General / Off-Topic Living "Forever" ?

Robin of Spiritwood

Robin of Spiritwood
Anybody here ever heard of this lady, Liz Parrish?
parrish-1024x884.jpg

Arguably, she's the first person to undertake experimental treatments that might alter the fundamental biochemistry of ageing.
You can look up the method, if you're so inclined.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-23/biohackers-transhumanists-grinders-on-living-forever/8292790

There has been a gigantic explosion in the fields of physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology over the last 20 years.
It is not an overstatement to say that no human being alive can grasp the totality of the existing knowledge base and more importantly the implications for fiddling with it.

Here is a picture of a simplified schema of SOME of biochemistry:
http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1
Let me encourage you to open that in a new tab, give it a minute, and then just scroll around in it to see for yourself what I'm trying to convey.
I'll wait.
...
...
Now that's just the reactions running in the organism. In addition to that we have Pharmacology, Pathology, Anatomy, Cytology, Molecular Biology, Proteonomics, Endocrinology, etc etc.
Imagine that it's YOUR job to know all that, plus all the rest, not as a simplified chart, but in depth- and be able to apply it.
It's mine.
Please do not assume that I'm even remotely equal to the responsibility.
But I'm trying, pretty much every waking minute, to get better at it, although ludicrously underequipped as a mortal human. And because of the effort, I've stumbled across some pretty interesting things. Things that directly pertain to "Living Forever". I'd like to look at that question in some more detail, in this thread.

Ok so is living "forever" actually a Thing? Could it actually be done?

What do you think?
 
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metatheurgist

metatheurgist
Unless they can reverse the accumulated damage to the brain that eventually turns most people into dotards there's probably not much point in preserving the rest of the body. You would know better but aren't there examples of "immortal" creatures in nature? That would suggest it's possible.
 

Morbad

Morbad
I appreciate these people using themselves as guinea pigs and hope that the fields involved progress quickly enough for me to be able to take advantage of more proven treatments when they become available.

metatheurgist said:
Unless they can reverse the accumulated damage to the brain that eventually turns most people into dotards there's probably not much point in preserving the rest of the body.
Click to expand...

Fortunately, this doesn't seem to be any more of an insurmountable problem than anything else. Excess or malformed tau proteins could be removed and damaged or dead cells replaced, for example.

metatheurgist said:
You would know better but aren't there examples of "immortal" creatures in nature? That would suggest it's possible.
Click to expand...

Of the top of my head, some jellyfish and clonal colonies of some plants. Not the sort of immortality a person would want as it's more of a clean slate, but the premise that damage could be repaired faster than it accumulates is sound. Coming up with a practical application for this awareness, when it comes to a complex system like a human, is going to take a lot more work.

I do think there will come a time when people can be made biologically ageless as well as possessed of regenerative abilities (like those of some invertebrates) that make them vastly more resilient when it comes to trauma. Not sure when this will become possible, if certain technological means of trancendence won't show up first, or prove to be better (at least for keeping a person alive), but barring any catatrophic end to human civilization, I think these sorts of things are essentially inevitable. People, in general, want to live...and as complex these problems are, they are finite; sooner or later we will understand them enough to make radical changes to the way we work.
 
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Slange Lands

Slange Lands
I would prefer to evolve, perhaps to a higher level of consciousness, rather than prolong my current state. The current state has been in existence for millennia and nothing fundamental other than ease of living has changed. There is still disease, scarcity and war. History repeats itself ad nauseum.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Slange Lands said:
I would prefer to evolve, perhaps to a higher level of consciousness, rather than prolong my current state.
Click to expand...

Have to live long enough first.

Slange Lands said:
The current state has been in existence for millennia and nothing fundamental other than ease of living has changed. There is still disease, scarcity and war. History repeats itself ad nauseum.
Click to expand...

People being around long enough to learn from their mistakes and have to face the consequences of them could drive a significant paradigm shift in this regard.

Caramel Clown said:
Nope. Don't want it. They can have it. I'm not even 30 and I feel I'm bored of this already.
Click to expand...

The right to exist for precisely as long as one wishes to is ultimately what this stuff is about.

Anyone can opt out of existence any time they like.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
metatheurgist said:
Unless they can reverse the accumulated damage to the brain that eventually turns most people into dotards there's probably not much point in preserving the rest of the body. You would know better but aren't there examples of "immortal" creatures in nature? That would suggest it's possible.
Click to expand...

There are some species of flatworm that don't age IIRC. If you cut them in two you also end up with two flatworms. Lucky for us they lack opposable thumbs.

Immortality research is inevitable due to the super rich knowing they can't take it with them.
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
metatheurgist said:
I really want to know if we get our crap together well enough to make it off this rock (or at least live sustainably using the resources of a solar system) or if we just screw ourselves up one day. I'd hang around for that.
Click to expand...
Yes, the experience would be tempting.

See further, always further.
 

WeComeInPeace

WeComeInPeace
If you imagine DNA as a long piece of thread, then telomeres are sort of like the knot you would tie to the end of the thread to avoid it flossing. The telomeres does not contain any information needed as far as we know, and their only function is to avoid flossing of the DNA. Telomeres get worn down with time and every time the DNA is replicated, which is one of the main reasons that we "age". I remember the first time I heard about it, that my first thought was that at someone would try to add extra base pairs to the ends of existing DNA to stop the aging process, and that the result could be longer lifetimes, but I had not expected it so soon.

It's both pretty clever and impressive that they have been able to do it, but there is one point about immortality that people tend to forget. If everyone became immortal, then the human population size would explode, unless we also stopped having new children born. I personally think that the closest thing you have to a meaning of life is having kids. Therefore I think we just have to accept that life has an expiry date, but there is no doubt that many people don't share that opinion. The method might actually end up being very affordable, so yes, living "forever" could become a thing pretty soon.

144871
 
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[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos

[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos
As part of my job I have to deal with a lot of elderly, not face to face, some of them are around 100, the oldest was 106. If their paperwork is on my desk, they have to be alive. Anyway, I’m 50 and I look at these 100 year olds and I cant imagine living my lifetime again. I don’t think I can. It’s not that I hate life, I just don’t cling to it or even rate it.

Life is futile and I’m dead cosy with that, frees me of lots of things but wanting to live forever? No thanks.
 
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Old Duck

Old Duck
Due to some health issues earlier this year, I think about my mortality often. All I know is that I don't want to die TODAY, and that's how I feel any time I think I might. On the other hand, I've accepted my mortality and don't live in constant fear of it anymore.

Anyway, with climate change and population growth, "curing" aging is no guarantee of forever. If anything, it'll make those problems worse.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Robin of Spiritwood said:
Anybody here ever heard of this lady, Liz Parrish?
parrish-1024x884.jpg

Arguably, she's the first person to undertake experimental treatments that might alter the fundamental biochemistry of ageing.
You can look up the method, if you're so inclined.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-23/biohackers-transhumanists-grinders-on-living-forever/8292790

There has been a gigantic explosion in the fields of physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology over the last 20 years.
It is not an overstatement to say that no human being alive can grasp the totality of the existing knowledge base and more importantly the implications for fiddling with it.

Here is a picture of a simplified schema of SOME of biochemistry:
http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1
Let me encourage you to open that in a new tab, give it a minute, and then just scroll around in it to see for yourself what I'm trying to convey.
I'll wait.
...
...
Now that's just the reactions running in the organism. In addition to that we have Pharmacology, Pathology, Anatomy, Cytology, Molecular Biology, Proteonomics, Endocrinology, etc etc.
Imagine that it's YOUR job to know all that, plus all the rest, not as a simplified chart, but in depth- and be able to apply it.
It's mine.
Please do not assume that I'm even remotely equal to the responsibility.
But I'm trying, pretty much every waking minute, to get better at it, although ludicrously underequipped as a mortal human. And because of the effort, I've stumbled across some pretty interesting things. Things that directly pertain to "Living Forever". I'd like to look at that question in some more detail, in this thread.

Ok so is living "forever" actually a Thing? Could it actually be done?

What do you think?
Click to expand...
Could it be done with the advancement in medicine, genetic engineering and biochemistry? Most definitely.
SHOULD it be done? Hell no.
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
WeComeInPeace said:
If you imagine DNA as a long piece of thread, then telomeres are sort of like the knot you would tie to the end of the thread to avoid it flossing. The telomeres does not contain any information needed as far as we know, and their only function is to avoid flossing of the DNA. Telomeres get worn down with time and every time the DNA is replicated, which is one of the main reasons that we "age". I remember the first time I heard about it, that my first thought was that at someone would try to add extra base pairs to the ends of existing DNA to stop the aging process, and that the result could be longer lifetimes, but I had not expected it so soon.

It's both pretty clever and impressive that they have been able to do it, but there is one point about immortality that people tend to forget. If everyone became immortal, then the human population size would explode, unless we also stopped having new children born. I personally think that the closest thing you have to a meaning of life is having kids. Therefore I think we just have to accept that life has an expiry date, but there is no doubt that many people don't share that opinion. The method might actually end up being very affordable, so yes, living "forever" could become a thing pretty soon.

View attachment 144871
Click to expand...
I wonder if in the very long term, it would be more painful to be eternal in the life than eternal in the death.

:unsure:
 

WeComeInPeace

WeComeInPeace
Patrick_68000 said:
I wonder if in the very long term, it would be more painful to be eternal in the life than eternal in the death.

:unsure:
Click to expand...
Well to be honest I'm not a believer, but I have played with the thought of going to heaven with Ned Flanders et al, or down under where they have this animated party going on with awesome pyrotechnic and promiscuous women. :unsure:
 
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