51–60 of 535 posts
Is it just genetic? On my father’s side, people typically live to 100 at a minimum and are perfectly healthy mentally and physically right up till a week or so before they die. My grandmother is 103 and can still lives alone in her house and can walk unassisted, has a memory sharp as anything, and so on. Maybe look at long lived families and figure out what is different about them?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, the sad part about dying isn’t the loss of agency in the world as much as missing the rest of the movie. At 43 I already feel like I’ve mostly realized my potential and I’m just here to raise my kids and then I become a burden. But I really want to know what happens next!
In Hollywood, they have 12 types of scenarios. Choose your type of life. Tragedy? Love story? Adventure? Becoming someone? Life is too short to experience all scenarios that is why we want live longer… After 60 life sucks. Not always but very often. So we should use Tim Urban's life-week calendar to being aware how little time we have and not waste it.
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This is not true and easily countered by any sort of investigation. Lobsters, flatworms, immortal jellyfish and hydras are all believed to be immortal. In fact we know how to live forever, control our telomeres. We know it works because cancer exists. We just can’t control it but controlled cancer is effectively immortality.
Is it true that those creatures are believed to be immortal or we’ve just never seen one die of natural causes?
Lobsters aren’t truly biologically immortal. They “continue to grow throughout their lives,” with “increasing amounts of energy” being needed to mount ans they grow larger [1]. “Eventually the cost is too high and lobsters can die from exhaustion.” (That said, if our cells aged like lobsters we’d live something like thousands of healthy years.)
For true biological immortality, look to some jellyfish [2]. You literally can’t tell if a cell is taken from an old or juvenile.
[1] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/are-lobsters-immortal.html
[2] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/immortal-jellyfish-secret-to-...
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> I feel like we should be ok with living 80ish or more years and then clocking out. Some people would very much prefer if their consciousness wouldn't have an end date, after which they'll never experience or think anything and will just cease to exist.
Maybe, but I feel like most would eventually reach same conclusion as the (majority of) protagonists in the good place…
Though it would be nice if they had the option of choosing that for themselves, instead of being told that they don't really want long lives and that they should kneel before biology. Whether they're content with 100 years or 100'000 years, that should be up to them.
Or, as others pointed out, if at least whatever amount they're gonna be around for was more dignified and they had a better quality of life, instead of their bodies slowly wasting away.
There is no physical/chemical/biological reason you can’t live indefinitely with the health and vitality of a 25-35 year old. Aging isn’t a law of nature.
It out of my wheelhouse but isn't telomeres a physical/chemical/biological reason we can't live forever?
It’s one component, but not the only reason [1].
Naked mole rats’ telomeres do “not shorten with age but rather showed a mild elongation” [2]. They are long lived, for rodents, and don’t degrade into balls of cancer [3]. They nevertheless age.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence#Theories_of_aging
My understanding was that life expectancy has been declining for like a while, not merely slowing in gains -- first because of opioids and then because of COVID. Edit: In the U.S. that is.
>life expectancy has been declining Only in the US whereas the OP "analyzed life expectancy for 23 high-income and low-mortality countries".
I wonder if as a species we can ever get more comfortable with death. We’re built not to be I realize, and we should never be for those that are young but I feel like we should be ok with living 80ish or more years and then clocking out. That being said, I’m not cool with the idea of dying when good, but when I’m in a major depressive episode, the idea of immortality is terrifying.
For me, the sad part about dying isn’t the loss of agency in the world as much as missing the rest of the movie. At 43 I already feel like I’ve mostly realized my potential and I’m just here to raise my kids and then I become a burden. But I really want to know what happens next!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it true that those creatures are believed to be immortal or we’ve just never seen one die of natural causes?
[EDIT: Biologically] immortal doesn’t mean indestructible. It just means they don’t age. Lobsters aren’t truly biologically immortal. They “continue to grow throughout their lives,” with “increasing amounts of energy” being needed to mount ans they grow larger [1]. “Eventually the cost is too high and lobsters can die from exhaustion.” (That said, if our cells aged like lobsters we’d live something like thousands of…
Technically “immortal” means “never dying”, it has nothing to do with age. You could be unable to die but continue to age and become ever more decrepit (although the Oxford dictionary does list “never decaying” in its definition), for sure there’s a sci-fi short story about that out there.
The mentioned creatures all age, they do get older, it just so happens their bodies don’t deteriorate, or they do but regenerate.
Is it just genetic? On my father’s side, people typically live to 100 at a minimum and are perfectly healthy mentally and physically right up till a week or so before they die. My grandmother is 103 and can still lives alone in her house and can walk unassisted, has a memory sharp as anything, and so on. Maybe look at long lived families and figure out what is different about them?
I think it's just plus or minus 10 years for whatever fate (genetics) had in store for you. That plus or minus being the little we can control (diet/activity).
There is no physical/chemical/biological reason you can’t live indefinitely with the health and vitality of a 25-35 year old. Aging isn’t a law of nature.
>There is no physical/chemical/biological reason you can’t live indefinitely Given that that the universe hasn't an indefinite life span there is at least physical reason why we can't live indefinitely.