Is the first human to live forever alive today?

[Whiskey 7]

Is the first human to live forever alive today? Discuss.

An interesting article I read here prompts and a couple of interesting paragraphs to start.

“The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today …whether they realize it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries,” claims Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey. "The only difference between my work and the work of the whole medical profession," de Grey adds, "is that I think we're in striking distance of keeping people so healthy that at 90 they'll carry on waking up in the same physical state as they were at the age of 30, and their probability of not waking up one morning will be no higher than it was at the age of 30."

But not everyone thinks ageing can or should be cured. Some say that humans weren’t meant to live forever, regardless of whether or not we actually can.

[lars63]

First thing that comes to mind about this is what are we going to do with the birth rate if people live for centuries where are we going to put them? The babies I mean, not the old guys, OK them too, where do we put everyone?

[Whiskey 7]

First thing that comes to mind about this is what are we going to do with the birth rate if people live for centuries where are we going to put them? The babies I mean, not the old guys, OK them too, where do we put everyone?

Yes, mine too but I figure we will or is that must, leave the Earth eventually and from the article, I say we must get out there

But anti-ageing enthusiasts argue that as our perspectives change and science and technology advance exponentially, new solutions will emerge. Space colonization, for example, along with dramatically improved resource management, could resolve the concerns associated with long life. They reason that if the Universe goes on seemingly forever—much of it presumably unused—why not populate it?

Look at technological achievements in the last 100 years. We should now and still be moving forward in leaps and bounds so (again) figure we will leave the Earth eventually.

[lars63]

If we can colonize other planets then all is good, from what I've seen so far it looks like it is going to be sometime before we can do any colonizing of other worlds. Before I go running my mouth any further I better go read that article you posted so I know what the heck I'm talking about,(smile).

[Eraser]

Who wants to live forever?

[Whiskey 7]

Ah, the Highlander ones and great movies of their day IMO so I must view again

[seremtan]

some science for ya Whiskey

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/10/25/1618854114

Current theories attribute aging to a failure of selection, due to either pleiotropic constraints or declining strength of selection after the onset of reproduction. These theories implicitly leave open the possibility that if senescence-causing alleles could be identified, or if antagonistic pleiotropy could be broken, the effects of aging might be ameliorated or delayed indefinitely. These theories are built on models of selection between multicellular organisms, but a full understanding of aging also requires examining the role of somatic selection within an organism. Selection between somatic cells (i.e., intercellular competition) can delay aging by purging nonfunctioning cells. However, the fitness of a multicellular organism depends not just on how functional its individual cells are but also on how well cells work together. While intercellular competition weeds out nonfunctional cells, it may also select for cells that do not cooperate. Thus, intercellular competition creates an inescapable double bind that makes aging inevitable in multicellular organisms.

complex stuff. might be possible to genetically engineer an immortal but looks unlikely that we can tinker with a creation of 'natural' DNA

[Mat Linnett]

At a macro scale, I've always considered ageing to be an inherent requirement for evolution through natural selection.
Although one could argue that ageing is itself a result of evolution through natural selection, much like opposable thumbs or adaptive immune systems.

[Eraser]

Why are we even aspiring to eternal life? Sounds like a complete drag to me.

[MKJ]

reading this thread feels like eternal life.

[lars63]

I tend to side with Eraser on this one, the older I get the less excited I am about the living forever ploy. Others may feel differently, just a old guys opinion on all this, carry on.

[YourGrandpa]

Living forever in a 65 yo body would be way different than a 25 yo body. Unless of course they can reverse the aging process as well.

[Doombrain]

At a macro scale, I've always considered ageing to be an inherent requirement for evolution through natural selection.
Although one could argue that ageing is itself a result of evolution through natural selection, much like opposable thumbs or adaptive immune systems.

Imagine the class divide from people that live for 300 years+ to those living a normal life...

I also agree that longer lives are on the cards for the human race by unnatural means. there's an interesting (kind of) parallel happening now with the average height due to better sustenance in the 1st worlds. Both my kids are going to be well over 6' and my nephews are both over 6' 4".

[obsidian]

I'm sure if people could live forever, many will just choose to die at a time of their own choice. I'm sure that at some point we'll just transcend our biological limitations completely, so physically living forever probably won't even be necessary.

[Whiskey 7]

I'm sure if people could live forever, many will just choose to die at a time of their own choice. I'm sure that at some point we'll just transcend our biological limitations completely, so physically living forever probably won't even be necessary.

Interesting indeed.

[seremtan]

I'm sure if people could live forever, many will just choose to die at a time of their own choice. I'm sure that at some point we'll just transcend our biological limitations completely, so physically living forever probably won't even be necessary.

we could start by replacing body parts with non-organic and long-lasting parts, then progressively replacing parts of our brains with functionally identical synthetic brain until it's entirely inorganic

or just say fuck it and smoke weed erry day

[Mat Linnett]

See, that's the thing that gets me about most posthuman sci-fi conjecture.
While I don't believe in the soul in a religious sense, what intrigues me is where the self resides.

It's where I think a lot of contemporary sci-fi authors writing about "The Singularity" fall over.

At what point do you as an individual cease to exist?

Replacing parts, at some point you're going to run in to the Grandfather's Axe paradox.

Uploading consciousness or transferring it between vessels is all well and good, but that's copying a personality.
The original personality still exists, and while at the point of duplication the personalities may have been identical, after that they will diverge. They won't experience the same things the other does, and to all intents and purposes, will become different people.
Effectively, you've not increased your lifespan by uploading; you've created a new individual with a separate consciousness to your own, albeit shared experiences up until the point of divergence.
It's not immortality for you; it may very well be for the digital copy (although this raises interesting questions about perceptions of self identity in machine constructs), but you're no closer to immortality than you were before the process.

Personally, I think the only route to true immortality as perceived by the masses is through regenerative medicine.

Pass the bong.

[seremtan]

Replacing parts, at some point you're going to run in to the Grandfather's Axe paradox.

which isn't really a paradox, more of a focus for disagreements over what counts as identity

some will say that if both the head and the haft of the axe have been replaced it's no longer the same axe (which to a a degree is true)

others will say its maintains the same relationships ("place in the world") that attached to the 'original' axe, so it *is* the same axe (for all intents and purposes). i think this is the kind of argument Derek Parfit was making with his famous teleportation thought experiment

our cells die and get replaced constantly, and most of our body is no more than about seven years old, and yet we don't in our everyday lives have a problem with identity

[obsidian]

I think integration will be smoother than you think, most likely occurring gradually as we adopt more and more technologies to first augment our current ones, and eventually to replace them entirely - much the same way which seremtan alluded with cell replacement.

Smart phones have seamlessly been adopted to allow us to access information. I'm sure further transitions will take place as seamlessly, such as being able to expand our memory storage.

[Mat Linnett]

Thing is, even if we assume replacement of anatomy doesn't erase original personality, how do you prove that's the case? The resident personality will claim continuity of existence, but how do you prove that the original personality hasn't been over-written and its stream of consciousness ceased?

And yeah seremtan, that David Parfit thought experiment is exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking of.
I think one of the best examples of it in pop culture is probably The Prestige.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

i love how people still don't realize that climate change will take most if not all of humanity.

[Whiskey 7]

We just have to get off the planet

..... and the Grandfather's Axe paradox, I hadn't heard the term. Interesting to read on the topic.

[Doombrain]

Wouldn't want to be the guy that dies minutes before the drug for long life becomes available.

[Eraser]

Oh the drug will be in stores at that point, it’s just that it’s still a few minutes from the pharmacy’s opening hours.

[Mat Linnett]

In related news: Divisive new study suggests adult human brains do not produce new neurons