A serious question - Immortality ?

[cyber888]

Here's a fossil record that cannot be explained in simple terms (video link below). Were these the Nephilims of the bible?

https://socioecohistory.wordpress.co...lim-skeletons/

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Originally Posted by Texas Proud First, you have to believe that the bible is telling the truth... if you are religious then you do... if you are not some of what they put down is a stretch.... From my limited knowledge (and it is very limited), I have not read anything in the fossil records that would show that any of the ancient people lived a long life... heck, it shows that 40 was old.... I am not saying that there might not be some way to extend life to between 500 and 1000 years.... but even if that became a reality that is still a blip in time according to the cosmic time frame... not immortality....

[Texas Proud]

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Originally Posted by cyber888 Here's a fossil record that cannot be explained in simple terms (video link below). Were these the Nephilims of the bible? https://socioecohistory.wordpress.co...lim-skeletons/

Did not see any video, but will look later....


However, this is from a very different time and very different location than the people mentioned in the bible....

[imoldernu]

Am currently going to an eight week study group that covers the dead sea scrolls.
While the series is not specifically about immortality, the span of knowledge that the scrolls cover presents with some deeper thought about life, and the ways it has been seen in the BCE and the CE.
Difficult to look at time and history as wev'e been taught, and the reality of time as measured by the various dating methods. Here's an image that puts life and time into a perspective that few understand, and fewer could recount as historical periods.

[Gone4Good]

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Originally Posted by Music Lover Why wouldn't an extended life span have the same quality as it does now? All things being equal, one could assume that someone who today lives to 90 that started to go downhill at 85, that with an extended life to age 130 they would start to go downhill at 120 - 125 rather than at 85.

What modern medicine has done in many cases is keep people from dying suddenly from things like heart attacks and strokes in their sixties and early seventies only to have them endure extended periods of debilitating illness like dementia.

[NW-Bound]

Immortality has been brought up as a thread topic numerous times before. I cannot get excited about it, because the average age at death is only 78.74 years in 2012.

And the dead people include not just the older people but also the younger ones who supposedly enjoyed modern medicine, so that should reduce a lot of infant mortality already.

Among the people who died, no doubt a few died from accidents or violent deaths, but then those are also obstacles to one's achieving immortality. You would need to be an unkillable vampire or zombie, not just a non-aging or disease-immune person. And you should not go to public spaces, like running the Boston Marathon or go hanging out in a Paris cafe. Don't go hide out in remote places like Alaska either, where grizzlies roam. Don't take airplanes that can crash, drive cars that can be T-boned, ships that can sink. Try to avoid crowds, which can give you flu, pneumonia, as these kill many elderlies.

Immortality is tough.

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Originally Posted by NW-Bound Interesting how while laymen are so optimistic, medical experts are somewhat glum about the advance of medicine. References: The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee (2010) Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande (2014) The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery, George Johnson (2013)

[Gone4Good]

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Originally Posted by NW-Bound Among the people who died, no doubt a few died from accidents or violent deaths, but then those are also obstacles to one's achieving immortality. You would need to be an unkillable vampire or zombie, not just a non-aging or disease-immune person. And you should not go to public spaces, like running the Boston Marathon or go hanging out in a Paris cafe. Don't go hide out in remote places like Alaska either, where grizzlies roam. Don't take airplanes that can crash, drive cars that can be T-boned, ships that can sink. Immortality is tough.

Indeed.

But disease and age is the primary reason we die . . .

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According to US social security data the probability of a 25-year-old dying before their 26th birthday is 0.1%. If we could keep that risk constant throughout life instead of it rising due to age-related disease, the average person would – statistically speaking – live 1,000 years.

It's not forever, but I'll take it.

And imagine the distribution around that mean. We're talking some seriously old folks.

[ejman]

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Originally Posted by Gone4Good What modern medicine has done in many cases is keep people from dying suddenly from things like heart attacks and strokes in their sixties and early seventies only to have them endure extended periods of debilitating illness like dementia.

Yes, extending life @ la Tithonus doesn't sound appealing at all.

[NW-Bound]

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According to US social security data the probability of a 25-year-old dying before their 26th birthday is 0.1%. If we could keep that risk constant throughout life instead of it rising due to age-related disease, the average person would – statistically speaking – live 1,000 years.

I will believe it when I see it. Well, when I live it.

[NW-Bound]

Here are the leading causes of death in the US in 2013 as compiled by CDC.

Heart disease: 611,105
Cancer: 584,881
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 149,205
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 130,557
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,978
Alzheimer's disease: 84,767
Diabetes: 75,578
Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,979
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 47,112
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 41,149

I do not know about heart disease, but the three books I listed earlier sound quite glum about the cure for cancer. Note that the accident rate is quite high.

Curiously, I read a recent interview with Bill Gates, and he said that in 30 years cancer would be a thing of the past. That really took me aback, because what does he know that other medicine experts don't?

Was Bill Gates just hopeful? I note that he's my age, and perhaps he is hoping that if he manages to hang on to 90, all cancer would be curable, and he would no longer fear of getting the same fate as Steve Jobs who succumbed to cancer despite having all the money in the world.

[CountryGal]

Given the increasing levels of chemicals and toxins in our food, drugs and environment, I find it hard to believe that life expectancy is increasing.

My goal is to improve the potential quality of life I live by eating right and exercising. Hoping to avoid the long downward slide that my parents took.

[NW-Bound]

I believe life expectancy is increasing. The quality of life I have seen with my deceased relatives at their end of life was not too good, but I do not know how it was a generation ago to compare. Perhaps it was always as lousy as that, but just lasted longer now. Ugh!

[HFWR]

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Originally Posted by travelover I'm more interested in immorality.

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Originally Posted by Nemo2 No reason you can't combine the two.

+1

Or is that +2...

[UtahSkier]

The rate of knowledge acquisition is increasing exponentially... world wide.

We are learning more, faster.

There is speculation that the first person to live to be 1000 years old is already alive.

Because of the possibility of a dramatic increase in human life span in the near future affects my retirement portfolio planning. I am trying to keep a portfolio of 70% stocks, just in case.

[HFWR]

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Originally Posted by imoldernu Am currently going to an eight week study group that covers the dead sea scrolls. While the series is not specifically about immortality, the span of knowledge that the scrolls cover presents with some deeper thought about life, and the ways it has been seen in the BCE and the CE. Difficult to look at time and history as wev'e been taught, and the reality of time as measured by the various dating methods. Here's an image that puts life and time into a perspective that few understand, and fewer could recount as historical periods.

That image is misleading at best. For instance humans and Neanderthals coexisted and interbred. Recent evidence suggests that other hominids/humanoids coexisted as well, which makes perfect sense, as evolution is not straight line, all-or-nothing. And there is evidence for rapid evolution as well in some instances.

Fossilization takes a fairly specific set of conditions to occur, so there may very well always be gaps, but indicating that not finding one specific "missing link" casts doubt on evolution ignores that many intermediary species have been found and identified. And humanoids are horny critters as well, and likely genes of different yet related groups mingled and, ahem, shared their seeds...

Who's your daddy indeed!

[Gone4Good]

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Originally Posted by UtahSkier The rate of knowledge acquisition is increasing exponentially... world wide.

This has nothing to do with immortality (and quite possibly has everything to do with the opposite) but it totally blew me away. Who knew Robby the Robot was so close to reality?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

[ejman]

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Originally Posted by Gone4Good This has nothing to do with immortality (and quite possibly has everything to do with the opposite) but it totally blew me away. Who knew Robby the Robot was so close to reality? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

Wait till Robby gets pissed at your poking him around and moving his cheese...

[Taxman59]

For all of you with pensions, what will an extended lifespan (to 500 years or so) do to he viability of your pension provider?


Have the day you deserve, and let Karma sort it out.

Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

[imoldernu]

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Originally Posted by HFWR That image is misleading at best. For instance humans and Neanderthals coexisted and interbred. Recent evidence suggests that other hominids/humanoids coexisted as well, which makes perfect sense, as evolution is not straight line, all-or-nothing. And there is evidence for rapid evolution as well in some instances. Fossilization takes a fairly specific set of conditions to occur, so there may very well always be gaps, but indicating that not finding one specific "missing link" casts doubt on evolution ignores that many intermediary species have been found and identified. And humanoids are horny critters as well, and likely genes of different yet related groups mingled and, ahem, shared their seeds...

Yeah... you are right... I was looking for an"age of the earth" timeline and picked one with pictures, probably from a religious website. While I think there are questions about inbreeding, homo sapiens were around long before the "poof" and shared tens of thousands of years with the neanderthal.

I couldn't find a decent, notated timeline image. I suppose its a little difficult to picture our normal lifespan in the context of four and a half billion years.

[NW-Bound]

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Originally Posted by Gone4Good This has nothing to do with immortality (and quite possibly has everything to do with the opposite) but it totally blew me away. Who knew Robby the Robot was so close to reality? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

This robot is impressive. If George Lucas started the Star Wars series now, would he have Darth Vader walk like this robot? Somebody, give this robot a light saber for self-defense, so it will not get pushed around.

[cyber888]

I've read some of the Dead Sea Scroll studies. I've read there are some important cuniforms found in the caves (one or more in copper). I've seen the cuniforms in the British museum (Sumeria, Akkadian, Babylonian).

As to the image link you shared, looks like the traditional knowledge taught in school. I don't believe in Darwin's theory of evolution .. that we were once amphibians and lizards, then ape, and then human. If you have time, view the video of Llyod Pie who wrote the book "Everything you know is Wrong".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe6DN1OoxjE

I believe we were created by the original humans (aliens who came here), we were cloned in their image. They lived thousands of years, while our DNAs are capped around 100 years old. We were created in their image so they have slaves to do their bidding on this planet (mine gold), but they genetically engineered us to have a shorter life span. Maybe in the future, we can correct that anomally in our DNA and turn off the aging part.

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Originally Posted by imoldernu Am currently going to an eight week study group that covers the dead sea scrolls. While the series is not specifically about immortality, the span of knowledge that the scrolls cover presents with some deeper thought about life, and the ways it has been seen in the BCE and the CE. Difficult to look at time and history as wev'e been taught, and the reality of time as measured by the various dating methods. Here's an image that puts life and time into a perspective that few understand, and fewer could recount as historical periods.