There exist highly advanced mathematical models that tend to calculate the value of infinite time. If you were given the chance of choosing whether you would prefer to be given a dollar today or that same dollar in a year, you would probably opt for the $1 dollar today. In this same wavelength, it is more important to be alive for the current year than the subsequent year and henceforth. The value of money can be compared to its future value.

However, such decisions cannot be made when we talk about life. To be alive in the future we need to be alive in the present. This is why surviving today, is primordial in increasing the chance of one living longer. In mathematical terms, if we consider that being alive in 2005 is 98 percent as important as it was to be alive in 2004. The value of immortality is thus calculated as follows:

The sum of N from zero to infinity for: (0.98)N=1÷(1-0.98)=50.

The value that one gives to immortality, based on the figures given above is, that one values immortality 50 times as much as being alive to another year. This seems extremely high and unconceivable. However, think about it, being alive to another year at the age of 100, is it as important to you as being alive to another year when you are of the age of a thousand or a million. In common sense the events in the unconceivable future must be rated less important than current events.

Achieving immortal is by reason beyond theoretical conception. Let’s say that you would know that you would be destroyed at the age of one million years would that be worse than death at ten million or a trillion. However, even after ten quadrillion years we would never know whether we have successfully achieved immortality, as to solve that puzzle it would take an eternity.

Let say that you had a sum of a million dollars, and you used all that money to ensure that you would live for a given year. The chance of surviving for that year would practically be very high but for the subsequent year it would be rather low.

In other words, if you would be allocated only $1 per year, you would probably struggle to survive for the first year, without shelter and medicine. This means that if you allocate more money, the potential chance of living another year keeps on increasing. This simple analogy of money and longevity can be expanded to evaluate the probability of survival.

Whether physical immortality is possible or not is still a scientific question. The very fact that our current survival is at the edge of peril, makes us think twice about it.

Cryonic arrangements are certainly one of the most potential promises to assure maximum life span extension. However, this will only be possible when a solution has been given to death caused by fatal accidents, cancer or cardiovascular disease. If we would be over-concentrating on cryonics, we would practically forego the precursors for death.

Confronting death is also dangerous. For instance, Frank Cole who was studying anti-aging medicine and did follow calorie restriction principles was responsible for cryonics arrangements as an Alcor cryonics transport technician. But he was unfortunately murdered in North Africa due to his desire to supersede death with immortality. Therefore, current safety is something that we must consider of paramount importance.

Another serious issue with immortalism is that it affronts theological beliefs. In literal term, it is not an affront to religion when we talk about extending life to 100 or 1,000 years. The biblical character Methuselah has been recorded to have had lived to the age of 969 years. Thus, ignoring a life span of 1,000 years would practically be an insult to God. However, a thousand years or a million years is still nothing compared to eternity.

Solution for Immortality

In case, medical advancement would assure that death from senescence, and disease eliminated then people would only die from homicide, suicide or accidents. Taking such conditions into account than a 12-years old child would have a median life span of 1,200 years while a maximum life span of 25,000 years. There would practically be only one person out of a billion who would reach the maximum life span of 25,000 years, taking into account the actual rate of accidents, homicide and suicide.

A reasonable goal would thus be to live to a thousand. It should also be noticed that anti-aging science or cryonics are not confronting religion, they are rather mere extensions of medicine.

Cryonicists should consider themselves as life-extensionists as they are not immortalists. However, it is essential that cryonics is accepted by society. This will help cryonicists to better research into the matter. Several questions related to immortality might remain unsolved due to facts such as the extinction of the sun or universe. In practical term, these questions are theoretically uninteresting in our current state of survival. Our current key aim should be to stay alive and preferably as long as possible.

The demise of aging and diseases are vital for longevity to really revolutionize. If ever we would be able to solve these issues, then we would have thousands of years to solve other threats that are at our peril. However, if we are unable to solve our limited lifespan problems than the other problems would be futile to tackle.

In simple, terms if you will be able to celebrate your 200-year anniversary in a youthful condition then you know that aging has been solved. It will be relatively easy to extend that to 800 years afterward.

Our goal today should be to “live long enough to benefit from aging reversal” or to “see technology replacing our brain”. These are all things that are likely to happen within half a century or even less.

This means if you live longer than 50 years your only obstacle will be death-by-accident or murder. But the risk of losing our “self” is also a problem that might occur through computational and biological re-engineering. These are risks deemed to be affronted.

However, being an immortalist might be futile but a life extensionists is much more in our reach. Let’s be one and live to a thousand.

Reference: Adapted from: The Scientific conquest of Death
1. Ben Best., (2004) The scientific conquest of Death, Imminst.org

Immortality

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First, let’s have a look at the two terms most mentioned when this topic is discussed: Life span and life expectancy. Life span is referring to the physiological time limit a particular life has been blessed with. Life expectancy means the average in years a group of people born at the same time could be projected to survive. Over the many year of human existence mans average longevity or life expectancy has never quite kept pace with his life span.

Average Longevity Throughout History

In about 600 B.C., Solon, the Greek politician and man of state, once said that in a man’s length of days he might see and suffer many occurrences that he does not much like. For I have set the limit of a man’s life at seventy years. Based on what he had to say at the time, one could believe that the average life span was seventy years of age. Still, based on information retrieved off of burial captions dated about four hundred B.C., life expectancy at the time in Greece was around twenty nine years of age.

In the earliest of days, the average longevity in many of the nations in Europe was not much different from that of early Greece. Since so many perished at such a young age, average longevity was much less than the life span. Compared to present day life spans, those of the ancients were significantly lower due to many variables, not the least of these was lack of medical treatments.

The increase in life expectancy was discussed in a 1981 book named Vitality and Aging. The authors stated that the average length of a human life in America had increased roughly from forty seven years of age at the start of the twentieth century to seventy three years old at the time their book was published in 1981. This was an increase by over twenty five years in just over eighty years. However, upon closer scrutiny the elevated life expectancy is a direct result of diminishing the cause of early mortality instead of actually extending the innate life span of the population.

When average longevity is considered from a specific age, as that age gets older there is not as much of an increase. By the age of forty years old the average longevity has not increased much at all. If calculated from the age of seventy five years, there is a barely noticeable increase in life expectancy. Past eighty five years of age, it is impossible to determine a positive certain increase figure at all. To the best of our current capability, the average maximum innate human life span has been calculated to be eighty five years old.

It is natural to wonder if man could increase his life expectancy by taking dietary supplements, vitamins, minerals, drugs of various kinds and even try switching around his diet, could any of this help keep him alive any longer?

Those same authors stated in their book that over many centuries’ alchemists tried concocting numerous revitalizing potions and experienced zero success in doing so. One can only assume that they were the best that history had to offer at that time and they did not come close. Throughout the ages there have been many hundreds – perhaps thousands of elixirs and materials such as herbal mixes or a herb itself, drugs, vitamins and minerals, elements from animal cells, fermented dairy as well as numerous serums and doses of one thing or another thought to be History’s answer to longevity.

There has not been a modicum of verifiable proof, ever. Even in the modern western society there have been the proverbial snake oil salesmen peddling their cure all potions all eventually falling into oblivious disgrace – though we maintain our use of vitamins. One remedy that has been tried known as Gerovital has been used by various world public figures like Khrushchev, Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh and other international notables. None of these luminaries lived to any great age because of it but it had as its main basic element, Novocain, a local anesthetic. There was never any real evidence that it would make any difference regardless of the reputations of those taking it.  

Renowned scientific researchers Packer and Smith had their data concerning vitamin E printed in science journals back as far as 1974 reporting on studies conducted that revealed vitamin E actually extended the life span of average human fibroblast cells that were cultivated and refined invitro at their lab. Though once having done so, they withdrew their assertion when they or anyone else could duplicate the results of the experiment.

To this date there have been no diets, lifestyle choices, vitamins or minerals, pharmaceutical or serum that has shown any inclination that it can prolong a human life span. There have been approximately four billion human beings that have lived on earth and died here and during that time it is quite conceivable to believe that any and all potential amalgamations of diet, chemical revelations and psychological life must have subsisted. The fact there have been no extreme centenarians makes for a very good argument that finding a means to an extended life will not come easily at any time – if it did, we likely would have discovered it by this time.

It is by now obvious that humans just simply cannot extend human life spans, other than by ensuring the reduction of infant mortality due to illnesses and disease, which has in itself succeeded in extending life spans to some degree. From a purely human perspective, any hope of prolonging the life span of the average human is certainly faint. That said, the human hope remains of extending its life span but how will it ever be achieved?

The primary focus for controlling human life spans has been leveled at lifestyle and status/circumstance with continued attempts at increasing it a continuous burden for medical and scientific researchers. Genetic sequencing holds some very real possibilities but certainly not in the near term. The likelihood that genetics will aid an individual into maximum longevity is about ten to twenty percent so even genetics plays a rather insignificant role for those few lucky enough to have that DNA.

One’s status or circumstances in general have a decided impact on life span, status meaning money can buy the best medicine has to offer and those variables that cost money like proper diet and health therapies are easier to manage for someone of higher socio-economic status. Circumstances like accidental death, famine, drought, war, natural disasters all of these can shorten a person’s life span – regardless of lifestyle and status.

What can the average person do to increase their current capacity to live a longer life? The best and most effective thing would be to maximize their health by avoiding hazardous lifestyles and altering their current damaging habits that will gradually cause early death. Lifestyle choices are a major cause of shortened life spans in western society today. Diseases and illnesses such as lung cancer and cardiovascular disease are almost always a result of environmental or lifestyle choices with some being genetically predisposed. All the more reason why we should all avoid destructive choices – just to be on the safe side!

The average human needs to watch what they eat at all times. They need to avoid harmful habits like smoking and alcohol consumption regardless of what the experts say is good or bad for us. Average longevity is complicated by diet and the more balanced your nutrition is the more balanced will be your odds. There are numerous things that can affect the average longevity of the average human and all we can do is control these to have a shot at increasing our personal life span.

Average humans were meant to get physical and so increasing our strength and muscle leanness is essential to our average longevity. We need to be strong enough to propel us for an extended period of time – our mobility is vital to our average longevity. Physical activity impacts our longevity by strengthening our bones and heart muscle, improving our respiratory system and our digestion function will also improve. All these things are going to increase our average longevity and all of these things can be controlled by the average human.

We also have control over our mental state and keeping our minds as fit as our bodies will help our way toward extending our personal life span. Maintaining control of who we are as people and what we are here for, our purpose of being, this is crucial to our average longevity so we need to keep a strong mind as well as a lean and mean body as we age and this too is in our control.

It is certain that none of us knows how long we each have on this earth. Life spans have not changed as much as one might have hoped and people are still dying for all kinds of reasons from famine and war to cancer and strokes. There is no doubt that luck has quite a bit to do with the entire equation of average life span and above average longevity. We can only increase our odds by maximizing what we can control and it is such a wonderful life we have so why not?

Anti Aging, Health And Aging, Immortality, Longevity

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This discovery is a vital contribution to the progress in stem cell research and to its prospective regenerative medicine. The study was led by Dr Guillaume Bourque, GIS Senior Group Leader and has been published in the June 2010 issue of Nature Genetics.

By making use of novel sequencing technologies, the scientists examined the genomic locations of OCT4, NANOG and CTCF, three regulatory proteins that are found in the human as well as mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. Fascinatingly, whilst the scientists discovered a great deal of similarities, they also found several differences in the ways and the kinds of genes that are being controlled in human beings. Especially, it was found out that particular kinds of viruses that inserted themselves within the human genomes millions of years before have radically altered the gene regulatory network in human stem cells.

Doctor Cedric Feschotte, an associate Professor at the University of Texas Arlington, said that this study is an experimental and computational tour de force. It offers irrefutable proof that a number of transposable elements that are too frequently dismissed as simply junk DNA are significant components of a regulatory code that underlies human development.

The comparisons that have been made between the mouse and human model system during the study of gene regulatory networks lend a helping hand in advancing the comprehension of the way stem cells differentiate into a variety of cell types of the body. According to Doctor Bourque, this comprehension is vital in the enhanced development of regenerative medicine for illnesses like leukaemia and Parkinson’s disease. He further advances that in spite of the benefits of making use of mouse ES cells during the study of gene regulatory networks; there is a need for more in-depth research that concentrate more directly on human stem cells. This is due to the innate challenges of adapting the results of the studies done from one species to that of the next. There is a need for more research to be done in both non-human and human primate stem cells for discoveries on stem cells to be utilized in clinical application.

In accordance to Professor Raymond L. White, Rudi Schmid Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the University of California, the paper recount very thrilling new findings that set up a novel and basically distinct mechanisms for regulating gene expression. By making a comparison between the genomes of mouse with that of human beings, the scientists were able to demonstrate that the binding sites for gene regulatory factors are very frequently not in the exact place between the two species. This in itself would be indeed much unexpected; however, the investigators go a step further and show that several of the sites are embedded in a class of DNA sequences that are known as “transposable” elements due to their ability to go to novel places in the genome. There are many such elements that are believed to be the evolutionary remaining of viral genomes; nevertheless, it was very amazing to learn that they were actually carrying binding sites for regulatory elements to novel locations. These alterations in regulation would be anticipated to create key changes in the organisms which carry them. In fact, many are of view that regulatory alterations are at the centre of speciation and may have played a great role in the evolution of humans from their ancestors. This is probably going to be a landmark paper in the field.

The Director of the Unites States Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute as well as the Director of the Genomics Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at Berkeley, Doctor Eddy Rubin added that this study making use of a genomics strategy, that is comparative in nature, found out significant human particular properties of the regulatory network in human ES cells. This piece of information is considerable and should contribute to assist in moving the regenerative medicine field forward.

Source: Escience News and A Star

Immortality, Nanotechnology, Stem cells

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As a practical method, gene therapy faces various difficulties; one of them being the fact that DNA is a big and complex structure that requires to be delivered as well as attached to the right section of the patient’s set of DNA. Some of the methods are currently being made use of or under investigation for the introduction of DNA into cells (a process called transfection) – using chemical agents, viruses or physical injection.

Viruses or chemical carriers

By the means of viral carriers, the DNA to be introduced is inserted into the virus, which in turn carries it into the cells through a vesicle formed around the virus particle by the cell wall. As soon as it is inside the cell, the vesicle breaks down and the virus introduce the DNA into the cell’s nucleus. However, the viral route comprises of some major disadvantages. Often, there is interference by the immune system of the recipient with the viral activity; and viruses can have unanticipated mutagenic side-effects. Moreover, it is also problematic to produce viral vectors on a large scale.

There is already a wide range of chemical agents that are famous for their ability to form a complex of 1,4-DHP with DNA and deliver it into the cells of the person receiving the treatment. The large scale production of these agents is far much easier compared to viruses and also do not often cause an immune response. Nevertheless, they are not so efficient in the introduction of the DNA as the viral carriers.

Seeking the best of both worlds

The partners in the EUREKA project faced the challenge to combine the efficiency of the viral vectors with the production benefits and lack of immune response demonstrated by chemical agents. The scientists at the University of Kuopio and the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, in Finland had found out novel groups of probable DNA transfers agents; 1,4-DHP derivatives. These compounds were recognised as being far more effective in gene transfer that the two much used regular gene delivery agents, called DOTAP and PEI 25, and the finding was covered by a patent. This discovery provided the thrilling prospect of more efficiency from a non-viral carrier.

In accordance with Professor Arto Urtti, from the Helsinki University (previously from Kuopio), when these compounds are in solution and the DNA is introduced, they combine together. The large and loose DNA molecule collapses and small particles of around 10-50nm in diameter are formed, made up of both DNA and carrier. When one presents this to the cells, the nanoparticles bind to the surface of the cell, which thereafter folds inwards in order to form a vesicle in the cell. Subsequently, the particles escape from the vesicle, and in this action, release the DNA.

The researchers of the Helsinki University discovered that out of all the compounds that have been tested, the most effective ones were those which were successful in transferring DNA into the nucleus. While the mechanism by which the DNA enters into the nucleus still remains unclear, it is however known that gene transfer is more efficient in cells which are keenly dividing, for instance, cancer cells.

Doctor Arkadijs Sobolevs, Doctor Aiva Plotniece along with their colleagues of the Latvian Institute then started out to synthesise a number of varied DHP derivative compounds. In accordance with Doctor Plotniece, the huge benefit of these compounds is the 1,4-DHP fragment that is biologically active, which is a correct substitution, can demonstrate specific physico-chemical and biological properties. They have throughout this project designed diverse 1,4-DHPs that permitted them to establish structure-activity relationships.

The autonomous Latvian chemical producer Bapeks, who is the third project partner, contributed its experience in relation to large scale synthesis and advised the researchers of the Latvian Institute on the best way to scale up the synthesis methodology. Thereafter, the compounds were distributed to various other research colleagues in Lithuania, Finland and Latvia for more in-depth study. At the moment, the project partners think that the principal uses will be made during laboratory experiments and far much more research is required before they can be used for gene therapy in human beings.

The partners in the EUREKA project are of view that even though more research is required, the project has been a successful one. Doctor Sobolevs says that it was the initial big, crucial project for them. He affirms that they have considerably widened the prospective uses of self-assembling 1,4-dihydropyridine derivatives into nanomedicine, gene delivery and even in drug delivery systems. The project team discovered that EUREKA support assisted hugely in the preparation, management and reporting of the project. Moreover, it was through EUREKA that the various other partners were introduced to Bapeks.

Source: Escience News and Eureka Network

Bioscience, Immortality, Longevity, Stem cells

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As remarkable as the changes have been in the last hundred years or so, a period of time we have added a number of decades of longevity to our life expectancy, as a species we have not changed in any significant way. We certainly are not making great strides in evolution. The reason for this increase in life span is that our life conditions have improved, dramatically. Take the simple field mouse; it has a life expectancy of about one year in a feral environment. Take that same mouse and put him in a controlled space with everything it needs and it should last about three years.

Humans have had it pretty good in the last half a century especially, factory farms pumping out our groceries to modern supermarkets, Water purification pumping stations and sewer treatment facilities, central heating and air conditioning, not to mention medical resources like antibiotics for infection. A simple wound could have killed an unlucky person 100 years ago from infection and gangrene. We are living our life the same way that fat and happy mouse is. Where once our ancestors struggled only a few centuries ago to make it too middle age, we have increased that life span nearly three times.

Longevity is under intense scrutiny, being researched and investigated by the brightest minds in the science and medical research communities, scholars and theorists abound in the field of senescence. Only several decades prior to today, there were few biologists willing to make a career out of longevity research. It was not an exciting opportunity and had lost its luster after many centuries of study from the academics and intellectuals from various cultures like the Ancient Greeks, Romans and Babylonians. Societies in the Far East also gave it their all to find the secret to immortality as did many European cultures; all to no avail.

These days it is entirely different. Longevity is a hot science and rapidly gaining both in popularity and significance. It is also being pulled into a whirlwind of confusion and perhaps even some misdirection; too many Generals and not enough non-comms! That in itself makes it exciting and vibrant. There is much new and younger blood in the field of longevity bringing with it fresh debate and billions of dollars. Post graduate students are scrambling to get into the longevity game. It reaches into many areas of bioscience, medicine and technology. The field is vast indeed.

Professionals in this field of longevity refer to themselves as gerontologists, rooted from geron which in Greek means “old man”, that in fact is a slightly misleading description of a profession with such a broad syllabus. Aging can be a cruel part of life and caring for the elderly, when they are in such an obvious decline is indeed part of the job description, but it transcends these final years of life. It is important that gerontologists understand the human life span from beginning to end. Medical specialties range from pediatrics for children to geriatrics for the old. Gerontologists endeavor to learn why our physiology changes when we age from our youth to old age, how it occurs and why we have to die period. Where longevity is concerned the issues are immense since to truly appreciate the problems and to be able to overcome any of them, there are certain significant obstacles to figure out.

It is necessary to learn why we are mortal in the first place and why we perish? Why is it that we gradually age in a steady progressive process toward death? When does this process actually begin; at what age does our decline start and where exactly does this decline originate? Is it a cellular issue or do our vital organs stop responding to one another or maybe they listen very closely to each other conspiring in the process of our mortality. Understanding what aging really is all about is the most noteworthy of all biological questions. Answering this question makes explaining our human awareness simple; at least we understand what part of the anatomy is responsible for it.

Since gerontologists have begun to score some victories and mortality is given more clarity, states of near inconceivable exhilaration surrounds the business; and make no mistake, it is a business with billions invested. So far the oldest individual on record has reached one hundred twenty years old, perhaps even more but faulty record keeping means anyone claiming to be older would be speculative at best. Frustratingly, even those people who reach super centenarian status seem to top out at a particular age with many in the extended life community all but accepting this as the end of the frontier, so to speak. There is fervent hope however that with their research, many more of us will attain this benchmark while easing much of that aforementioned cruelty while they are at it.

What the science of aging and longevity requires is some kind of major breakthrough. Gerontologists collectively agree that the chances of moving past our present life expectancy or moving beyond our highest life span will necessitate a more thorough knowledge of the origins of mortality. They must learn what causes aging and how they can alter its advance before another meaningful spike will appear in the life spans of humans. The bad news is many of these longevity experts do not foresee this occurring in their own natural lives.

There is one well regarded, if not conservative sector of this profession who have made the proposal that our ambition ought to be the addition of seven healthy years to the current human life span. Some of the more eager members of the profession believe that this figure is too low and we should strive to achieve a good deal more. Now we are talking in biblical time spans since it was written that Moses lived to age one hundred twenty, Just a kid compared to Noah, who it is said lived to nine hundred fifty years old; outdone by a mere nineteen years by the bible’s supergenerian, Methuselah, at nine hundred sixty nine years young-ish.

Renowned gerontologist and Cambridge scholar, Aubrey de Grey, believes there should be no restriction. He is certain that we could add to our life span by two or three times as much while continuing to add to it exponentially. Imagine designing a life span that is made to order, even immortality if that was our wish. This line of thought concerning life extension is not the popular theory by any means. That does not really matter too much within this community, where trying to reach a consensus these days is akin to herding cats.

There is so much disagreement within the ranks of gerontologists on many obvious issues such as a standardized method of measuring senescence or even an exact definition of aging for that matter. Even more absurd, since the ball is being carried for the most part by American and British experts, a proper spelling of their main science cannot even be agreed upon – is it spelled aging or ageing?

Heated debate continues over the correct description of the terms – health, longevity, life span, life expectancy, maximum life span and yet the vastness of the basic question continues to fuel imagination and expectations. Urgency though, should trump personalities and egos because as aging reaches critical-mass while the fiddles play, the risk is investors could lose their patience.

Anti Aging Theories, Gerontology, Immortality, Longevity

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Apartheid, communist societies and slavery are a few examples of obsolete social, economic and political systems. They are being left behind with all its sorrows and pain caused to human life. The downfall of authoritarianism at various levels of societies is augmenting the fluidity of our ego. We are seeing a more encompassing acceptance and evolution of common markets, international economics, communication satellites, space travel, nuclear energy and biological control of life.

It is the first time ever that our human society is undergoing such a radical restructuring. The social ideologies and institution are now being challenged and opposed. Any movement or revolutions that try to supersede our political, economic or social conditions are literally referred to as being radical. However, the cosmic revolution of science occurring is hard to accept but fundamental for progress. People are still abstaining to the possibility that man will be living on the moon very soon. Yet, it is scientifically very feasible.

Possibilities

The things that are possible are well beyond our notions. However, developments are hindered and defended to maintain traditions and ideologies that have lived for millennia. This explains our resentment for going to the moon, or more drastically, changing the human condition. These are far-reaching ideologies which our intellect and psyche refuse to cope with. People even act with opposition when they are conveyed with the possibility of eternal life.

The altering conditions in time and space are hard to cope with. People can handle old “radicalism” conferred through religions, government and economic conditions. The biological alteration is too emotionally threatening that it bestows resistance. It represents a new order of things and a reorientation of social and psychological facts.

In respect to revolutionary occurrences across time and space, democracy, liberalism and socialism are already old accepted rationalities. The progressive order of things is in the light of a biological revolution. Progress resulting in violence is somehow romantics, archaic and negligible.

Death and Life

In early times, people offered their lives in wars and battles. The supreme sacrifice was believed to have its reward in life after death. Leaders proclaimed that one could give his life for a cause and to live in an afterlife. Today, leaders can no longer promise life after death. Death is regarded as the wildest tyranny. It is tantamount to the demise of freedom and progress.

Nowadays, life is too valuable to be sacrificed. What people would refer to as common sense in the past is now connoted as stupidity. An example is “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”. We all know that soldiers’ who are fighting today will have been forgotten by year 2050. They will join the batch of billions of faceless, nameless and forgotten soldiers’ who have died in fierce battles on our mother earth.

A New Battle; Against Aging

The new battle has just commenced. However, we will no longer fight against one another. The battle will be to stay alive to year 2100, and in year 30,000 and even in year 3,000,000. This is certainly the most radical determination that mankind has ever upraised.

The deployment of intellectual capital in militant behaviour does no longer impress anyone else than maybe a girlfriend. It is no longer considered as being revolutionary. The upcoming revolutionaries are no longer soldiers but rather geneticists, physicists, biotechnologists, cryonologists, biologists, nuclear scientists, cosmonauts, inventors and many others. These ingenious people will bring enhancement to human society far beyond what the ideologies of the old orders (soldiers) have done.

There are promising solutions emerging for various sturdy concerns of the past like for famine answers are surfacing. The possibility to alleviate famine is no longer solely feasible by increasing food production it can also be achieved by synthetic nourishment.

Solving biological Inequality

Some people are born weak others strong, some beautiful while other ungainly, some shorts and other tall as well as some brilliant while others are dumb. There is no biological equality in this world. In reality, all the social inequalities that exist are unconstitutional. The biological inequality is the ground for all the flopping impoverishing inequalities that evolve in society. In other words, some people are born more fortunate than others.

However, one right that scientists are proclaiming to sustain is living forever. This revolutionary ideology can only be convened if the tyranny of death is overthrown. All humans should also be considered equal; we are all living in the third world & we are all proletarian.

The future of immortality is regarded as a science fiction. However, scientists are claiming that a future with biological immortality is within our reach. The mysterious of the future such as eternal values of human longevity is something which goes beyond space and time.

Related Articles:
1. Cyberspace Can Emancipate Us from Death
2. Transhumanism v.s Humanism; the Gate-way To Longevity
3. How To Attain Immortality, Sort Of
4. Aubrey De Grey’s Thoughts on Living to a Thousand
5. Bringing Common Sense to Humanity; We Can Live Longer

Source: Alephe : Towards New Ideologies

Anti Aging, Immortality, Lifestyle, Nanotechnology, Stem cells

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There are roughly 150,000 humans who die per day. Many of these are elders. However, old age should not be a death sentence. Besides, not only elders will die but also young adult and children due to diseases. There is an absence of treatments for illnesses and diseases, which are responsible for this terrifying death toll per day.

It is definitely time to end all the precursors of death. There is an immense effort being done daily to combat diseases and alleviate the pain that they bring with them. There is even great research being conducted to eradicate the aging process once and for all. This is how Robert Ettinger proclaimed the cycle of life.

“Being born is not a crime, so why must it carry a sentence of death?”
By Robert Ettinger

It is thus highly possible that death will be overturned in the years to come. The court of science and technology will ideally execute the manoeuvre of the demise of death in our lifetime.

Interfering in The Natural Order

The hubristic attitude of believing that death is natural and man shall not interfere to play god prevents science to progress. Nonetheless, humans have always tried their best to improve comfort, security and efficacy of life by deploying their creativity and resourcefulness.

In contemporary marketing most products are promoted as being “natural”. But, what is natural or unnatural? An accurate definition to what is natural is that everything that happens in the world (synthetic or not) is bound to be natural. The very fact that humans are an element of nature means that every handcraftsmanship or invention produced by humans such as machines are also natural. They become incorporated to nature through our natural presence. However, most people do not consider ‘natural’ through this definition. They consider that all events, occurrences or products that are generated without the involvements of humans are natural. For instance, milk generated by cows is natural. However, the milk that is bought in the supermarket is practically unnatural.

Other more important debates about the word ‘natural’ are related to the spur to defeat aging and death. The many scientific measures initiated to enhance human conditions were at their development phase scorned as intolerable and unacceptable, but today they are universally accepted. There are various examples from vaccination to anaesthesia; blood transfusions to organ transplant; birth control pills to abortion. Now let us imagine how the world without the so called ‘unnatural’ development and improvement produced by man would be like. Some of the natural things that humans have overcome are Polio, Tooth decay, Cholera, but without these “unnatural” cures developed by humans, we would still be at the battle against death in face of these very diseases. More significantly, death is natural but must it be an accepted hubris.

It is certain that creativity and innovation must be deployed to improve human life. It has been done for ages. The benchmarks are just around us; fire (ignition with wood to matches), electricity (fossil fuel slowly changing to renewable), antibiotics, organ transplants, etc. It is absurd not to use science and technology for our well-being. If technology can be used to alleviate natural limits such as aging and death, it is thus best to use it towards this end. The idea of determine what is wrong or right by questioning whether it is natural or unnatural is simply unrealistic.

It is not claimed that moral and ethical issue should be ignored. It is definitely sure that concerns of safety, individual choice, overpopulation, resource distribution and environmental challenges must be addressed at an equal stance. This is all possible when an arena of progressive thinking is harnessed.

The Journey Towards Emancipation of Death

There is probably a great deal of people who still believe that opposing death is unnatural and wrong. It shall be remembered that some centuries ago opposing slavery was considered as a dystopia and foolish idea.

Arthur C. Clarke Revolutionary Ideas

Arthur C. Clarke, says that revolutionary ideas mainly go through 3 phases. The first reaction of people is that “It’s completely impossible.” They will then re-think as the current situation is worsening and claim that it “Maybe it’s possible to it, but it would cost too much”. The final say to revolutionary ideas is “I always thought it was a good idea”.

The observation by Clarke is aligned with the truth of human psychology. The analogy of human slavery reveals a ground-breaking example of challenging something taken for granted. In history, humans have since time possessed other humans in the form of slavery. It had even become a way of living. The emancipation of freedom and fundamental rights has only been present for a century or two. It took years to end slavery. It went through the phases of being “impossible”, to “possible but too costly” and thereafter to our current position as being a “good idea”.

The abolition of death will soon come to the foreground. Humans are enslaved and condemned by death. Scientists are those who will be fighting the battle to unleash us from our enslavement of death.

Nano-medicine and biotechnology hold prospective solutions to alleviate illnesses, diseases and to assure youthfulness forever. This will finally free us from our decrepit precursors of natural death. We will surpass physical frailty and ill healthy by new wondrous technological advancement.

The dream is to live without the fear of death. However, there is a multi-facet agenda of solution to extend our lifespan. The most advanced solution might be to extract our personality and inject it into an indestructible robot. This would require a sophisticated process to dislocate our brain away from our feeble body and implant it into a futuristic robot. Nonetheless, this process would probably be done by creating a digital copy of the content of our brain and thereby downloading it into a robot. The advantage of opting for an “upload and download” approach is that a backup copy of our personality can be maintained in case something cataclysmic happen to the robot structure. This would for sure make us truly immortal; we could even have copies of “ourselves” stored in various corners of the universe.

The Birth of Immortality

It is a bit repugnant to see an incredible creation such as the human brain enclosed in a feeble, fragile and ephemeral structure, which is our human body. The human body might be attractive and stunning, but it is disappointingly short-lived. The body that we live in is unfortunately not a creation of extreme intelligence. It has been created or has evolved mainly for reproduction and survival.

The human body is also being forced by biological and social conditions to turn into an attractive design. This is why our body has stunning and beautiful contours, which establishes a standard behaviour model. It is thus hard for us to deviate from the standard preconceptions evolved over-time. This is why people tend to shy away when they come across an individual with missing limbs or a disfigured face. It is also one of the reasons why humans are opposing the substitution of our natural body with an artificially developed one. The body that we inhabit has been subject to directionless modifications. It is a derivate of cumbersome, dumbness, and tortuous evolution through millions of years.

The body was not designed to yield maximum benefits. It is rather a product of auspicious twists occurring through its evolution. Moreover, our body is still evolving with the derived genetic mutations based from ancestors to a descendant. We are lucky that we have evolved into a highly intelligent being. We can now anticipate our own future development. The use of marvelous tools and our creative mind we can produce a new body. An intelligent body that does encompass our preferences and needs.

In our short life span, we have already seen dozens of new prototypes of automobiles and aircrafts. In addition, engineers are able to speed up the pace of progress through simulated environments, which are both cheaper and easier to manipulate. The use of intelligent computers with well elaborated programs enables tests to be conducted under normal and extreme conditions.

The future lies in something that scientists refer to as a “Posthuman Body”. The new sophisticated simulation approach is making it possible to abstain from the cumbersome effort to construct a molecule by molecule and then test them one by one. Simulation in a virtual reality environment is making it feasible to test molecular changes easily without this manual burden of building and testing each piece.

Moreover, simulations are also advancing at rocket speed. It is certain that soon the experience of entering a simulated body will be inseparable from the physical reality. Life and virtual life will converge as the same. People might even want to inhabit into this virtual reality. A world where every experience is as in the real world and one can enjoy and interact with close-friends and families.

Many people would retreat from the ideology of living in a virtual realm. However, an advanced simulation could make the experience practically synonymous with our real experience today. Let us consider our actual physical body as an organic robot. When we enter the physical world our brain and mind are the only criteria that distinguish an individual in terms of identity and personality. Furthermore, the organic robot body can hear, see, touch, smell and taste. These sensors are sent to the brain via electrical pathways just like processing in a computer system. A computer system could produce the same process, as the organic robot, which would practically make us aware and believe that this is “me” in the real world. The whole concept of virtual reality is based on creating such an environment. A surrounding that creates experiences that is true. We could be on earth simulating a robot that is physically on the surface of Mars. The definition of virtual environment will gradually change as we progress.

It is believed that in a century or even less, many people will be having their human personality living in the cyberspace. There will definitely be hurdles such as new types of emotions and sensations felt in comparison to what we know today, but it is a step worth taking. Cyberspace is no longer mere science fiction. The actual trends in computing technology are even making it feasible that living in cyberspace will occur within 2 to 3 decades.

An Inconceivable Future

Something unimaginable today but perhaps soon a question too many is whether we should live in one, two or three bodies. The very fact that we have a wild imagination makes it hard to anticipate the future. It is hard to know what type of creature we will become in the upcoming centuries.

The lowest prediction of tomorrow’s evolution of humans is that we would merely be as we are today. However, the wildest speculations suggest that we might inhabit in several bodies at once. This appears similar to a recent Bruce Wills Film, entitled: Surrogates In the film, people can live in various bodies and can buy different clones, or rather body structures to live in. However, such a radical change could change our personal identity, consciousness, and body functioning as well.

The emergence of immortal super-beings is something that probably will happen in the future. This can be a possible path towards the evolution of Posthumans. However, in the years to come the first aims in extending longevity is in the sphere of medical improvement and regenerative medicine.

References
1. Mike Treder .(2004) The scientific conquest of Death, Imminst.org

Related Article:
Transhumanism v.s Humanism; the Gate-way To Longevity

Immortality, Longevity, Nanotechnology, Stem cells

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Last year at TEDMED, Aubrey de Grey gave details of how a ‘Maintenance Approach” could boost longevity. It deploys a systematic methodology to address accumulating damages caused to our tissues (body) through the disease of ageing.

Regenerative Medicine: Video 1

The video from TEDMED (available below) will certainly make you poised and eager to see regenerative medicine curing aging.

The term regenerative medicine consists of a group of treatments from immune system training to complex genetic therapies. People are more familiar with stem cell therapy. It is attracting more public interest, and it involves growing new organs or even bodies in laboratories. It is an incredible technology which is already being used to grow organs such as the bladder.

These are all medical researches aimed at treating injuries or weaknesses that develop in our body. On this stance, Aubrey de Grey is suggesting that with a few additions to regenerative medicine, we will be able to assure fitness and healthiness of elders. The regenerative medicine will offer something far beyond our expectations. We will enjoy an exponential boost in longevity.

There are practically seven different classes of damages that occur within the body. These are outlined in the TEDMED Video (12:15). They are:

1. Junk – Inside Cells (unwanted bi-products of cells)
2. Junk – Outside Cells
3. Cells – Too few (cells are not replaced)
4. Cells – Too Many (cells expands to rapidly, a likely cause of cancer)
5. Mutations – Chromosomes
6. Mutation – Mitochondria
7. Protein Crosslink

In addressing the damages enlisted above, it is possible to address the accumulate damage occurring to a body. This might also put an end to the spell of aging.

The maintenance approach, suggests that repairing damage can enable us to live for quite some time. The best of it is that people will live in a healthy state. In essence, of his method to overcome the disease of aging, he supersedes the myth of old age frailness with the notion of complete healthiness.

Regenerative medicine is progressing fast and may very soon provide a repair mechanism at cellular levels. It is of paramount importance that people redefine and accept this new philosophy of aging. It might only be our apathy in supporting and engaging in this sort of research, which holds us back from an extreme enhancement in longevity.

Video 1 From TEDMED 2009 –

Video 2 from TED – 2005

Source: TED and Singularity Hub

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According to team that has been led by researchers of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, there is an obvious connection between living up to 100 years and a hyperactive version of an enzyme that is responsible for rebuilding telomeres, that is, the tip ends of chromosomes. These findings have appeared in the recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Telomeres have vital roles in cancer, aging and other biological processes. Their significance was recognised the previous month, when three scientists were rewarded by the 2009 Nobel Prize in the field of Physiology and Medicine for having determined the structure of these telomeres as well as for having discovered the way they may help in protecting chromosomes from degrading.

Telomeres are rather small sections of specialized DNA which sit at the ends of every chromosome. Elizabeth Blackburn, a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco and one of the Nobel Prize winners, has made comparison between telomeres and plastic tips that are found at the ends of shoelaces that is responsible for preventing the laces from undoing.

Every time cell division occurs, the cell’s telomeres somewhat erode and little by little becomes shorter with each subsequent cell division. In due course, the telomeres turn so short that their host cells end the division process and drift into a condition that is known as senescence. As a consequence, crucial tissues and vital organs start to stop working and the typical signs of aging follow.

While looking into the role that telomeres play in the aging process, the Einstein researchers examined Ashkenazi Jews. The reason is that these people are a homogeneous population which have previously been well studied genetically. Three groups of people were registered; 86 years old – generally healthy although very old (their average age being 97); 175 of their children; and finally 93 controls (children of parents who had lived an average lifespan).

In accordance with Gil Atzmon, a Ph.D., an assistant professor of genetics and medicine at Einstein, as well as Genetic Core Leader for The Longevity Project at Einstein’s Institute for Aging Research in addition to being a main author of the paper, telomeres represent a single piece of the puzzle that is accountable for the reason why a number of people are able to live such a long life. He advances that his research was meant to find the answers of two questions; Do persons who have an extended lifespan tend to be equipped with long telomeres? And if yes, could alterations in their genetic code for telomerase give an explanation for their long telomeres?

The answer to both of these questions turned out to be affirmative.

An associate professor of medicine and of genetics from Einstein, on top of being a lead author of the paper, Yousin Suh, Ph.D., states that he and his team suspected that people of outstanding long life are better able to sustain the length of their telomeres. He declares that they have discovered that these people owe their extended lifespan, at least to some extent, to beneficial modifications of genes that are involved in the maintenance of telomeres.

More explicitly, the researchers discovered that the participants who have been able to live till a very old age have got mutant genes in inheritance. These genes are the responsible for making their specific telomerase-making system hyper active. They are also enabled to preserve the telomerase length more efficiently. In most cases, these persons were secured from age-related illnesses like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which are the source of the majority of deaths among older people.

According to Doctor Suh, their findings imply that telomere length and variants of telomerase genes come together to enable people to live very long lives, maybe by defending them from age-related illnesses. He further continues that they are now attempting to figure out the mechanism through which these genetic alterations of telomerase sustain the telomere length in centenarians. Eventually, it might be probable to develop drugs that imitate the telomerase that those centenarians have inherited in the first place.

Source: Eurekalert

Immortality, Longevity, Stem cells

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The debate whether we should or should not play “GOD” is an increasingly tense topic. Many humanists have gone towards an atheist perspective believing that there exists no divine creator or purpose-giver to act affirmatively. Nevertheless, humanists who are deeply pro-science do however somehow fear the Promethean sentence of going against religious dogmas.

The fear held by the humanists can be seen in reactions and belief. For example, humanists do not think that physical immortality or agelessness can be achieved through technological advancement. Humanists do blemish agelessness as unnatural or eternal life as being useless. Although humanists do not believe in a divine creator they stay keen to the notion of living an allotted time on earth, in other words a limited lifespan. They even refute the idea of physical immortality and superhuman (post-human) ability and intelligence are observed with fear rather than as competitive source of knowledge.

These tales of immortality might for many be stories coming from Frankenstein, Icarus, and The Tower of Babel: Humans Should Just Accept Their Limits, and many others. The apprehension of overcoming the impossible or the unlikely makes people tremble. Where does our innate fright of conquering death and aging as well as going beyond the sky come from? Moreover, medical science is mostly viewed as a method to cure the sick and not necessarily to enforce the healthy, but this is what longevity studies are trying to unravel.

Humanist to Transhumanist

The values and goals of most humanists are limited. Most people with a belief in superior knowledge and posthumans refer themselves as transhumanists. A transhumanist is ready to anticipate how life will be as posthumans emerge into the modern society. A well-known group of transhumainsts is the Extropy institute which refers to themselves as Extropians.

The emergence of Extropians (tranhumanists) is guided by similar principles such as self-transcendence, intelligent technology, dynamic optimism and boundless expansion that can take any particular order. The philosophy is to support optimism instead of pessimism and to think of a world different from what it is today; one where life would be eternal.

The idea is not to play “GOD”. The real focus is to transcend to posthuman. However, we should try to conceive all the feasible future of ourselves as well. In respect to god as being a superior being, we might become extremely powerful and maybe immortal, however we will not be some kind of supernatural ghost creature, questioned by physics. It is thus better to put gods aside. The question that we are really trying to crack is whether:

1. Are Posthumans Really Possible?
2. Are Posthumans Really Desirable?

Are Posthumans Really Possible?

Can humans really enjoy a transition to become posthumans, this is a question that only physic can challenge. In simple terms, we can transcend to posthumans only when our neurophysiology, physiology, inherited genetics and neurochemistry become sufficiently distinguished so that we are no longer categories as Homo Sapiens. Posthumans are memetically derived from humans. However, they will have a more complex motivational structure. This could include ability to control emotional response, control sexual orientation or in other words manipulate neurochemistry.

There are already many steps that have been taken in the becoming posthumans. Humans genetic structure is being changed to compensate for the failure rooted from nature. There are pills and medications such as Piracetam, Prozac, Deprenyl, and Hydrergine that are being consumed to change our psychology, improve our brain power and to decrease the speed of aging. There are by now more efficient neuro-chemical modifiers being in laboratory testing. The use of molecular biology with highly advanced computer systems is making it easier to alter our genetic structure to the betterment of humankind.

We are somehow integrating humans and machine into one being. More modern machines are both intelligent and also capable of self-modifying. The various topics of study that are concentrating on the machine human or so called cyborgs are AI, intelligent agent, neural networks, fuzzy logic and machine intelligence. We are not far from becoming cyborgs. Technology is in many aspects being used to replace joints. In laboratory development we have artificial retinas that might soon be commercialized. The next step according to many researchers is to connect electronic components to our neurons. This would enable us to communicate directly to our PCs, PDAs, Mobile phone and any other accessories. There is probably only a decade or two left until computers are implanted into our brain system. It might take as well up to 50 or 60 years but bet on it, it will soon come.

The emergence of even more fascinating advancement is engineered virus. A virus with the potential to modify the genetic structure of practically any cell in our body would give us an endless opportunity to manipulate our morphology and physiology. The rate at which progress is surfacing for molecular nanotechnology would probably ascertain that engineered virus will soon be a feasible product. It would perhaps even be possible to construct atom by atom in the body. The result of such a radical advancement in science and technology would be first the dusk of aging, immortality and the accomplishment of alchemists’ dream.

More intricate is that a group of machine intelligence research, cognitive scientists and roboticists predict that more stunning posthuman can be achieved. It might be possible to upload or download our physiology, emotions, memories, feelings and values from our biological brain to one that has synthetically been created. In other words, we could change our brain to one that have a million or not even a billion times faster processing capability compared to our natural brain.

So yes, Posthumans are highly feasible.

Are Posthumans Really Desirable?

The reason why human continually strive to go beyond limits and unfold the unachievable is simply due to our natural eagerness to improve and for comfort. Progress and enlightenment is from the humanistic perspective viewed as possible. We live in an era of grand adventure where technology, science and reason can help us to surpass the weaknesses that have been confined in our past. Human can absolutely achieve much. The application of our determination, intelligence and optimism is likely to lead to an evolution of our kind. An evolution, which is already directing towards enhancing our neurology capacity. Human creativity is looked in the boundaries of our imagination and intelligence, and with more intelligence the boundaries keeps on expanding.

The inhibitor to human enlightenment is aging and death. There are many who refer to death as Alan Harrington does “Death is an imposition on the human race and no longer acceptable” It is a blatant truth that death and aging are at the determent of complete wisdom. It takes years to accumulate knowledge and as a modicum of intelligence and wisdom has been achieved, aging or death resets the progress. This infuriating cycle is deemed to be challenged. It is worth to conquer aging and death so that wisdom can be increasingly accumulated.

There are many who believe that life will be meaningless if the traditional life cycle of aging and death was radical altered. The Extropians/Transhumanists view such an attitude as being rational and common. It is sure that our lifestyle will require intense revision if the posthuman lifespan was to be concretized, today. The change to human lifespan is definitely worth the effort. In reality, ageing and death itself is to many a source rendering life miserably futile. The accomplishment of immortality will probably not be at the detriment of theological belief; it would rather support the rationale behind it.

On the medical paradigm, this new culture has a distinction from previous approaches. The contemporary way to view medical science is to cure diseases while the new medical paradigm focuses on brining functionality of the existing one to incredible levels. Doctors and medical practitioners view their job as to cure or alleviate diseases and not as to increase the health of someone who is already healthy. This is once again some of the limited conception of the belief in “natural”. The very fact that we only cure a defect means that we are trying to bring it back to its natural state (God created stage). However, improving our brain or body potential is seemed as unnatural. This is why we consider psychiatric drugs as normal but intelligence-boosting drugs are rejected due to the fact that we are already mentally well.

In some way, we should consider that transhuman is also something natural; a natural endeavour to transcend into new complexity and forms. Moreover, by Nietzsche, it would be referred to as the “universal will to power”. There are many theories that proclaim our effort to unravel complexity or universal will to power. For instant, evolutionary theory, complexity theory, neurocomputing and artificial life are all related to overcoming limits deemed as being innate to humans. Human have an internal drive that is geared to change the environment as well ourselves as a being.

There will not be a punishment or a Pandora ’s Box for bringing posthumans intelligence and agelessness to our doorstep. Old myths that emerged when human was at the edge of extinction shouldn’t keep us back. Life has radically changed, but YES it is certain that we must take upmost precaution when altering our brain function, genes and physiology.

Progress shall not be subject to stagnation. It can transform manifold until dynamic of this exuberant process is reaped. The communal goal of moving forward, farther and higher has inherently been a conscious strive of human kind.

The supernatural being “GOD” is a rather primitive notion developed by superstitious people, people having just hatched out from unconsciousness and ignorance. The conception of god is oppressive in the sense that it is much more powerful than us. The introduction of posthuman might act as a means to change perception and add another dimension to the human evolution. It is of paramount importance to understand that we aren’t the zenith of nature’s development rather only a crucial part. We have to be able to consciously evolve and control our future.

We shall leave assumptions behind, and bring posthumanity to the foreground. Living forever, immortality and superior wisdom are what are awaiting us in the future.

Source:Maxmore

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