Longevity: Extending Human Life

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by MasonicStage™

I'm against extending normal human lifespan.
Does anyone of you really want to live over 100?

I would like to live a trillion years.

[ArtZ]

The natural result of expanding longevity will be the collapse of pension systems in many countries.

[ArtZ]

Originally Posted by VelesHomais

I would like to live a trillion years.

And with trillion of other men greedy for longevity like you?...

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by ramanujann

In the future the whole-body transplantation (I mean brain transplantation) will be the most effective way of prolonging the life expectancy
However I wonder what's the time-life of a human brain? Aren't brain cells dying and their regeneration becomes less effective while we are aging? How to overcome this problem?

Yes, that is the central problem to the issue of immortality. Everything except the nervous system is more or less easily replaceable. We are only years away until we could replace everything in the human body, there are many ways to do it, the organs can be completely artificial, which is what I favor, or they could be your own organs cloned and grown with stem cells. Today the natural organs are still superior to artificial ones, but eventually technology will triumph over biology. Anyway, if your heart fails, you'll just get a new heart, whether biological or synthetic.

The real problem is the nervous system. Will we be able to duplicate the brain? Yes, eventually. By then a fully conscious and intelligent "person" could exist in virtual reality, without any need for a body at all. Many proponents of this "mind uploading" state that the brain is to be killed at the same moment when all your memories, thoughts processes, your entire consciousness, so to speak, is uploaded into a machine. Sure, the "uploaded" you will act exactly the same as you would, but is it you? There is already an active debate on this issue in university psychology departments around the world.

My personal favorite is finding a way to perpetually add new brain tissue to the dying/existing nervous system, thereby regenerating brain cells and preserving the continuity of your existence. I envision gigantic storage stations of these nervous system-sustaining units orbiting the Earth, to save space and prevent any infiltration of the units. The units themselves would be connected to an ever growing virtual reality world, where each unit will live as he or she pleases. Or, instead of virtual reality, the units could operate avatars in a form of synthetic humans on Earth, traveling and interacting with others.

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by ArtZ

And with trillion of other men greedy for longevity like you?...

Read my post above. Trillions of other men greedy for longevity could be stored in orbital storage units.

[ramanujann]

Originally Posted by VelesHomais

I would like to live a trillion years.

VelesHomais, have you seen the movie "The Man from Earth" ?
If not, check it out, you may like it

[VelesHomais]

I have seen and enjoyed it.

[k%]

I would never give up my body and all pleasures & pain it provides

Although I would like to be immortal and forever young.

[VelesHomais]

The experiences of pain and pleasure take place in the brain. They can be triggered without a body.

[MasonicStage™]

Originally Posted by VelesHomais

Yes, that is the central problem to the issue of immortality. Everything except the nervous system is more or less easily replaceable. We are only years away until we could replace everything in the human body, there are many ways to do it, the organs can be completely artificial, which is what I favor, or they could be your own organs cloned and grown with stem cells. Today the natural organs are still superior to artificial ones, but eventually technology will triumph over biology. Anyway, if your heart fails, you'll just get a new heart, whether biological or synthetic.

The real problem is the nervous system. Will we be able to duplicate the brain? Yes, eventually. By then a fully conscious and intelligent "person" could exist in virtual reality, without any need for a body at all. Many proponents of this "mind uploading" state that the brain is to be killed at the same moment when all your memories, thoughts processes, your entire consciousness, so to speak, is uploaded into a machine. Sure, the "uploaded" you will act exactly the same as you would, but is it you? There is already an active debate on this issue in university psychology departments around the world.

My personal favorite is finding a way to perpetually add new brain tissue to the dying/existing nervous system, thereby regenerating brain cells and preserving the continuity of your existence. I envision gigantic storage stations of these nervous system-sustaining units orbiting the Earth, to save space and prevent any infiltration of the units. The units themselves would be connected to an ever growing virtual reality world, where each unit will live as he or she pleases. Or, instead of virtual reality, the units could operate avatars in a form of synthetic humans on Earth, traveling and interacting with others.

Interesting thinking, but I somehow doubt it would function in reality.

First...you can't just replace several damaged organs and hope that you'll live long enough to pass 100. Aging shows significant corelation with telomere shortening, and as you all probably know, telomeres are located on every chromosome of every cell. Even though you have a brand new organ, your other non-replaced cells that surround organs are simply old and used up, with their telomeres being critically shortened.

so, it actually can't work like that until infinity it has to collapse sometime and somewhere.
of course, such method can extend your lifetime, but it isn't the best solution for general extension of lifetime of the human population. some people are very sensitive on surgery, and it's quite likely that some of them would have died during the process of transplantation. Even routine operations can sometimes end fatal.

Then...nervous system. That's a hard and still unexplored topic.
It's true that nervous system shows very little or no regeneration ability, so transplantation seems like the only reasonable thing to do
But, since your brain is starting to shape already in early stages of life, you cant just artificially produce it and expect that it would be 100% identical to your own old one.
It would probably serve you well in it's physiology, but from a mental point of view, that would be a completely different person.

[kayanathera]

Originally Posted by VelesHomais

Yes, that is the central problem to the issue of immortality. Everything except the nervous system is more or less easily replaceable. We are only years away until we could replace everything in the human body, there are many ways to do it, the organs can be completely artificial, which is what I favor, or they could be your own organs cloned and grown with stem cells. Today the natural organs are still superior to artificial ones, but eventually technology will triumph over biology. Anyway, if your heart fails, you'll just get a new heart, whether biological or synthetic.

The real problem is the nervous system. Will we be able to duplicate the brain? Yes, eventually. By then a fully conscious and intelligent "person" could exist in virtual reality, without any need for a body at all. Many proponents of this "mind uploading" state that the brain is to be killed at the same moment when all your memories, thoughts processes, your entire consciousness, so to speak, is uploaded into a machine. Sure, the "uploaded" you will act exactly the same as you would, but is it you? There is already an active debate on this issue in university psychology departments around the world.

My personal favorite is finding a way to perpetually add new brain tissue to the dying/existing nervous system, thereby regenerating brain cells and preserving the continuity of your existence. I envision gigantic storage stations of these nervous system-sustaining units orbiting the Earth, to save space and prevent any infiltration of the units. The units themselves would be connected to an ever growing virtual reality world, where each unit will live as he or she pleases. Or, instead of virtual reality, the units could operate avatars in a form of synthetic humans on Earth, traveling and interacting with others.

Non-sense there will never be a virtual alter ego.in any case you need to read the story of Orion from greek mythology, 2500 years ago they have already sensed some flaws

[SkyScraperRaper]

Life is only worth living longer for if you are enjoying it. I don't think this should be something is humans play around with for many reasons. Overpopulation, pension payouts etc.

There is also the talk of being immortal. Surely if someone came up with some pill we could take to make us immortal it would never be openly given out to the public. Again if everyone was immortal, the earth would become over populated very quickly. If you fell into depression and had enough of life you would not even have the option of death, you would just have to live on in suffering.

Humans are naturally living longer anyway and will continue to do so.

For me personally, if anything I would prefer it if at 70 that was the end, as soon as you reach 70 you konk it.

[ramanujann]

70? Come on... I know many people who have passed their 70s and they are still enjoying their lives.
I would say 100 is an acceptable age to die

[Jan]

My dad is in his 80's and he's just getting old. To me, 80 seems like an age where you have lived and seen it all (or at least you've had the time to) and have already reached the age of the stronger ones. Knowing that one day it'll end (should end) makes it more interesting getting there.

[MasonicStage™]

Originally Posted by Jan

My dad is in his 80's and he's just getting old. To me, 80 seems like an age where you have lived and seen it all (or at least you've had the time to) and have already reached the age of the stronger ones. Knowing that one day it'll end (should end) makes it more interesting getting there.

couldn't agree more.

80 years of quality life are to wish for.

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by MasonicStage™

Interesting thinking, but I somehow doubt it would function in reality.

First...you can't just replace several damaged organs and hope that you'll live long enough to pass 100. Aging shows significant corelation with telomere shortening, and as you all probably know, telomeres are located on every chromosome of every cell. Even though you have a brand new organ, your other non-replaced cells that surround organs are simply old and used up, with their telomeres being critically shortened.

so, it actually can't work like that until infinity it has to collapse sometime and somewhere.
of course, such method can extend your lifetime, but it isn't the best solution for general extension of lifetime of the human population. some people are very sensitive on surgery, and it's quite likely that some of them would have died during the process of transplantation. Even routine operations can sometimes end fatal.

Replacing organs will not make you immortal, but it will extend your life considerably. For instance, the leading cause of death is almost always heart disease and various heart failures. We can eliminate this problem by replacing the heart with a more efficient artificial equivalent or, by growing a clone of your younger heart, for lesser chances of rejection. As to all of our cells degenerating over time, that doesn't really become an issue until you're in your 80's and even later, if all of your organs are functioning within their ideal parameters. By that time, in my case 2060's, it'll be possible to replace everything in my body, not just all of my organs, with artificial superior equivalents. There will be nothing biological except the nervous system.

Originally Posted by MasonicStage™

Then...nervous system. That's a hard and still unexplored topic.
It's true that nervous system shows very little or no regeneration ability, so transplantation seems like the only reasonable thing to do
But, since your brain is starting to shape already in early stages of life, you cant just artificially produce it and expect that it would be 100% identical to your own old one.
It would probably serve you well in it's physiology, but from a mental point of view, that would be a completely different person.

That is where the debate and the principal obstacles lie. But we do know that the brain is very flexible, it can learn to function with parts of it missing and Parkinson's have already been treated with neural grafting, which suggests that it is possible to expand our brain tissue indefinitely. In which case, by 2060's this procedure should become commercially available, which would, in fact, allow for an indefinite extension of our existence. There are many theoretical concepts for immortality, but I favor continuity of consciousness, which is preserved by this method.

The questions of it being the same person or not cannot be answered with any certainty, at least for now. For instance, I've run an experiment on my own self, that was designed to determine whether I am the same person at the ages of 20 and 25. I've compiled a subjective questionnaire, designed to reflect the personality, interests, views, passions, attitudes, feelings, experiences, yearnings, disappointments, etc. that make up a person. It turned out that I was a completely different person at these two arbitrarily selected ages. In fact, I think that I've had about 15 personalities in my lifetime. There are some binding factors, such as memories and appearances, but these can be altered. If we add your memories and appearance to me, do I become you? Even biologically, our bodies are continuously regenerating, so your physical body right now is not the body you had 5 years ago. Then what it is that makes you yourself?

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by SkyScraperRaper

Life is only worth living longer for if you are enjoying it. I don't think this should be something is humans play around with for many reasons. Overpopulation, pension payouts etc.

Joy is a biochemical reaction related to dopamine, you can experience it by popping certain pills. Evolution has programmed us to experience joy via certain activities and interactions, there's nothing magical or spiritual about it, we'll obviously be able to duplicate these reactions in no matter what form we take in the future.

Overpopulation and pension payouts will be irrelevant, if we go the way of sustaining our continuously regenerated nervous systems in confined units orbiting around the Earth in collective storage systems.

Originally Posted by SkyScraperRaper

There is also the talk of being immortal. Surely if someone came up with some pill we could take to make us immortal it would never be openly given out to the public. Again if everyone was immortal, the earth would become over populated very quickly. If you fell into depression and had enough of life you would not even have the option of death, you would just have to live on in suffering.

Humans are naturally living longer anyway and will continue to do so.

For me personally, if anything I would prefer it if at 70 that was the end, as soon as you reach 70 you konk it.

There's not going to be an immortality pill and living indefinitely doesn't mean being indestructible. You'll be able to "pull the plug" anytime you want, but I want to have this control, as opposed to leaving it to heart failures or some diseases.

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by Jan

My dad is in his 80's and he's just getting old. To me, 80 seems like an age where you have lived and seen it all (or at least you've had the time to) and have already reached the age of the stronger ones. Knowing that one day it'll end (should end) makes it more interesting getting there.

Why should it end?

[Spartan_X]

I don't believe that anyone is being honest when he says that he wants to die only because of old age. Even when you're 100, if you still live a good life, why would you want to die ? Only reason i can think of is ... believing that by dying you will go to meet your long-dead relatives in heaven.

[VelesHomais]

It is my firm conviction that death is the greatest ill of mankind and it is the collective duty of our species to eliminate it. Seeming inevitability of this pending threat leads us to irrational coping mechanisms, but I refuse to believe that many of us ascend to a point in life when the wish to experience another day is no more.