Researchers at the Maximum Life Foundation met recently to discuss their latest anti-aging findings. Their goal is to extend the human lifespan indefinitely by 2029… though it’s not yet clear how that’ll actually work.
The Huntington Beach-based Foundation held a Longevity Summit earlier this month, where biologists and geneticists shared their research into how humans might live longer — much longer. Futurist author Ray Kurzweil, speaking at the conference, put it thusly: “We are very close to the tipping point in human longevity… we are about fifteen years away from adding more than one year of longevity per year to remaining life expectancy.”
Among those in the business, this threshold is known as “longevity escape velocity,” and many of the Summit speakers seemed to think we’ll get there in the next twenty years.
The speakers came from different backgrounds and specialized in widely different fields, according to press coverage; they appear to have had little in common except a commitment to defeating the aging process. Some of the techniques up for review: organ cryopreservation; tissue replication via stem-cell therapy; chemical supplements to encourage telomere lengthening; and tinkering with cell structures in order to situate our mitochondria more favorably.
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Only if we have life panels.
Just for the record. The Bible has been mocked for talking about folks living to be 800 years old. Science is just uncovering the genetic/environmental switches that were turned off. Go figure. Living forever…. not gonna happen. Living way too long… yep. Possible.
Not in this fragile form. If consciousness could be transferred to a free energy state and you could roam the Universe, that would be nice for a couple of billion years.
All I got to say is HA HA HA HA. Living forever I put this in the someplace as the dumb idea of the flying car. It is not going to happen in the next 10 years.
Re: #20 soundwash said,… “As energy is never destroyed, only transformed or transmuted, and we are made of energy, you are effectively immortal already. (duh) -so whats the point?”
Carbon and minerals are made of energy. So you must still consider the possibility that we will simply revert to our basic elements and exist (not live) forever that way
“Fear” of death is just a meme the religious control freaks cooked up to get you to kiss their ring a few times a week and pick your pocket at the same time.”
Actually that is partly incorrect. The ‘fear’ of death is a WEAKNESS inherent in humans. The ‘religious control freaks’ you refer to, capitalize on that weakness by providing an escape from reality… that we will somehow go to a place far better than out earthly existence and continue on forever in blissful contentment. of course, it’s all man made bullshit… and has been proven beyond a REASONABLE doubt as such, but tell that to the billions who can’t face reality.
To the helplessly religious I would ask, “What’s so bad about reverting to our natural elements in the cycle of life? You are oblivious to it… like a dreamless sleep.”
I have no interest in living forever, nor even in living significantly longer than man lives today. I have no fear of death, nor any desire to see the future beyond my years.
When I die, I die. That’s the way life goes.
I want the indigenous people of Europe to live forever. I love my gt. grandparents and my gt. grandchildren.
#23 – Yes, “Dr” the Rapture, too much sacramental wine today. And if I were a guy I’d have to tell you to blow me!
#32, rectagon… as if you haven’t heard this before…. the Bible is man made, from cover to cover, from idea to idea. You can trace the evolution of stories within it… how they changed or modified to fit the various societies values and aspirations, back through time 5000 years or so. They could easily go back farther if we had the means to decipher more ancient text.
How can you ignore this? … Because it’s that fantastical alternative that just too darned appealing…. the kind of fantasy you can easily lose yourself in.
It’s time for mankind to grow up. Religion retards growth and creates turmoil. Dy definition, the religious are retarded (look it up). So much time WASTED on the SHIT of religion, especially Christianity and Islam, when we could have been developing new energy sources, having better run sensible governments, or fixing the underprivileged areas of the world to self sustainability!
Forever is a very long time.
I think not. If, however, I could be restored to, say, 30 years old, I might reconsider.
Forty-five is a little to far past my peak to want to be here… forever.
All depends on the taste of Soylent Green.
Even if they defeat aging you can still choke to death on a hot dog, die in a fire, or be killed in a car wreck, or of disease.
You aren’t going to live forever.
What about Tithonus?
Only when I go to Heaven…
Only when I go to Heaven.
Not if living forever comes at a cost of being lectured about global warming.
I already do.
The first ten or twenty billion years might be OK but after that it could get a little tedious.
I think Jesus Christ already took care of this concern.
~nuff said.
Depends on how hard it will be to learn Chinese.
In general, I’d vote “YES” for me and “NO” for everyone else.
IMHO~
there are going to have to be laws.
if you choose to do such a thing you must also choose not to have children in exchange. other wise we’d over populate the earth (EVEN MORE) in 10 years and kill us ALL sooner haha
nobody who is alive really WANTS to die. (although it is inevitable), even if we make eternal our bodies, the universe is finite, it began and will end as each of us do, as we are in it, we are microcosms of it.
so personally i’d rather perpetuate my life the old fashioned (and rather fun ) way as opposed to the selfish,short sighted, and ultimately futile one.
My theory is that we actually achieved the “singularity” that Kurzweil thinks is imminent. It happened about 4,000 years ago. And one of us, as a practical joke, used their infinite knowledge and power to create this planet and trick us into believing in them. He calls it World of Earthcraft. His account is scheduled to be shut down on Dec 21, 2012.
I rather have the option to live in near perfect health, for about the average lifespan. And then drop dead totally unexpectedly. Like the way light bulbs often burn out. Flash, you’re gone. The only thing modern medicine has come up with, so far is, a prolonged life suffering with various ills and failings. We’re managing to live longer, with less things working right in our bodies. But the world isn’t handing us an easier ride for still being around. They still want the youngest and the brightest, on the job. And to hell with the older and more experienced.
And yet the deficit spending is ever reducing the monetary value of our retirement savings. By driving the cost of everything upward. But only the US Congress gets a cost of living adjustment, so they won’t suffer. While the rest of non-corporate America doesn’t. So how on earth could to possibly live forever? If you have to survive seeing almost everything you worked for, and believed in, turning into dust and ashes? Maybe they science should concentrate on making jobs, savings, investments, and the economy, survive for much longer. And the rest will take care of itself.
So far, the only thing that exhibits any substantial longevity, is the longevity research itself. And the grant money it brings in. Which is very likely going to be how it is, for a very long time. And continue to outlive all the scientists researching it. Nice to have such job security, until you die.
Lazarus Long was nearly dead before Ira Weatherall found him. He was ready to die, out of sheer boredom. That for me would probably be the biggest problem with immortality. Still I think I’d like to have the chance to exsist until I do get bored with it.
Life extension without known limits is increasingly theoretically possible, and really not very unlikely.
Suppose it takes 5 years to find treatments that add 15 years of healthy life. In those 15 extra years there would be time to develop life extension technologies adding yet another 45 years, during which time further technologies would be developed adding exponentially more time. If certain problems are solves such as brain aging, there is no reason why it can’t go on forever.
With genetic manipulation there is no reason for this not to happen.
It may be that the first person to live “forever” has already been born.
The people that are screwed are people like JCD, that were born just one generation too late and will miss the train of extended life, dying instead as old grouches. If you are over 40, you may be part of the last generation that actually is condemned to die while the younger generation gets to live healthily forever. Talk about bad timing.
This is not immortality as it has been portrayed in fiction, it’s just life extension. We would still become old and sick; we’d probably mostly live in doctors’ offices and hospitals once we reach 70 or so, and definitely after 100. There will likely be very few who survive past about 115 years. The BIG question is whether this is covered by insurance, Medicare, etc. This will likely be pretty expensive, especially at first. Social security retirement age will likely keep going up for a while.
Still, I wouldn’t mind being a burden on those younger than me for another couple of decades, as long as I can still type and see/read the screen!
#56 wake up
I wouldn’t count on it. Research is something you do when things are going well, and just in case you missed it, things are not going well. In fact I’ve got it from very good sources that things are going to get a lot worse before they even begin to get better.
So does forced castration come with immortality, or are we supposed to just keep cramming more and more of us into our little planet here?
The longer I live the longer I can submit to this blog. Viva JCD Uncensored! Long live his holiness.
I will reconsider living forever once I have a few hundred years under my belt. Why not take immortality for a test drive to see if you like it?