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Ending Aging
Will people in the future suffer mid-life crises at the age of 100? Many biologists believe that someday we will be able to substantially slow down the aging process, but Dr. Aubrey de Grey is perhaps the most bullish of all such researchers. Dr. de Grey believes that the biomedical technology – that may eliminate aging-derived debilitation and even death entirely – is now within reach. Ending Aging explains the process of aging, and how this biotechnology may reverse age-related decay.
Ending Aging is available for purchase at amazon.com
Weigh in: If you could dramatically slow down or even stop your aging process, would you do it?
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Of course I would and I would find ever more to do and appreciate for the experience.
Mortality is not natural or even necessary it is simply the next obstacle for us to overcome. It is a consequence not a cause. We should not accept it just because it is our experience.
Don;t FORGET about WALT DISNEY and that ball player (ted williams?), whose HEADS ahve been deep frozen (in NITROGEN)
so they can be thawed in the future!
Mortality is natural; its not an "obstacle". You can't overcome the second laws of thermodynamics, no matter how optimistic and positive you want to be.
Besides, its important that we live forever so we can kill one another in wars, exploit the labor of others, rape every natural resource we possibly can and believe humans are the center of the universe.
I WOULD NOT want to live indefinitely. Those who think they do should try thinking a little deeper about the life they already have in the present.
Regarding the comment that "Watson and Crick" made significant contributions without being in the lab, it would be important to emphasize that Rosalind Franklin was the one who did the important lab work and that her efforts were essential to identifying the structure of DNA.
http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html
Absolutely. The longer we can extend our healthy lives, the more options we have in our careers, to see our families grow, to see some of the great changes that may take place in the future, etc.
The idea that we could still be alive and healthy enough to see our GREAT grandchildren grow up to become adults or even later is fascinating.
Isn't this why kids are assigned Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" in high school? -- just because science CAN DO something doesn't mean it should.
But maybe all those public high school programs were privatized and they read "The Fountainhead" now.
Great! I think most everyone would say they would not want to die if they were being honest. I just hope that these types of "anti-aging" therapies are available in my lifetime. Might have to make a donation to mprize.org to help things along. ;)
Im deeply disappointed of Leonard to constantly bringing religious point of view. It is nonsense. Religion should be banned. It has no common ground with science and should be threated as fair tales for morons.
Did anyone here ever read "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf? Good god, the ignorance.
Why would you want to live forever? To develop relationships over time only to watch friends and family die while you remain the same? Eventually becoming an unfeeling monster unable to empathize with the pain, loss and suffering of which life is inextricably tied? Are you really so shallow?
Did anyone notice Leonard pointing out Samuel Butler making the residents of Erewhon's views on aging as satirical, and the guest didn't understand what he was talking about?
The literal mind yet again fails the world.
Jan, Aubrey is not religious. (in fact he is agnostic) I assume you aren't talking about him?
Trevor, who said that anyone would grow old? Everyone will be able to stay the same age, including your family and friends.
Trevor the real monster of Shelly's novel wasn't the creation of science, it was the brutal bigoted behavior of the mob that the ignorant villagers became in their bias.
It was the monster in each of us that Shelley exposed through the literary device of a *monster of man's making*.
We don't need to worry about longevity to discover that beast.
Mortality is not *natural* just because it is the way things are. There are species that live very long times and do not age significantly in the manner we do.
Just heard the segment on the online broadcast. After googling a bit about for Aubrey de Grey, it appears this guy is serious and pretty well respected. (articles on him done on 60 Minutes, in Popular Science, and all kinds of other stuff)
Here is wishing him best of luck with his efforts! When he is successful, he will be responsible for saving more lives than anyone else who has ever lived. Good stuff!
Trevor, Aubrey knew exactly what Leonard was saying about Erewhon (nowhere), his point was that he does consider aging a disease.
It is a disease; the sum total of destructive impacts on the body and mind. We are more resilient than that and we can do something to remedy this problem.
Trevor, no one is forcing you to stay healthy, young, and vital. You are free to grow old or die at any time.
Please don't force me to do the same.
Well, first of all I doubt everyone would be able to cease the aging process-- if people are condemned to work in factories or quickie marts for decades, then they will probably not let the gentry "immortals" live so harmoniously. Secondly, if only the rich can afford such measures, then one would hope the poor would do whatever they could to stop them.
So all my friends and families remain ageless and are around forever? That is not a future I want any part of.
No but seriously, death and change are a part of life. They are not dualities.
Technology will not save you, no matter how much "faith" you put into myopic research like this.
Death and change are realities, but they are distinct entities. Change happens whether you live 10 years, 50, 100, or a 1,000 years. It is one of the great things about being alive.
We will not be able to end death completely, but we certainly can change the DEATH RATE. Humans have been doing this since we first walked upright. Finding ways to live longer is probably as old on activity as prostitution. I don't see why we should stop now.
Of course I want to live indefinently. Why would I want to spend eternity with no senses to sense existence with or way to communicate with it when there could be the possibility through "ending aging" that I could?
People who want to die because "oh, theres war, and crappy jobs." Are naive. I can just imagine them chatting in the ether before they were born. "Hey, my mom is going to give birth to me soon," "No donny!! fight it!! fight it!! there are bullys out there and you may end up having to work at walmart! Its not worth it!!"
I don't begrudge people health, happiness or longevity.
I'm saying the notion of immortality is absurd on many levels, and that people should probably be reminded they are living the one life they have right now. Becoming reconciled to death does reflect to a certain degree a mature wisdom technology and science don't really take into account: just ask J. Robert Oppenheimer.
And as for everyone ganging up on me, so much for Zen Buddhism, deep ecology, Thomas Hardy, or contrarian thinking in general. Sheesh.
Trevor says:
"So all my friends and families remain ageless and are around forever? That is not a future I want any part of."
The future will go on with or without you. All we are saying is that we want to make that a viable choice. If your choice is to be absent from it you can still be remembered by those the chose the opposite.
Life is precious and more living will not diminish its worth, this is not a zero/sum competition.
"Chatting in ether"--? Are you a Mormon?
I'm not against life, rather I am more for life than anyone on this board: life, death and everything existence is-- not gerrymandering quantitative measures of it like a mad scientist-- is right now, not in some imagined future science is promising us.
I don't "want to die"-- I am just aware of my terminal being that our materialistic culture does not promote nor discuss. Life is full of suffering, not just "war and crappy jobs". My god, what an American response.
No philosophical capacity. In a world that thinks they way you do, it may be better to opt out...
No one is ganging up on you Trevor, you have staked out a contrary view and some of us disagree with your POV but the debate is courteous and respectful not distorted by ad hominem.
However there is too much at stake to agree to disagree unless you are willing to allow those of us that seek this research to proceed to do so unhampered by those that would prevent such efforts from being made.
As a scientist working on aging, and being very familiar with Aubrey's ideas I can say they are reasonable with what we know of the human organism.
Aging is the continual and progressive accumulation of damage. Rather than trying to prevent the damage, which happens in countless ways, it should be easier to fix it, of which there are only a few types of damage. Not to mention preventing damage wouldn't do anything for those that already have it.
Oh, and in regards to any comments on the "it isn't natural" side of things. The same comments can be made in regard to every medical advance ever made. The germ theory of disease doubled the human life expectancy. Doubling it again (which is what Aubrey's ideas could do)is no different. Currently we're trying to spare people from dying of cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease etc, all individual parts of the disease of aging.
Saying aging and death is a good thing is no different from saying Cancer is a good thing.
When I mentioned family and friends, I was being facetious-- thus followed by "No but seriously"...
I apologise for any ad hominem arguments; I do mean to communicate there is lots of philosophical (note: not religious) as well as literary precedents for what I'm suggesting. I merely mean to point out the West's (and now, East's) technocratic ideology and its "faith in modernity" as absurd and nihilistic for its insistence on some future life "we" will all experience "someday"...(like Christianity's and other monotheism's focus on the afterlife, rather than this life).
I must return to other efforts at the moment but I promise to return to this discussion later and follow up.
However before departing Trevor I must ask:
Are you really then saying that death is motive and as a motivation (the ultimate stick) it is the best motive for appreciating life?
My own perspective is that you have begun to sympathize with the torturer. Appreciating life does not depend on dying. I suggest that you are confusing cause and effect.
Appreciating life ultimately depends on living it and how we live it, not losing it.
I don't mean to open this can of worms, but hasn't the advance of medical science also contributed to overpopulation (and therefore the degradation of the environment) and kept in check the Darwinian principle for a construction-happy advanced ape?
Need I bring up Freud's "thanatos" concept? T.C. Boyle's "The Road to Wellville"?
I don't plan on running for political office, so I guess I can say these things in their intellectual and abstract context.
I don't advocate death, suicide, or population control -- the money spent on measures like this might be better spent on making life better for those who are living on an Earth that won't get any "anti-aging therapies".
Why wouldn't I want to see the end of all the age-related diseases? To see the end of cancer, altzeimers, diabetes, etc is a goal so worthwhile. How each of us would choose to live our lives is the worry. But nothing has changed in this arena, has it?
I don't accept death as a motive for life, but the idea of its finite possibility does enter into its value. As Kafka said, "The meaning of life is that ends". Hardly the mindset of the torturer, but of the tortured.
Now, existentialist, Buddhist and ecosophist thinking may occur as rather alien to classically liberal/technocratic ideals, but I maintain it is that tradition's modes of dualistic thinking that casts life and death in such terms. Rather, they are one and the same and part of the same experience.
Of course, I do not advocate policy against the advance of science, the lengthening of human life or population control (or even "progress"). What I am discussing is a deeply personal issue every person would need to deal with-- should a person decide to pursue this technology and "anti-aging" therapies, then by all means. But I object wholeheartedly on an intellecutal, philosophical and emotional basis, as I object to cosmetic plastic surgery.
Which of course leads me to another argument-- there is so much here implicating the value we attribute to narcissism, youthful beauty, vanity and image today. Perhaps another time.
Well, you did open a can of worms. If the last book you read about overpopulation is "The Population Bomb" you are 40 years behind the times. Current U.N. population projections have the population of the earth levelling off under 9 billion around 2025 and then declining. The population growth rate is declining on all continents, not only in developed countries.
Also, if you do a quick thought experiment, you will realize that the population depends more on the birth rate than the death rate. If no one dies and NO ONE IS BORN, then the population will not increase. There will always be death (by accident or suicide) and there will always be birth, however, the birthrate is slowing dramatically around the world so the threat of over-population is very minimal.
May I just repeat my argument is qualified not against improving the quality of life, but of the absurdity of believing in immortality?Obviously I don't advocate people living with disease or age-inflicted frailty. I support stem-cell research and bettering people's lives-- do I think that it will fundamentally change what they call "the human condition"? No.
And what U.N. numbers are you referring to? I see on the U.N.'s projection page population at 9 billion by 2050 and continuing...?
Finally, I would speculate this Faustian endeavour would hardly come to fruition as humanity would like "annihilate" itself before the fact. We seem unable to actually care for one another in a sustainable manner, and yet a chosen lot (presumably financially well endowed) would enjoy the benefits of endless life, while others live in subservience, poverty, malnutrition, ecological fallout, etc. I believe "agape" is the word I'm looking for.
Furthermore, notions such as Stephen Hawking's statement that humanity should move into space as a survival option for the species-- its pathetic. What life would I want that wasn't on Earth? If we couldn't take care of Earth and its beautiful, life-giving wilderness what makes us think the species is even worth saving?
Science, while an admirable human activity, lost its moral mandate long ago.
If everyone became immortal today, instead of 10 billion people being alive in 2050, there would only be 13 billion. Hardly a big difference.
It's also not true that we're running out of space, we can still build up... and under. Also if you take a trip around the country there is massive amounts of land available.
Allocating resources is the problem, but with advancing technology, this shouldn't be such a huge obstacle.
"Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell." -- Edward Abbey.
I'll just say, if death proved the final result for so many of my ancestors, then it is certainly good enough for me. I apologise if technology does not actually introduce metaphysical anomalies, but merely provides the appearance of doing so; while the Industrial Revolution has provided us the notion of progress and narrative in human history, that 'progress' should not culminate into the midnight movie delusions of immortality. What immortal life does a Chinese worker under smog and totalitarian scrutiny wish for? Does the Mexican day laborer long for a day that lasts forever? What do the children living in heaps of garbage in Chennai know about stretching their existence into some horizon of control, determinism and longevity for longevity's sake?
Furthermore, what does the American Babbitt want immortality for? To trade lowend securities and drive the minivan for a while longer?
I for one, like Cu Chalainn before, would choose "fame" over long life (fame here being meaning). Humanity could strive to die standing, rather than living on its knees.
There is not lots of room to grow-- there is very little actually. Humans are to share this Earth with other species and should respect the fact their overdeveloped cluster colonies are not infinite potentials of construction projects.
Now back to work at my desk, and with luck I'll be able to work at my desk forever!
"I don't plan on running for political office, so I guess I can say these things in their intellectual and abstract context."
That is indeed the nub of the matter Trevor, you are saying things in their abstract and intellectual context and disregarding the fact that there are people in that context.
Sounds like you've got a good dose of Stockholm syndrome and made peace with your executioner. So be it, but for those of us who are awake enough to hear the screams of our neighbors and wish to help them and avoid their fate, we will continue to fight our jailer with open eyes on the horror that age-related disease wreak. Maybe someday you'll snap out of it..
Why should we make exceptions for aging at all?
Aging is a state of disrepair. Why mend a leg, but not the damage he is talking about?
~Iain
>>May I just repeat my argument is qualified not against improving the quality of life, but of the absurdity of believing in immortality?
It's not an either / or. It's perfectly feasible to have both significant longevity and a high quality of life. What is absurd is the assumption that more years of experiencing this universe somehow negates any appreciation of its wonders.
Technological advancement will reach a point where we can fully reverse and then re-engineer all of the molecular mechanics of biology. This is a certainty and it could very well unfold this century with the rapid accelerations in and the emergence of new technologies.
When it happens people should be able to choose to live as long as they choose to. Nobody should be permitted to murder another human being because they feel that person has exceeded some arbitrary threshold of existence. That to me would be exceedingly absurd.
>I'm saying the notion of immortality is >absurd on many levels,
But we're not talking about immortality. We're talking about uneldingness.
Is it absurd to renovate an old building? The human body is not some battery that runs out. It is a machine that can be repaired. Moreover, it is a machine that repairs itself somewhat, and we can help it.
>and that people should probably be reminded >they are living the one life they have right >now.
Yes, which many wish would be longer.
>Becoming reconciled to death does reflect to >a certain degree a mature wisdom
No, it reflects a certain degree of self-hypnosis. We all "make peace" with aging at some point in our lives, in order to cope with its inevitability. The moment it stops being inevitable, it's time to end the ceasefire and declare war.
~Iain
Trevor:
You must live a miserable life, because I start feeling depressed when I read your comments.
The only people who oppose radical life-extension are those who are too depressed to envision enjoying the benefits of it (so they claim we all must die because they feel we should die).
I love life more than you'll ever be able to enjoy, because of this, I want to live indefinitely since everyday I wake up, is an amazing experience.
Some of us aren't miserable Trevor, I think you owe it to the ones who do enjoy life, to be able to make the decision whether or not we want to remove the biological time-restraints of our existence.
I don't want to live forever. However, that does not mean I wouldn't want to live a very healthy, long life and be relatively certain to see my young children grow to middle age; to be an active part of their children's lives, etc.
That said, I think Trevor's points need consideration. To not have this kind of therapy equitably transfered to all people would be an ethical travesty. To not consider, or at least discuss the impact such an action would have on human population is beyond my understanding.
Yes, at first blush the idea of VERY long life is almost irresistible. But humans have had a more dramatic impact on our earth than the majority of other creatures, and we must not lose sight of that in all our excitement regarding this Fountain of Youth.
Science will and should go forward. But that does not mean it should go unchecked without persuasive argument, and I for one have not been persuaded yet that this is where our time and money should be placed.
> I don't want to live forever.
Who said anything about living forever?
~Iain
I would certainly want to live for 500 years or more, and then probably upload to the network.
There is so much out there to do and learn, starting with the rest of our solar system.
All those who aren't interested in getting out there and finding out, need not apply!
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