistic? Would you like to live forever? How would it affect society? and so on.

Discuss. Resistance is futile.

[Polocrunch]

Well, I'd say that the latter was a pretty good idea if you want to live forever. However, I think Kurzweil might die before the appropriate technologies become available. Still, a lot of us might be able to follow his plan and live beyond a century. Question is: can we be bothered?

[gothictheysay]

Eep, just think of the population problems with people living forever! Well, not forever, but for a long time. I'd rather be dead when the sun explodes, thankyouverymuch. It still sounds too "out there" for me, but technology is an amazing thing...

[mooooooooooopo]

There's the possibility of a huge class divide too - people who can afford to live for ever, on one side, the rest on the other side. That could get pretty nasty - how do you distribute the right to life (well, more life).

*has been reading too much Kim Stanley Robinson*

[sjbbandgeek]

At what point would Kurzweil be more machine than human?

[Greeneyes]

At what point would Kurzweil be more machine than human?

If you're asking what I think you are, then no idea. So far as I know, Kurzweil's approach has only identified the first three steps so far.

[Novander]

I don't think it will ever be possible. Yes, I'm sure they'll be able to slow the aging process considerably, but to stop it altogether will always remain science fiction.

But even if they did breakthrough and find a way to live forever, I don't think I'd want it. Within a few hundred years the world would have changed far too much, and I wouldnt be able to cope, Armand-style. Plus, I quite like the fact that no matter what mistakes I make, everyone will have forgotten them in 200 years.

[Greeneyes]

I don't think it will ever be possible. Yes, I'm sure they'll be able to slow the aging process considerably, but to stop it altogether will always remain science fiction.

Ah, but would you match your word up to a scientists? On what basis do you think it will never be possible?

[Novander]

I'm not religious, so don't read anything spiritual into this: I simply don't think that life is meant to go on forever, and thus no matter what scientist try they will never be able to truly stop aging.

But no, having done no research on this, and knowing very little about the actual biology of it, I was trying to swing the conversation in the direction of 'do you want to live forever, and how would that affect society?' But its your thread, so give me a little while to do some reading and I'll hopefully have something to back up my original statement.

[Greeneyes]

Not at all, that's part of the discussion as well. I was just wondering as to why you thought it.

[Polocrunch]

I think that Novander is right that no-one is ever going to live 'forever' in the literal sense. Obviously that's pretty much impossible. However, I suspect that he will be proved wrong about science being able to stop ageing. I predict that eventually (within a couple of hundred years tops) scientists will be able to halt the ageing process completely, and people will effectively be able to choose their age and appearances at their whim, leading to some quite radical changes to some humans. The average body plan may stay the same, but within half a millennium even that could end. Who knows what eventually will happen to humans, particularly if they have enormously long lifespans in which to experiment with different bodies.

[Calantyr]

When the stars are properly aligned, flay one hundred screaming individuals and sacrifice them to Great Lord Cthulhu.*


*Does not take responsibility for resulting sanity loss. And/or incarceration or death sentance.

[Mata]

I think that Moop's got an interesting point in regard to the social implications of this. There would be, to begin with at least, a social divide of those that can afford it and those that cannot.

I'm interested in what happens after that. I don't think it would be too far-fetched for people to one day see living without radical anti-aging treatments as being a virtuous thing, but this raises a ver Gibsonian point: where do you draw the line on what is radical anti-aging? Technically, anything that extends your life beyond the average for the first homo-sapiens is an artificial extension, even more so if you have problems that would have effected your survival in the wild, such as very poor eyesight.

We are all already living with life-extending technology. I have immunity to many diseases that would probably have killed me or a significant number of people my age. I am tall and strong due to the varied diet that is available to me through technology. We are having this conversation through techonology, and the people who will prevent the future diseases are most likely using the same tools.

I think that we have already gone so far towards being cyborgs that we won't actually notice any of this happening.

[artist.unknown]

We are all already living with life-extending technology. I have immunity to many diseases that would probably have killed me or a significant number of people my age. I am tall and strong due to the varied diet that is available to me through technology. We are having this conversation through techonology, and the people who will prevent the future diseases are most likely using the same tools.

With the number of things that are wrong with me, I should have been dead more times over than Super Mario. So I can see medicine has clearly come a very long way. However, the life expectancy hasn't really gone up in developed nations, because we're crapping up the environment and our bodies at the same rate as we're coming up with new ways to save people. So for every new heart medicine there's a new McDonald's, and for every vaccine there's a new superbug due to the water being saturated with antibiotics, and for ever new cancer treatment there are new carcinocens being pumped into the atmosphere, and on and on. So really, tragically, all medicine has ended up doing is keeping pace with our self-induced environmental hazards.

The idea of living forever by willing it reminds me of Sandman.

[snooodlysnoosnoo...]

From moop and Mata's points, do you think that eventually there would be no young people?
Everyone would become so obsessed with living longer that they stopped caring about procreation? I mean, you wouldn't need heirs(sp?) or have to worry what would happen to your estate if you didn't have a child to take over from you when you died.

[Greeneyes]

Hmm. I wouldn't think so. I mean, I realise attitudes might change, but who can honestly say that their resoning for having a child was to ensure the survival of their species? As far as I know, people have children because they want to be parents, and by accident, and to be honest, everyone in the world losing interest in sex is beyond my comprehension. I could maybe see how people might start to focus on different things though.

[Moosh]

From moop and Mata's points,  do you think that eventually there would be no young people?
Everyone would become so obsessed with living longer that they stopped caring about procreation? I mean, you wouldn't need heirs(sp?) or have to worry what would happen to your estate if you didn't have a child to take over from you when you died.

But in such a society what would you term as 'young people'? If everyone lived forever then I don't think people would be obsessed with living. I think they would rather take it for granted, that everyone lives like that and would just get on with their lives.

Personally I don't think I would like to live past about 300. By that time I would have doe pretty much everything it is possible for me to do. And I would just be bored

[Greeneyes]

I'd also like to add, just because I forgot before, that there is speculation as to whether the methods will work in preserving the mind as well as the body.

[Novander]

I'd also like to add, just because I forgot before, that there is speculation as to whether the methods will work in preserving the mind as well as the body.

It would be an interesting psychological study to see how a human copes with 300 years worth of memories.

[Greeneyes]

It would be an interesting psychological study to see how a human copes with 300 years worth of memories.

Aye. Would give a new meaning to 'Longitudinal'.

Edit: </spam>

[Polocrunch]

Interestingly, both of the authors Iain Banks and Kim Stanley Robinson have come up with similar ages for the maximum optimum human lifespans: in the low hundreds. I think that I could last a pretty long time - far beyond four hundred years, which Banks suggested (albeit semi-seriously in his science fiction novels) - and not get bored. After all, society would move on, times would change. You'd be able to stand for political office, learn entire sciences, master new skills, become an expert in any number of fields; and as humanity advanced, more fields would open up to explore and study. I reckon I could keep myself occupied for centuries and centuries - and remember, it can take decades to become the leading light in a given speciality. What's to become bored about?

[artist.unknown]

It would be an interesting psychological study to see how a human copes with 300 years worth of memories.

Anyone read Dirk Gently's Holostic Detective Agency? It brought up something like that that I'd never thought of before. He pointed out that although you might be able to prolong somebody's life for an incredible amount of time, by whatever real or imaginary means, but that wouldn't increase the human capacity to remember. Theoretically there's a large percentage of the brain that's unused that could be put to work (70% or summat), but going by natural trends of memory storage I think that's unlikely unless science comes up with a way to simultaneously cope with that. I'm seventeen and there are already memories from ten years ago that I'm getting very fuzzy on. By the time you're 80 there are so many faces and events to remember that you go a bit wonky before letting go. Even if it were possible to live to 300, you'd be such a basketcase I don't know if it'd be worth it.

[Greeneyes]

Anyone read Dirk Gently's Holostic Detective Agency? ...

...I'm seventeen and there are already memories from ten years ago that I'm getting very fuzzy on. By the time you're 80 there are so many faces and events to remember that you go a bit wonky before letting go. Even if it were possible to live to 300, you'd be such a basketcase I don't know if it'd be worth it.

Yeap, but I think I completely missed that bit. And psychological studies have shown that people's memory is 'fuzzy' after a week, if not before. It's actually rather disturbing just how terrible memory is. It gets distorted by stereotypes, gaps get filled in. You can even get memories 'implanted'. There was one case of note (not entirely relevant, but it proves a point), of a girl who remembered being raped. It came up in court that she was obviously (in a physical manner) a virgin, which goes to show just how easily your memory can be altered anyway.

I would have imagined that this was one of the problems (memory going with age) that de Grey is hoping to solve, though the article wasn't specific.

[Mata]

Is it worth pointing out that no-one would ever be allowed to retire? Pensions could never be paid up fully, so everyone would have to stay at work. The best solution might be that people are allowed to take a 20 year pension period every forty years... But it would still be a major shift in the financial organisation of the planet.

In reference to Greeneyes' comment 'who can honestly say that their resoning for having a child was to ensure the survival of their species?', I think you may be underestimating the strength of the reproductive urge in humans. We are still animals, and so I think we will still want to breed.

[Mr Fuzzy]

Unending life would most likely make one rather jaded.

Plus, the act of reproduction does have its moments.