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Does the human lifespan have a limit?

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Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#81

Post by tomxor »

radu_floricica wrote: post #66

There's an old quip that the greatest correlation for a country to have supercentenarians is them not issuing proper documentation at birth 120 years ago. So yeah, currently there's a hard limit - around 100, more or less, but with life seldom being worth living after 90. I really wish we'd start investing in breaking this. I'll happen at some point, the only question is when, and I'd think it's obvious why we'd want…

> with life seldom being worth living after 90. I really wish we'd start investing in breaking this. I'll happen at some point

What does that end up looking like though, Logans Run? :D

I can't see a voluntary version of it working because of the very psychological issue you mention, we are inherently self preserving creatures in all but the most unbearable conditions. The other thing with these very personal choices, is that you just don't know until you get there - how do you or I really know if life is not worth living after 90, personally? we haven't experienced it.

I remember my Grandfather, when he was younger, specifically saying he'd rather die than live with a certain disease he saw some other people getting - which wouldn't seem like an unreasonable opinion to most people. Yet after gradually developing the very same disease later in life he certainly was not of the same opinion while he was still lucid... That stuck with me, it's easy to speculate about things you haven't personally experienced, and easy to be wrong about your own state of mind in that situation.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#82

Post by Qem »

allisdust wrote: post #31
ALittleLight wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably that doesn't apply if your cells are continuously reproducing creating new copies of DNA. In some sense your DNA comes from your parents and extending back through those lineages has lasted vastly longer than 512 years.

Wow that's actually quite insightful. There are theories on cell death after some generations, dna damage etc. But I'm not sure how they explain the refresh during birth/zygote formation. Could it be that birth is nothing but a glorified error correction with two unrelated dna to ensure probability of damage is low. If so, can the same be done with two unrelated dna pairs again again and the result applied back to a…

> But I'm not sure how they explain the refresh during birth/zygote formation.

Probably it's just survivorship bias. When a organism has trillions of cells, it can afford to have some fraction of them damaged. It just carries on with degraded function. When it has a single cell, all essential genes must be functional, or it dies before anyone knows there was a pregnancy. It's a bottleneck. The zygotes that made it to birth are the ones lucky enough to receive a minimally viable set of undamaged genes from both parents. Most couples try a lot before one successfull pregnancy.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#83

Post by slfnflctd »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #78
tkiolp4 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the point of living beyond 100 years old is the years that come after you are 90 (pretty bad years), but that one has more “nice” years to live. Example: - average person who dies at 80. Middle point in his life at 40. At 20 the person has already lived a 1/4 of his life. - imagine a supercentenarian who dies at, for the sake of examples, 120. This person at his 60s is like the average person at his 40s…

I beg to differ. In my opinion, life doesn’t really start until you’re 25 or so, maybe even 30. The first 18 years are generally spent at home, following other peoples rules, and learning how to get by. The next few years you get your independence and start finding your place in the world. If you went to college, then you enter the workforce and are probably getting by, still finding your footing. Then the real fun s…

A significant percentage of kids are also hampered in their development while growing up by abuse, miseducation or neglect, so they may need even more time to recover from this and 'find their footing'. Many 25 year olds are still processing childhood trauma and playing catch up with their less disadvantaged peers.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#84

Post by radu_floricica »

tomxor wrote: post #81
radu_floricica wrote: post #66

There's an old quip that the greatest correlation for a country to have supercentenarians is them not issuing proper documentation at birth 120 years ago. So yeah, currently there's a hard limit - around 100, more or less, but with life seldom being worth living after 90. I really wish we'd start investing in breaking this. I'll happen at some point, the only question is when, and I'd think it's obvious why we'd want…

> with life seldom being worth living after 90. I really wish we'd start investing in breaking this. I'll happen at some point What does that end up looking like though, Logans Run? :D I can't see a voluntary version of it working because of the very psychological issue you mention, we are inherently self preserving creatures in all but the most unbearable conditions. The other thing with these very personal choices,…

Uh, I meant it the opposite way :) Unaliving yourself at 90 is a personal choice which I of course support, but I'm mostly talking about making sure we can live healthy lives over the current limit. The psychological issue is that even though we as individuals cling to life (sometimes too much), trying to rouse support for life extension sometimes feels like urinating in public.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#85

Post by inglor_cz »

darebak wrote: post #74
inglor_cz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we already have a lot of medical interventions that skew our species' "normal", pre-civilizational population tree towards something never seen in nature. In a Stone Age society you would definitely find people twice as old as their group's average lifespan. But that average lifespan would be rather low.

Didn't most people live to their 60s if they survived childhood and pregnancies?

The bones from old burial sites up to and including the Middle Ages indicate that most people didn't live into their 60s. Not even those who reached 30 in good health.

There always are old adults present, but they are rare.

From your nickname, I gather you are a Czech. I can link an article about analysis of an early medieval cemetery in Rajhradice to you. 244 buried people, 220 skeletons were successfully analyzed for age. No one over 60, eight people over fifty (almost all women).

https://karolinum.cz/data/clanek/5704/Praehist_34_1_0007.pdf

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#86

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I remember reading a book (Protector, by Larry Niven[0]), in which the protagonist (a "proto-Belter"), eats a sweet potato, turns into an ugly-ass duck, and lives forever.

After about 25,000 years or so, his brain becomes "full," and he can't remember stuff, anymore.

[DISCLAIMER: It's been a long time since I read the book, so some liberty has been taken in the Cliff's Notes version]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_(novel)

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#87

Post by shlant »

temp0826 wrote: post #40

If you haven't experienced it yet, I highly recommend you check out 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future [0]. It explores what happens if humans stop aging/dying/being born, narrated by a few cheeky, sentient space probes. [0] https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football

so good. thank you for reminding me this exists

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#88

Post by thechao »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #86

I remember reading a book ( Protector , by Larry Niven[0]), in which the protagonist (a "proto-Belter"), eats a sweet potato, turns into an ugly-ass duck, and lives forever. After about 25,000 years or so, his brain becomes "full," and he can't remember stuff, anymore. [ DISCLAIMER: It's been a long time since I read the book, so some liberty has been taken in the Cliff's Notes version] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

I’ve read Protector many times over the years, and this summary misses only one thing: he’s a superstrong duck.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#89

Post by kiba »

radu_floricica wrote: post #66

There's an old quip that the greatest correlation for a country to have supercentenarians is them not issuing proper documentation at birth 120 years ago. So yeah, currently there's a hard limit - around 100, more or less, but with life seldom being worth living after 90. I really wish we'd start investing in breaking this. I'll happen at some point, the only question is when, and I'd think it's obvious why we'd want…

There will be people who comes out to say we shouldn't do this because it means dictators will live longer or that old people will remains in power longer, as if old people are a blight on society.

I would consider it good news if old people had to live with their decisions and problems they created instead of leaving it to the next generation.

Re: Does the human lifespan have a limit?

#90

Post by kiba »

brnaftr361 wrote: post #6
FL33TW00D wrote: post #3

Whenever this topic comes up, I’m always reminded of the fact that the bible knew of this long before any statistician. 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh; his days shall be a hundred and twenty years' (Gen. 6:3). As a non Christian this always baffles me.

Gilgamesh did it first. On immortality, my thing is actually psychologically framing it were it to become a reality; it's entirely inconsistent with everything we have ever known. I think mortality has a purpose within the context of life. And there's literally limitless implications it would have. To me it seems like the most inhumane pursuit conceivable.

Gilgamesh did it first.

Gilgamesh encodes myths and lessons for human race with no technological access to 'immortality'.

I think mortality has a purpose within the context of life. And there's literally limitless implications it would have. To me it seems like the most inhumane pursuit conceivable

There is no purpose but what we make of it, and why it would be inhumane? It's inhumane to watch people you loved die.

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