Can Humans Ever Achieve Immortality
“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying." - Woody Allen
We have been raised with the viewpoint that death is inescapable, so we must believe the legacy of what we will leave behind us. But what if we had unlimited time to accomplish our life's work. What if we didn't have to die?
The concept of living forever may appear like one that's restricted to fairy tales, especially if you were born in eighteenth century, when the mean life expectancy was thirty five years. Now, although, male in the United States have a life expectancy of 75 years and female have 80. If life expectancy could reached more than double in two hundred years, then might it do the same again? Would it do so infinitely?
Some researchers think that there's some restriction on how many years a human being can live, the maximum in their prospective would be 125. While others see a world in which we have people more than 100 walking around with people who have lived for 500 or 1,000 years. Diseases related to growing older, like heart disease, currently restricting us from reaching that point. Our body parts become useless from use. In the arduous search for eternal life, then, researchers are focused on how to block aging from happening within the body.
One technique that clearly accelerated the lifespan of living beings such as mice is a calorie-restricted diet. To adapt this diet, you have to cut your caloric consumption by 30% while still taking all necessary nutrients. This diet plan has proven very difficult for humans to follow, so scientists are trying to find out how, exactly, lesser number of calories could lengthen a life. If they could solve that puzzle, they would be able to reproduce the mechanism in pill form.
Anti-aging pills can also be used to stop the production of free radicals, which are molecules that is responsible for accelerating damage within the body as we grow up. Scientists are also keeping in mind whether compounds like resveratrol, which is in red wine, could be functional in pill form, as resveratrol might have the capability to obstruct with the aging process at the genetic range. Some researchers believe that aging enzyme telomerase, that repairs protective sheathing on cells is the answer, while others would be centenarians have started injections of human growth hormone, believing they will cease the body from aging.
As you may tell, there are numerous theories on why we age and how can we stop it, and an anti-aging pill may not be a current solution. One challenge to the tracking of an anti-aging pill could be how long humans already live; while current researches with mice or yeast cells are possible and practical, a research on a human could take, well, 75 or 80 years.
Some people really want a solution in near future. Take Ray Kurzweil: He declares that by 2045, an event called "the singularity" will happen, and humans will eventually become one with machines . Flesh and blood are not absolute materials for eternal life, so we will turn to materials that are a bit more long lasting.
As researchers find out whether we will be part machine or stimulated with on resveratrol, it's perhaps best not to leave your life's legacy just yet.
If it's available for everyone in the world, there will have to be a vetoing of reproduction to avoid excess population and the demolition of the planet. If that happens, just think the consequences of restricting ourselves the probability of having new people on Earth. The concept of not having another Einstein is a petrified one even if the intelligent people already alive would be able to improve their smartness and build on their knowledge for ages instead of just a few years.
For now, nevertheless, this is all speculation. We can only wait and see for the future development that has been done so far & dream.
Anything that takes birth that must die. Only our soul not takes birth so our soul remains. Our Soul changes one body to another body like we changed our clothes.
Our body dies but our works remembered after death. All great man works still we remember.
The concept of living forever may appear like one that's restricted to fairy tales, especially if you were born in eighteenth century, when the mean life expectancy was thirty five years. Now, although, male in the United States have a life expectancy of 75 years and female have 80. If life expectancy could reached more than double in two hundred years, then might it do the same again? Would it do so infinitely?
Wow good sharee
Thanks @furqanadillah There is much medical advancement in recent years ... Life expectancy has increased tremendously ....
Well when you live in a 3rd world country or a country ravaged by war then you might even think that why can't we die quickly, if your life is like happily ever after then it make sense to live forever but if your life is a bag of shit then good luck living all the eternity @dommaraju
there is nothing impossible these days
Probably the most underrated ways to keep your body healthy, is staying hydrated. Drink a big glass of water first thing in the morning. Stay away from caffeine, and drink water every 2-3 hours throughout the day. Everything that every organ system in your body does, requires using water. Being dehydrated is like not having oil in your car engine.
I don't want to die, and I accept that I won't live forever in this universe. I don't subscribe to any religions, and I have no reason to believe anything happens after we die. I know that I can't explain how/why I got here. The fact that I'm here is completely inexplicable. It seems like there's a one in infinity chance that I would have ever opened my eyes and be alive. But, if it can happen once, that sets a precedent it could happen again. If it was good for me to be alive once, why wouldn't it be good for me to live again?
Longevity and immortality is a hot topic among many experts.
We are seeing a growing acceptance of the notion that death is indeed a disease. It is still not widely accepted but it is gaining pace. If we see it in a historic perspective one might see a more clear pattern forming.
In the old days society would regard death as something divine - Gods will. And there was nothing to do about it (except praying).
Today no doctor would tell you "I am sorry, you have death". He would rather inform you about your condition and that we currently have no cure for it. This implies that humans regard life-threatening conditions as something science just haven't figured out yet!
As time goes on we will be able to cure more and more diseases and eventually death itself will be regarded as something unwanted and curable.
AI and a digital world might be of our assistance here. If we figure out how to upload our minds into the cloud and back them up on more than one planet we might be close to immortality!
ronni
Our likely hood of immortality increases when we are able to separate ourselves from the limitations of our biology.
I'm not saying we can't become biologically immortal of course, it just seems to present a far more difficult challenge then to say augmenting ourselves with our technology or uploading our conciousness into some form of computer network.
The fact that we live in a time where I can say that at all is incredible.
Will we see the advent and execution of this in our lifetime? Possibly. Will we see the beginnings of it? Almost certainly.
We already have, in a way. Medical technology and computational technology are the two quickest advancing forms of enterprise that exist today.
We now have computers that can beat the Worlds best Go players, we now have machines that can print from cells fully functioning human organs. We are coming into an age where age, and by an extension, death, may stop being considered a part of life and start being considered as a condition or disease - one we can treat.
But what happens when nobody dies, especially if it's in a physical sense and not a purely etheric sense as it would be if we were to upload our consciousness? What do we do about the continuous increase in the population? How do we deal with individuals who maybe want to die? Does it become a matter of social class, where the wealthy live forever and the poor continue to die?
It's an interesting horizon we're sailing towards, thats for sure. Nothing like our time, as far as we know, has ever been seen or experienced by any other human before us. So not only do we become the first to see its benefit, we become the first to see its potential danger, too.
Nice write up, looking forward to more!
I'd say no, but close to - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVLZmDKeT-mV4H3ToYXIFYg
Immortality? Science has advanced but not enough yet to understand the whole body. Even basic Newton laws can be defied easily beyond our imagination. An object can only move if an external force acts upon it. That itself can be wrong because even a rock which is made of atoms which is silicon in nature within which thousands of electrons are moving and that too in a particular path. So who is moving this?
My point is we are way far from all these hypes like immortality. Science is only what has been proven but there are many thing which science has failed to prove. Everything that take birth has to die is the law. Humans can't break it in future too as it's a cycle created already. Opinions differ but science has not yet proven what it claims too, so we should live a happy life than dreaming about immortality which could in one way impact the whole natural life cycle.
reincarnation would be more interesting
I surely hope not.
Death is the greatest motivator of all.
Save immortality for the AI.
If immortality exists it won't be given to common ppl , only rich people will be immortal : imagine now the world population is 7.5 billion people and they are immortal after 20 years it will be 50 billion people in this planet and the number will increase every year