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Live Forever?

Started by Programmer One Dec 19, 2001 at 6:20 PM 32 replies 1k views

Original Post

Dec 19, 2001 at 6:20 PM

I am posting this post due to the other post I posted on the subject of life. The meaning of eternal life: As technology is getting better, scientists might be able to "Remove" the aging gene. Now, I have no idea how that would be done...but if it is: Do you really want to live THAT long...even 500 years of life for one person - it just seems horrible. Think about it, living forever - There will always be pain, if you cut yourself it hurts, or if your are thirsty you suffer for a drink. But then again...all the pleasures? Since we humans are so simple, things like money interest us - paper...green paper interests us (sounds silly). Then the other factor: I don''t want to live forever, but I don''t want to die (this would be called Check Mate). I think it would be interesting to live for a LONGER amount of time - but not forever (what if you go to jail and get Life? Forever in jail?). As humans get more and more "Advanced" there is more and more interesting things to see. Like, what would the guy who invented the computer say to the computer''s that we use today? We live in very strange bodies. What are bodies anyway? Just a bunch of jello? This supports Life? We are just a bunch of pips, goo, sticky crap, and water...YET - if you cut this down further...we can be taken apart down to the periodic table of elements. It would be interesting if we had a list of the answers. (No, not the bible

)

GuyJohnston

Dec 19, 2001 at 6:50 PM

Living forever would definitely degrade the value of life. In the short term anyways.

Now I watch too much PBS education stuff so forgive me.

The anti-aging experiments I know of to date consist of the telomarase molecule. This molecule has telomers attached to the ends of the molecule. As time goes on, and as cell makes replicas of itself, the telomers break off. This shortens the molecule and leads to aging. I believe this is so because the cell is no longer capeable of making healthy copies of it self.

Under this evidence, I have come up with a theory called bio-magnetic co-hesion. This method polarizes the molecules in the body making it more difficult for the telomers to break off, hence slowing aging. But I have no idea how to polarize those molecules if they can be polarized at all. Just a crazy theory.

Facehat

Dec 19, 2001 at 7:14 PM

Even if you didn''t age, at some point you''d die in a horrible accident anyway. For some, sooner rather than later >:)

*cough*

Something to think about.

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TIM: FaceHat
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GuyJohnston

Dec 19, 2001 at 7:31 PM

Here is where I learned the telomerese stuff.

PBS

nes8bit

Dec 19, 2001 at 9:29 PM

Did someone watch vanilla sky? *cough*

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Hase

Dec 19, 2001 at 10:18 PM

quote:
Original post by GuyJohnston
As time goes on, and as cell makes replicas of itself, the telomers break off. This shortens the molecule and leads to aging. I believe this is so because the cell is no longer capeable of making healthy copies of it self.

As far as I know it´s not because it breaks off, but because the endpiece of the DNA-strand does not get replicated, thereby getting shorter with each copy.. until the copies are not good enough to survive anymore.

LessBread

Dec 19, 2001 at 10:56 PM

The other track on eternal life through technology comes from the computing realm - Hans Moravec has written a few books describing his vision of eternal life via reducing consciousness into bits and bytes and letting your former ''essence'' run around in a matrix. There''s a lot more to Moravec''s idea. I''m just paraphrasing. But I think his idea has a flaw in that a human being without a body is no longer a human being. But I''m cutting that thought short too.

The telmorase advances, afaik, will extend life but not necessarily prolong it forewever. These advances also bring up several additional ethical questions. What happens to youth when all of the jobs are taken by people with 50 years of experience each? And for that matter - what kind of life will someone lead when their retirement is set 100 years off?

I haven''t seen "Vanilla Sky" - but I saw "Open Your Eyes" (the Spanish movie from which it was derived). I think that movie speaks more towards the Moravec approach, albeit with a cryogenic twist.

Quite frankly, I don''t think humanity is ready for eternal life - from my observations we lack the wisdom for it. Look to the Lord of the Rings for a cinematic explanation of that.

But truth''''s a menace, science a public danger.

yb legal

Dec 20, 2001 at 3:23 AM

so u loose the aging gene, that dosent mean youll live forever.
nature has a way of balancing out her creations. so ppl dont age, the population increases- some new kick ass virus is born the population starts to decrease till the science dudes find a cure at which point the cycle repeats.....its like a never endin loop.

some people are so obsessed with living forever that they forget to live.

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"diggity! highly dubious!"

GuyJohnston

Dec 20, 2001 at 8:52 AM

Touche Haze,

Yes, that''s the proper description of what I was trying to say.
It''s all in the PBS link.

Thank You for clearing that up.

Strife

Dec 20, 2001 at 11:54 AM

I wouldn''t wanna live forever... It''d get boring after a while, I''d think...

rm -rf /bin/laden

hotdot

Dec 20, 2001 at 12:03 PM

"What happens to youth when all of the jobs are taken by people with 50 years of experience each? And for that matter
- what kind of life will someone lead when their retirement is set 100 years off?"

To this i say that currently, the funds invested in war is adequate to give food to all humans. So by refining the
nature of working, we could all work on a benevolent basis instead of doing it for self-gains. This is only a small
example of the backslash of the capitalism, of course tell that to the 3% of humanity wich enslave the rest to work
for them just like kings in the dark ages.

then, i like to introduce my point of view, yes in a certain sense, all war efforts now push more colateral damage
than ever before and thanks to that the population decresses. For myslef i really would like to live not eternally but
at a middle around 4-500 years. I mean maybe it would get boring , but the human nature is sooo random that in any case you
wont have enough time to witness the wholeness of a multitudes of lifes. Be it by accident or other means all life has
a cycle and if you ask me the question...I think that the universe is in fact an entity wich tries to understand itself
through us, the living organism. Think of it a minute, what if you break us down to the tinyess piece, why all these pieces
together form a conscient being ?

May the code be with us !

DaA

Dec 20, 2001 at 12:31 PM

quote:
Original post by CmndrM
I wouldn''t wanna live forever... It''d get boring after a while,

Hell I''m already bored and I''m only 18.

hotdot

Dec 20, 2001 at 12:39 PM

Get out and visit the world, ill tell you im sure its pretty less boring than you can think, you are the perpetuator of your own demise, dont forget that.

furby100

Dec 20, 2001 at 12:39 PM

quote:
Original post by Programmer One
green paper interests us (sounds silly).

Not really, more the things for which it can be exchanged.

If I was going to live forever, I''d want to be the only person doing it. And after forty years I''d vanish and start a new life. I''d be several people. But all of those people would be me. Like on that episode of Star Trek when they find that guy who had lived on earth for ages but changed his name and started a different life after a while.

GuyJohnston

Dec 20, 2001 at 12:48 PM

We tend to get stuck in our own time warps.
I guess we are just creatures of habit.

I make it my duty to do something I haven''t done before
or go some where I haven''t gone before on a daily basis.
I don''t always succeed, but enough to make an adventure
of it. Life is the stuff of experiences and I try to
experience as many things as possible.

Open your minds to the possibilities of life.

Life is only as adventurous as you make it.

DaA

Dec 20, 2001 at 12:52 PM

quote:
Original post by hotdot
Get out and visit the world, ill tell you im sure its pretty less boring than you can think, you are the perpetuator of your own demise, dont forget that.

I hate traveling

The best way to live a life is to get to about 40-50 years old then pull the trigger.

SHilbert

Dec 20, 2001 at 5:05 PM

Or we could all have our consciousnesses transplanted into robotic bodies. Then if you get in a car crash you can just screw on new limbs.

If life was like Counter-Strike...

draqza

Dec 20, 2001 at 9:34 PM

quote:
Original post by SHilbert
Or we could all have our consciousnesses transplanted into robotic bodies. Then if you get in a car crash you can just screw on new limbs.

There was a story *sort-of* like this... "Masks" by Damon Knight (I think that''s the author, anyway). Basically, the guy in the robotic body starts to go crazy because it''s such a hassle, he feels fake, and he realizes he''d really like to just die or at least leave the rest of humanity behind so he didn''t have to see what he could no longer experience.

Forcas

Dec 20, 2001 at 9:48 PM

I''d be all about immortality. Once you die, you''re dead and you can never come back. That kinda sucks. Life isn''t boring. The world is amazing, and you could spend more than a single life time learning about it.

I don''t think that the mind uploading theory would work. I think they''d have to figure out a way to preserve the brain.

int brain = 1;
int a;
a = brain;
brain = NULL;

This doesn''t actually move your conciousness, it just creates an exact replica of it... kind of hard to explain, so I used code... ah well... I think most of you will get the picture.

Hikeeba

Dec 20, 2001 at 10:25 PM

I don''t want to live forever.

What I want to do is make the most of what time I have here.

I don''t think the robot thing would work. A great human/robot war would be inevitable.

I wanna'' ride on the pope mobile.

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