Posted on 12/03/2004 6:38:26 AM PST by Momaw Nadon
Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.
Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.
I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.
It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.
And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form (in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just need to be combined.
This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans.
When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.
We will still die, of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.
So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us - including cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes.
Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either already exists or is in active development.
'Youthful not frail'
The length of life will be much more variable than now, when most people die at a narrow range of ages (65 to 90 or so), because people won't be getting frailer as time passes.
The average age will be in the region of a few thousand years. These numbers are guesses, of course, but they're guided by the rate at which the young die these days.
If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000.
And remember, none of that time would be lived in frailty and debility and dependence - you would be youthful, both physically and mentally, right up to the day you mis-time the speed of that oncoming lorry.
Should we cure ageing?
Curing ageing will change society in innumerable ways. Some people are so scared of this that they think we should accept ageing as it is.
I think that is diabolical - it says we should deny people the right to life.
The right to choose to live or to die is the most fundamental right there is; conversely, the duty to give others that opportunity to the best of our ability is the most fundamental duty there is.
There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life. To say that we shouldn't cure ageing is ageism, saying that old people are unworthy of medical care.
Playing God?
People also say we will get terribly bored but I say we will have the resources to improve everyone's ability to get the most out of life.
People with a good education and the time to use it never get bored today and can't imagine ever running out of new things they'd like to do.
And finally some people are worried that it would mean playing God and going against nature. But it's unnatural for us to accept the world as we find it.
Ever since we invented fire and the wheel, we've been demonstrating both our ability and our inherent desire to fix things that we don't like about ourselves and our environment.
We would be going against that most fundamental aspect of what it is to be human if we decided that something so horrible as everyone getting frail and decrepit and dependent was something we should live with forever.
If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image.
Aubrey de Grey leads the SENS project at Cambridge University and also runs the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice.
In Genesis God told Noah that man's days will be numbered to 120 years. One woman has supposedly lived to 122 however.
I can see new techniques increasing life span, bu not quite that dramatically, that soon.
Jesus did em' one better.. He said everybody has eternal LIFE already.. Its just matter of;
Where you'll spent all that time.. not IF..
ME.?. what do I think.?.. Everyday I wake up is a good day..
Yesterday is gone, Tommorrow may never happen..
THIS DAY ISN'T OVER YET..(can I get back to you on that)
If I remember...
WHEN it comes, human immortality isn't going to come in a vacuum. It's going to be accompanied in advances in Physics, Biology, Optics, Computing technology, Nanotechnology, Information Technology, AI and HUNDREDS of other scientific disciplines from Acoustics to Zoology.
Some here say, it'll NEVER happen! (Never say NEVER!) I'm sure that's exactly what most said at the turn of the 20th Century when human life span was 45 yrs old. 90 yr lifespans will NEVER happen! WE'RE DOOOOOOOOOOMED!
20 yrs does seem to be sorta wishful thinking to me. But 50-100 years DOES seem to be realistic. We're learning to extend the lifespans of MANY lesser lifeforms, learning how genetics works and affects human longevity at a fundamental level. Fruitflies with doubled lifespans. Nematodes with doubled lifespans. Mice with doubled lifespans.
It's just a matter of time!
Only politics has kept this from being a reality today.
We would get tv telephones
On the market now.
Non slip bathtubs, earthquake - natural disaster prediction safer cars single story houses. Bell curve, snowboarding,cliff climbing, race car drivers will go first. Whereas us couch potato's will last 50,000 years :)
Philippians 1:21
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sorry folks, but to live as long as Adam is not necessarily a blessing. To compare this life to a baby in the womb, would you want to use technology that would keep you a fetus for nine years instead of nine months.
There is a great big beautiful world outside this womb...
We do some dangerously stupid things for sure. Like Samuel Clemens said as Haley's Comet came around, after a while a man's seen about enough.
Just kind of wondering--if you were in the process of living forever, how would you know?
What would you do? Say, "fifty years down and a gazillion to go, and here's my new puppy."
Then ten years later say, "sixty years down and a gazillion to go, and my dog still won't fetch a stick."
Then ten years later say, "seventy years down and a gazillion to go, and my dog went to fetch a stick and where did he go I haven't seen him for ten years."
Almost our entire history was made by juveniles and adolecsents. What if future history is made by people that are truly wise, experienced, ethical, smart and Moral and 500 years old? Is this the city on the hill? 1,000 years is really not that long when marked against infinite time it's all relative. Time to make the world a better place
Mans future is not of this world. Men are basically evil. Give men a long life and you get the men that were killed in the flood. Imagine if Mohomed had lived 1,000 years.
Of course, I come from a Christian paradigm...
They've been aiming for FAA certification in the next couple years for about twenty years now.........
The real question is what info is in the library of congress? If it's 3/4 liberal drivel then you would be increasing the percentage of liberal idiots.....
The Moller flying car uses four Mazda rotary engines.....
> people who go this route either need to be ejected off the planet or be sterilized before applying it.
Even sterilization is not good enough. On a planet of "mundanes," the presense of Immortals capable of slowly accumulating wealth and power would become intolerable.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.
Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers.
Don't try to have the last word. You might get it.
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
Rub her feet.
Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.
Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men.
A man does not insist on physical beauty in a woman who builds up his morale. After a while he realizes that she is beautiful -- he just hadn't noticed it at first.
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
Some scholar said something about Philosophy being composed of a bunch of three year olds throwing a screaming tantrum in the face of death.
What should be remembered is that the only ones that would be able to live for thousands are those who can afford it. So it would create more class envy and elitism, so maybe they'd be able to meet their maker at the hands of envious proles.
I hope for the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. If I'm wrong I'll go to my grave with the satisfaction that I did my best to live a good life, but that I never stopped giving in to temptation in many ways. I wouldn't put my trust in Man.
Besides, who wants to live for a thousand years? I imagine a couple hundred would be fine. But then, you'd always want to see what was next coming down the pike. My Mom died a couple of months before 9-11. She would have LOVED it. Not the people dying of course, but the excitement of it all would have kept her going for a long time. I'm sorry she missed it.
Everything you say is true, and I'm pissed too about the flying cars, but with Google I'm starting to thing we've achieved the dream of "ask Mr. Computer", and it will be interesting to see where the grand synthesis of knowledge leads us.
Yeah, but I forget where, but it also says in the bible that God got tired of people living that long, and changed the human life span to 120 years. That would be fine with me-- that would mean my life is just a little more than 1/3 over. Cool!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.