A serious question - Immortality ?

[Gone4Good]

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 . . .

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]

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]

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]

I'm more interested in immorality.

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]

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]

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?

 

[ejman]

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?

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]

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]

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?

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".

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.

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.

 

[Fedup]

The earth would be too crowded if we have immortality. We have enough problem competing for resources as it is. So thanks but no thanks.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[HadEnuff]

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.

That's not what I've seen so far. My line of work put me in contact with people of all ages. I occasionally saw 90 year olds who could still walk, but that was the extent of their mobility, and they were rare. Of those rare birds who make it to their 90s and beyond, nearly all of them are barely mobile AT BEST. The essentials are still working to the extent that they can breathe, the heart is ticking, brain function may or may not be full, but the muscles, the sinew, the joints...all break down after a 7 or 8 or 9 decades.
Now if we are talking "eternal youth" vs. "eternal life", maybe that comes with another set of challenges (I'm still not sure I'd want), but if we are talking "eternal aging"....nah...not for me, thanks.

 

[Amethyst]

Any theories as to why they capped us at 100, but then punished us with being demented during the last 2 decades?

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. .

 

[Nemo2]

This all sounds a tad von Däniken-ish.

 

[Senator]

There have already been talks about brain transplants. Imagine if a human brain could be transplanted in a 20-year-old body? It may live forever.

Soon, if not already, human organs will able to be grown in a lab. It is already possible to grow them in a human body. The next transition will be to grow organs in a human body that can be harvested.

Growing embryos invitro, then implanting them in a surrogate for the specific purpose of organ harvesting, will be next. The surrogate might be a human, or a lab.

The embryo that is implanted will be modified and be clinically brain-dead. That is, it will need food and nutrients, but will not be technically ‘alive’ from our current medical standards. It can be allowed to ‘grow’ for several years until the parts are of sufficient size.

Organs can be harvested as they are needed. One kidney or lung, a piece of skin, or even part of a liver will be no problem to harvest. If you need a heart, simply unplug the machine, let the organism go dormant, and take the part. Wealthier people may want several clones to enable retrieval of these spare parts.

Once this becomes common place, entire rooms can be filled with these clones, waiting for their parts to be needed. All the DNA will be known. They can be slowly automatically rotated as to avoid bed sores, similar to a roasted chicken on a spit. All they would need is a source of nutrition while they wait for their ultimate purpose. They could be used for blood plasma and bone marrow donations while they wait.

It may not be immortality, but I think you could get quite a few more years out of a body by changing parts.

 

[Gone4Good]

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

That's what I though. That and "we're building freaking Skynet."

 

[Gone4Good]

The earth would be too crowded if we have immortality. We have enough problem competing for resources as it is. So thanks but no thanks.

The earth is a big, big place. As it is, the entire world's 7 B people could fit in a city the size of Texas if it had the population density of NYC. So there's plenty of room.

Of course we already have the technology to limit population size - it's called birth control.

 

[Gone4Good]

There have already been talks about brain transplants. Imagine if a human brain could be transplanted in a 20-year-old body? It may live forever.

That's the best reason why we may never "cure" cancer . . . we probably won't need to.

 

[Senator]

The earth is a big, big place. As it is, the entire world's 7 B people could fit in a city the size of Texas if it had the population density of NYC. So there's plenty of room.

Of course we already have the technology to limit population size - it's called birth control.

Of course, there is the problem, of where too grow food for all those people. Much of the ground in the world is unusable due to mountains, etc.

 

[HFWR]

I've met quite a few humans who could use a brain transplant. Or, more accurately, a brain implant...

Speaking of The Matrix...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150427101633.htm