When humans were given the gift of self-awareness they were also given the knowledge of their own mortality. Traditional strategies for coping with this knowledge of mortality seem to fall into five categories:
1. theist: death should not be feared, because there is life after death
2. "newageist": death should not be feared, because when you die you once again become one with nature
3. pessimist: the inevitability of death makes life itself absurd
4. optimist: although (or perhaps because) life must end, you should live it to the fullest while you can
5. "ignorist": don't think about death and don't let it affect your behavior
One commonality among these strategies is that they all assume that death is inevitable, and until recently that certainly seemed to be the case. However, technology is advancing exponentially, and breakthroughs in our understanding of the causes of aging are now happening almost weekly. Several visionaries at the forefront of aging research, including Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey, believe we'll soon have a "cure" for aging. Although I'm not an expert on the subject, I do share their confidence that immortality will eventually be achievable (provided humanity doesn't self-destruct first), but suspect that will take another 100 to 200 years (unless it becomes a global priority, which seems unlikely). If and when that happens, humanity will be able to add a sixth strategy to the list above: avoiding unwanted death altogether.
1. theist: death should not be feared, because there is life after death
2. "newageist": death should not be feared, because when you die you once again become one with nature
3. pessimist: the inevitability of death makes life itself absurd
4. optimist: although (or perhaps because) life must end, you should live it to the fullest while you can
5. "ignorist": don't think about death and don't let it affect your behavior
One commonality among these strategies is that they all assume that death is inevitable, and until recently that certainly seemed to be the case. However, technology is advancing exponentially, and breakthroughs in our understanding of the causes of aging are now happening almost weekly. Several visionaries at the forefront of aging research, including Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey, believe we'll soon have a "cure" for aging. Although I'm not an expert on the subject, I do share their confidence that immortality will eventually be achievable (provided humanity doesn't self-destruct first), but suspect that will take another 100 to 200 years (unless it becomes a global priority, which seems unlikely). If and when that happens, humanity will be able to add a sixth strategy to the list above: avoiding unwanted death altogether.
posted by howtolive.org at
9:29 AM
5 Comments:
If living a long time is possible, it may not take 100 - 200 years to figure out how to do it. The reason is that scientific knowledge is expanding exponentially. By assuming this acceleration in learning, 100 years of knowledge at current rates should occur much faster than 100 years. This especially makes sense given the newfound ability to collaborate on the web all over the world and the ability of new tools to explore molecular biochemistry.
By
Tom S., at 2:13 PM
Umm..so you think death is curable?
It's like believing in vampires.
By
Anonymous, at 6:46 AM
Tom S - I agree that scientific knowledge is expanding exponentially, and I'm not an expert on the subject, but I do expect that the challenges to immortality are greater in number and scope than we can know yet (and they'll only be discovered stepwise, like peeling back layers of an onion). I think Ray Kurzweil and others who think it can be achieved on our lifetimes are overly optimistic. Of course I hope to be wrong...
Anon - I certainly do not believe that vampires exist in our world, but believing that one entity could possess a trait does not requiring accepting the existence of all other hypothetic entities said to possess that trait. ("You believe that people can wear black capes? Vampires wear black capes. So you must believe in vampires!") Having said that, your skepticism is understandable, given that the vast majority of people don't think immortality is possible. But I encourage you to consider the facts and decide for yourself. Here are some good places to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension
http://www.imminst.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ
http://www.imminst.org
By
howtolive.org, at 8:35 AM
I think the more important question is whether immortality is actually something towards which we would want to strive. The obvious question of overpopulations comes to mind but on a deeper level how does knowing that you will live forever affect the way you live? Could this step in "evolution" actually be a step back for the evolution of humanity towards a greater good ? Not wanting to give too much credit to the vampire remark, let us not forget that Brahm Stroker's character was actually a very tormented one because, in great part, of the prospect of facing infinity.
By
MegaP, at 7:50 PM
megap - Thanks for your comments, you made good points. I did not mean to imply that everyone would or should want to live forever; that's why I said that it would be added to the list of strategies, as opposed to making the rest of the list obsolete. Bram Stoker's character was tormented by immortality because he had no choice. Life extension advocates aren't suggesting that people be forced to live forever, only that it might be desirable to have the option to live as long as one wants.
Overpopulation would certainly be an issue, as would the possibility that immortality could be a step backward, rather than forward, in the evolution of humanity toward a greater good. Immortality would bring with it radical cultural changes and risks, and it would be up to humanity to decide whether these changes are worth it. Since the technology is on the way, it seems logical to start the discussion now rather than later.
By
howtolive.org, at 8:51 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home