with a good education and the time to use it never get bored today and can’t imagine ever running out of new things they’d like to do.
And finally some people are worried that it would mean playing God and going against nature. But it’s unnatural for us to accept the world as we find it.
Ever since we invented fire and the wheel, we’ve been demonstrating both our ability and our inherent desire to fix things that we don’t like about ourselves and our environment.
We would be going against that most fundamental aspect of what it is to be human if we decided that something so horrible as everyone getting frail and decrepit and dependent was something we should live with forever.
If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image.
Source: “We Will Be Able to Live to 1,000” by Dr. Aubrey de Grey is reprinted with permission from BBC News at http://www.bbcnews.co.uk.
Reading 9: Don’t Fall for the Cult of Immortality
S. Jay Olshansky
Some 1,700 years ago the famous Chinese alchemist, Ko Hung, became the prophet of his day by resurrecting an even more ancient but always popular cult, Hsien, devoted to the idea that physical immortality is within our grasp.
Ko Hung believed that animals could be changed from one species to another (the origin of evolutionary thought), that lead could be transformed into gold (the origin of alchemy), and that mortal humans can achieve physical immortality by adopting dietary practices not far different from today’s ever-popular life-extending practice of caloric restriction.
He found arrogant and dogmatic the prevailing attitude that death was inevitable and immortality impossible.
Ko Hung died at the age of 60 in 343 AD, which was a ripe old age for his time, but Hsien apparently didn’t work well for him.
The famous 13th Century English philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon, also believed there was no fixed limit to life and that physical immortality could be achieved by adopting the “Secret Arts of The Past.” Let’s refer to Bacon’s theory as SATP.
According to Bacon, declines in the human lifespan occurred since the time of the ancient patriarchs because of the acquisition of increasingly more decadent and unhealthy lifestyles.
All that was needed to reacquire physical immortality, or at least much longer lives, was to adopt SATP—which at the time was a lifestyle based on moderation and the ingestion of substances such as gold, pearl, and coral—all thought to replenish the innate moisture or vital substance alleged to be associated with aging and death.
Bacon died in 1292 in Oxford at the age of 78, which was a ripe old age for his time, but SATP apparently didn’t work well for him either.
Physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it, the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century AD and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century AD believed in it.
Alexander the Great roamed the world searching for it, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in his quest for the fountain of youth, and countless stories of immortality have permeated the literature, including the image of Shangri-La portrayed in James Hilton’s book Lost Horizon, or in the quest for the holy grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead.
The Alternative View
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.
—Aubrey de Grey
What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead.
—S. Jay Olshansky
Prophets of Immortality
I was doing a BBC radio interview in 2001 following a scientific session I had organised on the question of how long humans can live, and sitting next to me was a young scientist, with obviously no sense of history, who was asked the question: “how long will it be before we find the cure for aging?”
Without hesitation he said that with enough effort and financial resources, the first major breakthrough will occur in the next 5–10 years.
My guess is that when all of the prophets of immortality have been asked this question throughout history, the answer is always the same.
The modern notion of physical immortality once again being dangled before us is based on a premise of “scientific” bridges to the future that I read in a recently published book entitled Fantastic Voyage by the techno-guru Ray Kurzweil and physician Terry Grossman.
They claim unabashedly that the science of radical life extension is already here, and that all we have to do is “live long enough to live forever.”
What Kurzweil and others are now doing is weaving once again the seductive web of immortality, tantalising us with the tale that we all so desperately want to hear, and have heard for thousands of years—live life without frailty and debility and dependence and be forever youthful, both physically and mentally.
The seduction will no doubt last longer than its proponents.
“False Promises”
To be fair, the science of aging has progressed by leaps and bounds in recent decades, and I have little doubt that gerontologists will eventually find a way to avoid, or more likely delay, the unpleasantries of extended life that some say are about to disappear, but which as anyone with their eyes open realises is occurring with increasing frequency.
There is no need to exaggerate or overstate the case by promising that we are all about to live hundreds or even thousands of years.
The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan, in spite of bold claims to the contrary that by now should sound familiar.
What is needed now is not exaggeration or false promises, but rather, a scientific pathway to improved physical health and mental functioning.
If we happen to live longer as a result, then we should consider that a bonus.
Source: “Don’t Fall for the Cult of Immortality” by Dr. S. Jay Olshansky is reprinted with permission from BBC News at http://www.bbcnews.co.uk.
Focus on the Future
“I Dated a Cyborg!”
Dateline: 2030. As Tony walked back to the college dormitory, his feelings were confused. He needed to talk to his roommate.
“You know,
