Life extension is considered by many as a natural phenomenon. However, science has an important contribution in the rise in longevity. It is soon expected that science will be able to elevate life expectancy from eighty to a hundred and thereafter a thousand.
Bruce Klein is a transhumanist and the founder of Imminist (The Immortality Institute), which was set up as a non-profit organisation in 2002. The ultimate goal of the institution is to make human resilient to involuntary death. The result would practically be human immortality.
Klein has constantly strived to spread awareness of human immortality. It is today a cult and a vital field of science. The united vision that his institute is projecting is to overcome natural death once and for all. The answers for immortality do certainly lie in the field of artificial intelligence. AI can offer two possible solutions. A super-intelligent computer could be constructed to solve all medical predicaments related to human aging. Or, a person’s personality could be stored in a form of backup on a powerful computer. We could then be able to live in a virtual world until technology development would be able to produce a synthetic human body.
Imminst is a very successful institute. The web-based platform conveys various fields of transhumanism such as cryonic and anti-aging treatments. The use of superior technology to freeze and unfreeze people is one technique called cryonics. Cryonics is based on the philosophy that someone can be frozen and then unfrozen in the future. However, this requires that technology enables such a thing to be possible. Another field that the World Transhumanist Association is paying attention too, is developing technologies that can improve our biological condition.
Some other institutions associated with immortality studies are:
1. Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence – Focus AI
2. SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) lead by Aubrey de Grey
3. The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
4. The Methuselah Foundation – increasing global attention via Mprize competitions
5. The Extropy
These are a few to mention. There are many other institutes around the world that are also concentrating on human immortality.
An infinite life span has always been a forever human quest. However, nowadays technologies are bringing us closer to solutions. It is not acceptable that out of approximately 150,000 people who die every day more than 100, 000 of them die due to old age diseases. It is a disaster to human kind comparable to the “silent Tsunami”. This tragedy of old age disease can probably be prevented in the future.
People turn out to be immortalists due to various contradictory beliefs. It can be the fear of death or determination to make a better future. However, human are morally obliged to try to improve health care. It is comparable to the fact that if ever we would be able prevent a tsunami, we would do the necessary. In this identical way, scientific methods could help to banish death.
One of the most important figures in the immortality movement is Aubrey de Grey, who is working for SENS. He is committed to the endeavours search towards immortality. He has a mechanistic solution to solve aging and even proclaims that living to a thousand can soon be possible. He calls it ‘longevity escape velocity’ and explains it through his engineering strategy to overcome aging. Inevitably, continuous progress in the field of ant-aging will add up to longevity year by year. If the speed of progress increases, it would mean that longevity would rise at such an extent that one will live only longer and longer. De Grey, philosophy is that people can be rejuvenated in such a way that aging even ceases to exist. According to him, death due to old age disease can become a forgotten past.
Yet, many of his enemies do approve that he is very smart but indeed a maverick scientist. He had originally been educated in the field of computer science. After, he married a geneticist, Adelaide Carpenter. She probably inspired him to educate-himself for a PhD. He is now a global figure and leader of the immortalists.
Engineering V.s Science OR Both?
Aubrey de Grey created enemies through insisting that science would require engineering to solve the problem of aging. The difference between science and engineering is that science tries to learn all aspects of a problem. Nevertheless, engineering is restricted to simply learning how to fix a problem. An example to demarcate the two; a scientist could spend a lifetime researching and examining a metabolic debris that increases in aging human cells. However, an engineer would merely find ways to eliminate the debris and bringing the cell back to normal function. The engineer will not bother how the debris accumulated in the first place. Moreover, it is true that many scientists waste their life in fruitless quests towards total wisdom. De Grey, is suggesting a combined result oriented method to alleviate aging.
The most remarkable prediction that Aubrey De Grey is projecting is that he believes that medical immortality can be possible within 30 years. He has an irrefutable reason behind it; “law of exponential increase”.
It is certain that what De Grey is proposing is much “more than small slogans”. His ingenious argument to support anti-aging research is strong. If we do not go for life extension it would practically equate to welcoming or hastening death.
There are many well know gerontologist and scientists that summarise Aubrey de Grey’s quest for immortality as falling ‘into the realms of fantasy’. They also argue that his approach is heavily dependent on publicity offered by journalist for funding. Yet, the bottom line is that the engineering approach he is suggesting might be the only moral way to prevent 100,000 individuals to die daily from aging.
Solving aging might indeed have to go to other fields of studies as well. Transbemanism, which goes beyond biological conditions. It concentrates on the biological entities of genes. It involves the cultural transmission of ideas that proliferate through time. In this respect, we transcend to theological beliefs. The result is the confronting involvement of theological opposition against immortality research. Opposition against anti-aging discourages voluntary finance and donation for anti-aging research, which is essential for financing research projects. Positive publicity is a prerequisite for anti-aging research to progress at an “exponential rate”.
The endeavour passion for biological immortality is immense. However, beyond the excitement there need to be a plan. In fulfilling immortality other related aspects must be examined such as legal, intellectual, financial, population, demographic and henceforth. There is thus a long way to go.
However, stayed tuned, the immortal quest for longevity is going to see flamboyant progress in the years to come. If ever human immortality concretizes the right laws and attitudes must prevail. Therefore, fundraising and longevity campaigns are essential to make longevity happen in the right way. A possible benefit of preventing aging is the saving of 100,000 lives per day, so there are thousands of supporters.
Source: The Times, an adaptation of Bryan Appleyard, Simon & Schuster book on How to Live Forever or Die Trying
Anti Aging, Health And Aging, Longevity, Nanotechnology, Stem cells
Wed, Jun 2, 2010
Anti Aging, Health And Aging, Longevity, Nanotechnology, Stem cells