Is the pursuit of everlasting life something we all want? Based on what is understood today, humans are the only mammalian species that actually have the wisdom to perceive our mortality. For some time now, most probably from the time we became sensitive to the fact that we would someday perish; we began to think about the possibility of perhaps not dying at all. Immortality is not something all cultures strive or lust after.
Most religions, if not all of them, would likely frown upon the prospects of desiring immortality. Taking into consideration the faith of those opposed to human immortality, there must be a majority of us that would jump at the opportunity to become immortal – I think even many who are religious – and short of eternal existence, just living a very extended life span.
Societal Progress Created Old Age
Prior to looking into means of making this desire come true, first things first, Let us look at human life now. Through a long evolutionary process, man has evolved into what must be considered the dominant species on the planet. Other predatory species have become less threatening to man as he has evolved into a strong, wily and imaginative co-inhabitant of earth. We have developed past the need of hunting and gathering to such a point that our food can be warehoused, parceled and eaten, able to exploit nature for our needs. We have produced medicines and treatments to fight illnesses; we managed to develop methods of purifying potable water. We heat and cool our habitats as required and as much as we can, we take care of our old as we would our young, and man has evolved and become enlightened.
Worn Down
The occurrence of old age that this societal enlightenment has thrust upon us separates us from other fauna. In the animal kingdom old age is extremely unlikely, found perhaps in only a few of the largest species if at all. As humans have evolved culturally, we wait for our physical body to catch up. Our bodies were never designed to last a remarkably long time since unevolved, less cultured humans of the past were never meant to survive for long in such untamed surroundings.
Humans perish simply because they get worn down physically – they wear out – not due to poor food or a lack of quality care. There is some hope though; this area is showing some improvement. Every generation [more often than not] outlives its predecessor. So many of us now opt for healthier lifestyle choices than we did previously and this means we live longer. However the problem of becoming worn out still exists.
Replacing Body Parts
Over the last forty years or so, science and medical experts have become quite well informed about human body part transplantation. Rejection of these transplanted parts is not the obstacle it was at one time. Since immense strides with genetics has occurred, it is now almost possible to grow rudimentary body parts and eventually actual organs utilizing the DNA blueprint of someone using a tiny sample. When these two practices are combined, there is genuine potential to soon be able to transplant many required body components. Eventually, one could envision warehousing spare parts for ourselves if or more likely when, the need arises. Using micro surgery procedures we could replace any part that wears out and do so simply by ordering the replacement in advance. The concept is achievable and it absolutely boggles the senses!
What To Do About Our Brain?
We can replace as much of ourselves as we like but our brain may be a different story. Our brain is the root of our being. It contains everything about whom and what we are. The potential to regenerate a new brain may indeed be a possibility some day but how would we be able to convey all of our information – who we actually are – into the replacement grey matter? No doubt the brain is unique in this replacement business since it contains our history and consciousness, our sense of individuality.
Due to this fact, exchanging one’s mind matter for a newer version and getting rid of the previous version would be the equivalent or nothing short of murder and would surely end the entire practice. Conversely, in the event the brain was not restorable and the rest of the body could be, old age would destroy it in the end anyway.
Brains Seldom Stop Working
There are a number of things that can be done about this problem. We are losing thousands of brain cells on a daily basis but there is also new cell generation as well. The ratio of cell death to cell growth is lopsided in favor cell s perishing. For some reason, the rate at which the collective brain cell death occurs appears to grow as our age progresses. In addition, it is normal for our brain to keep up its functionality pretty well as the rest of our physical being deteriorates. When someone passes away, it is more frequently a result of a weakness in a part of the body, like the kidneys or heart, that quits and not very often the brain.
Apoptosis – [Cell Suicide]
How come our brain cells perish? This occurs for any number of reasons. They die due to specific diseases, accidents, drug use or excessive use of alcohol and exposure to many types of ecological toxicity. Oddly, these harmful aspects only play a minority role in the death of brain cells. The more frequent origin of brain cell mortality is through apoptosis. This occurs when cells in fact commit suicide. Scientists do not yet totally comprehend why this happens but popular thought is it is essential for the prolonged health of the brain itself. The belief is that damaged cells [perhaps the DNA gets jumbled] perish prior to them doing any further harm to the remainder of the body.
In addition to this, the thought is that apoptosis happens to cells practically on an indiscriminate basis. One manner of thought is that when our body fails, particular neurons become obsolete and pretty much just terminate themselves instead of using up biological assets. The process could occur as follows: Our bodies become worn down: this makes us sluggish: there are fewer stimuli to the brain: the brain has lowered neuron requirements: they merely terminate via apoptosis.
Establishing Fresh Cells
Maybe this cellular Hari Kari is the main aspect in the theory that our brains usually out survive our bodies. The brain sheds excess “weight” in order to remain fighting trim versus the body parts that begin to breakdown and do not have the capacity to be shed and rejuvenated like brain cells do. This being the case, why should we even contemplate a brain transplant? The brain does an adequate job of ridding itself of broken down cells since they die on command anyway, why bother replacing it – or parts of it when it does not seem necessary. It seems to make more sense to just top up the brain cell count with precoded, DNA structured fresh cells – this is one scheme science is contemplating.
With the advent of nanotechnology, the potential would someday exist for molecular sized “robots” to travel inside the body, entering perhaps via the stomach if ingested as a pharmaceutical. These nanobots would transport the new brain cells in to the cerebral region. Perhaps it would be possible to implant a receptacle of some type that would act as a pool for brain cells. The nanobots would then be discharged when required to replace brain cells at a suitable interval. Add to that the replacement of body parts making the body itself faster which would mean that apoptosis would slow considerably.
Replacing anything in our society is nearly foreign to us since we began disposing of everything, replacing human body parts will not come easily to us. The fundamental problem with being a human is we do not have the luxury of being swapped for a later model. There are or will be times when our physiology will need a renovation job or some form of renewal. One can practically foresee the time when we sit in our physician’s office and look at a computer database of new parts that we want or some form of human remodeling job we would like to have done. Wait a minute…we already have that with cosmetic surgery!
Plastic surgery was nonexistent until the need for it became evident during the First World War due to the extent of many of the injuries. It evolved from there because of need. More than one hundred years later we discuss the possibility of replacing worn out body parts as if we were changing our snow tires. We debate the practicality of replacing the entire brain versus simply having microscopic robots distribute them inside our brains as needed.
Think of how far we have come in medicine and try and tell yourself that what we just discussed here is some sort of pipe dream. Eventually humans will be living much longer than they do today and it will be because of replacement tissue and organs. Does this mean we will eventually achieve immortality because of it? I believe you can count on it in the future.
Sat, May 15, 2010
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Theories, Immortality, Longevity